|
|
|
|
|
|
|
never run from anything in her life. But she couldn't stand in her father's room and let McCall destroy hereven though a part of her wanted him to. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
D.J. didn't stop until she reached a remote section of the woods. She leaned her head against a tree trunk and waited for her breathing to return to normal. She could hear her harsh pants, which seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness of the woods. Even the birds had stopped twittering and flown away when she'd crashed through the brush at a run. She wasn't following the rules of the forestwalk quietly, stay on the trail, don't scare away the birds. Because when the birds flew away, all the other animals followed. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
D.J. let out a snort of derision and opened her eyes. She must have absorbed some of her father's north woods philosophy if she remembered those rules. And she'd always pretended to be so aloof, too. Her father had loved these woodsso she, in turn, had hated them. Looking up at the beauty of the autumn trees against the neon blue sky, she couldn't understand why. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
She knew this placeher father's place. The place he'd always run when he couldn't stand the sight of her any longer. D.J. tilted her head back, looking up, up, up, the long trunk of the tree until her gaze focused on a wooden platform partially concealed by the tree's leaves. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Mile high," she said, and put her boot onto the lowest rung of the ladder built into the side of the tree. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Moments later she reached the tree stand and swung her leg over the edge. As she held her sore |
|
|
|
|
|