Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
At some point on the way to the mountain, the power lines would stop lining the roads and even the tar turned to chip sealed rock after a while. The national park didn’t allow overnight camping in the reserve, but there were lots of campgrounds and other available lodging for rent on the outskirts of the park’s territory. Luckily, the address provided by Malachi for his boss’s lodge was not that deep into the sticks.
No complaints.
She did like power and indoor plumbing. All good things, and inventions made for a reason, more often than not.
The drive was still unnecessarily long, of course—more than two hours, and mostly in the dark by the time Gracen got on the road—but the navigational app on her phone had no problems getting her where she needed to go. After one lone store in a small town, sporting only a handful of houses and a graveyard with a single road to drive straight through, her phone informed her that she was only ten minutes away from her destination.
Wonderful.
What happened if her car broke down—even if that was an unlikely scenario—between now and wherever? The desolate road with towering trees on either side, not a lick of human life ahead of her, and a bright moon overhead concerned Gracen.
Just a little.
She’d never taken a trip—or even a long drive like this—alone. Maybe she was also trying not to overthink it. Not that it was working.
Filling the Civic’s gas tank in the town after the valley had been a good choice, because she had absolutely no plans to pull over now. Certainly not in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, when it appeared like her phone was slowly running out of service with every new turn ahead of her. Besides, she had not seen a gas station—except the small store a few minutes back with a single pump that looked older than she was—since filling up the first time.
Good thing her car didn’t eat gas like crazy. She had to count her blessings somewhere.
Gracen had become so distracted with the passing trees that she almost missed the phone telling her to turn right to reach her destination. Jamming on the brakes to keep from missing what looked like an old dirt road wasn’t a problem; no cars had been following her since the last, tiny village at the end of Riley Brook.
“What destination?” Gracen asked no one in particular.
Her phone, maybe.
Not that the damn thing answered back.
Sure, there were telephone poles leading down the dirt road, lining the towering trees that went back beyond where Gracen could see in the dark. Was that a hill? Did the road go down where she couldn’t see?
Jesus.
She considered texting Malachi. She did not sign up to get lost out in the middle of nowhere.
The barely-there bar of service when she checked her phone said she should be grateful for that fact that her phone managed to keep connected to the maps and giving her directions, but sending out a text would be nothing more than a gamble.
Just drive down the road, Gracen told herself, and see what’s at the end. Worst case, you turn around, come back out to the road, and go back to Riley Brook where there’s better service.
With that pep talk fresh in her head, Gracen finally turned the Civic onto the dirt road lined with telephone poles. Only one side of the road had the tall trees looming overhead while the other side was an expansive wheat field with grass grown as high as someone’s knees. She’d been right about the fact that it was a rolling hill, and once her car reached the crest of the road a good forty yards in, she could begin to see the winding path it took deeper down the land.
And the lodge waiting there just beyond the line of trees at the very bottom. She noticed the spotlights on the massive eaves overhanging atop the entrance of the lodge where the road turned into a better graveled drive and circled around the front. The roof reached high to the sky. At least forty or fifty feet tall. Logs made up the walls and even the veranda that seemed to wrap around the front and extend down the sides were carved from the same kind of trees. Stained a dark brown, the lodge could probably disappear into its surroundings at nighttime without the lights high on the eaves. In the daylight, however, she bet the sight of the place was unmatched with the backdrop of trees and the Tobique River just a stone’s throw away.
More interesting than the lodge itself were the vehicles parked at the entrance. The Cadillac SUV wasn’t familiar to her upon first glance, but it was impossible to miss Malachi’s black Suzuki parked on driver’s side of the other vehicle. Gracen followed suit with her own car, parking it alongside Malachi’s bike.