Scattered Branches

an excerpt

Reluctantly Alena had left him there—left them, she prefers to think of it, in any case the them that she cherishes most. Unlike that otherwise so similar day last summer, when they’d picnicked beneath the blue of never-ending prairie sky, clouds had gathered, swiftly and unexpectedly as any wildlife will, seemingly out of nowhere. Yet dark and ominous as the sky had grown, it had provided the answer she’d been unable to find all the while the late afternoon sun was lighting up the ruins of that long-abandoned farmstead, when the soft breeze had arrived like an old friend, slowly and gently relieving her of her precious burden. Maybe she would have come to the same decision anyway: what after all was left for her out there on the Pacific coast? But she still isn’t accustomed to making life-altering decisions without Hamish’s input, and as she’d pulled out of the long, winding lane—towering weeds rustling between deep, rapidly muddying ruts—onto the only slightly better bumpy graveled road, fat raindrops were streaking rivers down the dusty windshield, rivaling the salty streams already ravaging her face. But it had felt okay, she acknowledges with a sense of relief. Good even, because she had made

the decision. She will make Sagebluff her home. By the time she arrives there, the sky is black, the storm in full swing.