Sunlight
by
C. Haynes
Copyright © 2016 by C. Haynes
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or (un)dead, is purely coincidental.
Scripture
When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. Isaiah 43:2
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
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 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Author Note
Chapter 1
Water exploded from under the bridge. It plunged down the river bed in frothy, gleaming torrents, bulldozing and barreling its way in an endless race. The clamor thundered through Jo’s window as the car rolled onto the thick wooden slabs. She gripped the edges of the seat and imagined falling into that raging liquid, being pulled down and under the icy water, smashed into rocks, suffocating. A crushing sensation spread across her chest. She closed her eyes and turned her head away.
“You Ok?” Dove asked.
“Yeah.” Jo forced a smile. “Some adventurer, huh?”
Dove glanced back at the river. “Well, maybe not water adventure.” She looked in the rearview mirror and combed her fingers through her chocolate-brown hair. It shimmered with light coming in through the sunroof. “So, anyway, as I was saying, he’s not evil, Jo. Galen’s… troubled.”
“You say ‘troubled’, I say trou-ble.”
“Why are you so hateful towards him?” Dove asked, her tone genial.
Jo twisted in her seat and looked back at April’s yellow Honda following behind them on the empty mountain road. He was sitting on the passenger side of the car staring straight ahead, firing disdain at Jo from his squinted grey eyes. She was sure of it. April lifted her hand off the steering wheel and waved, oblivious to the villainy happening beside her.
Jo waved at April and sat back in her seat. She drummed her fingers on the armrest. “Why don’t you believe the things I tell you about him?”
“Because the things you tell me are…well, they’re just not that big a deal. So, he’s introspective. Occasionally he looks at you and doesn’t smile. So what?”
“It’s not that he looks at me and doesn’t smile—and by the way, he doesn’t ever smile—it’s the freezing-cold stare, and his sarcastic little comments.”
“You seem to be the only one experiencing that.”
“Because he only does it to me!”
“But why?”
“That’s my question. He looks at me like I ran over his dog. Those creepy eyes give me the shivers.” And she shivered to demonstrate.
Ahead of Dove’s car, Mike’s truck slowed to navigate potholes in the two-lane county road they had just turned onto. The asphalt was grey and the dividing lines nonexistent, but it hardly mattered, since there wasn’t any traffic. There hadn’t been for a while now, not since entering a placed called Bliss National Forest.
Jo’s tongue slid back and forth on her bottom lip. “Shouldn’t there be fishermen and hikers out here?” Her eyes scanned the woods. “Those cabins look like they’ve been abandoned for years.” The dilapidated cabins sprinkled among the pine trees were dark and the foliage surrounding them overgrown as if human life hadn’t stirred inside or around them for years. The same tension Galen provoked when he pierced her with his frost-colored eyes brewed in Jo’s gut. Her gaze dropped into the creases of the car’s upholstery. I’m such a coward, she thought. Get it together, Jo.
“Well, it’s early in the season, and this area is off the beaten path.”
Dove’s thin excuses did nothing to dispel Jo’s apprehension. “But doesn’t anybody live out here or play in these woods?”
Dove didn’t answer.
The road curved. Tall pine trees lining it blocked the sun. The inside of the car darkened as if they were being swallowed, fueling Jo’s misgivings, which all led back to…
“I’m telling you, Dove, there’s something not right about Galen—just like this forest.”
“The forest? What are you drinking over there?”
“Don’t you feel it?” Out the corner of her eye, she could see her best friend glancing at her, lips puckered with concern. Jo blew a breath out slowly. “Ok. I know I’m imaging things. Galen’s got me all freaked-out.”
Dove giggled softly. “Listen, I agree he’s a little moody, but you have to admit, he is hot. Like, movie star hot.”
Jo rolled her eyes. “Like the star of Creep Show.”
“I don’t know what that is. Wouldn’t you love to run your hands through that hair?”
“I’d rather chew glass.”
“And that voice. I could listen to it all day.”
“Well, that would be really hard to do, since he never says more than two words.”
Dove shrugged. “He’s the silent, brooding type.”
“He’s the silent killer type.”
“Oh, Jo.” Dove sighed and shook her head, but then a mischievous grin curled the side of her mouth. “Yeah, well, I think he gives Mike a run for his money.”
“What? That’ll be the day!” Jo scoffed indignantly. “Like a demon can give an angel a run.” She fixed her gaze on the dark blue truck they were following and the coveted blonde head in the driver’s seat. “I can’t believe you said that.”
Dove snickered. “Well, glaring-eyes aside, he is dreamy—but don’t tell Lary I said that.” She winked playfully.
Jo pointed narrowed eyes at her friend. “No good’s gonna come from him being with us.”
“Sheesh—what a prophecy!” Dove laughed.
“And who starts their name with a G and pronounces it with a J?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe George, or Geoff, or—”
“Ok, Ok—that was…that was really stupid.” Jo curled a strand of her golden hair around her finger and kicked off her neon-pink flip flops. She tapped a thumbnail against her two front teeth. Her temples flared with warmth. Very childish, she rebuked herself. She spun her irritation towards the source. “So, who invited him, anyway?”
“I’m not really sure, but, I bet that would be April.”
“April.” Jo sighed with disgust. “Who knew she had a thing for dark and disturbed.”
“I don’t think she has a thing for him. She j
ust has a loving heart and doesn’t like to see anyone left out.”
“Can’t fault her for that, I suppose, although in this case…”
“Jo,” Dove spoke quietly, in a more serious tone, “I agree with you that he’s a little strange, but—”
“You know what? Let’s talk about something else.”
“Absolutely. And I know just the thing. It starts with an M and ends with an ike.”
The girls laughed.
Jo relaxed with her head askew on the headrest. She drew in a deep breath and gazed at the vivid green world gliding by her window: bristly pines; aspen, with their ivory-colored bark; tall cottonwoods billowing with shiny, emerald leaves, releasing pieces of white cotton that drifted on the summer air like the snowflakes had that winter.
A long weekend with Mike, in a cabin where he couldn’t entirely ignore her, was a godsend. The answer to her prayers. He was the one she wanted to talk about, not that interloper.
At the thought of Galen, unease crept around her once more. She stared into the fulgent greenery and frowned, perplexed about why he had joined them this weekend. He seemed so removed and disinterested in all of them. They knew nothing about him because he wouldn’t discuss his past or present. He was a puzzle with no adjoining pieces, and to Jo, as welcome as a plague. She connected his presence to the uneasiness the forest provoked and couldn’t separate one from the other.
Chapter 2