Page 1 of Mountain Air
Prologue
Doctor Rob Brown pushed open the door to his condo just before he could drop everything he was carrying. Maybe he should’ve made a second trip from the truck but after being gone for the past few weeks, all he wanted to do was sit on his couch and mindlessly stare at the tv. He threw his keys onto the table next to the door then slid his laptop bag and messenger bag off his shoulders before he lost circulation in his arms.
Moving further into the condo, he pulled open the fridge to put away the few things he picked up on his way home. He hadn’t grabbed a lot since he was heading out again in the morning. The grant that he’d gotten to study invasive species in the Northwest was a boon in his cap, but it was draining him. Add in that he’d caught a cold that lasted three months and he was exhausted. Rob had been to McArthur-Burney Falls, South Yuba, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods in the past three months — a park a month but tomorrow he was driving to eastern Oregon to spend the next two months in the Succor Creek Natural Area. He was still trying to pinpoint how the Japanese knotweed had gotten such a foothold and everything he’d found was pointing to that area as being ground zero.
Looking around his condo, Rob wasn’t sure why he’d been in a hurry to get here. Yeah, it was his but the last hotel room he’d stayed in had more personality. There weren’t even any pictures on the walls. If his mother saw this, she’d worry more than she already did. Maybe he was only tired? The condo had everything he’d been looking for when he got the position on faculty — two bedrooms, nice deck overlooking a wooded area, covered parking, gym, pool. Why after six years hadn’t he made it into a home?
