Read Winds of Wyoming (A Kate Neilson Novel) for Free Online

stabbing his gloveless fingers. He did the same with a second board and the other strands of loose wire. When he finished the makeshift sections, he leaned the boards against the pickup. Bison vision wasn’t as good as their hearing or their sense of smell, but they’d eventually notice the truck and check it out. With any luck, they wouldn’t knock over the fake fence.
    He heard his mom’s voice and looked in the cab window. The CB handset dangled from the dashboard.
    “ …asked why you weren’t at church. They missed you and your guitar.” A moment later—“Mike, are you there?”
    He couldn’t reach the CB, and he’d already tried the two-way. He pulled the cracked, water-soaked radio from his belt, tossed it in the passenger window that now faced the sky and picked up a rock. He hurled it as hard as he could against the nearest tree trunk then motioned to his dog resting in the shade of the vehicle. “Come on, Tramp. We’ve got a long, uphill hike ahead of us.”
    ***
    Kate crammed the gearshift into second. The Honda’s ascent up Battle Mountain had slowed to a chug. The perfect metaphor for her life—dragging herself up yet another incline, trying to do better, always trying to do better. She’d climbed endless mountains, only to careen back down when the newest foster family was as uncaring as the previous ones, when the latest boyfriend was even more abusive than the others, when she’d fallen for a pimp’s lies and prostituted her body, when she’d allowed Jerry Ramsey to ruin her prison rehabilitation ...
    The road leveled out and the car gained speed. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, hearing his ugly snicker when he fondled her body during bed check. “Never forget, baby—this belongs to me.”
    She groaned, sickened by his arrogance and the smell of sweat fused with Brut aftershave that surfaced unbidden. She felt again the blows that knocked her to the ground the day she ended the affair. She heard her ribs crack as he kicked her into unconsciousness.
    A dirt crossroad came into view. She stomped the brake pedal and spun the steering wheel to the right. The car fishtailed, but she gained enough control to slide behind a stand of trees, open the car door and vomit. Though she hadn’t eaten since the night before, she couldn’t stop throwing up, nor could she quit sobbing.
    The nausea finally subsided. Exhausted, she cut the engine and leaned her head against the headrest. After a moment’s rest, she opened the glove box to find a tissue and blow her nose. She swished water around her mouth to rinse away the acrid taste before spitting at an exposed tree root. If only she could wash Ramsey out of her life.
    She flipped the visor mirror down. The sight of her swollen eyelids made her grimace—not exactly how she’d expected to look when she started a new job. Using the edge of the tissue and lotion, she removed mascara smears before reaching for her cell phone. She didn’t dare call Aunt Mary, but Amy would understand.
    She looked at the screen— No Service , turned the phone off and dropped it into her purse. What would she have said?
    “Amy, you’ll never believe who I ran into today.” Or, “Remember Ramsey, that psycho officer in prison?” Or, “Hey, do you remember the correctional officer who got me pregnant?”
    She fell against the steering wheel, weeping again. She’d once thought she’d forgotten how to cry. Now she couldn’t stop. “God, I need help. Ramsey wouldn’t leave me alone at Patterson, and he won’t leave me alone here. I hate to say it, but I’ll kill him before I let him hurt me or rape me again.”
    She rocked her forehead back and forth on the hard surface. “I know that’s a horrible thing to say, and Chaplain Sam would be upset with me …”
    She squeezed her eyelids closed, remembering the kindly prison chaplain’s parting words. “Live in the light, Kate. Bury the past and live in the light.”
    He’d written scriptures about