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© 2004, Rayne Forrest
Reviews For MOUNTAIN HIGH by Rayne Forrest No reviews posted yet. Sample Chapter For MOUNTAIN HIGH by Rayne Forrest Captain Chris Shuler was lurking near exit thirty-three of the interstate. He’d been there since six this morning. A twenty-year decorated veteran of law enforcement, it was not the sort of thing he normally did unless he was on a duly authorized stakeout. Up until a few hours ago, he would have never believed he’d be doing it on his own time and for his own reasons. He had some pride, after all. But a few hours ago, fourteen hours and three minutes to be exact, his favorite fishing buddy, Clark Morgan, had mentioned that his daughter was finally due to be home in the morning. Chris had dropped his pliers, stabbed himself with a hook, tangled his line and then, adding insult to injury, dropped his hat over the side of the boat. His good buddy Clark didn’t even attempt to stifle his laughter. It didn’t matter to Chris. Clark
could laugh at him all he liked. Only one thing mattered. So he was lurking. Tyler Morgan hadn’t expected a brass band to welcome her home to Elizabethtowne. She hadn’t expected a welcome from the local law enforcement, either. But there they were, lights flashing, in her rear view mirrors. She coasted to the shoulder of the road and reached for her registration and license. A shadow across the interior of her SUV alerted her that the officer was at her window waiting. She finished digging in her purse and came up with her license. “Step out of the vehicle, Ms. Morgan,” came the deep male voice. Her head snapped up. Good heavens. She
turned into the smiling face of Steven Christopher Shuler. The worst
crush of her teen years had been on Chris Shuler. Stay calm, she told
herself. “Officer Shuler. Might I inquire what the problem is?” she asked, handing information to him. Her fingers trembled slightly. It was from the shock of having a policeman pull her over, she told herself, nothing more. “No problem, Tyler. I just wanted to welcome you home.” His voice was low and smooth, rippling over her. It had deepened over the years and, soft or not, carried authority and self-assurance. “That’s it? You pulled me over to welcome me home?” She felt the stirring of annoyance with him. Apparently the super-jock attitude was still intact. He took off his dark sunglasses and grinned at her. His eyes were hazel brown, with a dark ring around the iris. They were warm and friendly, intelligent and amused. “Are we finished here, Officer Shuler?” she asking, doing her best to sound haughty. His grin just got bigger. “It’s Captain Shuler, and no, we’re not finished.” He leaned on the door, arms folded. “If you say you’ll have dinner with me tonight, then we’re finished and you can go. I’ll pick you up at seven.” “You don’t know where I’m staying,” she purred at him. Dear heavens! Dinner with Chris Shuler? Once upon a time she’d have ditched her best girlfriends for the opportunity. He chuckled softly. “You’re staying with your parents. Your mother told my grandmother at the church social last Sunday. Miss Mamie made sure I knew it.” Of course he knew where she was staying. It was still a small town in a lot of very important ways. His grandmother, Miss Mamie Shuler, was The Grand Dame of Elizabethtowne. Miss Mamie answered only to God. She stared at him, annoyed. “Well, you do owe me something for scaring me like this. I thought I was getting a ticket!” “I could give you one.” He thumped the top of her vehicle. “Buckle up, Ty. See you at seven.” He started to walk away, but stopped and turned. “It’s only pizza. No need to shave your legs or anything.” She sat open-mouthed and watched him pull out from behind her. He hit the siren for one little “whoop” and made her jump. He was probably laughing like it was a good joke. Chris Shuler. He would be the first friendly face she’d see. She’d been thinking about him some on the long drive home. And now she knew he still made her heart flutter. She started her vehicle and headed towards home. Nestled in the rolling green hills of the Alleghany Mountains, Elizabethtowne had always been home in a way Reno had never been. Tyler had simply known she had to come home. It had been very strange. She and her best friend, Courtney Nichols, had settled in Reno after Courtney’s family had moved there. They were fresh out of college and thought they could take on the world—and always win. She and Courtney wanted to be their own boss. They would have their own business and be entrepreneurs. They had succeeded. Looking back it all seemed so easy. But it hadn’t been, not really. They had worked seven days a week, sixteen hours a day to make Desert Moon a reality and a success. And then one morning it had no longer been enough. Or maybe it had been too much. She didn’t really know. Desert Moon had exacted a high price. Courtney had a failed marriage behind her. Tyler had been engaged not once, but twice. She’d ended both engagements. The last relationship had taken a toll on her emotions and her self-confidence. She was tired, she was lonely, and she wanted to go home. So here she was, driving down the long lane to The Maples, where her family had lived for four generations and her parents operated a bed and breakfast. She, or rather, they, did have a plan. Courtney had not wanted to see her oldest and dearest friend leave, but Courtney wanted her to be happy and so she agreed, with a few conditions. Tyler would set up shop in their hometown. Mountain High would be born. They had the customer base to establish another shop. And being so close to the shipping port of Baltimore they could not only save on freight charges, they could maybe start a small amount of exporting. She and Courtney had worked out a schedule. First, she’d settle in for a week. Then she’d contact a realtor and look for a suitable property. They had criteria for both building new and for remodeling. It depended on the location of the property. She needed to rent warehouse space and start buying antiques and suitable items as soon as she could. She’d have to hire an assistant. Of course, she’d cheated a bit on finding property. She’d called her father and assigned him the task of a preliminary search. Her mother had said he was bored and needed a hobby. Tyler gave him one. She parked her SUV at the rear of the house and quietly climbed the porch steps. She wanted a cup of coffee before she did anything else. The aroma drifted through the screen door and lured her in. She could have made it to her parent’s home last night but she’d opted to stop two hours away and spend the night at a motel. She could have gotten coffee on the road, but it wouldn’t have been the same. She’d gotten up early and set out on the last leg of the journey. The morning sun on the mountains had been beautiful. Her parents weren’t in the house. The coffee pot was half empty and the warmer still on, so she knew they’d not gone far. She poured a cup and sat on the porch steps to wait for them. She suspected they were in the greenhouse. She didn’t have to wait long. Lois and Clark came around the corner of the house and bedlam, mostly caused by Kasey the dog, erupted for several minutes. After a round of hugs, mostly for the dog to quiet him down, they all went to the kitchen. They talked of the usual things. How was the drive? How was Courtney? How are things at the store, at church, with the many far-flung cousins? “And thanks for siccing Chris Shuler on me,” Tyler said dryly, pouring her second cup of coffee. “And I really mean it. He pulled me over just to welcome me home. Scared me to death. And now he thinks he’s taking me to dinner.” Her father laughed and patted her mother’s hand. “Isn’t that nice. She’s in town less than an hour and she has a date.” “I’m glad you think it’s funny. I’m not so sure I do.” She got a handful of cookies and sat back down at the table. “Chris Shuler drove me crazy when we were in school. Always underfoot.” “He liked you,” her mother told her. “I got that, thank you. He still made me crazy. Everywhere I went, he showed up. It was like he was psychic or something. Didn’t he get married?” Tyler knew very well he had married. And divorced. “Yes, he married. It lasted about three years. Then she left him. We never did hear why. It’s one of those things Miss Mamie refuses to discuss with anyone.” “Are you going out with him?” Lois asked politely. “Not if he shows up in the cruiser.” “Yes, but finding a parking space is so easy in the cruiser,” her father quipped. “I don’t care. I’m so glad the first thing I could do for the two of you is provide you with some entertainment in your morning.” She gave her father her best smile, and batted her eyes. She sipped her coffee. “And have you completed your homework assignment?” she asked him. “Yes, ma’am. I think I’ll get an A-plus for it, too.” Clark went to the desk and pulled a sheet of paper from the top drawer and handed it to her. Tyler quickly scanned it. The old Madison warehouse. Great location. Not a great building. It had been empty for at least twenty years. “Before you say no, I met with the realtor. The interior of the building is in great shape. The roof is watertight. The plumbing was updated just before old Mr. Madison died so it’s all up to code. Same with the electric. It was brought up to code in seventy-three.” Tyler continued reading the information sheet. The realtor was Diane Coffman. Chris Shuler’s ex-wife. It was wonderful to be in a small town again, just wonderful. “All right. I’ll look at it, but first I have to unload my truck. I really need to get my computer set up and transfer some data from the laptop. If I get that accomplished, and my clothes put away, the morning will be shot. My clothes did arrive, didn’t they?” she asked her mother. Shipping almost her entire wardrobe home had given Tyler a few restless nights. Her mother nodded. “Oh, good. I want to drive around town a bit this afternoon. Get familiar with the place again,” Tyler concluded. Clark sighed and stood. “Well, troops, let’s get started,” he said as he went out the back door. Tyler and her mother followed. Getting the SUV unloaded and everything carried up the stairs to Tyler’s room took an hour. Getting her clothes sorted took the rest of the morning. Being back in her old bedroom brought a wave of nostalgia. The old scrapbooks distracted her and her collection of old vinyl LP records begged to be played. It was mid-afternoon before she hopped in her SUV and drove back into town. · * * * She finally drove out to the Madison building. She knew she would end up there. There was grass growing through a few cracks in the blacktop of the parking lot. The large front windows were boarded and she wondered if the glass was intact behind the plyboard. She drove slowly around the building. It was bigger than she’d remembered. She parked in front and walked around the building to get a more detailed idea of the exterior. When she came around the corner Chris Shuler was standing with one foot on her front bumper. She saw red and her SUV was black. God, he was a handsome man. “I’ll thank you to get your dirty shoes off my truck,” she said, scowling at him. Chris grinned at her and set his spit and shined regulation boot on the ground. “I got a call about a prowler. Imagine my surprise to find this.” He patted her hood. She gritted her teeth. “I just had that hood painted.” “Really?” he asked, surprised. He patted the hood again. “This is only, what, two years old? Bad from the factory?” She really did not want to get into this with him. She’d left her vandalism problems behind in Reno. “Vandalism. People are so stupid and destructive sometimes.” That was safe to say. He would certainly understand that. Even in quiet Elizabethtowne there were bored teens that drank, or smoked pot, and did stupid things. He was nodding. “Yeah. I’ve seen a bit of that. Do you want to go in the building?” She was surprised at this offer. And tempted. “Oh, ho. So you’re a realtor on the side, too? What does your ex say to that?” “My ex has this listing. And I know the combination she uses on her key boxes. For security purposes, you understand.” “Still friendly with the ex?” Tyler would have slapped herself for asking that—if it were possible. “Aww, shucks. She does care.” Chris was grinning at her. She had to admit he had the cutest puppy-dog eyes. “Come on, then. We’ll see what it looks like.” Chris radioed in he was out of the cruiser at the Madison and they walked to a small side door. He punched in the proper combination, got the key and opened the door. He went in first and found the light switch. “Does Diane give you a bonus for showing her places for her? She should.” “She won’t on this one,” Chris muttered under his breath. “What? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.” “No. I don’t think she will,” he answered, methodically flipping the light switches to flood the huge interior with light. Tyler pulled out her specifications sheet on the building. It was forty thousand square feet on the floor and just under two thousand square feet on the loft where the offices had been. It was a lot of room that would allow space for a showroom, storage, and a workshop. And, the idea came to her, space for her to live on the loft. If she could convert the loft to living space she’d save close to one hundred fifty thousand dollars. That was what she’d estimated a house would cost her in Elizabethtowne these days. It wouldn’t be that much, she quickly calculated. She would probably need to put twenty thousand, maybe more, into converting the loft area. But even if she went as high as fifty thousand, it would be a significant savings. “Who’s a good engineer who can inspect the building?” “Check with Diane. I think it’s already certified. She had an interested buyer last year, but the deal soured,” Chris told her. Tyler stored away the information. The information that Chris knew a lot about his ex’s business. The inside was dry and dusty. That was a good indication that her father was correct and the roof was watertight. Of course. Her father had certified the building. He was retired but kept his licensing up-to-date and did the occasional job depending on who asked him and what it was. Tyler wouldn’t have asked him because he would have refused payment from her. She nosed around for about thirty minutes, which was long enough for her to begin to wonder why Chris wasn’t getting anxious to get back to work. The building did have definite potential. And the price was not all that bad. If the owner’s last offer had been a year ago she should be able to bid several thousand less and still be taken seriously. She wondered if Chris knew what the bid had been. It would be interesting if he did. She asked him. He gave her a long, steady look. She wasn’t sure she liked the way he was looking at her. “Ask Diane,” was his short reply. “I will,” she replied levelly. “I need to hit the road. Are you finished in here?” he asked. “For now, and thanks, Chris. I really do appreciate your letting me in. Do I confess to Diane that you did?” She watched the strangest look flicker across his face. He looked away for a moment, and then sighed. “Yeah, sure. There’s no reason she shouldn’t know.” He secured the door and started walking back to the cruiser. “I’ll pick you up at seven,” he called over his shoulder to her. Tyler stood and watched him wheel off the parking lot and head west, back towards the barracks. She had the strangest feeling she was missing something with Steven Christopher Shuler. She shrugged. It wouldn’t be the first time she had. She’d never understood him. But good heavens, hadn’t he grown into a very handsome man! She wasn’t so jaded on men that she hadn’t noticed. Those deep-set eyes were the same, but he must be six foot two or three now. When she’d last seen him that last growing spurt hadn’t happened yet. It had turned out to be a good one. His hair, what the police dress code allowed him to have, had darkened to a honeyed brown with the barest hint of grey at the temple. She remembered him as a sun-streaked blonde in the summers. She started the SUV and checked the time. Four-seventeen. She would go home, call Diane Coffman, prop up with her notebook, and do a little cost analysis. That would give her plenty of time to shower and be ready by seven. A little shiver went down her spine. She was actually looking forward to tonight. She wasn’t sure she liked that. She wasn’t sure she didn’t like it, either |