RUBICON RANCH: RILEY’S STORY — Chapter 9: Melanie Gray — by Pat Bertram

Melanie stared out the window of the sheriff’s Navigator without seeing the houses they passed. What was wrong with her? She could have left the vehicle when he was talking to her next-door neighbor, the nurse with the out-of-control father, but she’d waited in the vehicle like a fool or a suspect. Or like a woman with no place to go.

Alexander’s death had left her rootless. She still had to honor the lease on the house, but they hadn’t lived in Rubicon Ranch long enough for it to become home. And anyway, Alexander had been her home. Through all the years of their roaming the world, he had been her one constant. She hadn’t needed anyone or anything as long as they were together, but now that he was gone, what did she have to show for it? Nothing. No husband, no children, a near empty bank account, only enough possessions to fit in the trunk of a car, but no car to put them in. They’d leased the car Alexander wrecked, and she didn’t have the energy to lease another.

And now here she was, driving around with this aggravating sheriff and his barely concealed sexual innuendos. What does he want with me?

Click here to read the rest of the chapter: http://rubiconranch.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/chapter-nine-melanie-gray-by-pat-bertram/

***

Rubicon Ranch is a collaborative and innovative crime series set in the fictional desert community of Rubicon Ranch and is being written online by authors of Second Wind Publishing.