Courage Tree by Diane Chamberlain

disappointment in her cut even deeper than her mother’s shrill accusations.
    Joe moved next to her, touching her hand where it gripped her elbow.
    “Let’s not talk about it now,” he said to her parents. “Don’t even think about it tonight, Janine. Right now, let’s just focus on getting Sophie back.”
    He was the voice of reason, and his kindness seemed genuine, but she knew better than to trust him. Behind her back, he was conspiring with her parents. She took a step away from him to pick up her purse from the table. “I’m going to the cottage,” she said, heading for the door.
    “What?” her mother said. “We need to stay right here until we hear some news.”
    “I can be reached just as easily in the cottage,” she said.
    Joe rested his hand on her shoulder. “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked.
    She shook her head without looking at him, then walked through the mudroom and out to the driveway.
    Walking through the darkness toward her cottage, she bristled from the encounter with her family, and she was glad Joe hadn’t tried to follow her. Having Joe with her was the last thing she wanted. She didn’t need to hear any more about his plans to assume custody of Sophie. She didn’t need any more blame. It had been this way her entire adult life: her parents and Joe against her. Over the years, their disapproval of her had crystallized into something hard and unmovable. Even now, when they should be pulling together with her, fighting on the same side of this war, she felt like their enemy.
    Once in the cottage, though, she would call Lucas. That’s where she would find her advocate. That’s where she would find her strength.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Z oe held a match to the kindling at the bottom of the fire and watched as the wood began to flame. She was getting good at this. Very good, actually. For someone who had never built a fire in her life—in spite of having had four fireplaces in her Malibu house and six on Max’s dream ranch in Montana—she could now call herself an expert.
    Resting near her on the ground was a pot filled with water, uncooked rice and chunks of the rabbit she’d killed that morning. She moved the pot to the small grill she’d laid over the fire pit and sat down on one of the flat rocks to wait for the water to boil.
    She could not yet claim to be comfortable with the whole meat preparation process, but she was getting there. As of today, she had killed six animals: two rabbits, three squirrels and, amazingly, a porcupine. She had shot at many more, and she felt worse about those she’d merely terrorized with her bullets than those she had killed with one clean, quick shot. Still, this slaughtering and eating did not come easily to someone who had been a vegetarian for a dozen years. She’d been such a champion of animal rights that she’d refused towear leather shoes, and she’d even been arrested for protesting in front of stores that sold fur. Ah, yes, if only PETA could see her now, she thought, boiling a rabbit she had killed, skinned and gutted herself.
    She’d left the lid to the pot inside—the tiny, rundown cabin she had quickly come to think of as her home, so she got to her feet and walked inside. When she returned to the small clearing carrying the lid, she spotted a large dog standing a couple of yards from the fire, and she froze. It was the dirty yellow dog this time, as opposed to the huge black bear of a dog who had visited her a few days earlier. Both of them had temperaments as nasty as their matted and unkempt coats. When she’d first seen the dogs, she’d feared they belonged to someone living nearby and that she was not alone in these West Virginia woods. But their hungry, neglected appearance made her think they were probably wild.
    The yellow dog looked in her direction, silently baring his teeth.
    “Scram!” she shouted at him. “Get lost!” She banged the lid against the flat rock, and that seemed to work. The dog turned around