Wherever She Goes (Psychic Seasons, ReGina Welling [novels to improve english TXT] 📗

last town meeting with a series of ridiculous demands that fell to the floor like little chunks of detonated mortar when he blew Evan’s deal to bits.

No one bothered asking the man who had made the call inviting him to the meeting.

EV smiled and watched the scene play out.

As careful as he thought he had been, every detail of Evan’s plan was fodder for the town gossip mongers, who could disseminate information faster than the speed of light.

Such were the workings of the Ponderosa Pines grapevine. With roots running deep and true, its leafy goodness snaked through nearly every household in town before returning to the spot where its seed had long ago been planted.

Smack dab in the middle of EV’s front yard.

If a gnat sneezed in the woods, EV knew about it. Anyone with a lick of sense would have picked another chicken to pluck, another fish to try and fry. It was a lesson both Evan and Luther seemed unable to learn.

When Luther offered the first selectman a cheap bathroom remodel if he voted in Evan’s favor—EV knew.

When Evan got one of the survey companies he worked with in Gilmore to lay to rest a property dispute between the third selectman and her neighbor—and for once and all prove who was responsible for the dead tree neither wanted to pay to cut down—EV knew.

In the end, it had been Evan who left the meeting with his tail tucked between his legs. Thinking he had two of the town’s three selectmen tucked tightly in his pocket, it was with shock and awe that he watched as the man who was supposed to slash and burn the forest, slashed and burned any chance for a vote in his favor.

Ever since then, EV had been waiting and watching for the pair of them to make their next move. Tonight, there was little doubt Luther’s seemingly benign plea was the opening salvo to a new scheme.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, at the tender age of thirty-three, EV had become the town matriarch and now, twenty years later, she was more firmly cast in the role than ever. Ponderosa Pines, a once thriving commune, had become next best thing to a ghost town after its founders and primary owners, EV’s parents, returned to their mainstream life.

Determined to save her beloved home, EV rallied the remaining residents into expanding into a planned community with the goal of becoming an eco-friendly town.

Bit by bit, year by year, with the help of those remaining members, now known as the town elders, EV brought the spirit of her parent’s vision into the new age. In addition to their normal town duties, the board of Selectmen also vetted applications for residency.

New residents wishing to live in Ponderosa Pines must be committed to green living. Home building codes required the use of low energy windows and doors, a higher-than-average R-value insulation for exterior walls and some form of alternative energy generation. A percentage of the materials used to to build or renovate any structure must also come from recycled or renewable sources.

As a result, most of the houses in town were built from alternative materials such as: straw bales, recycled tires filled with rammed earth, or cordwood harvested as a result of clearing land for building, planting or creating needed pasture land. Town members were free to cull blown down trees from the surrounding forest.

In order to remain forward thinking, the board also spent time researching technological advancements in green building which led to an increasing number of materials being approved every year. None of them the cheap variety Luther had in mind.

The only thing EV and the elders hadn’t counted on was that some of the next generation might not look upon Ponderosa Pines as the paradise they all considered it to be. This was the case with Evan and Luther whose mother, herself an elder, had not passed on her love of green living and community spirit to her sons.

Following the path from changing the town’s building codes to allow for the use of shoddier, mass produced materials to its end where the door would now open for Luther to build houses on spec—houses that Evan, in his capacity as a real estate broker, could sell—was one route that needed neither a map nor a flashlight.

The whole setup was a smokescreen, EV thought as she watched the proposal get voted down. She would have bet her life on that fact. The only thing left to do was wait for the other shoe to drop.