Escape to Mountain Shadows

By Audrey Flynn

Chicago schoolteacher Lucy Shepherd has the world at her feet. Due to marry the ambitious politician Jason Palmer, in what promises to be the society wedding of the year, she is mere weeks away from joining the wealthy and powerful Palmer clan. But when she discovers that her fiancée has been sleeping with countless other women, Lucy exposes him online in a fit of anger. The repercussions are far, far worse then she could have imagined, and she is forced to flee for her safety.

 

On the other side of the world, she finds work at a small farm school on the centuries' old Mountain Shadows wine estate in South Africa. Lucy and the estate's owner Josh de Lange are fiercely drawn to one another. But the long shadow of Lucy's past threatens their love. For there are powerful enemies on the other side of the world, the kind that refuse to let sleeping dogs lie.

 

Can the love between Josh and Lucy withstand the vengeance of the Palmers? When everything she holds dear is threatened, Lucy has a bitter choice to make...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inkspell Publishing
• Release date: Jul 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781949931761

Book preview

Escape To Mountain Shadows

Audrey Flynn

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, or events is coincidental and not intended by the author.

IF YOU PURCHASE THIS book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher. In such case the author has not received any payment for this stripped book.

ESCAPE TO MOUNTAIN Shadows

Copyright © 2020 Audrey Flynn

All rights reserved.

ISBN: (EBOOK) 978-1-949931-76-1

Inkspell Publishing

207 Moonglow Circle #101

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

EDITED BY AUDREY BOBEK

Cover art By Najla Qamber

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PROLOGUE

Idon’t know what was better, fucking you in the elevator or in the room next door to Lucy while she slept. God! We didn’t even try to keep it quiet. @ GingerBiscuit

Lucy Shepherd inhaled sharply and grabbed the desk with both hands to steady herself. The computer screen fell out of focus as a wave of nausea hit her. Her breath coming in gasps, she forced herself to scroll down. Post after post from Romeo182 didn’t merely confirm her worst suspicions, it was far, far worse. Omigod. How many, Jason? she asked out loud. This wasn’t just shock or hurt, but a lava-fall of horror.

My little teacher fiancée is out of town. Who wants to hook up? Bring your imagination, nothing vanilla please. I get that at home.

Another gut punch to the stomach. So many posts, each one seeming more traitorous than the last, going back for months. All the time she and Jason had dated, and during the last seven months of their engagement, his extra-curricular activities hadn’t slowed down. In fact, it was clear that Romeo182 had been accelerating his behavior in the last month or two.

Had it not been for that one text briefly displayed on his iPhone two days earlier, she never would’ve suspected, never would’ve installed the spyware on his laptop. Two nights ago, sitting comfortably cross-legged in an armchair in Jason’s apartment, watching TV, and a single word. Later? had appeared for only a few seconds across his phone’s screen. Since it was password-protected, she’d been unable to investigate further, and Jason had returned to the living room only moments later.

A tiny clue, but it had been just enough to rouse a near-dormant sense of self-protection. Five minutes ago, she’d thought herself silly, paranoid. It was just wedding nerves, she’d told herself. Only one week to go before she was to marry Jason Palmer, son of esteemed Senator Edward Palmer. A glittering society wedding and reception were scheduled in seven days’ time. Included in the guest list were scions of Chicago businesses and prominent political figures. No expense had been spared as Jason’s mother Victoria had steered the planning, crafting the ultimate society wedding. Victoria had insisted on carrying the exorbitant costs and so Lucy had gradually yielded to her future mother-in-law’s will, even though she would have preferred a far humbler affair.

For fourteen months, she had lived a fairy tale. She hadn’t questioned the gradual loss of autonomy as she was swept up in a whirlwind courtship and accepted into the wealthy, politically powerful Palmer family. Large salty tears now fell from her blue-green eyes, normally so clear as to look almost aquamarine, they were already red-rimmed. Strands of long hair a few shades lighter than copper stuck to her face, which was covered with sweat and tears. A weight on her chest pressed her down. In danger of fainting, she had to concentrate to breathe. Tiny breaths. She swallowed hard and forced herself to read more. How could Jason, the man she had until five minutes ago been wholeheartedly in love with, and Romeo182 be the same man?

Lucy scrutinized the date of the first comment she had read, May 5. Merely two weeks ago, she had spent the night at Jason’s lakeshore apartment and fallen dead asleep after an evening of lesson planning and grading. She’d been surprised the next morning that he had slept through his alarm.

Couldn’t fall asleep, he’d reassured her. Watched TV and then I decided to sleep in the spare room so my reading wouldn’t keep you awake.

The nausea hit her again as she realized that no doubt he was describing having sex with GingerBiscuit in the bedroom next door while she had slept. Images of all the time she’d spent with Jason: hiking, partying, sailing. She replayed every memory, realizing it had all been one cruel, stinking lie.

I did sometimes wonder what a handsome, wealthy young lawyer with political ambitions would want with a special education teacher.

It dawned on her that she had been successfully wooed not only by Jason but his family. Perhaps a young, hardworking teacher from a working-class background would play well with potential voters sick of elitist political dynasties.

Jason and Lucy had already planned their move to Washington DC. Soon after the honeymoon, they were to take up residence in the nation’s capital and Jason would begin work as a spokesman for an up-and-coming congressman. From there, he would craft his own political career. He had the money, charm, and thanks to his family, political connections to excel in the dog-eat-dog world of politics.

The sordid trail of Jason’s secret life now lay in front of her.

How did I not know?

Fiery by nature, and having lost her mother at the age of ten, Lucy had always prided herself on her intuition and street smarts. With a crushing sense of failure, she now understood that she had been totally outplayed. Smart she might be, but with the Palmers, she’d been out of her league.

She stared at the screen detailing one betrayal after another. With her body still shaking with sobs, she schooled herself to calm down. What did she always say to her pupils when they were overwhelmed? Fold your hands, take five breaths, and count to ten.

Lucy did all three and gradually, her breathing eased. Her body that had wracked with shuddering sobs began to lighten.

In place of the staggering hurt and shock, she could feel the stirrings of a plan. Jason had not only lied to her throughout the entire course of their relationship, but it was also clear from his gratuitous comments that he had enjoyed humiliating her. He’d luxuriated in the thrill of abusing her trust, playing her for a fool. If she hadn’t listened to her intuition, she would have been walking down the aisle on Saturday to God knows what fate.

The revelations still open in front of her had blown her world and dreams for the future to smithereens.

Lucy rested her delicate chin on folded hands. Her skin, normally clear ivory, was blotchy with the effects of her tears. Jason was out of town on his bachelor’s weekend. His friend Tony had rented a place out on Lake Michigan. He’s probably in bed with a floozy who jumped out of a cake right this minute, she thought bitterly.

The spyware she’d installed was straightforward to use, but it required huge concentration as Jason had been clever and the chatroom he had frequented, Godiva’s Cave, required multiple passwords. He had sent lurid selfies to various women, carefully leaving his face out of the shot.

It took another half an hour, but with patience, Lucy was able to enter an encrypted side conversation.

Her heart lurched as she stared in disbelief. Jason had taken a picture of himself and GingerBiscuit in the middle of the act, captioned While Lucy Slept.

And let’s do this again in a few days.

The spyware kept a record of keystrokes, and so for the next hour, driven by a dogged sense of resolve, she was able to find the passwords for his social media accounts. Focusing more intently than she ever had in her life, she pushed the pain aside and deftly began copying and pasting his disgusting selfies and his most vulgar comments to his Facebook page, his Twitter account, and perhaps most devastating for an up-and-coming politician, his LinkedIn profile. She copied and pasted an engagement picture taken on a beach in Mexico of herself and Jason next to the sex selfie with GingerBiscuit. It would make for an interesting contrast. Cleverly, she embedded links so that even if he discovered and erased the posts, they would pop up elsewhere.

Jason. He had blown her world apart and now she would do the same. Brought up in a tough neighborhood of Southwest Chicago, she had known from a tender age that she could, and always would, look after herself. Summoning the same courage that had an eleven-year-old her smacking the school bully straight in the chops, she stared at Jason’s Facebook page and pressed post.

Knowing Jason was miles away and probably in someone else’s arms, Lucy poured herself two fingers of Scotch and washed it down with a sleeping pill. Her overwrought mind and body craved oblivion, and soon, she fell into a dead and dreamless sleep.

While she slept and Jason likely partied in a Lakeside mansion, the posts gained traction, especially on his Twitter account. By the time the sun rose over Lake Michigan, the post had a total of 78,284 shares.

Chapter 1

Mountain Shadows Farm

Nine months later

Lucy closed the exercise book and placed it on top of a tall, leaning pile. This was it for the day. The simple wooden desks in the humble classroom were empty of students and late-afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows. Her desk, a simple wooden affair with three drawers, stood in front of a large chalkboard. The contrast between this simple farm school and the high-tech classrooms she’d worked in back home still surprised her.

She had no smart board or overhead projector, and there would be no iPads for these children, who were, for the most part, the sons and daughters of farm laborers. They arrived each morning, many of them barefoot, and left each afternoon in a few old minibusses. They carried their school lunches, usually a white bread sandwich with bright-pink sandwich meat, and their school books in plastic shopping bags.

With a bag of books in one hand and her laptop bag slung over her shoulder, Lucy locked the classroom door. Swartberg Community School stood at the end of a dusty farm road on the large Mountain Shadows Farm. The farm itself was nestled at the foot of the imposing Swartberg Mountains. They rose steep and purple on this clear day. The summers in this part of the world were long and brutally hot, but today, she sensed the first hint of autumn. She inhaled the sweetly scented air and pulled her shawl closer against the slight chill.

What never ceased to amaze her was the silence out here. Apart from the occasional bird song, once the children had left the school, taking their chatter and laughter with them, everything fell into a deep, luxurious silence. The school had only six classrooms; simple white-washed buildings with tin roofs. A cheerfully converted barn served as the staffroom and office. If there was to be a school assembly or concert, it was held outside on the field, a dusty patch of grass with leaning soccer posts.

Mountain Shadows Farm lay at the foot of the mountains and a few miles from the small town of Lourensville. The district was known as the Little Karoo. Beyond the towering mountain range lay the Great Karoo, an enormous area of vast, dry desolation. The town and its surrounds were only accessed by means of the steep Swartberg pass on one side and the vast expanse of the Great Karoo semi-desert on the other. The brooding sense of isolation soothed Lucy’s soul.

After exposing Jason Palmer’s shocking secret life via social media, she had fled Chicago and then the United States itself. The revelations had blazed through Facebook and Twitter, creating a storm of controversy. People on all ends of the political spectrum had shared and commented and, in a few days, a shrill chorus of outrage had ensued, and the Palmer family name had