- •Wind and Bones
- •Chapter One
- •Chapter Two
- •Chapter Three
- •Chapter Four
- •Chapter Five
- •Chapter Six
- •Chapter Seven
- •Chapter Eight
- •Chapter Nine
- •Chapter Ten
- •Chapter Eleven
- •Chapter Twelve
- •Chapter Thirteen
- •Chapter Fourteen
- •Chapter Fifteen
- •Chapter Sixteen
- •Chapter Seventeen
- •Chapter Eighteen
- •Chapter Nineteen
- •Chapter Twenty
- •Chapter Twenty-One
- •Chapter Twenty-Two
- •Chapter Twenty-Three
- •Chapter Twenty-Four
- •Chapter Twenty-Five
- •Chapter Twenty-Six
- •Chapter Twenty-Seven
- •Chapter Twenty-Eight
- •Chapter Twenty-Nine
- •Chapter Thirty
- •Chapter Thirty-One
- •Chapter Thirty-Two
- •Chapter Thirty-Three
- •Chapter Thirty-Four
- •Chapter Thirty-Five
- •Chapter Thirty-Six
- •Chapter Thirty-Seven
- •Chapter Thirty-Eight
- •Chapter Thirty-Nine
- •Chapter Forty
Wind and Bones
Women, funerals, guns, and rattlesnakes. What could go wrong?
Jill O’Hara, award-winning journalist and inveterate egotist, is about to find out. When Jill is summoned to her hometown Prairie View, Montana, to bury her father and clean up his messes, she assumes a few tedious days of signing papers and delegating responsibilities will complete her obligations. But Jill’s duties as Dean O’Hara’s daughter soon become less mundane and more menacing. To complicate matters, Jill’s first love, Annie Doyle, lives in Prairie View and despite Annie’s blistering past betrayal, Jill still desires her. Fortunately, Sheriff Rae Terabian, a woman with a uniform, power, and shady associates, deliciously distracts Jill from her obsession with Annie. Amidst her customary confusion over women, Jill is forced to confront her father’s treacherous legacy, battle the extremes of the northern Montana wilds, and face down survivalists bent on silencing her. Despite the remote location and severe peril, she discovers the possibility for one more chance at love.
Chapter One
The truth is, if my father hadn’t dropped dead with a long list of unfinished business, I wouldn’t have a story to tell. I was sitting in my local Vietnamese restaurant, eating a bowl of pho, when the call came.
“Hi, Jillian-baby, it’s Billy.”
“Hey, Billy-boy, you coming out for another Mariners game?” I was watching kids in a playground across the street and getting ready to slurp another pile of pho noodles.
“No, sweetheart, I’m calling about your father. I hate to have to tell you, Jilly, but he… well, he… passed away just a few hours ago.”
“What?… How?…Why?” I was a journalist even in crisis.
Then everything inside me quit moving. Those kids playing across the street were stop-action recorded in my brain forever because my eyes glued to them.
“His heart…it just…stopped. We were at the café as usual, a bunch of us guys, you know, sitting around. Your dad, he stood up, said ‘I don’t feel so good,’ and fell over dead. I swear, he was fine just seconds before, discussing the problems on the Martin farm.”
“But he was only seventy-two. He never mentioned his heart…”
“I know, sweetie, but he kept secrets. We all know that.”
“Yeah…Okay, I’ll be there soon.” I glanced around, had no idea what to do next except pack a bag of black clothes and get to Montana. “There’s a flight to Great Falls every night around eight. Lands around eleven. I can get into Prairie View around two a.m.”
“No need to push it now. I got a room for you at the Heritage Hotel in Great Falls. I’ll drive down in the morning and get you. You can use your dad’s car while you’re here in Prairie View. And, Jill…”
“Yeah?”
“Plan to stay a while. There are some…things you’ll have to deal with beyond just burying your dad. Pack for a few weeks at least.”
“Do I really need to? I don’t think I can stay…”
“Sorry, sweetheart, but there are some serious land problems that need decisions. It’s going to be up to you to represent him for the next several weeks. His attorney will fill you in a few days after the funeral. Give you some time, you know.”
“’Kay, Billy. Listen, I’ll take that room in Great Falls, but I think I’ll rent a car. I don’t wanna drive Daddy’s.”
“Are you sure? It’s no problem, me coming to get you.”
“Thanks, but that will work best for me, I think. Oh, and will you call Connie for me, tell her what’s happened?”
“Already done.”
“Thanks. See you tomorrow, then.” And that was it. The call.
I was befuddled, numb, and unable to put two coherent thoughts together. It was different than when Grandma died five years earlier. Grandma’s death hurt bad, left a chasm in my life. And I grieved from the second I knew she’d died and still did. But my father’s death hollowed me out. I was cast adrift, unfeeling and empty. I was forty-one years old, an orphan. On my own. I had expected him to last at least twenty more years, making loads of money, popping Viagra, and watching over me.
Besides all that, I was going to have to spend too much time in Prairie View, facing my father’s legacy, my ambivalence toward my hometown, and my heart-scarring history with Annie.