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Category: Erotica/Erotic Romance/Suspense/Thriller
Description: Interesting people have interesting lives and lovers. James Curtis, an environmental scientist working in the Southern Alps of New Zealand is no exception--until he meets Dinny, that is. They both discover there is more to sex than lust. It takes their combined resources, however, to rescue his kid sister, Nicole, who is to be the 'engine room' for a million-dollar embryo production line. Fortunately, Nicole has resources of her own, which lead to a shocking expose of the corruption existing in a psychiatric unit. Love triumphs over evil, eventually, and the conclusion is as satisfactory as it is unexpected.
eBook Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press, 2006
eBookwise Release Date: October 2006

4 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [263 KB]
Words: 60714
Reading time: 173-242 min.

?The story is truly interesting and thought provoking. Graham Bishop has a wonderful way of writing that paints word pictures in the reader?s mind." May Reviews

Chapter 1

A mountain valley in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, near Arthur's Pass

James Curtis paused to boil the billy at the bush line, a thousand metres above the valley floor. This idyllic little glade where the alpine grassland blended into the forest trees was one of his favourite places, and he often stopped here at the end of a long day roaming around the higher mountain slopes. Today, the atmosphere was ominous. The nor'west clouds were spreading across the sky and within hours, the heavy rain-bearing clouds would start drifting over the Main Divide, to pour down into the valleys, and turn to rain. But now, it was balmy, and as he supped his tea, the soft light of the evening sharpened details of the land not normally seen, like an actress using footlights to seduce an audience of lovers.

The electricity and tension of earthquake weather, he mused, but the thin blue tendril of smoke from his fire hung in the air, belying the urgency permeating the atmosphere. He loved these times when nature mustered her forces to serve as a reminder this was her land, and those who ventured into it had to understand the rules or pay the consequences. The rules were simple--stay alert, stay humble, stay a step ahead.

Now it was time to move on down through the forest cloaking the lower flanks of the valley. Dusk made travel in the bush doubly difficult, and he still had wood to bring in and other domestic details, which were best done before dark. He slipped down through the belt of scrub on an old deer track that never seemed to grow over, and then plunged down into the beech forest on the unmarked route he knew so well. An observer would have seen a rangy mountain man, tanned and toned, in shorts and bush shirt, moving with an economy of effort, quickly and quietly down through the scrub and trees.

The little hut where his day would end was sited coyly in a patch of scrub on the edge of a clearing beside a gentle mountain stream. It was only a hundred metres from the main track up the valley, but went unseen by all but the most observant--and that was how he liked it. He registered almost unconsciously that the marker, a little twig leaning against the door, was undisturbed. The hut was seldom locked and he didn't mind people coming in, just liked to know if someone had. Today he'd seen a tent pitched on the other side of a tongue of trees, barely five minutes walk away. It seemed an unusual place to stop, so close to an overflow channel of the river, and he wondered what they were doing there. Perhaps it was just a case of blisters.

He off-loaded his pack into the porch. Although the pack was almost a part of him, it always felt good to put it down. The action symbolised the completion of another day of fieldwork, one more towards the total of the three or four hundred it would take to complete his thesis. He extracted his notebook, camera, and map case--they would be needed later. The handful of dry beech leaves he'd grabbed on the gallop down through the bush went into the fireplace, and he set off with the water bucket to the creek. Filling a bucket with cold, clear water always gave him a satisfied feeling; as if he were fulfilling some primeval need. Kindling and firewood were already there, but he must get more in later to cover the coming storm. He enjoyed the discipline of achieving comfort and security by planning and attending to such basic details as heat, food, and light without the mindless ease of an electric switch or a trip to the supermarket.

Not far from the hut, a large log lay across the track. Drew Grubbel heaved himself up on to it, and panicking, tried to freeze. Desperately, he attempted to retain his balance, but the momentum of his overloaded and unbalanced backpack was too much and it propelled him over. His feet flailed furiously as he tried unsuccessfully to avoid disfiguring the fulfilment of his dream. Spread in front of him, each larger than a dinner plate, one slightly ahead of the other, were two enormous three-toed footprints, deeply indented in the sand. His neck prickled as he scanned the surrounding bush--a moa with feet this size would be at least twice as tall as himself. Aware of his pounding heart, he scrabbled furiously for his camera in his pack, telling himself to calm down as he did so. Focus, exposure, composition. All seemed in order but the shutter failed to click. The film was finished. He burrowed into his pack again, in his haste, inadvertently stepping on the footprints once more. He wondered about the ethics of smoothing out his own prints and carefully reconstructing those of the moa. Ethics were not one of his strong points--however a decision was not immediately required, for with a sinking feeling he realised he didn't have any spare film with him. A flood of anguish threatened to choke him as he sensed the fading opportunity to rebut the merciless scepticism of his colleagues. None of them shared his long-held conviction of the continuing existence of the great bird. They all accepted the conventional view that moas had been extinct about five hundred years. But here was proof right before his eyes that he'd been right all along. He'd race back to camp and get another roll of film.