Robyn Carr - Virgin River

M el squinted into the rain and darkness, creeping along the narrow, twisting, muddy, tree-enshrouded road and for the hundredth time thought, am I out of my mind? And then she heard and felt a thump as the right rear wheel of her BMW slipped off the road onto the shoulder and sank into the mud. The car rocked to a stop. She accelerated and heard the wheel spin but she was going nowhere fast.

I am so screwed, was her next thought.

She turned on the dome light and looked at her cell phone. Shed lost the signal an hour ago when she left the freeway and headed up into the mountains. In fact, shed been having a pretty lively discussion with her sister Joey when the steep hills and unbelievably tall trees blocked the signal and cut them off.

I cannot believe youre really doing this, Joey was saying. I thought youd come to your senses. This isnt you, Mel! Youre not a small-town girl!

Yeah? Well, it looks like Im gonna beI took the job and sold everything, so I wouldnt be tempted to go back.

You couldnt just take a leave of absence? Maybe go to a small, private hospital? Try to think this through?

I need everything to be different, Mel said. No more hospital war zone. Im just guessing, but I imagine I wont be called on to deliver a lot of crack babies out here in the woods. The woman said this place, this Virgin River, is calm and quiet and safe.

And stuck back in the forest, a million miles from a Starbucks, where youll get paid in eggs and pigs feet and

And none of my patients will be brought in handcuffed, guarded by a corrections officer. Then Mel took a breath and, unexpectedly, laughed and said, Pigs feet? Oh-oh, JoeyIm going up into the trees again, I might lose you

You wait. Youll be sorry. Youll regret this. This is crazy and impetuous and

Thats when the signal, blessedly, was lost. And Joey was rightwith every additional mile, Mel was doubting herself and her decision to escape into the country.

At every curve the roads had become narrower and the rain a little harder. It was only 6:00 p.m., but it was already dark as pitch; the trees were so dense and tall that even that last bit of afternoon sun had been blocked. Of course there were no lights of any kind along this winding stretch. According to the directions, she should be getting close to the house where she was to meet her new employer, but she didnt dare get out of her swamped car and walk. She could get lost in these woods and never be seen again.

Instead, she fished the pictures from her briefcase in an attempt to remind herself of a few of the reasons why she had taken this job. She had pictures of a quaint little hamlet of clapboard houses with front porches and dormer windows, an old-fashioned schoolhouse, a steepled church, hollyhocks, rhododendrons and blossoming apple trees in full glory, not to mention the green pastures upon which livestock grazed. There was the Pie and Coffee shop, the Corner Store, a tiny-one-room, freestanding library, and the adorable little cabin in the woods that would be hers, rent free, for the year of her contract.