Broken Wings by Alexandrea Weis Read Free Book Online

distance had guaranteed she would live a lonely life, at least it was a life she knew she could live with.
    She rubbed her tennis shoe against a crack in the wood on the porch deck. “Yeah, well, you’re a thug, remember?”
    Daniel leaned to the side and playfully nudged her shoulder. “Still think I’m a thug?” he asked with a grin.
    Pamela turned and examined his face for a moment. He was a handsome man, she decided, and wondered why she had never thought of him as attractive before. His looks were more suited for a man of adventure rather than a model or actor. He appeared to be someone who should be flying planes or, at least, jumping out of them. His eyes were the only part of his features that she found unsettling. The darkness of them seemed to hint at some hidden pain behind his welcoming smile. Like he had been to hell, and the visions he had seen there were still burning through his soul. She found it odd how you can look into a person’s face a thousand times, and then suddenly, one day, you glance over and feel as though you are seeing them for the very first time.
    “Perhaps you should call it a day,” she suggested.
    Daniel shook his head. “No, I came here to help you out, and I’m fine now. I just got a little shaken up by that crazy bird of yours.”
    “You were more than a little shaken up, Daniel.”
    He moved toward the steps. “Sorry, I just overreacted. I’ll get back to your roof,” he said over his shoulder. He quickly walked down the steps and around the side of the house.
    Pamela felt a sense of relief when Daniel disappeared from view. It wasn’t that she didn’t like his company; it was more that his presence seemed to unhinge her. Being around Daniel turned her mind into that of a self-conscious adolescent again. Perhaps what she felt were the dying embers of her youth making a last ditch effort to ignite her interest in the opposite sex. But she knew she had come too far in her life to ever entertain the idea of allowing a man like Daniel in. She had enough adrift souls dependent on her for their survival, and she had no room in her heart to try and right another.
    *  *  *  *
    Later that morning, Pamela returned from feeding the animals in their outdoor cages to find Daniel hammering away on her roof. He diligently labored to pry the cracked shingles from the roof, throw them to the side, and hammer the new ones into place. Pamela wondered if he had ever worked in construction, or if replacing roof shingles was something he had learned from his father. She stopped, shook her head, and silently chastised her overzealous curiosity. Suddenly angry that she had allowed her mind to fill with such frivolous thoughts, Pamela marched to the front door.
    Once she stepped inside the door to her home, the constant thud of the hammer seemed to reverberate throughout her house. No room was free of the overhead banging. She noticed even Louis, the squirrel, had hidden himself inside of the sleeping sack in his open cage to try and get away from the noise. Unable to take the intermittent hammering, Pamela walked to her hall closet and took out the Winchester rifle she kept there. She added a few extra shells to the front pocket of her jeans and checked to make sure the rifle was loaded. She eyed Louis once more and observed the array of sleeping baby squirrels in their containers on her kitchen table.
    “I don’t have to feed you guys for another hour, so I’m going out to check feeders,” she said to the animals.
    Rifle in hand, Pamela headed out the door. As she walked down the steps of her back porch, she toyed with the idea of telling Daniel where she was going, but quickly decided against it. She figured it would be best to avoid further interaction with him and then maybe her disturbing feelings about him might just go away.
    Pamela made her way to the open shed that housed her truck, tractor, and ATVs. She went to the larger of the two ATVs and searched under the seat for the