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    Grey Like the Color of Ashes
    Grey Like the Color of Ashes
    Grey Like the Color of Ashes
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    Grey Like the Color of Ashes

    By NL Bradbury

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    About this ebook

    Kelly Lundquist has just moved to Idaho to escape her past, but her past isn't done with her just yet.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNL Bradbury
    Release dateOct 20, 2015
    ISBN9781536549485
    Grey Like the Color of Ashes

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      Book preview

      Grey Like the Color of Ashes - NL Bradbury

      CHAPTER ONE

      A Fresh Start

      The man across the street was clearly mentally challenged. He was sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of his front yard, looking at whatever happened to catch his attention. He’d been there for a couple of hours already today, and never seemed to get bored. Occasionally he’d wave at a passing car, but for the most part, he never really focused on anything in particular.

      He suffered from several types of ticks, and often he would gesture wildly or move erratically, but he always had a smile. A constant, never-fading smile that seemed contradictory to his obvious condition. It was irritating.

      Originally the chair in which he sat had been turned to the side, facing west. Kelly noted that the sunset could probably be seen really well from where he was this time of year, and assumed that maybe he just liked to sit and watch it, but now the chair faced directly toward her condo, and it made her feel a little uneasy. Not that he watched her or anything. Hell, it was hard to tell if he was really looking at anything for more than a few seconds, but it still gave off a vibe.

      Kelly sighed and closed the curtain. Ever since she’d moved in just two days ago things had felt a little off. Most of her belongings were still stacked in the garage, which meant her car was parked in the driveway outside. That wasn’t a huge deal really, but more of an annoyance because it was quickly starting to cool off outside and scraping the frost off her windshield in the morning with a credit card was wearing thin very quickly. I’m from Arizona and ice scrapers have never crossed my mind before, she thought to herself. Even so, the real annoyance was having all her stuff in the garage, because it always seemed that every time she needed something—like a pizza cutter, for example—she’d always have to go out and root through boxes to find it.

      Another thing that was a little off was Kelly’s Internet connection, which was frustrating. As a writer, she felt it was important to be able to research things, and never mind the lack of social media or the ability to track her recent sales. She’d used up her cell phone data allowance for the month already and didn’t even want to think about her next phone bill. First-world problems were eating at her patience.

      Her negativity was mostly due to lack of sleep. All of these little things are petty, she thought, but not sleeping makes them seem even bigger. She wrote that off to the stress of moving, the stress of being in a new place, the stress of her life being upside-down, and of course she still blamed most of her stress on the divorce, even though that was a year ago. Hey, it paid for this condo was her most recent mantra to help rationalize her current life. Had to find the good in it somewhere.

      She slumped down in the living room chair, currently one of only two pieces of furniture in her living room, unless you count the TV stand I guess, and tried to relax. She felt a headache coming on. Rubbing her temples, she closed her eyes and leaned back in a half-daze of exhaustion. Life will get better. The past is the past, and opportunity knocks.

      Yeah… she didn’t even sound convincing to herself.

      She had to admit the place was pretty nice. Two-bedroom townhouse with a half-bath downstairs and a full one up top. Her favorite thing though, and the feature which sold her the most, was the room just at the top of the stairs on the second floor. It was a spacious bedroom, meant to be the master, but Kelly planned to use it as an office. The reason was the large window that looked out over a balcony. (Truthfully though, it wasn’t a real balcony, like the kind you could walk out on and maybe put a nice barbecue grill or something, rather it was a decorative addition that looked like a balcony on the front of the condo.) But the draw was the window itself, which went from almost floor-to-ceiling and opened inward and let in lots of light and (hopefully in the summer) a nice cool breeze. Kelly had parked her writing desk and laptop right next to it, and planned to spend a lot of time right there. That was a definite upside.

      Just the thought of spending her evenings writing by the window had a calming effect on her, and before she even knew it she’d passed out right there in the chair with a half-smile on her face.

      A nap after two nights of restless sleep should have had even a slight refreshing effect, but all Kelly really felt was a cramp in her neck from the position in which she’d fallen asleep in the chair. That, and the headache had come on in full-force. She resigned to take a hot shower and get something to eat, and maybe she’d do a little writing after that if she felt any better.

      Kelly just hoped she’d sleep like the dead when her body adjusted to her new environment. Idaho was pretty different than Arizona, for example, and the town where she’d moved was a completely alien atmosphere. Open fields instead of desert. Trees, grass, and nighttime sounds that she’d just have to get used to. The promise of sub-one hundred degree days in the summer was enticing, but the fact

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