Northern Pines

Published by Evernight Teen ® at Smashwords

www.evernightteen.com

Copyright© 2017 Sasha Hibbs

ISBN: 978-1-77339-526-5

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: Lisa Petrocelli

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

For Kathy Elizabeth Smith Wilfong. The world is a brighter place for having you in it. My dear friend, this one is for you.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’m always at a loss for finding meaningful terms to express my gratitude towards those who’ve helped contribute to my dream. From my heart, thank you to Pamela Leonard, who I would be so lost without. I’m a lucky girl to have you in my corner and my books are better because of you. I love you, Pam! Thank you to my cheerleader sister, Claudette Harris. Your enthusiasm pushes me to continue. Thank you to the guys and gals at work who generously presented me with a brand new computer when mine crashed and burned. I could never hope to have better co-workers than you all! Thank you to the folks at Helvetia, WV. This is a beautiful corner of the world filled with even better people. Helvetia is, I’m convinced, as close to paradise as one can come without dying. Thank you to my wonderful mother-in-law, Marsha Hibbs. I’m blessed to have you as a mother-in-law. Your excellent cooking is just an added benefit! Thank you to the entire team at Evernight Teen Publishing, Stacey, Sandra, my editor, Lisa Petrocelli. You all are the best! Thank you to the master of all cover artists, Jay Aheer … I want to write just to get the opportunity to have one of your stunning covers! And to my husband, Tim, and our beautiful daughters, Aeliza and Ava. You all light up my life. My cup runneth over.

NORTHERN PINES

A Lyn Sister Novel, 1

Sasha Hibbs

Copyright © 2017

Chapter One

Mom, I’m going to lose service, I said, driving down the windy road leading to Crawford, West Virginia. I was on my way to my aunt’s house.

Rosslyn, you or Aunt Kathy had best call me as soon as you get there, she said in that motherly tone that told me she was juggling between guilt for sending me and desperation, because we both knew there was no other way for me to attend Wesleyan in the fall. It was too expensive to stay on campus, but my aunt only lived thirty minutes away.

Okay, Mom. I will. Promise. Tell Brooklyn and Bobbylyn I love them and— Click. I stared down at my phone, and sure enough, the call dropped. I was just about to tell her to tell Dave I said hi. After years of dating my mom and begging her to marry him, she finally gave in and a year later had my twin sisters, Brooklyn and Bobbylyn, both ten now.

My dad died when I was two, an accident in a steel mill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. I didn’t remember him but missed him anyway. Dave was a great stepdad and never, ever showed favoritism between us girls, but there was always something missing.

Clicking my iPhone to save the battery, I chucked it on the passenger side seat and looked up in time to see a black cow standing in the middle of the road, inches away from me and the grill of my Honda.

I had no time to react, other than poorly. I slammed on my brakes and in a fraction of a second, my car fishtailed, sideswiped the cow, and careened off the road. I couldn’t gain control of the car as my heart started hammering away in my chest. In those few seconds between hitting the cow and bursting through the wooden fence meant to keep them in and me out, I saw my life flash before my eyes.

I’d just graduated high school and received a one-year scholarship to West Virginia Wesleyan. Mom and I decided it would be best (or the only option, really) for me to stay with her sister, my Aunt Kathy. The twins cried and cried when I finally told them I wasn’t just going away for the summer to work in our Aunt Kathy’s diner. I was moving there this time and not coming back for a while. While torn about leaving the city and all the excitement that came with it, I was finally going to the college of my dreams and starting my own life. Now to be ended by a cow. Death by cow. I could almost find it funny. Almost.

As I imagined how my poor little sisters would take the news of my death, I realized my car finally came to a halt in the middle of what I presumed was a pasture. It was surreal. I was alive. The smoke billowing out from under my hood and now into my lungs was enough confirmation I hadn’t crossed over to the other side.

I looked around the interior of the car and was surprised the airbags hadn’t deployed, but then again, my Honda was older than me. I unbuckled my seat belt with shaky hands and tried to open my car door. It was jammed. I gave it another nudge using my shoulder. Nothing. I noticed a visible dent inward on my side door. Sighing, I climbed over the gearshift and into the passenger seat. I clawed around on the floorboard until I could feel the cold hardness of my iPhone.

Please, please, please, tell me you are not broke too, I said to anyone who was listening and could hopefully answer this one prayer. I closed my eyes and turned my phone over in my palm. Reluctantly opening my eyes, I sighed in relief. Ah. Thank God! Now, if the passenger side door would just open, I couldn’t under these circumstances ask for too much more. I said another silent prayer and gripped the door handle.

The screeching of my door opening had never sounded so good to me. Phone in hand, I slid out of the car and took several steps away from the plumes of smoke wafting up into the air. I looked back to assess the damage.

Still unsteady and thankful to be alive, I took in the sight of the demolished fence, skid marks tearing up the pasture, and my mangled, steaming Honda. The only thing my parents could barely afford to give me as a graduation gift. And I was no mechanic, but the grill, the smoke, and the damage were too much for even me to hold out hope it could be fixed.

As everything was sinking in, with dreadful realization, I remembered what got me into this predicament in the first place. Not paying attention and the cow. Oh God … the cow. I quickly scanned the pasture to see if the cow had wandered, providing I hadn’t killed it, back into the pasture somehow. As I scanned the area, I saw nothing but several head of healthy looking cattle in the far distance. I walked back up to where I crashed through the fence, careful to avoid broken glass and splintered wood from the damaged fence.

To my absolute horror, the cow I hit was laying on its side, eyes blank. Its front leg was bent in an unnatural way with trails of blood streaking down and pooling around its body. I had killed a cow. I pulled my iPhone out and held it up hoping to get enough bars to make a call to my aunt. I didn’t know what to do, but this was bad, even worse than my busted car. I had actually taken a cow’s life. I ate steak, but seeing this bloody, dead cow made my stomach turn, and made me consider turning vegan.

My iPhone clearly stated No Service. I couldn’t leave the cow. I couldn’t leave my wrecked car in someone’s pasture. I also couldn’t make a call. I had no other option but to start walking.

I walked back to my Honda and popped the trunk. I grabbed my two bags, shut the trunk, and grabbed my purse. It was a load, but I couldn’t leave what little I had behind. It wasn’t likely the cows were going to rob me, even though I would deserve no less. Slinging my bags across my back, I set off toward the main road when I heard a loud engine approaching. It sounded like a four-wheeler.

I wanted to bolt and get in touch with my aunt before having to deal with anyone else. But I didn’t have enough time to go anywhere. I was about to come face-to-face with who I presumed was the farmer coming down across the hill toward the scene of my crash. As the four-wheeler came into view, I ascertained it was more like a side-by-side, and the driver wasn’t the farmer, it was a boy, maybe my age or slightly older.

My palms grew sweaty. I hoped he knew my aunt, or wasn’t a jerk. I shouldn’t be scared, but for some unknown reason, I was growing anxious. It was an accident, one that I could’ve avoided had I paid attention, but… Who was I kidding? This was all my fault. I wrecked the only car I had with no hopes of replacing it, I killed a cow, and I crushed a sizable fence. What was I going to tell my parents? My aunt? The boy getting closer and closer to me? Was this something my insurance would even cover? Suddenly not being a kid under my parents’ roof was the last thing I wanted. They would’ve handled this.

I swallowed hard as the boy finally pulled up beside me. I opened my mouth to speak but the engine was too loud. He kept the side-by-side running while he looked past me at the fence and then the cow, visible enough to see from where we were to know it was dead. While he was assessing the surrounding damage and no doubt piecing together I was the one responsible, I took in the lines of his face. They were hard, especially around his brown eyes—eyes I could barely see for his brown hair sweeping near them. I glanced down at the hand resting across the steering wheel. He had rolling veins under tanned skin, and I could tell even with him sitting down, that he was fit, no doubt from working on the farm I was inadvertently trying to destroy.

He killed the engine and finally glanced at me. He stared at me for an uncomfortable amount of time before finally speaking.

You kill my cow? he asked, his voice deep but distantly familiar.

I, um … I didn’t murder your cow, as in the intent wasn’t there, but your cow was in the middle of the road and I swerved to miss it and,—I waved my hands around the wreckage—you see the result.

So, you killed my cow? he said, his tone implying I hadn’t answered him correctly.

I guess, yes, you could say that I killed your cow. I didn’t mean to. It was in the middle of the road, I said, sure he was as equally sorry my car was wrecked. After all, surely whoever the farmer was had to bear some responsibility for his cow not being in the pasture.

I watched him slide out from his seat in one swift motion and walk over to my car. He whistled low under his breath.

You’re lucky this was all that happened from the looks of it, he said. He then walked back to his side-by-side and grabbed a large black cord. Attaching it to the front of his side-by-side, he got back in and drove up to the dead cow. I watched him take the cord and secure it around the cow. He dragged it down away from the side of the road and into the pasture. After, he released the cord from the cow and turned back to me.

This is a mess, he said. How far away from where you were going? He took the cord and draped it in double rows around the broken fence in what I presumed as an attempt to secure any other wandering cows.

I could feel my eyebrows scrunch up. I, um…

There’s no cell service until you get into Rock Cave and I’m assuming,—he looked me up and down—you’re not going to walk five miles into town.

What’s that supposed to mean? I was just getting ready to walk to town, I said, trying to keep the defense in my voice down to a minimum.

And leave the scene? he said, raising an accusing brow at me.

Nah, I figured if I waited at the station, the city bus would be by shortly, I said. I started to feel cornered.

It looked like he was trying to suppress a smile, but the way the sun was hitting him, I couldn’t be certain. Well, you don’t have too many options, I suppose. I’ll take you.

Had this boy been any older, I would’ve instantly felt alarmed, red flags shooting up, as though I were starring in the beginning of a Lifetime movie. But this boy couldn’t be much older than me, and there was something remotely familiar about him. I felt like I knew him, but who was he? I also didn’t have cell service. There wasn’t anything around, and I certainly couldn’t outrun him on or off his side-by-side. I would have to take my chances.

I’m Kathy Smith’s niece, Rosslyn, I said, rolling my shoulders back with confidence. She lives pretty close to here. Maybe five more miles down the road.

Yes, I know, he mumbled. Throw your stuff in the back and I’ll take you there.

I eyed him for a few seconds too long before throwing my stuff in the back of his side-by-side and climbing in. Thankfully, the engine was too loud for conversation. He drove through the pasture until stopping at a locked gate. Putting the side-by-side in idle, he hopped out, unlatched the gate, and pulled onto the pavement. After securing the gate behind us, we drove for a few minutes before swinging a left down a gravel road. As I sat riding with this boy, my mind started digesting all the problems I’d amassed before ever getting to my aunt’s.

I was nearly broke, the majority of the reason I was coming to stay with my aunt in the first place. And now … not only was I broke, but I was betting when it was all said and done, I was going to be in debt. I glanced sideways at the driver. Lowering my gaze discreetly, I observed him. Although relaxed, his shoulders were broad, tapering down to narrow hips and sizable but lean thighs. But his eyes, his gaze, there was something familiar I couldn’t quite place in them. I quickly glanced ahead before being caught. As I looked ahead, I recognized the driveway leading to my Aunt Kathy’s blue farmhouse.

I both dreaded and looked forward to finally making it there. He pulled up to the front porch and at the same time the screen door opened, my Aunt Kathy shuffling out onto the porch with sharp, quizzical brows. Her gaze went back and forth between me and the driver-farmer-maybe-same-age-as-me boy. She ran down the steps.

"Rosslyn, what’s going on? Where in the