Two In The Bush

Chapter One-2

MELONY DID THINK ABOUT it.

On the drive home at around midnight and the freeway relatively empty, she thought about it.

While she stuck a frozen dinner into her microwave and sat down at the small dinette table in her kitchen five minutes later, picking at the stroganoff noodles that tasted like rubber, she thought about it.

And much later, when she was in bed staring up at the ceiling as sleep refused to cloud her mind and capture her always-on-the-go senses, she thought about it.

At four in the morning she gave up on sleep, got out of bed, slipped on her satin robe and went to the roll-top desk in the living room. Sitting in the padded tapestry chair, she turned on the small lamp sitting there and looked over the pamphlet Brenda had given her.

The advertisement was plain, done in stark black and white. It wasn't full of much information and Melony figured that this Hunter McFadden must rely heavily on word-of-mouth if he was to make a business of this. Though she could only imagine how he could make a business of dragging people through mile upon mile of barren wilderness, living like some primitive from eons ago.

Still, she found herself reaching into the top drawer, extracting some stationery, an envelope and a pen then sat down to write a letter to the man.

Ten minutes later she had her request to sign up for the excursion. She included a check for quite a bit more than the already hefty asking price, hoping it would get her in as quickly as possible. She signed Mel Shepherd at the bottom of the crisp, beige paper.

Before she had a chance to change her mind, she folded it, slipped it into the matching envelope and stuck a stamp on it.

Melony stared at the sealed letter, knowing that this was the most spontaneous, and certainly the most adventurous, thing she had ever pursued. She only hoped she wasn't making a mistake, or setting herself up for a situation she wouldn't be able to handle.

On her way to work the following morning, she dropped the letter off at the post office, her heart beating a strange rhythm of anticipation. She put her eagerness down to the thought that this trip just might change her life forever. No, she knew it would. Anything as shocking to one's system as trekking the Alaskan wilds for two weeks would have to change a person in some way. Also, she had to admit that she did crave some sort of interruption in her hectic lifestyle.

She drove the rest of the way to work with a small smile on her lips, oblivious to the traffic packed around her and the intense heat shrouding the city even at this early hour.