“Not as of this week,” he said. “The park is under new management. The county is no longer administrating. They can’t. They don’t have the budget. It’s either volunteers or it’s closed. And what they say goes.”
She spun back around toward him. Dirt flew in an arc from her shovel, feathering into the wind.
“So you’re telling me you aren’t even a real park ranger.”
At her words, the tall, very male silhouette drew itself up even taller.
“Real enough,” he said.
He hadn’t moved from his original position, and she still didn’t have a view of his face, but the challenge in his stance made his intent clear. Her next opportunity to take a break would be in the back of a police cruiser.
“Fine,” she said and tossed her shovel to the bank again. She marched to the first bucket, hefted it by the handle, and dumped the carefully collected and graded material on the ground.
“Happy now?”
She grabbed the next bucket in line and did the same.
“I’m going. Happy?”
As fast as she could, she lifted the buckets and upended them on the ground, twenty buckets, each holding upwards of 30 lbs. of damp soil and rock. The first five were easy, the next noticeably harder. By the time she reached the final five it was sheer agony. Her arms felt like they’d been wrenched from their sockets. She persisted until empty white buckets rolled and lay scattered from one end of the gravel bar to the other. Hot tears stung her eyes. She blinked them back. Her breathing sounded like someone who had been trapped underwater for minutes. Lastly, she dragged the sluice out of the river and hurled it onto the bank.
“Happy?” she said for the third time and turned toward the giant boulder, but the ranger’s silhouette was gone.
About the Author
Aileen Harkwood is a huge fan of the mysteries, thrills and romances life has to offer, and has wanted to write her own since she penned her first, safely-hidden-away-in-a-drawer-never-to-see-the-light-of-day novel in high school. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing, and resides in the Southern Rockies with her family, a Labrador retriever with an extensive chew stick collection, and two cats named after birds.
You can follow her on:
https://twitter.com/AileenHarkwood
Goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/15540209-aileen-harkwood
or contact her via email at
aharkwood@gmail.com
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
About the Author