toâ,â she begins.
âNo. Itâs fine.â I jump up and pull out a chair for her. She sits down and puts her apple and her container of milk on the table in front of her.
âMy dad sold the store,â she says.
I already know.
âHe held out for a good price.â
I know that too. It turns out heâs a good negotiator. He got more than my uncleâs friend wanted to pay.
âHe says he wants to spend more time with me. Weâre going away for the summer, just the two of us.â
She opens her milk and slips a straw in. For a moment, it looks like sheâs going to smile, but she doesnât. She takes a sip of milk and says, âSo, what are you working on?â It sounds like she really cares.
Norah McClintock has written numerous novels, including Marked , Bang and Snitch . Norah lives in Toronto, Ontario.
o rca s o undings
The following is an excerpt from
another exciting Orca Soundings novel,
Knifepoint by Alex Van Tol.
978-1-55469-305-4 $9.95 pb
978-1-55469-306-1 $16.95 lib
JILL TOOK A JOB THAT SOUNDED PERFECT
for the summer, guiding tourists on trail rides in the beautiful mountains. She didnât realize that the money was terrible, the hours long and the co-workers insufferable. After a blow-up with her boss, she takes a lone man into the mountains for a ride, only to find that he is a dangerous killer. When Jill fights back and manages to escape, she is in a desperate race to survive and make it to safety.
Chapter One
Voices, sudden and loud, jolt me out of my dream. Confused, I try to sit up. But I canât. It feels like Iâve been tied to the bed with a million tiny threads. I force one eye open. Turn my head. The clock radio says 6:44 . The voices keep shouting. Theyâre coming from the radio. The same radio Iâve woken up to for the past thirty-five days, at the same ungodly hour.
Except every morning it gets harder.
I raise my head and look at the wooden walls. A million tiny daggers shoot through my skull. Ugh. I prop myself on one elbow and hit Snooze . The daggers turn into hammers and spread out across my body. About a thousand go to work on the soles of my feet. I swing my feet out of bed, careful not to touch them to the floor. I canât face that agony yet. Yawning, I reach for some socks. Iâve got to start going to bed earlier. I canât keep functioning on five hours of sleep a night. Not when my job beats the crap out of me every day.
The metal bedframe squeaks as I heave myself up. Owww, ow. I could die right about now. If a serial killer poked his head into my room and offered to stab me at this exact moment, Iâd tell him to go right ahead. I wonder if itâs normal for my feet to hurt this much.
Well, yeah, maybe. When you spend fourteen hours working and then another five dancing nonstop. But itâs so fun!
I glance at the clock again. 6:53 . I shove my screaming feet into my cowboy boots. I look at them. Theyâre filthy, caked in horseshit after the July rains. Iâm not supposed to wear them inside the bunkhouse, but whatever. I canât scrub the crap off either. Iâve tried. Itâs all over the bottom of my chaps too. Thatâs a bummer. I spent a lot to have those custom made. That was back when I thought Iâd be making $12.50 an hour.
Back before I found out that what James really meant was $1250 a month.
Slave labor, thatâs what it is. Kristi and I calculated it a few weeks agoâ a couple of days before she ditched the ranch to go find a decent-paying job in the city. Turns out I make about $4.46 an hour. Itâs hard work, too, being a wrangler: chucking hay bales, hefting saddles, dragging buckets of grain, pushing and pulling around 1500-pound animals all day long.
Thinking of the horses gets me moving. The first barn shift starts at seven, and being late sucks. If you start your morning late, you spend all day playing catch-up.
I leave the rest of the
âNo. Itâs fine.â I jump up and pull out a chair for her. She sits down and puts her apple and her container of milk on the table in front of her.
âMy dad sold the store,â she says.
I already know.
âHe held out for a good price.â
I know that too. It turns out heâs a good negotiator. He got more than my uncleâs friend wanted to pay.
âHe says he wants to spend more time with me. Weâre going away for the summer, just the two of us.â
She opens her milk and slips a straw in. For a moment, it looks like sheâs going to smile, but she doesnât. She takes a sip of milk and says, âSo, what are you working on?â It sounds like she really cares.
Norah McClintock has written numerous novels, including Marked , Bang and Snitch . Norah lives in Toronto, Ontario.
o rca s o undings
The following is an excerpt from
another exciting Orca Soundings novel,
Knifepoint by Alex Van Tol.
978-1-55469-305-4 $9.95 pb
978-1-55469-306-1 $16.95 lib
JILL TOOK A JOB THAT SOUNDED PERFECT
for the summer, guiding tourists on trail rides in the beautiful mountains. She didnât realize that the money was terrible, the hours long and the co-workers insufferable. After a blow-up with her boss, she takes a lone man into the mountains for a ride, only to find that he is a dangerous killer. When Jill fights back and manages to escape, she is in a desperate race to survive and make it to safety.
Chapter One
Voices, sudden and loud, jolt me out of my dream. Confused, I try to sit up. But I canât. It feels like Iâve been tied to the bed with a million tiny threads. I force one eye open. Turn my head. The clock radio says 6:44 . The voices keep shouting. Theyâre coming from the radio. The same radio Iâve woken up to for the past thirty-five days, at the same ungodly hour.
Except every morning it gets harder.
I raise my head and look at the wooden walls. A million tiny daggers shoot through my skull. Ugh. I prop myself on one elbow and hit Snooze . The daggers turn into hammers and spread out across my body. About a thousand go to work on the soles of my feet. I swing my feet out of bed, careful not to touch them to the floor. I canât face that agony yet. Yawning, I reach for some socks. Iâve got to start going to bed earlier. I canât keep functioning on five hours of sleep a night. Not when my job beats the crap out of me every day.
The metal bedframe squeaks as I heave myself up. Owww, ow. I could die right about now. If a serial killer poked his head into my room and offered to stab me at this exact moment, Iâd tell him to go right ahead. I wonder if itâs normal for my feet to hurt this much.
Well, yeah, maybe. When you spend fourteen hours working and then another five dancing nonstop. But itâs so fun!
I glance at the clock again. 6:53 . I shove my screaming feet into my cowboy boots. I look at them. Theyâre filthy, caked in horseshit after the July rains. Iâm not supposed to wear them inside the bunkhouse, but whatever. I canât scrub the crap off either. Iâve tried. Itâs all over the bottom of my chaps too. Thatâs a bummer. I spent a lot to have those custom made. That was back when I thought Iâd be making $12.50 an hour.
Back before I found out that what James really meant was $1250 a month.
Slave labor, thatâs what it is. Kristi and I calculated it a few weeks agoâ a couple of days before she ditched the ranch to go find a decent-paying job in the city. Turns out I make about $4.46 an hour. Itâs hard work, too, being a wrangler: chucking hay bales, hefting saddles, dragging buckets of grain, pushing and pulling around 1500-pound animals all day long.
Thinking of the horses gets me moving. The first barn shift starts at seven, and being late sucks. If you start your morning late, you spend all day playing catch-up.
I leave the rest of the
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