Dark Hollow Road (Taryn's Camera Book 3) Read Online Free

than anything, and he believed in a greater energy–something bigger than himself.
    “A twinge. Just a twinge, I suppose you’d call it. But, if you’d like, I could try harder,” he grinned.
    She threw a loaf of bread at him, and he caught it behind his back with one hand with the deftness of a dancer. “Oh, stop it,” she laughed. “You don’t have to go down the crazy road with me.”
    “I’d go down any road with you,” he winked. “Even if it involved a straightjacket.”
    With the last of the groceries in he set about to putting things in order, and Taryn went up to her bedroom and began unpacking her suitcases. She’d already taken most of her art supplies to the college, but she’d left her personal supplies there at the house. Since waking up she’d been overcome with the strongest urge to paint; it had been a long time since she’d painted for pleasure and not just for work.
    With her satchel of brushes and paints under one arm and her canvas under another, she stepped outside the bedroom to the balcony overlooking the forest and lawn. It was a gray day, the fog from the morning gone but leaving behind a slate-gray sky without sun or clouds. The leaves were off the trees, leaving them stark and naked. Their pointed branches were brittle daggers against the sky. She could hardly see the gravel drive from where she sat so it looked as though the house and bare lawn were an island, the surrounding trees a river of thorns.
    It was peaceful. Even with the chill she felt an inner warmth, just knowing she had an interesting job to go to and that Matt was down in the kitchen, puttering around, and doing his best to make the house as cozy and comforting as possible. She occasionally thought of Delphina and Permelia from her last job, but she tried not to dwell. Their stories made her sad. She wasn’t thinking of Andrew as much these days and that had to be good for her. It was almost as if she’d left the biggest part of her grief behind in Indiana. Thinking about him anymore might give it a roadmap back. She’d eventually have to focus on her Aunt Sarah’s death and determine what was to be made of her house and property up in New Hampshire, but that could wait. She was also not ready to think about that yet. A little bit at a time…
    With a portable CD player beside her, Taryn cranked up Jason Isbell and used the late afternoon to paint a landscape of the surrounding area. She loved the bleakness and solitude of their location and pored those into her brushes. Painting was therapeutic to her. If she was totally honest with herself, she preferred taking photographs, but she wasn’t ready to pick Miss Dixie back up and try her out here. The camera picked up the truth, without judgment. Sometimes, to keep her mind still, she needed the canvas. She didn’t want to see the truth as it was; she wanted to see the truth as she wanted it to be.
    Taryn’s mind often ran a mile a minute, as her grandmother used to say, and painting was the only thing that had ever really been able to steady and control it. As she painted she told herself stories and kept a running dialogue in her mind. It wasn’t always an important or serious conversation; a few days ago she’d finished a painting by lamenting the state of modern horror and having a completely one-sided argument with the director of the latest slasher film.
    It was beginning to grow dark now, though, and she knew she’d need to pack it in. As she wrapped up her brushes and gathered her linseed oil, being careful not to spill it, her nose caught a whiff of something strong.
    It was the scent of a large fire, the flames powerful and rich. Someone was burning leaves, perhaps, or garbage. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, and it reminded her that it was late fall, when the warmth of a bonfire cut through the cold air. But when she straightened and looked around she couldn’t see any black smoke drifting up through the trees.
    Oh well , she shrugged. Someone