Silent Ending: Dreams Untangled, #1

By Mary Lee Tiernan

Deciding she needs a break from the problems that plague her at home, Maddie heads to a mountain lake for a week's vacation and finds more than she ever hoped for with a November romance. All is not idyllic, however, when she decides to stay at the lake. Flashbacks to her home in the desert disorient her. Photos disappear from her phone. Nightmares and headaches disrupt her nights and days. A jealous rival targets her. Maddie clings to Luke for answers, but only she can untangle the source of these troubling incidents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Lee Tiernan
• Release date: Jun 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223415541

Mary Lee Tiernan

I was born in New York, but the lure of open spaces brought me west, and I now call Arizona home. Throughout my professional life as an educator and newspaper editor, my passion has always been writing. My other passion is exploring all the West has to offer, and I am often RVing down the road with my cat Charlie.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I owned the road. I hadn’t seen another car in miles, not since that unexpected fork in the two-lane highway. I took advantage of the lack of traffic by driving down the middle of the road. It allowed me to turn my head to enjoy views of the forest and meadows without drifting too close to the adjacent ditch which threatened to upend me if I came near it.

A sign announced Pinerest Lake – 5 miles.

Good. My legs were cramping from driving ... Then I stomped on the brake and screeched to a halt. Pinerest Lake? My destination had been Pinecrest Lake. Had some sloppy sign maker forgotten the c or had I gotten lost?

I backed up to reread the sign. Sure enough, it said Pinerest. I shifted the car into park, leaned back in the seat, and closed my eyes to mentally review the route I’d taken. The only unexpected part of the trip had been that fork in the highway. Strangely enough, my GPS navigator had been silent on the subject. He neither warned me of the approaching junction nor told me which way to go.

I furrowed my brow in concentration trying to recall the signs at the junction. One had indicated the route to Holbrook, a city north of my destination and out of the lake region. I know the other sign said ‘lake’ but Pinecrest Lake or Pinerest Lake? I drew a blank. I remember seeing the word ‘lake’ and assumed that was the correct way to go.

After I’d veered left onto the narrower road toward the lake, I’d encountered freaky weather. I’d watched through a slit in the trees as the sky transformed from sunny to overcast to black clouds which usually heralded an approaching storm. That’s not unusual in Arizona: bright and sunny one minute, dark with pelting rain, powerful winds, lightning and the thunder the next. The storms come so quickly, you can actually see the clouds zipping toward you.

I had slowed down and steeled myself for the roar of the winds, the claps of thunder, and the barrage of bullets pinging off the car. Instead, an eerie silence prevailed with darkness so profound that I saw only a few feet of the road in front of me. Even my headlights hadn’t helped. Then the sky suddenly turned blue again as though a magic eraser had wiped away the storm.

For those few minutes, when I’d been engulfed in darkness, had I missed another fork in the road? Wait a minute, that didn’t make sense either. Who would give two lakes in close proximity to each other almost duplicate names?

In the end, did the c matter? I had desperately wanted, needed, a vacation and chosen a mountain lake as a destination. As long as the lake’s amenities included a small quiet hotel with enticing views of mountains and lake, what did I care about a mere name?

I shifted into drive. I might as well continue forward. That fork had been miles back and Pinerest Lake was only a few miles ahead. No sense in turning back now. If the lake didn’t meet my expectations, I’d go elsewhere.

For the next few miles, my mind drifted back to my reasons for taking this vacation.

A few years ago, the company I’d worked for had been bought by another company. The merger of the two meant the duplication of many jobs. I’d been offered a very lucrative severance package and had decided to accept it. The package, in conjunction with the monies I’d saved and invested all my life, promised a comfortable retirement. Why not retire at age 52 and pursue other interests?

I had shed other responsibilities too. I’d tired of maintaining my yard, for example, and sold my house to move to a 50+ adult community where the association is responsible for the outside upkeep. Sure, there’s a fee, but a reasonable one, and money wasn’t the problem. I liked my new house, a small two bedroom, but as time passed, I felt I may have made a mistake or, at the very least, chosen the wrong community.

I’ve been told that people mellow as they grow older, but then again I’ve been told a lot of things that aren’t true. Maybe I’m the one who didn’t mellow, but I found the treatment of single people as biased as always with my generation. Fortunately, mores have changed for the younger generations, but we were brought up with the idea that women were supposed to marry and have children. I didn’t. I suppose in fairness I should acknowledge that it would be natural for couples to gravitate toward one another, but to the exclusion of singles? My single status, and perhaps my younger age, set me apart from a community consisting of married couples, with a few widows and widowers mixed in. They swear there’s no bias, but let’s take a look at what they do instead of what they say.

When I first arrived, publicity for community events sponsored by the association such as holiday dinners or dances advertised tickets for, say, $20 per couple ... per couple. When asked if I was going to attend this event or that, I said ‘no’ because the events were for couples. I was told I was being silly because events were open to everyone. Was I being silly? If everyone was equally welcome, why not state the price per ticket rather than per couple? Someone apparently heard me because publicity for future events did advertise single tickets: $20 per couple or $12 for an individual ticket. Now I should pay more for an event because I’m single? What’s the underlying message there?

Is it any wonder that I shied away from those events? I looked elsewhere ‘to get involved.’ Most of the other events in the community were under the auspices of a tightknit group of women whom I’ll call ‘the committee.’ They organized events—auctions, yard sales, boutiques, casino nights, cook-offs or bake-offs—to raise money for local charities. They did raise quite a bit of money; I’ll give them that.

I guess I have to blame myself for not fitting in there either. My professional background included organizing, identifying problems, proposing solutions, and making decisions. I had used those skills on a daily basis. They didn’t disappear because I retired.

Organizing? What’s that? We were setting up for a Christmas boutique. Chaos. Whether it was deciding how to place tables or which items to display on them, the women ran around doing whatever they wanted, often undoing what the person before them had done. When I mentioned the time-consuming duplication of efforts, I was told to be quiet because I might hurt someone’s feelings. And therein lay the problem.

I’m a task oriented person. When I made suggestions, it was in the spirit of helping to shape a successful event in an efficient, orderly way. From a remark made to me, I realized too late that my comments were interpreted as negative criticism. Ironically, a number of my suggestions were later adopted when they were proposed by someone else, someone on the committee.

I noticed active community members steadily distancing themselves from me. I wouldn’t be notified of a meeting, or I’d volunteer to help with an event, but not be included. I was also informed that the computer job I’d been doing for two years, designing handouts or brochures, had been given to someone else. No explanation provided. I got the hint.

The final blow came when I offered to donate a set of autographed novels by a local author to use as an auction item at a fundraiser. I emailed the offer to the committee head who emailed back that she would bring up my offer at a committee meeting and let me know. The committee has to vote on whether or not to accept a donation? I never did hear back. That was the first time I’ve ever heard of a group turning down the donation of an item, whether for an auction or a prize.

What I found most disheartening was that not one of those women ever had the gumption to sit down and talk to me. I guess they were applying their philosophy of not addressing a problem to avoid hurting a person’s feelings. So instead of talking to me, they remained silent.

Silence isn’t always golden. It can be the cruelest alternative of them all; it eliminates discourse and ends any chance of reconciliation. Silence is a guilty verdict without a trial and the best way to rebuff a person.

So I kept to myself. That is not to say I became a hermit, at least not completely. I maintained some social contacts; occasionally I got together with one or two neighbors. Their conversation usually turned to recipes or long-winded stories about their kids or grandkids whom I had never met. I often felt like I was sitting on the sidelines listening to a monologue.

Or take the ever-popular potlucks. Despite the fact that I’m not a cook—as a matter of fact, I hate cooking—I attended a few of those just to get out of the house and ran into another wall. Seating. The round tables accommodated ten with room to spare. However, the cliques usually guarded the seats at each table for their friends. I once sat down at a table with two empty seats. Not long after, a couple came along and asked me to leave because they wanted to sit with their friends. Not could I move over to fit in another person—just leave. I did. I packed up my plate and utensils and walked out the door. That was my last potluck.

I sound like a bitch with all the complaining. Maybe I am; I don’t know. What I do know is how I felt, and my experiences in the community were about to impact crucial decisions and shape my future. My working life had been filled with activities and with people who thought much as I did. Now I felt isolated, adrift in a world where I didn’t belong. If fitting in meant not being myself, why bother trying at all?

I’d needed to get away to see how I felt outside the community and reevaluate my life there. I’d needed a vacation. Since I live in the desert, I like seeing the woods in the summer or the ocean or lakes or rivers—any large bodies of water—for a change. How about combining the two with a trip to a mountain lake? I’d grabbed an atlas from my bookshelf and sat back in my recliner to find a destination.

Chapter 2

I arrived at Pinerest Lake early afternoon which gave me plenty of time to drive around the lake and decide where I wanted to stay. I was working on the assumption that early June was preseason, and hotels wouldn’t be full until after school closed for the summer. The lake boasted of two towns: Pinerest Beach on the south shore and Carter’s Cove to the north. Private residences dotted the shoreline in between.

At Pinerest Beach, two high rise hotels and a public beach claimed most of the lakefront real estate. The warm day had enticed a healthy crowd of bathers to the water’s edge. I imagined in a few weeks the beaches would be jammed with sun seekers.

Marinas anchored the edges of town on both sides. A few restaurants and shops managed to squeeze themselves in between the high rise hotels and public beach and marinas, but the majority of restaurants, shops, and smaller hotels lined up on the south side of the main thoroughfare.

Unfortunately, their position opposite the large hotels obscured views of the lake. I came for that view, so if I stayed on the south shore, I’d have to stay in one of the big hotels, and I wasn’t enamored with the idea of weaving through crowds of people in the lobby or riding an elevator every time I wanted to go outside. I’d be nothing more than another name on the hotel register, lost in the throngs of other vacationers.

Besides, I’d come for the woods as well as the lake, and the tree line stopped at the edge of town. Nature had been obliterated for a playground constructed of concrete, metal, and glass. Instead of trees, the shoreline offered a forest of beach umbrellas. Hoping for better choices in Carter’s Cove, I drove on to the north shore.

I liked Carter’s Cove the minute I drove into town. It was much smaller than its counterpart and judging by the buildings, much older. Unlike Pinerest Beach, it had the ambiance of a small hometown rather than a resort town. The main street included a few two-story buildings, but most were one-story. No high-risers. I drove as far as the public beach where a few people lay on towels or splashed in the water. I turned around and drove back through town to a motel I had seen on the lakeshore, a motel that featured small log cabins tucked underneath the cover of tall pine trees. The lake and the trees. Perfect.

The motel owner graciously allowed me to choose from the available cabins. Naturally, I picked the cabin with the best lake view. Each cabin had a small porch with a couple of Adirondack chairs. I imagined I’d spend many hours on those chairs soaking in a little sun myself and watching the boats or reading. I booked the cabin for a week, unloaded my suitcase from the car, and unpacked.

By now I was hungry. I left my car parked at the cabin and walked out to the street to find a restaurant. I didn’t have to go far. Almost directly across the street, signage in red lettering that matched the red trim on the white clapboard building identified it as Maggie’s Café. A flag hanging from a pole fluttered in the breeze. From my vantage point, I couldn’t see what the flag depicted, but its motion beckoned me like a friend waving.

Maggie herself greeted me at the door and welcomed me to town. When she heard I planned to stay for a week, she winked and said, Guess I’ll be seeing a lot of you.

As I opened the menu, she added, You can order from the menu if you want, but everyone comes for my specials. Today it’s glazed chicken and chocolate cake for dessert. Homemade cake. All my cakes and pies are homemade.

One special, I said and handed the menu back to her without reading it.

What a treat the meal was! Delicious, especially the chocolate cake. Maggie didn’t have any more time to chat after she served the meal and introduced me to the waitress, Cory, who had just started her shift and would take care of me for the rest of the meal. More and more customers arrived until every table was full. Maggie, Cory, and another waitress hustled trying to take care of the crowd. Maggie did take a second to return my wave as I exited.

After dinner, I sat on the cabin porch drinking in the magnificent view of the lake and the scent of the pine trees. What a wonderful change from my view of the desert at home! That’s a lovely view, too, in an entirely different way. From my patio, I see a seemingly barren landscape that stretches for miles to the mountains. The openness allows for spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

At least from a distance the desert looks barren. Up close, the desert teems with life from various species of scrub brush, cactus, and small trees to all manner of animals: coyotes, rabbits, deer, javelina, snakes, birds, spiders, bats, and rodents. I especially enjoy watching the roadrunners and quail that scurry past my backyard on a daily basis.

I had wanted a change and Carter’s Cove exceeded my expectations. When the sun set, the cool mountain air drove me inside. As I climbed into bed, I had the strangest sensation that I was climbing into my bed in my house in the desert. I must have picked the perfect vacation spot; I felt completely relaxed and right at home.

Chapter 3

The next morning I rolled out of bed and headed for the electric kettle the motel provided to heat water for tea or instant coffee. I’m useless in the morning until