Excerpt of Broken Wings by Alexandrea Weis

Chapter 1

Drab gray clouds covered the expansive horizon, obliterating the warmth of the sun. Like the delicate flora of nature covered by endless miles of sidewalks in some sprawling super city, the heavens above were suppressed behind a wall of lifeless color.

Pamela Wells stood in her back door and surveyed the sulking skies above. "It's an early spring sky," she mumbled.

Spring; thoughts of the season brought to mind frolicking bunnies and brightly colored birds preparing nests for much anticipated hatchlings. Everywhere animals would be shaking off their thick winter coats and embracing the start of a new reproductive cycle. But for Pamela, the warming breezes of the change in seasons were not always a welcomed event. She sighed as she turned her eyes to the expanse of land around her and contemplated the work that lay ahead. With the coming spring, Pamela knew all of her aches would return from their winter respite. But her pains were not limited to the constant throbbing in the various joints of her body; dark days brought an ache to her heart, as well. It was on such a day that she had met Robert, Bob to his friends. The memory of Robert Patrick dressed in his expensive tailored suit and designer Italian custom made shoes made Pamela laugh.

She had been lying in her hospital bed, days after a bad car accident, when Bob walked into her room. He was fresh out of law school and in desperate need of clients. After reading about her accident in the newspaper, Bob hunted Pamela down and signed her on as his first client. One year later, they married in a lavish ceremony inside St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.

Pamela shook her head. "Eight years after that, Bob turned into an asshole," she said as she gazed out at the barn behind her blue and white Acadian cottage. "Well, at least I got this place in the divorce," she whispered.

Meant as a get away from the urban overload of New Orleans, Bob bought the two–bedroom cottage on fifteen acres for Pamela as a wedding present. The wilds of St. Tammany Parish became her refuge when life as the wife of a prominent personal injury attorney had been too much for her. She moved into the cottage permanently almost six years ago when Bob unexpectedly announced that their marriage was over.

Out of nowhere, a wide raccoon with a slow, sauntering gait and a glint of childlike mischief in his masked eyes wandered up to Pamela. The raccoon stopped just below the three steps to Pamela's back porch and stood on his hind haunches. He looked at her and warbled in the way a raccoon baby calls to his mother.

"Good morning, Rodney," Pamela said to the raccoon as she walked down the steps to greet the animal. "How are you today?" She bent over and rubbed behind the raccoon's silver–tipped ears. Rodney fell on his back like a lump of whale blubber and proceeded to grab at the woman's hands and direct them to the spots on his belly that needed immediate scratching.

Pamela laughed and rubbed the animal's wide stomach as Rodney wiggled with delight. The sudden screech of an owl from a nearby tree frightened the raccoon. He jumped to a standing position and eyed a tree close to the house, snorting loudly.

Pamela patted the raccoon on his round bottom. "Relax, Rodney. You know Lester won't hurt you." She spied the owl up in the tree next to her bedroom window. "Lester, did you have a good night?"

The owl screeched again, opened his large brown and white checked wings and flapped vigorously upon his tree branch.

"Yes, I know you're hungry, Lester," Pamela said, nodding at the raptor. "But I have got baby squirrels to feed, and then there are cages to clean before you can have your ham and eggs."

The sound of a car driving down the gravel road toward the cottage made Pamela divert her attention away from the impatient owl. She turned and faced the road, just as Rodney came up beside her and wrapped his child–like arms around her lower leg.

A blue open–top Jeep Wrangler with wide off–road tires appeared from out of the brush at the end of her drive. Pamela observed the car with a feeling of trepidation sweeping through her. Strangers coming down the gravel road to her sanctuary were either delivering orphaned or injured wildlife to her care, or coming to deliver food and supplies to her wildlife sanctuary. But no one was ever unexpected at her facility, and uninvited strangers were never welcome. A cacophony of barking broke out from the direction of the front porch steps. The assorted stray dogs Pamela had collected through the years ran to greet the car as it came to a quick stop in front of the cottage. She walked toward the front of her home and watched tentatively as the dogs surrounded the Jeep.

A tall man with thick, dark brown hair and sunglasses stood up in the cab of the Jeep and peered down at her.

"Hey there," he said then glanced at a slip of paper in his hand. "Is this Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation Center?" he asked in a deep voice.

"Yes. Is there something I can do for you?" Pamela gave the man a curt nod of her head as the dogs around the car growled almost in unison.

"You want to call off the posse?" he said as he waved to the five dogs surrounding his Jeep.

Pamela folded her arms over her chest. "First, tell me who you are, and what you're doing out here?" she demanded as she tried to walk to the car, pulling Rodney along with her as he continued to cling to her leg.

The stranger removed his sunglasses. "Your facility requested a service worker to come out and help clean cages, right?" He shrugged his wide shoulders at her. "I'm your service worker," he declared