Contemporary Fiction
Date Published: 11-23-2025
A pandemic is spreading across the globe. A national lockdown looms in the
United States. A Southern journalist sees a chance to protect her health and
jumpstart her career by escaping north to a Minnesota wilderness. Feisty and
wary of entanglement, she piques the interest of a bored Native American rock
star on his way home.
Robby Song’s career may be on hold, but Grace
Wheeler is on a mission to build hers. To Robby, she’s an intriguing
challenge. To Grace, he’s a distraction she’s not ready to handle.
But the brutal Northwoods winter is coming. Grace flees back south . . . to
soul-searching isolation and a puzzling middle-of-the-night call.
Excerpt
PART I – THE NORTHWOODS
Chapter 1 –
Airports
Empty. No sounds except
flight announcements and Covid precautions over the PA as Grace trekked alone
through the wide, carpeted corridors, stepped onto the moving walkways, and
passed the shuttered kiosks, shops, and restaurants of the Minneapolis
airport. The few people she saw, behind counters or scurrying past at safe
distances, wore surgical masks, except for one or two who had creative,
last-minute coverings . . . red bandannas or black gaiters. The antiseptic
smell of hand sanitizer hung in the air, penetrating her mask. If she closed
her eyes, she could think she was in a hospital. Her hair probably reeked of
the stuff. Of course, her gate was the last one. She shrugged her old, green
backpack off and sank into a seat against the wall, leaning her head back and
closing her eyes, hoping the flight was still happening. Except for her, the
gate area was deserted. Maybe she could drift off.
But it was no good.
She couldn’t sleep. She was tired, and the adrenaline had worn off, but
she was growing anxious. Maybe she wasn’t as brave or capable as
she’d thought. She sat up, pulled the tablet out of her backpack, and
began rereading her notes from the last interview she’d done, the one
with the middle school English teacher about online classes. She needed to get
it written up and into her editor. She could not lose this job, her only
income. A seat creaked nearby. She looked up. She hadn’t heard him walk
up, but good sign, another passenger. A man was sitting with his head leaned
back against the window, eyes closed, long legs stretched in front of him, a
guitar case leaning against the next seat with a tan jacket thrown over it.
Before long, he sat up, glanced at her over his black mask with tiny gold
stars, rose, and walked to the bank of windows at the end of the concourse. He
stood there, looking out, a tall, thin man all in black, with a long braid.
Quite the silhouette. She looked back at her notes.
“Cozy, huh? A
whole airport and just the two of us.”
She jumped. The voice was
unexpected . . . and hoarse. He was six feet in front of her. She stared up at
him. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”
“Well,
I try to look for the positive.” He paused and cleared his throat but
didn’t turn away. “I’m going in search of coffee. If
you’ll keep an eye on my things, I’ll bring you
some.”
“I’ll watch them.”
He
moved the guitar and jacket to a seat in her row, then straightening, looked
at her. “You want coffee or not? You didn’t actually
say.”
They studied each other then, the way people do when
they’re wearing masks — all eyes. His were dark, almost black,
under barely arched eyebrows. They looked at her steadily . . . with a touch
of amusement? Hers were brown, with the beginning of a worry wrinkle between
her brows. She looked back with a serious expression.
“Sure. Black,
one sugar.” She leaned over to get her wallet and noticed her toenails.
She had meant to cover the chips with a fresh coat of blue polish. Oh,
well.
“I’ll get it.” He walked off.
A red packet
was on the carpet below his jacket. She put her tablet down on the little
table between her and the next seat, walked over, and picked it up.
D’Addario Guitar Strings. She placed it on the worn suede jacket, under
the sleeve but visible, and went back to her notes.
“I stopped at a hand sanitizer.”
She nearly dropped
her tablet this time. “You need a bell!”
“Sorry.”
He was in a seat, reaching across his guitar to place her coffee on the little
table. “One of my nicknames growing up was Sneak. But you seem a little
edgy.”
“Maybe.” She noticed his long, slender fingers and wondered if
that was good for playing guitar. Her mother’d always said it helped
with playing the piano. She picked up the cup and went to remove one side of
her mask, but the loop was tangled in her hair. She put the cup back down.
Masks were proving to be a challenge. She’d given up trying to control
her hair long ago, but masks weren’t optional. Her hair was dark red,
dark enough it was hard to see the red unless she was in the sun. The kind of
red hair that’s big and ends up in long twirls unless you comb or brush
it which only makes it a bigger, frizzy mess. She tried to free first one side
of her mask, then the other, finally getting one, then a sip of coffee. She
looked his way. He was watching her. “I hadn’t realized how much I
needed this. Thanks.”
“You have a lot of hair.” He
turned away, removed his mask with one hand, took a sip, and turned his face
toward her, pausing, then going on, “I knew how much I needed it.”
Leaning forward, he put his forearms on his thighs and held the coffee between
his knees. He was not unattractive, in an angular, ascetic kind of way —
prominent cheekbones, straight nose, full lips, and the dark eyes.
He’d
bought her coffee, so she figured she should try to be sociable. “Have
you come a long way?”
“Not today. Just from my apartment. But
I’ve been traveling. Got in late. You?”
“This is my
third airport since five this morning.”
“Sounds like
you’ve come a long way. Got somebody in Duluth?” He sipped.
“I
wish. I have no idea what I’m doing next.”
He raised his
eyebrows and looked over at the clock. “I’d say you have about an
hour and a half to figure something out.” Just then, an agent walked up
to the check-in desk.
“Do you think they’ll take
us, if it’s only us?”
“I don’t know. Probably
depends on whether they need to get a plane to Duluth, for commuters. I guess
we’ll see. I’ve never had this flight cancel.”
“You’ve
done this before?”
He nodded, swallowing a sip of coffee.
“Every four . . . six months or so. I’ve got family all around
Duluth . . . and this time, I’m staying . . . a while. I figure
I’m safer up there than most anywhere.”
“Me,
too.”
The PA system came on. “Good afternoon passengers. This
is the pre-boarding announcement for flight 2514 to Duluth. We are now
inviting those passengers with small children, and any passengers requiring
special assistance, to begin boarding at this time. Please have your boarding
pass and identification ready. Regular boarding will begin in approximately
ten minutes time. Thank you.” The agent looked in their direction and
shrugged. “If you guys are ready, you can board.”
They
gathered their belongings. He noticed the strings and looked over at her, but
she was putting her tablet away. As she passed him, he said, “I’m
Robby.”
She replied, “Oh . . . Grace.”
About the Author
Jan Merritt lives on the coast of South Carolina
with strong ties to northern Minnesota where her dad was born. Her early life
was filled with rich, but conflicting narratives. On the one hand, her dad
regaled her with pioneering stories from Minnesota: Merritt boys tramping
through tamarack swamps and the Northwoods, learning from their Ojibwe
neighbors; surviving -60° winters; and the saga of her great-grandfather
leading them to discover iron ore on the Mesabi Range only to lose that mining
fortune to John D. Rockefeller in a New York City courtroom. But on the other
hand, Jan’s education in an elite private girls’ school in
downtown Charleston, South Carolina, led her into a privileged, old South
social set she wasn’t born into, one with a different set of values.
These opposing values simmered in Jan’s head.
She grew up
passionate about teaching, both in the classroom and on horses. She married
and had a family. Life was good, but it came to a halt when she discovered by
accident that she had brain cancer. She has survived, but after the surgeries
and treatments, her brain is not the same. She can’t ride or teach
school, but her new brain is busy. It creates conversations. One night toward
the end of Covid, Jan gave up trying to sleep and decided to write down what
the people were saying … maybe if she got the chatter out of her head,
she could sleep. It didn’t work but she hasn’t stopped writing.
Jan has a new passion.
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