Against the Wind Read Online Free PDF Page A

fasten the seat belt. The pickup was sporting a new set of tires, thanks to the small amount of room she had left on her credit card, so she wasn’t worried about getting safely home.
    She turned the vehicle onto the street leading out of town and settled in for the drive back to the ranch. She looked over at her daughter, who peered at the thick growth of forest passing by outside the window.
    â€œHow was your first day, honey?” Sarah asked.
    â€œI met a girl named Alice. Everyone calls her Allie. She showed me how to play a really cool card game called Go Fish.”
    Sarah smiled. “That’s great, baby.”
    She thought of her own first day. She had been introduced to the owner of the paper, Smiley Reed, an older, pudgy, balding man with a penchant for cigars. And just like in the movies, everyone called him “chief.”
    The paper’s only other reporter, Mike Stevens, was a couple of years younger than Sarah but had more experience. He was tall, sandy-haired and not bad-looking. Mike covered the headline news, weather and sports, while Sarah was assigned to personal interest stories, and pretty much anything newsworthy that she could come up with.
    â€œTo start with, just get out there and get acquainted with the town,” Smiley had said, handing her a box of business cards he’d had printed especially for her. “Stop in the stores and meet the owners, see who’s doing what. You’ll be surprised what you might find out.”
    Sarah proudly held on to the cards, the first she’d ever had. She was fine with the idea. She’d had to come up with news for the college paper. This shouldn’t be any more difficult.
    She spent the afternoon milling around town, getting reacquainted. Wind Canyon looked just like a Wyoming town should, with a long main street that still had old covered boardwalks running along both sides. Bars, restaurants and boutiques lined the street, a lot more of them now that the quaint little Western town had been discovered by tourists.
    Wind Canyon had grown quite a bit in the years Sarah had been gone and now there were shops and restaurants on the side streets, as well. She was surprised to discover some of the people in town still remembered her.
    â€œI sure was sorry about what happened to your folks,” Fred Wilkins said, owner of Wilkins’ Mercantile. “They were real nice people.”
    â€œThank you.” Sarah fought a wave of sadness she hadn’t let surface in years, not since the awful news of her parents’ death had reached her when she was in college. Her overwhelming grief and loneliness were part of the reason she had married Andrew that year.
    Sarah left the mercantile, leaving a card with Mr. Wilkins, as well as Mrs. Potter at the antiques shop and a number of other business owners, asking them to call her if they had something of interest for the paper. She smiled to think how well she had been received.
    Sarah was still smiling when she arrived back at Raintree Ranch and she and Holly drove up in front of the cottage. Then she saw the front door standing wide-open and her smile disappeared.
    â€œWho’s in our house, Mommy?”
    â€œI don’t know.” She cracked open the car door and climbed out. “You wait here, okay?”
    She walked toward the house, wondering if the wind or an animal might have pushed open the door. The lock was old. Maybe it had just given way. As she climbed up to the porch to inspect the lock, she caught a glimpse of the living room through the front window.
    â€œOh, my God!”
    She forced herself to walk inside, her legs beginning to tremble. The entire cottage was a shambles, the sofa cushions ripped open, the curtains torn down from the windows, pots and pans tossed out of the cupboards, broken dishes all over the floor. “Oh, my God,” she repeated a second time.
    Holly raced through the front door. “Mama! Someonetore up our