Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
She opened the door and stood there for a moment, then pressed inside. The door stayed cracked, and I wondered if she meant to do that or if it was just impossible to shut again. I tried to put myself in her shoes and figured if it was me, I’d want the door open too. Just in case something freaked me out and I needed an exit strategy.
Pushing off the truck, I looked around at the land. It looked like it had been something for a long time. Something that was popular and well-maintained. The house we passed on the way in wasn’t just some shack built for the mountainside. It was a gorgeous house. It was the kind of thing yuppies would pay good money for so they could invest in it and rebuild it to flip.
The outbuildings, of which there were numerous ones all around, seemed to suggest various business ventures. One looked expressly like a stand of some type, like one that would be outside of a pool or at a pumpkin patch where you could go get hot dogs and apple cider. A carved wooden sign was nailed to the front, looking like a half-moon, but the paint was faded away so that all I could see was a small streak of yellow and white near the bottom of it.
The trees growing up around the place also seemed odd. Like they didn’t fit the land, almost. These weren’t normal mountain trees from Tennessee. These were big, beautiful, full trees, ones that looked like they should be in Christmas cards. Only some of them were twenty feet high or more. And they were everywhere. I hadn’t seen them anywhere else on the drive, but in this lot, they were all over.
Further examination seemed to show that not only were there an abundance of them, but they seemed to be right next to each other in neat little rows. Every other tree was taller than the one in the middle, but they were very clearly planted trees. Trees like that would have had to be cared for to survive. What were they doing out here on this junk land?
I glanced back at the trailer. I had seen shows about hoarders who had stuff piling up past the windows so you couldn’t see in, but that didn’t seem to be the case here. The windows were clear, and a glance inside showed a cluttered mess of a home, but it looked clean. A clear path led through what I assumed was supposed to be the dining room. It was just filled with stacks and stacks of papers and boxes that looked like deliveries that were never opened. Beth Ann’s shadow moved across the window, and I realized she was walking like a tightrope artist through the rooms, arms akimbo.
Curiosity was getting to me, but it wasn’t my place to pry. If I showed up at the door and surprised Beth Ann, I would certainly seem like the stalker who lured her into the woods for sinister purposes. Of course, that fell apart after thinking about it, because if anything, she’d lured me out into the woods, not the other way around.
Watching for a few more minutes as Beth Ann’s shadow pushed deeper into the house, I realized something that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was about to go work for my cousin’s logging company. A company that worked in retrieving lumber from places just like this one. I would put money on the idea that Carter would be very interested to find out about a place just up the road from where the company was set that had a wealth of lumber, including what looked like Christmas trees.
Beth Ann said that this was left to her, but she didn’t seem like the type that would want to live on a farm in the middle of a mountain. Maybe she would be interested in an easy fix. If she didn’t want to deal with it, maybe Carter could give her a good deal on it, and it would make both sides happy.
It would certainly look good for me. My first act in the company being bringing in a big acquisition seemed like something that could raise my stock pretty quickly. And make it seem less like it was pure nepotism that was responsible for me getting a job. It might help with the other guys that worked there to not resent me if nothing else.
I made a note to bring the idea up and looked back at the trailer. A light came on in the back, and I could hear Beth Ann say something to herself. She didn’t sound terribly distressed, but I didn’t want to dismiss any potential problem, so I walked over to the door. I tried to peek inside, but the door was only cracked now. I could see her in the kitchen area, picking something up with two fingers and then putting it down again.