Mountain People

By Meredith Rae Morgan

Loretta Russell is a control-freak, MIT-educated internet security expert who reluctantly returns from Silicon Valley to her tiny home town in the mountains of North Carolina to take care of her elderly mother. Jackson Shepherd is an emergency room physician, who also recently returned to his Southern roots after living in the Midwest for several years. They are both struggling to fit in, and being daily reminded of why they left the South in the first place.

When Jackson visits Loretta's mother's bed and breakfast for a weekend break from his hospital routine, he and Loretta discover they are kindred souls. Very soon, they race down the path toward happily-ever-after. Unfortunately, that path is blocked by a vicious attacker, who's out to destroy any hope they have for a life together.

In the spirit of the South rising again, Jackson and Loretta rebuild their lives and find joy in one another and in the mountain wilderness they love. Everything would be perfect, but for the haunting specter of Loretta's worst fear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meredith Rae Morgan
• Release date: May 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476024349

Meredith Rae Morgan

Meredith Morgan is a pseudonym, my professional and online identity. I write novels for and about strong women and self-publish them as eBooks on Smashwords.I was raised in the Midwest but have roots in the Deep South. I have lived in Florida for the past fifteen years. I tend to alternate the settings for my stories between all three places. From that experience, I've discovered that I love Southern women, Midwestern men and I'm fascinated (in a weird and scary kind of way) by the people I've encountered in Florida, most of whom are from other places.Besides writing, my passions are walking the beach, reading and cooking. For a more detailed bio, see my website.A Note from MeredithTo those of you who have taken the time to send emails and/or write reviews: Thank you so very much! I truly appreciate your feedback.Meredith

Book preview

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

by

Meredith Rae Morgan

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Meredith Morgan

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Author's Note: This is a work of fiction. The characters, events and circumstances depicted here are imaginary.

Chapter 1

Honest, Mama, I am happy to help you out. It'll take me a few days to make some arrangements for moving my equipment and subletting my apartment. I can probably be there by next week. Will that be soon enough?

Of course. I have home-care nurses coming in, and you know the neighbors will help out. I mainly want to have you here by early Autumn. I have guests booked several weekends between the end of September and Christmas.

You don't have anybody booked over the summer?

No. I didn't accept reservations for the time I was scheduled for my surgery, and I canceled a few reservations when I ran into complications. Loretta, you have no idea how terrible I feel about asking you to do this.

Mama, I don't want to hear you say that again! I'm your only daughter. You took care of me when I was little. Helping you now is the least I can do. Besides, it's not a big deal for me. I can do my job from anywhere that has Internet access. You do have a fast Internet connection, don't you?

I don't know if it's fast enough for your needs, but I have WiFi throughout the house.

That should be adequate. If it isn't, I'll figure something out. I'll let you know when I will arrive. In the meantime, you can expect a delivery of some large boxes. Do not even try to open them. Have the delivery people put them in the attic room.

You don't need to take the garret. What's wrong with your old room on the second floor?

I loved my old room, but I need more space for my equipment. Besides, you know I always loved to play in the attic anyway. I think I'll just move up there.

It isn't heated or air conditioned.

I hate air conditioning, and I'll get an electric heater when it gets cold.

Loretta's phone beeped and she glanced at the display. Sorry, Mama, I have to go. That's one of my clients on the other line.

Go! I'll talk to you soon.

Take care, Mama. Get better.

Loretta clicked over to the other call, spun her desk chair around and faced an array of monitors mounted on the wall along an eight-foot long library table littered with computers and peripherals. The computer table took up most of one wall in the room. The rest of the room contained only a beat up love seat, a chair with an ottoman and a floor lamp. At one end of the room was the kitchen area. The counter held a microwave, an open pizza box and a half pot of very strong coffee.

Loretta's fingers blazed across the keyboard, and the displays on several monitors ran through a dizzying list of code. Loretta said, Okay, I've got your system up on my monitors. Let me check out what's going on and I'll get back to you. Be patient, and don't worry. I'll take care of this.

For the next several hours, Loretta never took her eyes off the screens, and she never stopped typing. Beads of sweat beaded her brow and began to run down her cheeks. She swiped her face against her shoulders, never taking her fingers from the keyboard. By the time she stopped typing, she was soaking wet, shaking and exhausted. But, she had kicked out the hacker, closed all the holes he had created in the code, and then repaired the damage he had done to her client's website. As a last step, she verified that the hacker had not breached any of the company's encrypted business data that her client had hired her to protect.

She clicked open her phone, and redialed the last number. She was too exhausted to hold it up to her ear, so she turned it on speaker. She told her client the threat had been neutralized and the damage to his website had been repaired. The customer asked what had happened. Loretta told him that there was some seriously porous code in his website, and suggested that if his website designer was that careless, the customer might consider either hiring a new webmaster or paying her to check the code before website updates were posted.

The customer said he'd think about it. She knew he wouldn't follow her recommendations. His webmaster was his nephew who had just graduated from college with some kind of IT-related degree. He was clueless, but he was a family-member who had needed a job, and he worked cheap. The customer was not motivated to spend more on security, especially, when Loretta had managed to fix the problem every time the guy got hacked. She asked him what he'd do the first time somebody actually managed to hack into his business records. The customer told her quite bluntly he'd probably sue her.

She smiled. Her phone system automatically announced that calls were recorded for quality control purposes. She recorded every incoming and out-going phone call. She made a copy of the conversation and sent it to her attorney requesting him to run a conflicts check in case it became necessary to prepare for litigation at some point in the future.

She stood up, stretched, flipped on her answering machine and headed for her bedroom, peeling off her reeking clothes as she walked. After a three minute shower, she returned to her office, with her hair wrapped in a towel, wearing a clean pair of jeans and a tank top, with no bra. She picked up the phone and hit one of her speed-dial numbers, Daniel, I'm calling in that favor you owe me, and it'll even make you some money. She paused and laughed at his response, "No. You know me better than that. I have become neither kind nor generous. My mother just had a hip replacement and has run into some complications. Her recovery is expected to last longer than expected, and there's a possibility she may have to have more surgery. She's asked me to come home and help her run her bed and breakfast for a while. I can do that and keep up with a few of my largest clients, but I can't continue to provide an adequate level of service to all of them.

Therefore, I propose to turn over my smaller clients for you to babysit at least for the next six months or so. You can keep all the money you earn, but you'd better take absolutely stellar care of my customers! I don't want to hear any complaints. She paused, No, I'm not taking you on as a partner. You know I don't play well with others. I'm simply turning over some of my clients to you. It's a win-win situation. It grows your business – which helps you, because you suck at marketing – and it helps me, because I won't have time to take care of all my customers while I'm taking care of my mom and running her business. What do you say?

After a few minutes, she nodded and said, Okay. I'm going to forward my main business phone to your phone, starting immediately. I'll give the clients I'm keeping a new number to use. If you have any problems or need help, call me on my private cell number. You got it? Yeah. I expect to leave within a few days. You're the man in charge of most of my clients now! Thanks. Sometime after six months, I may try to steal them back from you. If you take good enough care of them to prevent me from doing that, the accounts yours for good.

She typed a long email to her most important clients, explaining the situation and providing her personal cell number and email address for their use until she could set up new business accounts.

She knew this arrangement would seriously cut into her income, but while living in her mother's attic in North Carolina, she would not have to pay the exorbitant rent she had been paying for this office/apartment in Silicon Valley. It would also have the advantage of weeding out some of her small PITA customers, allowing her to focus on her best and most profitable accounts. Even better: all four of the accounts she intended to keep were domiciled in the Eastern Time zone, so for the first time in years, she'd be able to live and work in the same time zone. She found herself excited by the prospect of scaling back a bit. Her routine of twenty-hour work days, usually seven days a week had begun to get old.

Besides, she sort of liked the idea of spending some quality time in the mountains after living away for nearly two decades, the last decade of which was spent amidst the noise, traffic and general hassle of life in California.

She feared that her mother probably had very different feelings about Loretta returning to the scene of so many of her crimes. Things must be really bad if Mama was desperate enough to invite her to come home. Loretta refused to allow herself to think about of what the neighbors would say.

She made a few more calls and managed to sublet her apartment on the fourth call. That was not surprising. She had a great location, with excellent lighting and electrical capacity for a lot of computer equipment. While the place was zoned commercial, the landlord wanted the tenant to live in for the purpose of extra security for his jewelry store on the first floor. Several of her colleagues had been angling to take it off her hands for years.

During her calls, Loretta had made arrangements to meet some friends for Thai food that evening. She put on a bra and changed from her tank top to an MIT sweatshirt that was old and faded. She noticed that her elbows showed through the fabric. Loretta knew it was past time to retire the shirt, but she wore it to dinner one last time, for old time's sake. Loretta's manner of dress had the advantage of preventing homeless people from asking her for money because she looked like them. She wouldn't be out of place at dinner, either, because most of her friends didn't dress any better than she did.

On her way to the restaurant, she stopped at an office supply store and ordered up a bunch of packing boxes, bubble wrap and heavy duty tape. The salesman promised to deliver the stuff to her office first thing the next morning.

The group of colleagues she met for dinner consisted of five guys, three of whom were only in their twenties. The other two were – like Loretta – approaching 40, but they looked and acted much younger. Every one of them was a programming wizard, but Loretta was glad to be leaving their midst. She was too close to taking on the role of Wendy Darling to this bunch of Lost Boys.

The group ordered beers and Thai-hot entrees.

Loretta explained her plans, and the guys all told her she was crazy. Most of them were from small towns or suburban areas in the Northeast or Midwest. Not one of them was close to his family. Loretta was an anomaly in her professional circle, both in terms of her gender and her close (if prickly) relationship with her mother. She had not lived at home since she left for college, but she visited for short periods every year or two and talked to her mother on the phone – sometimes for hours – several times a week. Her friends all thought she was making a big mistake moving to the mountains where there was no geek subculture.

Loretta found herself wondering if that might not be a good thing. She'd been a nerd for so long, she wondered if she'd even remember how to behave like a regular Southern gal. Not that she'd ever been any good at that in the first place. As she looked in the mirror of the bathroom while washing her hands before dinner, she grinned. I guess I'm going to have to get my hair styled and buy some makeup! She laughed out loud at the very thought.

Loretta ate her dinner and let the criticism from her colleagues roll off her back. They were men. They were Yankees. They didn't understand, and she'd never be able to explain it, even if she had been inclined to do so, which she was not.

Loretta had never felt it necessary to justify her behavior to anyone for any reason. She consciously decided to ignore the awareness that her independent streak posed a serious obstacle to her integration into a community like Spencer, North Carolina, where everybody knew everybody's business, and nobody had any compunctions about offering opinions about what other people ought to be doing with their time, money, property, kids and even pets. Loretta was not in the habit of worrying about things she couldn't control, and it was too late to turn back now. Her mother needed her and she had decided to go home. She was not one to second guess herself once she'd made a decision.

She paid for her dinner and gave each of her friends a big, Southern-style hug. That was a familiarity they had never experienced before and none of them quite knew how to respond, so they mostly didn't respond at all. Loretta was a little freaked out about doing it, but knew she might as well get back in practice for public hugging and smooching every time she turned around.

Loretta left the restaurant convinced that she was doing the right thing. Maybe. She hoped.

The next day, the office supply store delivered the packing materials, and Loretta spent most of the day packing up her computer equipment for shipping via courier. She called a moving company, and, after she learned what they wanted to charge her to move her personal possessions, she packed her few clothes and personal items in a couple of boxes and labeled them for shipping with the computer equipment. She decided to leave the rest of her meager and pathetic furnishings in the apartment. Her sub-lessee could keep the stuff or throw it out. Most of it had been picked up from the side of the road or purchased from thrift shops anyway.

She called her landlord and explained that she had sublet the apartment through the end of her lease. The landlord groused about that, but there wasn't much he could do. Loretta knew that the landlord would be hard pressed to ever find a tenant who paid the rent as faithfully as she had. She would have felt bad about that, but for the fact that he was such an insufferable jerk who would never fix anything in the apartment. He didn't deserve a good tenant like Loretta. She was leaving him with another decent tenant and a furnished apartment that was cleaner than it had been when she moved it, and in good repair (Loretta paid for most of the maintenance herself). That was better than the empty dump she had moved into fifteen years earlier. She refused to feel guilty.

Having boxed up her computers all but a Netbook, she booked a one-way flight to Asheville for the following day. She called one of her friends, who – as unthinkable as it was for a California resident – did not own a car, and offered to give him her car if he would take her to the airport. He told her he didn't need or want a car. She suggested that he could sell it and keep the money. He asked, You mean to tell me you'll sign over your car to me for a ride to the airport, no strings attached?

That's what I said. You can keep it or you can sell it. It has very low mileage, and I have all of the maintenance records in the glove box.

He accepted her offer. She told him that she would be at his house the following day at 8:00 AM. He groused about having to get up so early. She offered to give the car to someone else. He relented.

That evening, she packed a few personal toiletries in a baggie in her backpack along with her e-reader, Netbook, along with a tee-shirt and change of underwear in case there were flight delays. Then she stuffed all the rest of her personal belongings into a garbage bag and tossed it in the dumpster behind the building.

She had moved out of her family home at age 18 with nothing but a backpack. She was moving back home twenty-odd years later with a dozen boxes of computer equipment, two small boxes of random personal items, and the same backpack.

She called her mother and read off the flight information. Her mother was amazed that Loretta had been able to wrap up her affairs so quickly. Loretta was actually a little freaked out by that, too, but she knew that one of the factors that made her so brilliant at her job was the ability to move fast when the situation called for it. This situation called for her to move quickly, without thinking too much about the ramifications of her actions, so she wouldn't chicken out.

She stopped by her bank and learned that it had a branch in Asheville, so she did not need to move her money. She did virtually all of her banking online anyway. She stopped in a coffee shop for lunch, and fired up her Netbook, locating a car dealership that was not far from the airport in Asheville. She called the number and asked for the sales manager. She asked if he had a late model Honda on the used car lot. He actually had three, and he described them. She selected a silver Civic, and asked him if he could deliver it to the airport the following day. He asked how she proposed to pay for it. She told him to email her the paperwork, which she would sign and email back, with payment via a check card.

He laughed, You're going to pay for a car with a debit card?

Give me the bottom line number – with taxes, title and tags – and I'll transfer the money today.

He promised to call her back shortly. She finished her lunch, paid the bill and walked back to her apartment, where she cleaned out the refrigerator and made one last pass through the drawers and closets searching for personal items she had overlooked. She spread out the things she found on the bed, found nothing she wanted to keep and then put it all into the trash.

That afternoon the guy who was subletting the apartment stopped by to pick up the keys. They ordered pizza and talked for a while, mostly about the care and feeding of the landlord. He was pleased that she was leaving her furniture because he lived in a furnished apartment and did not own any furniture of his own.

The next morning, she tossed her backpack into her car, and drove to her friend's apartment. He was waiting for her. She gave him the keys and the title to the car, which she had signed over to him, and then she hopped into the passenger's seat. When he pulled up in front of the departure entrance, Loretta got out, and called over her shoulder, Thanks for the lift. Take care of Old Betsy. She was half-way through the revolving door before he even finished saying good-bye.

Loretta was not surprised to discover that she was flagged for special security screening, on account of the fact that she had purchased a one-way ticket the day before, and she had checked no luggage. She was used to that. Most of her travel in recent years had been last-minute, emergency trips, and she never checked a bag. She knew some of the special screening people by name. That didn't make the experience any more pleasant.

After she got through security and purchased coffee, she sent her mother an email, letting her know that the flight appeared to be on time and advising that she expected to arrive home early in the afternoon.

As usual with last-minute bookings, Loretta was crammed into the middle seat in a three-seat row. Before leaving home, she had downloaded a dozen or so technical articles to her e-reader, and spent the flight engrossed in algorithms. At one point, she noticed the guy sitting next to her sneak a peak at what she was reading, when he saw the math on the screen, he turned back to the in-flight magazine and didn't say a word the rest of the flight. Loretta smiled inside her mouth. High-level math was more effective than headphones in warding off potential chatterboxes on planes.

The car salesman was waiting at the baggage claim, holding a sign bearing her last name. They completed the paperwork for the transfer of the title and the salesman walked her to the vehicle. She asked him how he planned to get back to the dealership. He was embarrassed to say he hadn't thought about that. He'd never sold a car over the phone before and was a little fuzzy on the details of the process. She motioned for him to get into the passenger's seat. She threw her backpack into the back seat and climbed behind the wheel. After making the necessary seat and mirror adjustments, she pulled out of the garage and asked the salesman to direct her to the dealership. A few minutes later she dropped him off in front of the showroom, and, literally, headed for the hills.

Her destination was Spencer, North Carolina, a tiny town located about half way between Asheville, North Carolina, and Knoxville, Tennessee. The closest Interstate exchange was miles away, and the roads that led through Spencer didn't go anywhere people from outside the area needed to go. It was a sleepy hamlet in the middle of nowhere. Loretta's mother's bed and breakfast was the only business in the area that catered to outsiders, and Loretta knew that her mother barely made enough money to meet expenses. She had a few loyal customers, mostly hikers, birdwatchers and photographers, who visited year after year. Loretta knew that the bed and breakfast was more of a hobby than a business for her mother. She thought that might be a good thing, because it would allow her to spend most of her time running her own business, and the rest of her time hiking in the woods.

She called her mother to let her know that she was on the ground and would be arriving in a couple of hours. Her mother expressed shock that Loretta dropped everything and come home so quickly. Loretta shrugged, It's not that big a deal, Mom. I was renting an apartment. I shipped all my business equipment and personal belongings to your address, and hopped on a plane. Has UPS delivered the packages yet?

Not yet, but they called me this morning to tell me that they were bringing a large delivery later today.

Hopefully I'll be there before they arrive. If they get there before I do, have them haul the boxes up to the attic. Do you have a large table, like a parson's table – we can move up there?

No.

Okay. I'll stop and pick up something. She pulled off the road and used her smart phone to locate the nearest furniture store. She bought two six foot tables that she could assemble herself. The boxes didn't fit in the car, but a service person helped her to carry them to her car and tie them to the roof. Loretta felt like an idiot, and she had to drive very slowly, but she managed to get to Spencer without rolling the car off the side of a mountain – and with the tables still on the roof.

Her mother greeted her at the door, using a walker. Her mother looked so frail! Loretta made a mental note to get her mother out in the fresh air from time to time, even if it involved an argument. It was obvious that her mother's tendency to stay cooped up inside all the time was not helping her recovery.

UPS had delivered her computer equipment a half hour before Loretta arrived. Freddie had asked them to put it in the attic, but had not been able to go up the stairs to make sure the delivery person had put the boxes away carefully. Loretta managed to drag the tables up to the attic one at a time. She verified that the UPS packages appeared to be intact and undamaged. She decided to wait until later to set up the tables and unpack the boxes.

She returned to the first floor, where her mother was heating soup for lunch. Loretta smelled the soup and grinned, Smells like home! Her mother dished up two bowls of soup and cut large squares of corn bread. Loretta suggested that they take their lunch out on the porch to eat in the sunshine. Her mother laughed, What kind of computer nerd is such a sunshine fanatic?

A very rare and unusual nerd. I'm the only geek I know with a nice tan. I've lived in California for years, where you can go outside almost every day. I walk and run and revel in the sunshine. My friends – some of whom are so vampire-ish they never go outside in the daytime – mostly think I'm a freak.

Will you be able to stand it here, what with the rain, fog and cold?

Loretta raised her eyebrows and made straight line with her mouth. I guess time will tell about that. Worst case, I'll buy a treadmill and a sunlamp.

Her mother laughed, but Loretta wasn't kidding.

After lunch, Loretta encouraged her mother to walk out to the road to check the mail. After some argument, her mother agreed to walk to the street – even though the mailman had already delivered the mail to the door. Loretta walked with her mother, who was sweating and exhausted by the time she got back into the house. The home health care nurse had set up a bedroom for Freddie in a room on the first floor by the kitchen. She retreated there immediately for a nap after the exertion of her walk.

That gave Loretta the opportunity to set up shop. It took her a couple of hours to unpack the equipment and arrange it on the tables which she set up by the long wall in the attic. The WiFi connection for the inn was an open and non-secure connection, which would absolutely not serve Loretta's needs. She called the service provider and asked if she could get a second account with a super-secure connection for the same billing address. They were able to do that over the phone, given that the hardware was already installed. Approximately three hours after her arrival, Loretta was back in business. She had received forty emails, which she disposed of in about ten minutes, mostly by forwarding them to the colleague to whom she was transferring her small accounts.

She decided to let him have her email account as well. She forwarded the email from that account to him, and sent him the log-in and password information. Then she set up a new email account and sent her four keeper customers, the new email address to use instead of using her personal address.

After doing what she considered the really important things, Loretta unpacked her clothes, which she knew were totally unsuitable for North Carolina – both because they were too light weight and too crummy. Her mother was going to have a cow when she discovered that Loretta still dressed like she had when she was in college – and mostly in the very same clothes. To forestall arguments, she went online and ordered a couple of pairs of jeans and some tops