A Stone Barn

By Nancy Lynn

A Stone Barn is book one in the Travelers Trilogy.

Years ago, Lynne lost her family in a horrible car crash. Now a successful business woman, she is about to lose her sanity because she has buried her grief too deeply.

Jared has lost his daughter and his wife to disease and suicide. He has dealt with the grief and moves to America in order to start his life anew, only to discover secrets that could ruin the lives of new friends.

Join us on this journey across time and continents, a journey of pain, healing and discovery. With the help of family, friends and a feisty Guardian Angel anyone can learn to live again.

Look for book two, Red Dirt, to come out in 2011.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452096209

Nancy Lynn

A natural born story teller, artist, skilled in most Heirloom Crafts and a damned fine cook, Nancy is a woman of vast experiences. Schooled in Life by Family and Friends, she has kept her sense of humor and courageous outlook on life, forging ahead no matter what life has thrown her way. She has lived in and traveled to many places and has been many things to many people. Once upon a time, she was a Stay-at-Home Mom but life has led her down a different path. Her fondest dream now is to spend the rest of her life doing what makes her happy . . . writing fabulous books!!! Nancy is at home in Arizona. Nancy knows a good story when it comes along and loves to share. Won’t you join her on this journey? Grab a ribbon and climb aboard, you are welcome to come along for the ride!!! You can keep tabs on her at www.nancylynnsbooks.com and emails are welcome at [e-mail] The Traveler’s Trilogy by Nancy Lynn A Stone Barn Red Dirt Passages – coming in 2012

Book preview

PART ONE: Crash & Burn

TO SAY THAT SHE WAS pissed at herself was the understatement of the century. She had been released from the hospital, but was still under the care of an unwanted shrink . . . again. She took a deep breath and tried to relax. The shrink expected her to just accept what happened and ‘move on’.

Right.

Accept what she had become.

Bullshit! Change was what she needed.

Soaking in a hot bubble bath, on the third floor of her over-decorated Brownstone, sucking on a bottle of fine German wine, she allowed herself to reflect on the past few weeks.

The past few years.

1

HER WHOLE LIFE HAD BEEN the ideal, old-fashioned All-American life. A big brother, a little brother, Dad worked to support the family and Mom stayed home to keep them all in line. They all went to church every Sunday and attended vacation bible school in the summer.

She did well in high school and was accepted to every college to which she applied. She was a fairly good-looking, reasonably intelligent woman and falling madly in love with the man of her dreams during college hadn’t been too hard.

She never had any burning desire to be anything in particular. Her college degree was Environmental Management, but she never had any real plans for what to do with her life. She got married, she worked at the local Parks and Recreation Office, but she never felt fulfilled.

Then she had kids. BOOM! She found her niche. Raising three children and keeping house for her breadwinner suited her just fine. B.C. (Before Children), she tried the workplace and discovered she hated working for other people. So running a family – being her own boss – worked out just fine. Once the kids were school age, she volunteered at the schools and in the community when she wanted to, said no when she didn’t.

She and her husband loved doing things with the kids – museums, hiking, art shows, fishing. But they also loved doing things without the kids. Museums, hiking, art shows, fishing. Or just plain nothing. One thing that always made them crazy were people who felt that every hour of every day had to be totally structured. People who were so involved in everything that you needed to make an appointment just to see if they wanted to go to the local sports bar for a few drinks. People who were constantly driving their kids to some kind of sporting event or music lesson or dance class, then hurrying themselves off to aerobics classes and PTA meetings. People whose day was so structured that they couldn’t live without a Dayrunner and a Palm Pilot.

Sitting and doing nothing every once in a while was kind of fun. Once a week they had a family night – they ordered pizza and watched TV or a movie together, sometimes played a board game. It gave the brain a chance to rest and gave people a chance to get to know the person sitting on the couch with them. And the kids seemed to actually enjoy not always being off to some activity. Not to be constantly occupied, entertained, told what to do and how to do it. Sure, they were involved in some activities, but not every minute of every day. They enjoyed having to use their own imaginations and occupy their own time. The house had been full of the products of those imaginings: homemade clay pots, popsicle stick structures, paper mache animals. Kid artwork was proudly displayed alongside art gallery pieces.

For nearly twenty years, her life and all its joys had sailed smoothly along.

Until one day a drunken truck driver altered the course of her life forever. Robert, age 42; Shanna, age 15; Phillip, age12; and Andrew, age 10, ceased to exist. And Lynne, age 40, was forced to learn to live life all over again.

She lost her All-American status.

2

RISING OUT OF THE NOW tepid bath water, Lynne cursed the inability of the water molecule to remain hot once heated. Then she saw her toes.

Harry, you’d think with as many therapeutic bubble baths as I’ve been taking lately, my toes would have built up a tolerance to prunyness!

Harry, being the sedate, middle-aged gentleman that he was, stuck his elegant tail up in the air and strolled out of the room. He couldn’t be bothered with the babblings of a bothersome human. He had been lying on Lynne’s bath towel, so when she picked it up and started drying off, she found herself covered with his long black and white hairs.

HARRY!

Harry pulled that most infamous of cat tricks and disappeared into thin air.

Once she succeeded in rinsing the cat hairs off her body, she grabbed a clean towel, checking it first for unwanted fibers. While drying herself, she gazed around her bathroom. Her very elegant bathroom. Lots of mirrored surfaces, shiny brass fixtures and black and white marble flooring were not her idea of homey.

Why did I ever let that interior decorator have her own way, she thought.

When Lynne received her first big management promotion, she’d rewarded herself for a job well done by turning a high-priced interior decorator loose on the three-story brownstone in which she now lived. The woman’s claim to fame was that she didn’t need her customers to tell her exactly what they wanted. She said that she could tell exactly what your tastes were and what you wanted just by having lunch with you a couple of times.

So the lady claimed. And lunch was always on the customer. Lynne realized that during those lunches, she had never mentioned her previous life. The decorator only saw the 40ish professional woman who had hired her. An upwardly mobile, mid-level management workaholic whose day was so structured that she couldn’t live without a state of the art Blackberry.

No wonder this place looks nothing like the house Robert and I were raising our children in.

What the Brownstone became was very elegant, very shiny, and very expensive. The brass-fixture-lots-of-mirror-marble-floor look prevailed throughout the house. The furniture was mostly pale shades of blues and greens with metallic accents in upholstery that did not invite one to sit down. It was also very hard to keep clean. It kept Tatiana, her three-day-a-week housekeeper, busy keeping all that expensive shine shiny. And her only roommate was Harry.

One of those shiny mirrors was now reflecting back a woman on whom life had been a bit rough. Permanent frown lines between her eyebrows made strangers think she never smiled. People who claimed to know her thought she never truly smiled. What most people didn’t know was that those lines appeared the moment she opened her front door to a state trooper eight years ago. So, now they were permanent. So, there you have it.

Beneath, she found blue eyes with long, dark lashes she could still be proud of. The beginnings of crows feet but, what the hell, she was 48! Around her mouth were laugh lines that were acquired while she had been living her all-American life. That pleased her. Something left over. Besides family photos, there wasn’t much she had kept.

In a fit of depression two months after her family was killed, she had called an auctioneer and told him to sell everything in the house he could. Then she packed up her clothes, her favorite pieces of jewelry, all the photos and left for a month. When she came back, the house was empty except for the kitchen appliances and a few pieces of kid art on the refrigerator: flowers made of hand prints and a self portrait in charcoal that Shanna had done in art class that year. She would regret that forever. She sold the house and left.

The rest of her reflection revealed a body in fairly good shape. She had never been slender, always curvy. So, the outside looked to be in pretty good shape for now. That meant she could concentrate on getting the inside straightened out. Mainly the part between her ears, and the cold lump that was her heart.

Slipping into her favorite red cotton gauze caftan and grabbing what was left of her wine, Lynne was unable to close off all the memories that came flooding through the proverbial gates. That was the thing about memories. Once they started, one always led to another. Her Mom always said that memories went hand in hand, the bad with the good.

When that state trooper had showed up at her door to give her the bad news about her family, her heart instantly and irreparably shattered into a million pieces. She had ranted and raved in her anguish until her family physician introduced her to Valium. The I don’t care pill. She tried to learn to deal with her loss, with the help of her first shrink and more pills. That helped her enough so that she could sleep and exhaustion wasn’t a problem, but hadn’t done much else for her.

She went to Shrink #1 for a couple of months, but that didn’t feel like it was really helping. It seemed to Lynne as if all he could do was mutter meaningless phrases like humm, I see and oh dear, isn’t that too bad and well, what do you think and worst of all I can understand. The last time she went to him was just before she called the auctioneer.

Always, there in the background, were her parents. First with their presence, then with their phone calls. Robert’s parents came, stayed for the funeral, then found they couldn’t stay any longer. They didn’t deal very well at all with the deaths of their oldest son and only grandchildren. They kept in touch, but less and less often until keeping in touch was reduced to exchanging birthday and Christmas cards.

But her parents had always been there with whatever kind of support was needed. Whether it was a shoulder to cry on or a stern admonition to get a grip, they always seemed to know what was needed.

What Lynne needed right now was to deal with her current problem. She had been working on setting up a profitable new support contract with a company run by three men who seemed unable to deal with the realities of the corporate world. It was frustrating her beyond belief and one day during a telephone conference she lost control. Her usual composure deteriorated into an emotional outburst that sent everybody running from her office. She threw the phone against the wall, breaking the connection. Everything went flying off her desk in one sweep of her arm. But it was when she picked up a silver coffeepot and threw it out her office window that Lynne’s secretary had called for assistance.

Her parents knew she suffered an emotional breakdown. Ruth and Harvey Nichols were listed as her In Case of Emergency contacts on her employee records. Lynne’s secretary called them immediately after the ambulance left the corporate headquarters with Lynne as the star passenger. Ruth and Harvey then called Lynne’s two brothers and by the time the sedatives wore off and she woke up in the hospital, her support team was in place. But because she had been admitted for a psychiatric problem, professional psychiatric assistance was in order. Shrink #2 deemed family support secondary in importance and he sent them home.

So, Lynne began a relationship with Shrink #2 and the new drug of choice: Prozac. The Happy as a Clam pill. Fortunately, it was only a two-day hospital visit. Once her psychiatric evaluation was done and it was determined that she was no longer a threat to anyone, she was released with the confirmation that she would continue her counseling with Shrink #2 and attend a posh Corporate Stress Reduction Retreat. She hated that she was once again having to put up with unwanted professional help, but there seemed to be nothing she could do about it. And there was no one to blame but herself.

On Lynne’s release, she was soon enveloped back into her family support cocoon. They wrapped her up and took her home to her shiny, elegant brownstone. They pampered and comforted her, but the time had come to leave for the Retreat and it came time to release her family support team and go it alone.

There was something she needed to work out on her own.

The Prozac went towards making the sewer rats happy.

Standing in her mirrored and marbled bedroom gazing out at her view of the city, Lynne prepared to put her life back together.

Again.

3

THE DRIVE UP TO THE Retreat turned out to be relaxing in itself. Lynne took her own car – no worrying about handling a strange car. One less thing to worry about. Her part-time housekeeper, Tatiana, a 50ish woman with no family, had agreed to stay in the brownstone full-time while Lynne was gone so Harry wouldn’t have to go to a kitty kennel. Harry and Tatiana got along well, so there was another thing not to worry about.

The Brownstone. Funny how I never think of it as home.

Looking out at the surrounding scenery Lynne realized that by immersing herself in city life she had forgotten how much she enjoyed the mountains, especially in the autumn. She found herself remembering the names of the trees as she drove along. Brilliant crimson were the maples. Burgundy and mahogany were the oaks. Larches turn yellow and drop their needles. The forever greens of the many varieties of pine trees, with a shock of red from Virginia creepers and wild grapes interlaced in some of the branches were a sight for city sore eyes. The wild apple trees, with their fruit heavy branches, were a temptation to stop and taste. God bless Johnny Appleseed! Then there were all the myriad of bushes and undergrowth, echoing the vibrant tones of the trees. God bless Mother Nature!

I wonder if they serve apple pie at this retreat.

As she drove higher into the mountains, the autumn color gave way to permanent green, and leftover patches of early snow started appearing in the shady spots. The brochure for the retreat said that it sits at an elevation of 3,800 feet, overlooking a valley of hardwood and evergreens.

Must be getting closer.

Just then, coming around a corner, there it was. Just like in the brochure. It poked up through the trees in all its three story, manmade splendor. It was very elegant, kind of like a small Versailles, right down to the circular drive. But it didn’t blend in with its surroundings at all. Elegant manmade splendor plopped down amid the elegant natural splendor of the mountains. It just didn’t mix.

Lynne pulled up to the front entrance. Sure enough, valet parking. Both the valet, who took her keys, and the porter helping her with her bags were strapping young men eager to please with an eye on making big tips.

Great. Out of pocket expenses she muttered, doling out the appropriate amount to the valet.

Walking into the lobby, she suddenly felt under-dressed. The khaki slacks and cardigan sweater she wore seemed out of place and she wondered if the Retreat’s interior designer was the same one she had used: marble flooring, gold toned shiny surfaces as accents, off white walls with a piece of artwork every once in a while and upholstered furniture in shades of greens and wheat. No wood accents that suggested a mountain retreat. Instead, it was the corporate world brought to the mountains.

Lynne assumed that mountain retreat meant casual dress. So that was what she had brought. Casual. Granted, it was all right out of an LL Bean catalog, but it was still just casual.

And, judging by the way the desk clerk was looking down her nose at Lynne, casual wasn’t good enough.

May I help you, Madam? Turned Up Nose asked.

Lynne took a business card out of her gold engraved cardholder and handed it to the desk clerk. I’d like to check in.

As Turned Up Nose checked Lynne’s reservations, her face became more and more pleasant until finally, when she handed Lynne her key card for her room, Turned Up Nose had become Purrface.

Do you have a name? Lynne asked. She noticed that so far, none of the staff wore nametags. The only thing that distinguished them as staff members was the similar clothing they wore: Dark green vests, black slacks, white dress shirts and monotone ties.

Yes Ms. Simms, the clerk purred, all smiles now. I’m Jeanine. Just let me know if there is anything I can do for you to make your stay with us more enjoyable. Anything at all.

I just bet Lynne thought, with an equally pasty smile on her face.

Following the still nameless porter to her room, Lynne could feel the tension building in her neck and shoulders. You can deal with this, she told herself. These people just work here and have no effect on your life whatsoever. And they can just learn to live with casual.

Do you have a name, young man?

Yes Ma’am, I’m Neal.

Why don’t any of you wear a nametag?

It’s staff policy Ma’am. Keeps things on a corporate level. Here’s your room.

Inserting her keycard to open the door of her room, Lynne looked Neal the Porter in the eye.

Please inform your supervisor that I find it extremely bothersome to have to ask the staff members their names. If he isn’t going to have any of you wear nametags, the least he can do is to teach you all how to introduce yourselves!

A dumbfounded Neal followed Lynne into her room and placed her bags on the floor. Lynne simply stood there with her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. It didn’t take Neal the Porter long to figure out that there would be no tip, so he excused himself and softly shut the door on his way out.

Lynne glanced away from the door and found herself looking at another reflection in a large gold framed mirror. It wasn’t the woman in the mirror she was looking at, but rather the room behind her.

Turning slowly Lynne noticed that, yes, it was mirrored and marbled. But the shiny was toned down with marvelous shades of rose accented with creams yummy enough to eat and muted greens in the upholstery of the furniture that harmonized with the view out the bank of windows on the back wall of her . . . suite.

It wasn’t your basic hotel room, but a comfortable suite of rooms. The one she was standing in was large enough to hold a business meeting in, with small groupings of furniture set around the room. There was a small dining table set up next to a wet bar that looked very well stocked. She spotted a double door next to the bar, and going through it, found herself in a very comfortable bedroom done in the same colors as the sitting room with a four poster king sized bed right in the middle. There were even bed curtains.

This might not be so bad after all.

Lynne continued on into the bathroom and decided that she could deal with anything they threw at her here, for there in front of her was the largest clawfooted Victorian bathtub she had ever seen in her life. Next to it was a wash stand with an incredible assortment of candles, bubble bath and bath oils.

There is a God, and he loves me. And next to the wash stand was a large basket of the fluffiest towels in the world. Too bad Harry isn’t here, Lynne thought, smiling to herself.

Lynne walked back out into the main sitting room, going over to the wall of windows, and discovered that one of them was a door. She opened that and walked out onto a private deck the size of the living room in her brownstone. Off to one side of the deck was an enclosed hot tub, on the other side was a large umbrella table with six cushioned deck chairs. Walking over to the railing, there were steps down to the ground. Lynne found herself looking out at nature in all its glory.

The famous view of the valley, as promised.

What a place to reduce stress she told the view. The company was paying for everything, and the VP that she worked for had told her that if all were successful, her job would be waiting for her. In other words, if Shrink #2 decided that her time at stress reduction camp had been to her benefit, he would sign off on her psychological profile report and Lynne could get back to making herself crazy again.

I wonder if it’ll all be worth it.

Going back to work at the same place and the same pace was part of the equation, and now she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted. It was a decision Lynne was going to have to make by the time she left the retreat. In the mean time, she was going to enjoy the already paid for king sized bed and bathtub.

Lynne walked back inside, intending to carry her bags into the bedroom and unpack, when there was a knock at her door. Oh goody, another unnamed employee expecting a tip. She walked over, opened the door and Bingo, found a no nametag young woman standing there.

Hello, I’m Marcy. I’ll be your Activities Assistant while you’re staying with us. I’ve brought your personalized schedule, and thought it might be a good time to go over everything with you.

Please come in. At least you have the good manners to introduce yourself. Lynne indicated a group of comfortable chairs by the window for them to sit at and led the way. You didn’t waste any time. I haven’t yet had time to unpack.

Sitting down, Lynne noticed that Marcy was making notes of some kind on her clipboard. Probably a reminder note to tell the other staff members that the lady in Suite 3 is a bit bitchy.

I’m sorry if it seems like I’m rushing you, but the doctor that referred you to us set up very specific activities for you to participate in. The first activity begins at 7:30 this evening, after dinner. Dinner is served at 6pm. I’d like to remind you that we dress for dinner here. Your table is in the west wing dining room just down the hall.

Marcy. I hate to bust your bubble, but the only activity I intend to participate in this evening is a light snack served here in my room, followed by a lengthy bubble bath and a good night’s sleep in that gorgeous bed in there in order to rid myself of the grime and stress of driving several hours to get here! Lynne was beginning to get a bit miffed, and her frustration level went up when Marcy put her clipboard down on the table and looked at her like she was a child who had just told her mother she wouldn’t eat her spinach. Marcy was at least 15 years younger.

Lynne. . .

You can call me Ms. Simms.

All right. Ms. Simms. The schedule that your doctor set up for you is not negotiable. It is set up for your benefit. You were sent to us for a reason and we intend to make sure that reason is gone when you leave us in two weeks. We here at the Retreat would like nothing better than for you to leave here as a happy and mentally healthy corporate executive. The schedule is set, everything is paid for, and it is to your benefit to cooperate.

You make this sound like some kind of . . . of . . . boot camp!

Not at all, Ms. Simms. When you checked in at the desk and signed your patient forms, you were agreeing to follow the regime set up for your benefit. Marcy was now on her feet, ready for a fight. Cooperation just. . .

I didn’t sign any form at the front desk.

What? The wind seemed to go out of Marcy’s sail.

I said, I didn’t sign any form. The only thing I signed was the guest registration card. And as a guest of this establishment, I’m going to order a snack from room service, take a nice long bubble bath to soak off the tension from the conversation we are having, and get a good night’s sleep. You can leave my activity schedule on the table. I’ll go over it while I’m eating and let you know in the morning which activities I’ll be participating in.

Marcy was now totally at a loss as to how to handle this new situation.

I’m sorry Ms. Simms, but we don’t allow room service for the evening meal. We prefer our guests to eat dinner in a social atmosphere.

Fine. I’ll go over my activity schedule in the dining room and let you know in the morning what activities I’ll be participating in.

Marcy just stood there.

Hello. What part of that last statement didn’t you understand?

That seemed to snap Marcy out of her trance. She handed Lynne the packet that she had been holding, presumably the activity schedule in question, picked up her clipboard and walked to the door. I’ll have to talk to my supervisor about this. It’s highly irregular. Are you sure you didn’t sign any forms?

I’m sure I didn’t sign any forms.

With that Marcy left, looking as if she had just eaten a worm and was not quite sure how to describe the taste. Actually, that was also how Lynne felt. I wonder how peaceful my sociable dinner is going to be? Looking at her watch, Lynne saw that it