Kindle Edition
Amazon
Citizens of Logan Pond
Category:
Romance
Publisher: Crescent Moon Press
ISBN-10: 099062742X
Type: Fiction
Pages: 367
Copyright: Sept 15, 2014
ISBN-13: 9780990627425
Price: $7.99 (eBook)
When the financial collapse of America wipes out life as Carrie knows it, she finds the will to survive with a man determined to hate her.
Her home. Her parents. Her freedom. Gone.
His dreams. His sister. Himself. Lost.
Two people.
One future.
The economy crashed, the country is floundering, and Carrie Ashworth struggles to keep her siblings alive. She has two jobs in her newly-formed, newly-outlawed clan: grow crops to feed thirty-six people, and keep Oliver Simmons, their local patrolman, happy. Carrie’s life is almost content when Greg Pierce shows up. A man with the ambition to help them survive. A man determined to hate her.
When a government raid nearly wipes out their clan, Greg realizes the true reason behind their safety. Patrolman Simmons has fallen for Carrie. Greg takes it upon himself to give the socially-awkward patrolman what he wants. Only Carrie doesn’t like Greg throwing her in Simmon's path, especially when Greg’s brusque exterior melts, and she catches a glimpse of the real man underneath. Carrie is forced to choose: follow her heart or save her clan.
Life won’t let her choose both.
Excerpt
Greg shoved his mom into the snowy bush. She yelped as thorns scratched her cheek, but he didn't have time to care. The car door opened and three police dogs shot out, snarling and growling in the freezing rain.
Greg didn't move. He didn’t wipe the slushy rain from his eyes. He didn't even breathe. He watched those patrol dogs, calculating.
Go the other way. Go the other way.
It only took a second to know he and his mom weren't the target. The dogs were on a dead run for an old barn down the snowy hill. The wet pile of rubble was such that not even Greg considered it a safe place to escape the storm. The rest of the area looked like uninhabited farmland, the reason he'd chosen this route in the first place. Yet he had the sinking suspicion he was about to be proven wrong.
Two patrolmen dressed in green emerged behind the dogs at a more leisurely, arrogant pace. Their guns stayed low, content to let the howling beasts do the work for them.
At first it seemed like a lost cause. The dogs circled the collapsed barn in search of a way in. Then the lead dog gained courage and charged.
A loud shout erupted.
In an instant, it was pure pandemonium. What seconds ago had been a lifeless pile of rotting wood suddenly became a swarm of people.
The patrolmen ran forward, guns pointed, as two dozen squatters flew out of the wooden heap. Grown men. Women. Children. The people scattered like frightened chickens. But they didn't have a chance. The dogs were trained to kill. So were the patrolmen.
“I can't watch this,” Greg's mom whispered.
She tugged on Greg’s coat to make a run for it, but he yanked her down and pressed a finger to his lips. He pointed down the hill. Her face turned white as another patrol car came around the bend, and she backed further into the thorn bush.
The second patrol car stopped, and more patrolmen emerged. The dogs kept busy rounding up the squatters like scattered sheep. An older man, two girls, even a young mother with a wailing baby were herded into a small, frightened circle. Greg watched their dirty faces sink as they saw their already pitiful lives slip through their fingers.
One of the patrolmen whistled, bringing the barking dogs to a halt. Even from a distance, he looked smug as he addressed the group.
“Cards!” he demanded loud enough to carry up the hill.
From their bone-thin bodies, weathered clothes, and shattered expressions, Greg figured the squatters’ pockets were as empty as his.
An older man stepped forward, hands up, pleading with the officer. But it was a younger man—a boy really—which caught Greg's eye. He looked restless and fidgety against the old barn. He was ready for a fight.
Greg couldn't help but wonder what he'd do in that teen’s shoes. For all he knew, he and his mom were two minutes away from such a scenario. Arrest. Life in prison. Work camps. Death. Their only crime: homelessness.
The officer closest to the boy noticed the same movement. “Wait!” he shouted. “We don't want to harm you. For your own sakes, we advise you to not resist arrest.”
The teen took two defiant steps forward. The rage in him caused Greg to shiver.
A man, possibly a father, put a hand on the boy’s shoulders. After a few words, the boy's chin dropped, and he stepped back in obedient surrender. Greg was relieved and disappointed at the same time. The boy would live, but what kind of life?
For a moment it looked like it would be a peaceful arrest. The patrolmen kept shouting orders, and the small clan lined up. Greg perched on the balls of his feet and gave his mom the signal. In a second, they’d make a run for the woods behind them. She looked white as a sheet but nodded.
Then it happened.
One of the patrolmen, haughty and unfeeling, reached for the screaming baby.
“No,” Greg's mom breathed, echoing the cry of the baby's mother. Yet the mother had no choice. She was trespassing on government property, squatting on land designated for true American citizens. She had no legal papers to protect her, no government-issued card. She was on a fast track to some work farm in Illinois, which meant her baby was a ward of the state—as was her little girl being shepherded into the furthest patrol car. The mother was a mother no longer.
That's all it took.
The teen charged forward, head down, fists balled, swinging for the nearest patrolman. Caught off guard, the officer stumbled backward and landed on the slushy ground. The boy didn't stop. He plowed on and headed for the next patrolman, the one with the baby.
A third patrolman raised his gun, and, in one deafening shot, ended the dispute.
The boy dropped. Greg's mom screamed.
Greg whirled around, too stunned to do anything but stare at his mom. The only thing that saved them from her outburst was the simultaneous yelling and barking that erupted below. The patrolmen were too preoccupied with the frantic squatters to notice two more illegals up the hill.
Greg didn’t take the chance.
He grabbed his mom and their bags and jumped up. They hunched low as they ran over the deserted field. One hundred feet. Two. They flew as fast as their awkwardly hunched bodies could.
Muscles burning, Greg risked a glance over his shoulder. The patrol dogs weren’t pursuing them, but he didn’t stop. Not for a long time. Even when his mom wheezed and gasped for air, he forced her on until they could reach a place where there would be no more running.
|
