Mountain Shadows

By Eva Maxwell

Thirty-year-old Lelia Snyder is devastated when her aunt Tressie dies after a battle with ALS; now shes the last living member of her family, and she feels truly alone. Even so, she manages to find joy in starting her life over, thanks to the generous inheritance Tressie has left her.

Life only gets better for Lelia when she meets a blond Adonis named Jason Ferguson. The honeymoon is planned, and everything seems perfectuntil Lelia discovers a shocking truth about Jason. She flees her home, driving frantically into a blinding winter blizzard and losing her way on a narrow mountain road. An avalanche of snow and rock then pushes her vehicle over the edge of a cliff, burying her in a grave of snow. But Lelia is not ready to die.

Trevor Howard rescues Lelia and cares for her in his mountain cabin. As she awakes in his bed and looks into his smoldering gray eyes, she knows the two will never part. When Leila and Trevor return home, they reach new heights in their sensuous discovery of each otheronly to find the demons of death have stalked them from the their idyllic mountain retreat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781458211057

Eva Maxwell

Eva Maxwell earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration and worked as a telemetry technician for many years. Maxwell now writes full-time and is working on a second novel. She and her family live in the mountains of upper east Tennessee.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

T HE ROAD WAS hardly more than an overgrown track cut into the rocky side of the rugged mountain terrain. There was barely enough space for one vehicle to navigate, let alone two, to pass. The upper side of the road, having been cut into the side of the mountain, was profuse with small trees and scrub bushes growing out of the rocky ground at impossible angles hanging over the roadway. The lower side was a sheer drop off of the mountainside.

There was an abundance of white pine, oak, and maple trees growing stately out of the murky blackness that was the lower side of the mountain casting ghostly shapes reaching to the inky sky. Limb’s appeared as specters heavily laden with snow and ice, blowing in a restless dance to some unheard orchestra being played by the wind.

There were streams full of water from the torrential rains now turned to snow running across the road at irregular intervals disappearing over the lower edge falling down the steep incline into the impenetrable darkness. The currents were so strong in places that the truck seemed to float across them, lurching dangerously close to the edge of the road.

There was absolutely no moonlight or stars showing through the trees, bent under the weight of the heavy snow over the road to form an arch, reminding Lelia sentimentally of a Christmas card scene. The darkness was so complete that the headlights were only effective for a few feet directly in front of the lumbering vehicle.

The snow was coming down so heavily that the windshield wipers were only partially effective. The snow was sticking on the windshield above and below the wiper line, leaving only a small portion clear enough to see to drive.

The truck was moving at a snail’s pace, the rear wheels spinning and slipping before digging through the snow, slush, and ice to reach gravel to grip, moving forward a few feet, only to repeat the process.

Lelia could feel the elevation of the mountain climbing steeper with each passing mile because the truck was having more and more difficulty finding hold on the slippery, winding road.

The wind was blowing the snow in swirling blasts against the truck. The defroster was not working properly either, only the bottom half of the windshield was clear. The added burden of snow accumulating on the hood along with the inaccessible area that windshield wipers couldn’t reach had most of her vision obscured. When Leila tried to wipe the window clear with her gloved hand, she discovered that it was not moisture clouding her vision, but a thin layer of ice.

What was she going to do? She couldn’t stop on the side of the mountain, as deep as the snow was she would never get enough traction to start the truck going forward again and she couldn’t back down the winding road because her vision was totally nil. Even if she could see to back down the road she knew she would never be able to back what must be at least twenty or so miles she had come, let alone control the vehicle on such a slippery dangerous road. Some of the curves were so sharp that the truck seemed to bend double to move around them.

Lelia glanced around the cab of the truck to see if she could find something to use to help clear the windshield. Maybe her father had left an ice scraper or a can of spray defroster that he liked so much in the glove compartment. She reached across the seat to press the button releasing the small door, keeping one eye on the road and the other one on the task. When the latch suddenly gave way the door came open and the very thing she was looking for fell onto the open compartment door.

Well, I guess things are looking up for me, Lelia said, the sound of her voice was reassuring to her in the lonely silence of the night.

When she had retrieved the orange plastic ice scraper she straightened up in her seat in time to see a low hanging tree branch broken loose by the raging winds, which seemed to be growing in force by the minute, heading straight towards her truck. She couldn’t swerve to miss the wildly twisting missile or she would go off the cliff side of the mountain. As fast as that thought crossed her mind the branch hit the grill of the truck and became lodged under the vehicle, being dragged noisily along the snow covered road.

Lelia hadn’t realized that she was gripping the steering wheel so tightly until she released her grip somewhat in order to scrape a wider portion of the windshield. Her cold hands were actually hurting because of the amount of pressure she had been exerting to control the truck. On and on she drove at a snail’s pace clutching the steering wheel while scraping the clouded windshield, the physical strain and tension taking its toll on her. Fatigue was causing her to become so weak that her tenuous hold on the wheel was slipping at times.

The wind was growing stronger and colder, buffeting the vehicle closer and closer to the edge of the mountain road in places. The chilling wind was coming into the truck around the doors and windows making Lelia’s breath materialize in small frosty puffs of white clouds.

By now, Lelia had to admit to herself what a hazardous situation she was in. Not only was she lost but she was running out of fuel. She had to think of something soon or she would surely freeze to death.

There was no road signs posted anywhere. It was as if this road didn’t exist. Come to think of it, Lelia didn’t remember seeing any lights shining through the trees that would indicate the presence of occupied houses. Lelia had been informed by the real estate agent that most of the residents of this particular mountain community were not in residence this time of year, the exceptions being a few ski enthusiasts who took advantage of the skiing on the neighboring mountain slopes, newly develop to lure the eastern sports enthusiasts away from the bigger resorts in the western states.

A few people just enjoy the isolation and quiet of being snowed in for weeks at a time. Lelia was hoping that there was some of the latter to be found before the gas was completely gone, but on and on she drove, hope becoming non-existent that she would find a house with or without the welcoming sign of lights indicating people in residence. At least if she could find a house she could turn in the drive and coast down the mountain to the highway and maybe obtain aid from the Highway Patrol or even a road clearing crew would have enough extra gas to help a stranded motorist reach a service station. If she was lucky, she thought, maybe the house would have people inside with a nice warm fire and hot coffee they wouldn’t mind sharing with a stranger. Maybe they would even let her spend the night before she had to start the arduous trip down the mountain, that is of course, with proper directions this time!

Lelia thought about her journey so far, where had she made the wrong turn? She thought she had followed the directions the realtor had given her but, she knew in her heart that she had taken a wrong turn somewhere, but where? All she knew for certain was that she was lost in the vast Cherokee National Forest somewhere in Tennessee with an almost empty gas tank. How to find a way out?

The minutes continued to slowly roll by. The illumination from the truck headlights swung eerily over the road like a disjointed creature looking for a home. The road was so crooked that it was virtually impossible to see clearly for more than a few seconds before the headlights were swinging in another direction, as the truck followed the narrow, winding track, weaving carefully to miss fallen debris.

The surrounding landscape was getting darker and darker by the minute, making visibility worse than ever because along with the snow coming down heavier and faster than earlier, the tree cover was becoming more dense. The canopy of trees laden with the heavy mantle of white was bent almost double under the enormous weight, making some of the limbs scrape across the top of the truck and camper. The sounds made by these and of the limbs and ice on the bottom of the truck dragging along the snow drifted road where an odd combination of metal straining and wood breaking. All this noise, combined with the fact that the dash lights had now gone out leaving only the headlights working properly, were stretching Lelia’s nerves near the breaking point. With all the mechanical things going wrong how long would it be before the headlights followed the example of the rest and quit working too?

Besides having to fight fatigue and anguish, Lelia was becoming more and more resigned. She had to face facts and admit that she was getting really scared for the first time in her life; she didn’t like the feeling one little bit.

Lelia went over the dilemma in her mind for the hundredth time. It seemed like, hoping against hope that she would come up with a solution that she might have overlooked for the past several hours. She became conscious of a distant rumbling sound as if it might be originating higher on the mountain. As this thought registered in her weary brain a myriad of rocks ranging in sizes as large as four feet in diameter to as small as her fist bounced onto the road in front of her barely missing the truck, their downward momentum taking them off the lower side into the dense darkness. She could hear the boulders crashing into trees, the groan of wood as it splintered and the rustling of branches as they were stopped in the fall to earth by trees in close proximity to them.

Just when Lelia thought she had reached the summit of the mountain, there was a sudden change in the wind. Where before it had seemed to be at a constant speed, now it was raging, pushing at the truck as if it were angry, causing it to slide farther, the heavy snow falling from the trees above landing with loud thuds completely obscuring her vision for several seconds at a time. The snow seemed to be tearing through the air like needles, hitting the windshield then seeming to disappear into the air.

The increased volume of freezing air was pushing its way into the vehicle around the doors and windows as if it were an open car faster than Lelia could scrape the frost left in its wake. She was freezing; her hands and feet were so numb she could no longer feel them.

With the interior lights off, all she could see was the red needle indicator on the gas gauge laying at attention over the even REDDER E.

Lelia, chewing her lip nervously, thought if this was the summit then she could still coast off the mountain as she had considered doing earlier, only now in the opposite direction than she had contemplated before. She also realized it was going to be harder than ever to drive the truck with virtually no brakes and the steering restricted because all the power was cut off from them when the engine was no longer running, but that didn’t matter now. She had to get off of this mountain before she froze to death. Visions of news stories telling about people having died or lost lambs because of frostbite and hypothermia flashed through her mind’s eye. This had to work, it just had to.

The road seemed to level out, for about half a mile there was a downward incline ending in a hairpin curve. Lelia breathed a sigh of relief when the truck began to pick up a little speed without sputtering for the first time in hours. Everything was going to be all right now.

Suddenly, several things began to happen at once. The ground underneath the truck seemed to become spongy and more slippery; holes, or was it rocks, were everywhere; the old truck began to make snapping and creaking noises as if it were breaking apart.

What was that? The fleeting light from the headlights wouldn’t allow her to determine what was covering about a quarter of the road. The distant rumbling sound was growing in volume by the minute. What was it and where was it coming from?

The failing motor finally ran out of life, the lights began to dim when this happened, but fortunately the truck still moved on due to the downward incline. Maybe, just maybe, the lights would last until she got back to the highway.

The earth started to fall away from the bank slowly at first, and then the momentum increased bringing trees, rocks, snow and ice. The truck was being pulled over the side of the mountain. Leila tried in vain to stop the movement of the truck by using the brakes, but that was ridiculous she thought in the same second as she applied her entire weight to the pedal. There was no longer firm ground under the wheels.

She could feel the rocks that had the force of missiles as they struck the truck that shuddered and lunged at their impact. Would it be safer to stay inside or should she try to get out?

A second later the decision was taken from her hands. Suddenly the world went black as the truck was totally engulfed by partially frozen mud and uprooted trees, the road finally giving away with the added burden. At that instant, the truck began a downward descent of no return rolling over and over with nature’s angry forces pushing it to its final destruction.

Lelia tried to cover her head with her hands as the truck began to hit trees, snapping them under the weight of the vehicle, tons of earth, rocks, water, snow and ice, the whole picking up force as they rolled.

The last coherent thought on Lelia’s paralyzed mind was a prayer, Please God, don’t let me die, then total nothingness as the roof of the vehicle finished caving in on her.

CHAPTER I

L ELIA WAS BORN to parents in their middle years having been fitted into their hectic careers. Mary and William Snyder were professors teaching at the state University in nearby Boonville. Her mother had always had numerous problems with her health and especially with her respiratory system and died of pneumonia when Lelia was only twelve, leaving Lelia and William Snyder, her devoted father, alone in a big two-story colonial house that had been her mother’s pride and joy. About two months after Mary’s death, William’s sister, Tressie was suddenly widowed, her husband dying of a heart attack. Rather than living alone she sold her home and came to stay with them.

Tressie was a wonderful, intelligent, loving woman. She had never been blessed with children of her own so she doted on Lelia, loving her as the daughter she never had and Lelia came to love her as much as the mother she had lost.

Tressie and her husband John had owned a large department store and operated it together before his death, but when he died Tressie handed the operation of the store over to the assistant manager, who was a boyhood friend of both Tressie and John. This left Tressie free to devote her time, energy and love to her brother and niece, knowing their loss as well as her own. Tressie was lucky in her choice of managers because Bert Martin was both honest and loyal to her. He operated the store as if it were his own and always kept Tressie advised as to any important decisions needing to be made, seeking her counsel as to the disposition of these matters. But for all intents and purposes Tressie no longer had much to do with the store other than the normal weekly shopping trip or to help when the store was shorthanded to handle some of the work of inventory. At times, which were rare, she would also sit in on tax meetings just to keep up with her investments.

Lelia had a wonderful, if somewhat lonely childhood, full of love and devotion, being the center of the elderly William and Tressie’s lives. Lelia had a quick intelligence and progressed at an amazing speed. Several years her abilities helped her to skip grades, making her father and aunt very proud, but the joy and pride this brought to them also resulted in Lelia being a virtual outcast during her school career. Making friends proved to be difficult if not impossible. The other children her age were intimidated by her being in a higher grade than them, and the children that were in the same grade level as she were older and didn’t share any of the same interest as she. As a result of this natural if not easy breach of companionship with her peers, Lelia spent the greater part of her spare time with her small family. In essence William and Aunt Tressie were not only her family but her best and only friends, accepting and loving her for the unique person she was.

Lelia was never included in the normal range of childhood growing activities missing many experiences such as parties, dances and hour long phone calls as young women do as they grow to young adults. As a result of this lack of peer association her interests ran in other directions. She soaked up knowledge like a sponge, but her total absorption of books left out the commonsense side of her natural learning process. In essence, Lelia had missed virtually the most important part of her childhood and in some areas she was still a child trying to learn in an adult world.

When Lelia began college she elected to stay-at-home, commuting to school daily rather than taking a room at the dorm as most of the girls did, testing their wings in the adult world for the first time with no parental supervision. Lelia graduated from college at an accelerated speed with a degree in philosophy. Despite numerous offers for continued education in various fields she turned them all down choosing to stay at home living happily, if not excitedly, with her loved ones.

Lelia’s life went on for the next few years a mundane study of totally uneventful but contented days. It was a standard pattern. She would help her aunt Tressie with the housework, her father in his garden and read everything she could find. She just loved to read.

Then it happened without warning, the beginning of the end of her normal life. One bright spring morning when Lelia was twenty-five her father went out to work in his garden before breakfast as was his habit on beautiful sunny days. When Tressie ask Lelia to call her father in for breakfast, he didn’t answer. Lelia went in search of him thinking he was so absorbed in his hobby that he had not heard their calls. What she found was something so devastating to her that she all but collapsed herself. Her father was lying where he must have fallen in his rose garden, the oppressive fragrance of the crushed roses was a macabre pall hanging heavily over the scene, William’s frail body twisted and drawn at unbelievable angles. His eyes were rolled back in their sockets as if drawn there by some invisible string. He had suffered a massive stroke which left him totally paralyzed complicated by slurred speech, but his mind was for the most part still alert and intact.

Lelia and Aunt Tressie decided to care for William at home for as long as possible. Although it was a silent acknowledgment it was still felt by both that when the three of them were separated, their lives would move to another sphere that could never be reversed.

For the next two years Lelia and Tressie cared for the failing William. One morning exactly two years and one day after William’s stroke, Lelia went to her father’s room to share breakfast with him and found that sometime during the night, her father had gone quietly to be with his beloved Mary. A smile curved his twisted mouth, his body laying in a semblance of his once proud posture.

Lelia and Tressie tried not to grieve both knowing that William was truly happy for the first time since he was widowed, but their personal feelings got in the way when it intruded on the loss of their loved one.

After William’s death, Lelia half-heartedly suggested to her aunt that it was time for her to start looking for a job, but aunt Tressie was adamant in her refusal to listen to such a thing, stating in her matter of fact way that Lelia and she had adequate income to live on. She said they only had a few years left to enjoy their lives together and when she passed on to her reward there would be plenty of time for Lelia to find employment.

Having been diagnosed several years past with the disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, Aunt Tressie seemed to lose the will to live with the progression of the disease, especially with Williams death. ALS is a degenerative neurologic disease characterized by atrophy or loss of the muscle tissue. The old zest for life and constant activity was gone. As her leg, arm and hand muscles began to weaken she became less and less mobile causing her to become more dependent on Lelia. She seemed to feel she had outlived her own time and no matter what activity Lelia suggested, aunt Tressie found an excuse to sit in her chair by the window, gazing for long hours out at the rose garden William had so loved.

After Lelia’s thirtieth birthday celebration in late September, aunt Tressie retired early pleading exhaustion complicated with a cold coming on. The next morning Lelia prepared a sumptuous breakfast tray complete with a beautiful late blooming yellow rose from her father’s garden taking it to her room as usual. Knocking on the door she went right in not waiting for an answer and found that her aunt, like her brother William, had died quietly during the night of an apparent heart attack. As Lelia stood looking lovingly at her aunt, she felt the total desolation of loneliness for the first time in her life. With Aunt Tressie’s death her entire small family unit had vanished, leaving behind in its wake the many warm memories of laughter, love and belonging that would support and strengthen Lelia throughout the coming years. She had no one on earth to turn to for help, advice, and most importantly companionship and unquestionable love. What was she going to do?

Lelia sat on the side of the bed taking her aunt’s cold hand in her warm ones, cradling it next to her cheek, tears washing the entwined hands, knowing that the life she had shared with this dear warm and loving woman was over but would never be forgotten and she was stronger because of it.

After the funeral, Lelia returned to an empty, cold house with an overwhelming feeling of abandonment. What was she going to do? Her life thus far had not prepared her for a future alone such as this. True, she had never really tried to change it preferring to let it go along at its undemanding pace, but now she had to face some hard facts, with even harder answers. How was she to maintain this huge house? For that matter, how was she to pay for aunt Tressie’s funeral? She had a small inheritance from her father in a savings account, aunt Tressie having always refused to hear of Lelia spending any of the money saying she could use it later for something special as a last gift from her father. True, she had one of the best educations money could buy, but she was neither trained nor qualified for any kind of employment. There was no getting around it, she would have to start job hunting soon, maybe even tomorrow, but for now all she wanted to do was have a nice hot cup of cocoa and go to bed, leaving behind the worries and uncertainties crowding her anxious world for the sweet oblivion of sleep. Tomorrow was soon enough to start going over her options, that is if she had any!

CHAPTER 2

T WO DAYS FOLLOWING aunt Tressie’s funeral, Lelia was still in a quandary as to her options and what to do first. As a diversion, she started looking in the newspaper want ads for ideas. When it came to the specifications listed in the numerous advertisements, she wasn’t qualified for even the most menial employments she thought sarcastically to herself.

She was growing more and more depressed as the days passed feeling truly defeated and useless for the first time in her life. The same question kept coming back: what was she going to do? How was she going to live? There had always been money for necessities and for anything within reason that she needed, but then her needs were few. She would have to think of something, but what? Lelia was so tired now that she couldn’t get her mind to focus on anything. She would get a good night’s sleep and everything would look better in the morning, she hoped.

Nine-o-clock the following morning found Lelia sorting papers at the desk where her father and then aunt Tressie had spent many hours when she heard the subdued chimes of the bell at the front door. Taking the time to glance hurriedly into the mirror by the front door before opening it, Lelia saw her shaggy reflection looking back at her. Her blue eyes were dull and red rimmed from crying with dark shadows under them. Her brown hair lay limp and lifeless to her shoulders straight as a stick, she really needed to get it cut, she thought. Lelia’s complexion, always being pale, was now pale to the point of looking like a ghost. The old jeans and shirt she was wearing had seen better days, but their hanging folds did little to disguise the slim figure hiding in their worn wrinkled depths.

The bell rang again, bringing Lelia’s wondering attention back to answering the door. She shook her head as she began to open the door. What had gotten into her lately? She had never cared about her appearance before. Why was she letting it bother her now, at this late date? When she opened the door she stood facing a man with a round, jovial face, showing signs of a smile never far from his mouth. He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, but with the kind of bone structure he possessed his age would always be indeterminate. Dressed in a fashionable navy blue suit with a crisp white shirt, the man was carrying a black leather briefcase in his left hand and was extending his right hand for a firm handshake accompanied by the cheerful good morning Lelia had expected to hear coming from a man with his open friendly face. As Lelia stood regarding the stranger, he was in turn examining her in minute detail from head to toe.

What he saw before him was a young woman, who was really older than she looked. He knew she had to be close to thirty, if not that exact age, but to guess by her looks a person could easily mistake her age for being in the early twenty’s. She had non-descript brown hair that fell limply to her shoulders, a pale almost translucent skin that looked as smooth as cream, and eyes the color of a robin’s egg blue that showed as much life as the bewildered expression on her face allowed.

Mr. Lawrence wondered what his announcement would mean and how it would change this rather plain, bewildered appearing woman. Yet he knew looks could be deceiving. He knew her marks in school belied the intelligence behind the innocent eyes.

Although a married man for a decade, he was nonetheless a man who appreciated an attractive woman. He thought with a little effort on Lelia’s part she could be pretty in a quiet way, maybe even attractive if she were to apply a touch of make-up, style her hair in a more becoming fashion and most of all, she needed a new wardrobe, dressing as she did in clothes more appropriate for a woman of less means. Yes, that would help a great deal; dress her in clothes that would fit in all the right places.

Mr. Lawrence couldn’t decide if she did nothing to enhance her appearance on purpose or if she just didn’t bother out of sheer neglect. He would have been truly surprised to know that neither was the reason for Lelia’s lack of grooming, but that she felt it was a waste of time to try to look any differently than she did, because, although her father and aunt Tressie had always assured her she was a pretty girl, she had never believed them, as it had never mattered. After all they were her family and they loved her, but she knew the truth. When girls that were really not much different in physical attributes were turning down dates, she was never asked on one, not realizing it was her intelligence not her appearance that intimidated the opposite sex.

Right now Jacob Lawrence thought that if he was any judge of character (and he was that) Lelia was wondering just who he was and what he wanted. He knew that his visit had been a secret from her all these years for a purpose, but for the life of him he couldn’t understand Tressie Beaumont’s reasoning. She had always been a shrewd businesswoman and knew her own mind, but what had made her do the things he was now obliged as her attorney to inform this seemingly mousy, frightened woman of and what would she do when he did? Tressie surely saw some promise below the surface that