Wounded (a mystery and a sweet romance)

Wounded: Chapter 1

The car bumped down the muddy one-lane road, ferns and rhododendrons slapping at the windshield. When a pothole with aspirations of becoming a crater came into sight, Tara swerved, trying to avoid it, but one of the tires slipped in. Brown water sprayed up, painting the windows. The car halted with a definitive lurch. The smartphone flew off the dashboard and disappeared under the empty passenger seat. Again.

Tara nudged, pumped, then finally floored the accelerator, but the wheels refused to catch on the mud.

“What are the odds of some kindly stranger with a winch coming along?” She had a vague notion that four-wheel-drive vehicles with winches and tires big enough to belong on tractors were the norm on this side of Puget Sound. “Except that I don’t think the people who live down this road drive anywhere.”

Tara rolled down her window to stick her head out and eyeball the hole. Yup, it was a big one. She sighed and looked over her shoulder, intending to throw the car into reverse. But someone was coming. A black Jeep Wrangler barreled down the road toward her, the mud-spattered vehicle having no trouble with the rugged terrain.

The speed with which it approached suggested the owner didn’t have roadside rescues in mind. Oh, well. She had never liked asking for help anyway. With the car in reverse, she nudged the pedal, again hoping to find traction.

A horn blared, startling a heron to flight from some roadside marsh.

“I know I’m in the way,” Tara muttered. “I’m working on it.”

She tried to wriggle the car free from the pothole, but the Jeep roaring ever closer made her nervous. There wasn’t room for it to go around. It would have to slow down, if it wasn’t going to hit her...

The horn blasted again.

“I’m trying, you bastard,” she growled. The car’s tires finally caught, and she backed into the ferns, hoping the other driver could squeeze past. Actually, she hoped the stupid Jeep would plummet into the same pothole and get stuck as well. At that speed, it might throw its idiot driver out into the mud.

Never slowing, the Jeep bombed past, somehow finding enough road to pass without knocking a side mirror off Tara’s car. The man in the driver’s seat glared at her. He probably didn’t try to hit the pond-sized puddle on purpose, but it sprayed a jet of water to the side nonetheless. Tara saw the mud spatters coming, but couldn’t do more than lift her arm in protection. Dirty water drenched the side of her face and her shirt.

Only through extreme willpower did she refrain from leaning out the window, flipping the bird, and hurling some curses at the bastard. She hadn’t gotten a good look at him, but the glimpse had suggested height, breadth, and the pissed off demeanor of a drill sergeant having a bad day. For all she knew, he had a gun in the glove box. Out here, it would take a long time for someone to find a body stashed under a fern.

Tara snorted. “Someone’s been reading too many murder mysteries.”

Shaking her head at her imagination, she wiped the mud off her face, retrieved her phone, and maneuvered back onto the road. A few minutes later, a sign for Salmon Creek Eco Village came into sight.

The foliage retreated, revealing a couple dozen cottages, communal gardens and greenhouses, a pond, and an abundance of chickens and geese roaming about. She paused to wait for a pig to wander across the road, then turned in where a hand-carved sign read Visitor Center. The proliferation of animals made Tara smile, but her smile dropped when she spotted the other car parked in the lot by the door. The muddy black Jeep.

That guy was a part of the eco village?

Tara shook her head. “He’s probably a visitor, too.”