Page 1 of Trapped with the Mountain Man

Prologue

Abby

Mom's freaking out," Sarah says as she bursts through my front door.

I barely have a chance to hop out of the way before she’s charging into my living room. I draw a deep, steadying breath as I close the door behind her.

“Well, then you shouldn’t have told her,” I say.

“I’m not going to lie to mom, Abby. What if something happens to you out there? What would I tell her then?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

I sit back down on the sofa and resume stuffing my clothes into my brand new hiking bag. Sarah glares down at me from the center of the room where she stands with one hand on her hip.

“Have you ever even hiked before?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“For more than a couple miles?”

She has a point, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her think so. Everyone in Portland hikes, but most of us are back in town by sunset. Just in time to grab a hamburger and a craft beer at one of the city’s trendy restaurants.

But this hike will be different. It is ten days of unfamiliar terrain on the opposite side of the country. There won’t be fancy hamburgers or cold beers waiting for me at the end of the day. Civilization won’t be a short drive away. My sister knows this – and she isn’t taking it very well.

It’s ironic, considering that this whole thing started with a book she gave to me.

Well, it would be more accurate to say that it started with a tragedy, which led to the book. There was also a lot of therapy, both the physical and psychological type. There were days when I couldn’t get out of bed. Sometimes, I was physically incapable of it. And other times, the emotional weight of everything settled on my chest like a stubborn elephant.

Sometimes both.

Usually both, actually.

The days that I spent upright and functional were induced by prescription drug cocktails so strong that I existed in a fog. I couldn’t feel my fingers most days, but I also couldn’t feel my pain, or my anxiety, or my sadness.

It was Sarah who showed up at my house with the book one day. She wrapped it in a perfect sleeve of pastel polka-dot paper with matching ribbons curled into a perfect heap on top. It was the sort of thing our mother had taught us to do, and to appreciate, but I could barely resist rolling my eyes at the unnecessary decorum. Everything about the past few months had made me cynical.

I peeled back the paper to reveal a book cover featuring pine trees and bright, cheery lettering that read:Hiking Toward Happiness: Finding Yourself on the Appalachian Trail.

“Everyone I know has been raving about it. Melissa Bayer swears this book was the only thing that got her through her divorce. You remember how messy that whole thing was, right? With the summer house in Victoria and that fancy Spaniel dog that they paid, like, three grand for. I mean, those are sort of stupid problems to have, but that’s not the point. I thought maybe it would help you, too.”

She was rambling the way she does whenever she’s nervous about hitting a nerve. I couldn’t blame her since all of my nerves were too close to the surface those days.

Sarah leaned down and pointed at the gold medallion on the lower corner of the book.

“It’s a huge bestseller. The author has been all over the news lately. I know you don’t watch the news, but…”

“Thanks,” I said through a forced smile. “I’ll give it a shot.”

And here I am – giving it a shot.

The fact that even the phrase ‘giving it a shot’ sends a wave of nausea through me is a pretty good indication that I’m still not over the school shooting that took place in my classroom last year.

“Did you at least buy some bear repellant?” Sarah asks, drawing me away from my thoughts.

I pull a metal cylinder with a complicated spray mechanism out of my bag and hold it up in reply to her question. Honestly, if a bear gets close enough for me to spray it, I’ll be dead of a heart attack long before I figure out that mechanism.

“What about a first aid kit? Did your doctor even clear you for this sort of thing?”

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