Rum and Raindrops: A Blueberry Springs Chick Lit Contemporary Romance by Jean Oram Read Free Book Online

going to be okay again. She closed her eyes and took another sip. Cream and sugar mixed in caffeine made the world a happy, happy place. Two coffees within an hour had to equal a good day, didn’t it?
    Rob clicked on his voice recorder. “So, did you start that fire, Jen?”  
    And now that happy world was filled with vicious little gremlins sporting torches and pitchforks.
    “Very funny.”
    He gave her an apologetic smile. “Gotta ask. Gotta try.”
    She twisted her chair back and forth, feeling as though she was in some cross-border interrogation room, waiting for the onslaught. She clenched her hands around her cup as Rob let a long silence crowd the small room.
    “Tell me your side of the story, with as much detail—including location—as possible.” He looked up at her as though he was used to looking at people over the top of reading glasses and poised his pen.
    Outside the window looking into the store, Mary Alice gave her a grin and a wave as her eyes took in Rob with one large assessing sweep. Oh, hell. The sisters were onto her horrible day like vultures on a carcass.
    She explained how she’d left after work, driven to the park, then hiked to her site after registering at the registration/interpretive hut near the park gate. She explained that she set up camp just before sundown.
    He interrupted to ask, “Did you make a fire that night?”
    “No. The pit was in poor condition. I didn’t have time to rebuild it.” Not wanting to admit that she was out of condition and too tired from the long hike in with all her gear, she added, “It was getting too dark to go looking for more rocks, so I waited until morning.” She left out the part about accidentally heaving her brand new pop-up tent, which set itself up in the air when you tossed it high enough, into the bushes when she forgot to unlatch its straps. That and the way she’d slipped and fallen into the parking lot at the end of her long hike out again.
    She rubbed the pink skin on her knee where the scab had recently fallen off. Talk about a humiliating tumble. She must have slid at least twenty feet, the momentum of her large pack preventing her from being able to regain her balance at the top of the hill or stop once she’d begun sliding and falling. She’d ruined her favorite pair of hiking pants in that fall as well as dented her pride.
    “In the morning, I rebuilt the pit and made myself breakfast.” He asked her to explain in detail how she rebuilt the pit and she indulged him with details. “I know my pit was sound,” she emphasized.
    “Did you put out the fire?”
    “Of course I did.”
    “Hang on a second,” Rob said. He chewed his bottom lip, studying her without reserve. She barely fought the urge to wipe her face in case something was on it. “You had to rebuild the pit.”
    “Yes.” She thought he was supposed to be bright. He’d just had her explain how she rebuilt the pit a minute ago. If her fate was truly in his hands, she was so screwed.
    He leaned forward. “You didn’t build your fire in a metal fire pit?”
    “There aren’t any in the clearing.”
    He pulled out a map from his pile of papers. “Please explain.”
    “The clearing. It’s bush camping.”
    “The clearing?” He looked at his map, confused.
    Holy chocolate chip cookies. Did she have to walk him through his job? “It’s where the locals go if they want a bit more of a hike, more seclusion, more nature.” She pointed to an area on the map, north of the regular sites. “It’s where I always go. Very nice. Quiet. No garbage or noise. Real camping.”
    “Oh.” He looked at her as though re-evaluating her. She hoped that was good. He was still watching her, recalculating things in his head. The only issue was she wasn’t sure where she was going to come out in the equation.
    Finally he gave her a knowing smile, a hint of a gleam in his eyes. “Okay, so you registered but didn’t mark where you were going to make camp?”
    “Well, kind of.