Broken Trust Read Free Page B

productive days, fresh from the shower, hair and clothes spiffed. Ready, expectant.
    Financ ial D irector with Loving Earth Trust. Score!
    While not as well-known as t he Sierra Club or t he Nature Conservancy, Loving Earth Trust had earned a reputation in Colorado for getting results. Founded in the early seventies to spearhead open space in Boulder, they’d done good environmental and restoration work through the years. More than raising money and wringing hands, the Trust produced science that influence d lawmakers to protect wild places. They sent volunteers out in the field for trail maintenance and landscape restoration. Now she was their financial director.
    “And you get to come with me,” she said to Abbey, stroking his silky head as he sat in the passenger seat keeping a keen eye on traffic.
    Boulder’s Flatirons rose to the west and Nora felt like saluting them. Flaming maples shouted good morning with their deep scarlet leaves contrasting with the golds and oranges of the less showy trees. She loved her town in all its outdoorsy quirkiness. The People’s Republic of Boulder. The land of bicycle commuters, hippies, audacious entrepreneurs. Liberal, green, often downright weird. Right where she belonged.
    Nora’s phone vibrated and she flipped it open.
    “How are you?” Abigail. Again. Loving and smothering were the same in Abigail’s world. It didn’t help that Nora and Abigail were as alike as a Birkin b ag and a North F ace backpack. In Nora’s case, the backpack tended to be smattered with mud and repaired with duct tape.
    “I’m the same as I was fifteen minutes ago, just a little closer to work.” Nora waited at a stoplight on Broadway in downtown Boulder and watched a young woman and man in business suits in earnest conversation. They cross ed the street in front of her, followed by a scuzzy gray-haired guy whose canvas pants barely stayed on his skinny hips. Behind them, two young women pedaled across in spandex biking shorts, colorful jackets , and helmets.
    “What did you decide to wear? Did you pack a lunch? You’re wearing makeup, right?” Despite living in the woods in Flagstaff, Arizona , for the last year, Abigail hadn’t lost her high esteem for appearance. A magician, Abigail managed to look nearly perfect at all times.
    Nora waited at the light. “ T urquoise velour sweatsuit. Sauerkraut and sausage. The darkest, skankiest Goth I could shovel on.” Although Nora wore her copper hair straight around her shoulders, she’d earlier told Abigail she wore a ponytail just to irritate her.
    Abigail exhaled. “No need to get snippy. I’m only concerned.”
    Nora rolled her window down a few inches to smell the fresh morning. “Sorry. I’m nervous. I’m wearing jeans and , sorry to say, not much in the makeup department. As for lunch, Abbey and I will probably take a walk.” Although Nora admired Edward Abbey, he also served as a good excuse to use a name that would forever irritate Abigail Stoddard . Her mother would prefer she ’d named her dog Fido.
    “Jeans! And y ou brought your dog to work? Oh Nora.” Abigail couldn’t sound any more disappointed if Nora wore a bathing suit to a cocktail party.
    “It’s an environmental trust. I’ll be hanging at the office with enviros, not power-lunching with the rich and famous.” She rubbed a pinch of Abbey’s soft hair between her fingers before pulling her hand away to shift gears. “And Abbey will probably sleep on my office floor all day.”
    Abigail’s voice sounded distracted. “I know you were desperate for a job, but that place is not up to your standards.”
    Nora pulled the hatch closed on her emotional cellar. She refused to let Abigail irritate her. “I wasn’t desperate.”
    “If you say so. I’ve told you a hundred times you should have kept more of that money from the Kachina Ski sale instead of setting up that trust for me. In fact, you shouldn’t have set up that trust at all.”
    The money Nora received