Landlocked Read online

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Praise for Marilyn Baron

  Landlocked

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Marilyn Baron’s Contest Wins

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Part II

  Chapter Seven

  Part III

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  A word about the author…

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  He was too freaking gorgeous with his chiseled movie-star face and a buff body to match. He extended his hand, and she stood up to shake it. But for a moment, he’d rendered her incoherent.

  “Welcome to our little part of—”

  “I’ve already had the ‘little part of heaven,’ speech from your receptionist,” Amelia said when she rediscovered her voice.

  Alec skewered her with a piercing look from his fathomless blue eyes.

  “You think I’m a hillbilly.” His deadpan delivery indicated it was more of a statement than a question.

  “You must be a mind reader.”

  “Don’t have to be. It’s written all over your face.”

  “Okay, I have to ask. What’s a Duke grad doing in a backwater town like Confrontation? And I use the term town loosely.”

  “Practicing law,” Alec answered dryly.

  “I’ve already contacted a local broker/realtor named Barry Brady, and he referred me to you. He said he’d looked at the papers I faxed over and that we couldn’t proceed with the sale. That’s when he recommended I see you. Your secretary’s named Brady, too. Is everyone in this town related?”

  Alec’s face flashed a barely disguised smile. Must be an inside joke.

  “Pretty much, ma’am.”

  “I’m glad I could amuse you. Do you all intermarry up here in Confrontation?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “No cousins available?”

  “Is that a serious question?”

  Praise for Marilyn Baron

  “Baron offers a bit of everything…. There’s humor, infidelity, murder, mayhem, and a neatly drawn conclusion.”

  ~RT Book Reviews (4.5 Stars)

  UNDER THE MOON GATE: “A surefire blockbuster… a treasure trove of mystery and intrigue. It sparkles with romance.”

  ~Andrew Kirby

  “Historical romance at its best.”

  ~TripFiction

  “A great job of bringing Bermuda during the WWII era to life.”

  ~PJ Ausdenmore, The Romance Dish

  “An enjoyable read from start to finish…family, friends, enemies, intrigue and suspense.”

  ~Romance Junkies (4 Blue Ribbons)

  SIXTH SENSE: “A great mix of romance, spinetingling suspense, and real hope for two jaded individuals.”

  ~Tami Brothers

  “An intriguing, albeit reluctant, psychic detective.”

  ~Pauline Michael, Night Owl Romance (3 Stars)

  “KILLER CRUISE: “An entertaining mystery.…Not everything…is what it seems.”

  ~Delane, Coffee Time Romance & More (4 Cups)

  THE WIDOWS’ GALLERY: “I enjoyed the romantic fantasy and learned why many readers are attracted to this genre of entertaining literature. I also appreciated Marilyn Baron’s ability to hook the reader’s interest and keep the action moving at a fast pace. Any art lover will enjoy this novel.”

  ~Dub Taft

  Landlocked

  by

  Marilyn Baron

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Landlocked

  COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Marilyn M. Baron

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Crimson Rose Edition, 2015

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-0296-6

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0297-3

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my father, George Meyers, a product of the Great Depression, who loved the concept of owning land. He owned and sold properties in Vero Beach, FL, and Arden, NC, and a cabin and acreage in rural western NC.

  All of our vacations growing up centered around visiting these properties. After his death, when we tried to sell his mountaintop property, we discovered it was landlocked, and therefore unsalable. The whole tangled process was laughable, and that’s how Landlocked was conceived. My father had always envisioned that he’d build a vacation home on his property for all his children and their children to visit. Although that never happened, I did get a book out of the experience.

  Hope you have plenty of land in Heaven, Dad.

  Marilyn Baron’s Contest Wins

  The Colonoscopy Club (now the published novel STONES) finaled in the GRW Unpublished Maggie Awards for Excellence in 2005 in the Single Title category.

  ~*~

  The Edger won first place in the Suspense Romance category of the 2010 Ignite the Flame Contest, sponsored by the Central Ohio Fiction Writers chapter of RWA.

  ~*~

  Sixth Sense won the GRW 2012 Unpublished Maggie Award for Excellence in the Paranormal/Fantasy Romance category.

  ~*~

  Significant Others was a finalist in the 2014 GRW Published Maggie Awards for Excellence in the Novel With Strong Romantic Elements category.

  Part I

  A Cabin in the Mountains

  Chapter One

  “You’re selling Grandpa’s land?”

  Amelia Rushing gaped at her grandmother, who was seated gracefully on a flowered gold brocade couch, comfortably cocooned in her retirement condo in South Florida, her cane resting carelessly against the arm of the couch.

  Katherine Rushing planted her hands on either side of her hips and thrust her head up stubbornly. “It’s my land, now, Amelia.”

  “But you and Grandpa bought that property forty years ago. Grandpa wanted to build a house where all his children and grandchildren could go for family vacations.”

  Katherine shook her head. “That was his vision, not mine, but we haven’t been back there in thirty years, and I need the money now. Your father is talking about moving me into one of those old-age homes, and how am I going to pay for that?”

  “It’s an independent living facility, Grandma.”

  “Don’t sugarcoat it, Amelia. It’s where old people go to die. My friend Phyllis calls it Heaven’s Waiting Room.”

  “Grandma!”

  “Your dad thinks I have dementia.”

  “You’re just a little forgetful. That’s natural for a woman of your age.”

  Katherine looked directly into her g
randdaughter’s eyes. “You mean for an old woman. We both know it’s more than that. He and your mother took me on an outing the other day and somehow we ended up at Eternal Gardens. The place looks like a funeral home. It will probably be my final resting place. Most of those people don’t know what’s going on around them. We had lunch there, and your parents were raving about how beautiful the place was and all the activities there were and how they’d like to move there and get two chef-prepared meals a day and an option for lunch. I’d like to see your mother live in that place. The next thing I knew, your father had signed me up. He’s moving me in next month.”

  “Did you agree to that?”

  “What choice do I have? Your father thinks it’s the best thing for everyone.” Katherine mumbled something under her breath that sounded like, “They want to wash their hands of me.”

  “It’s a studio apartment,” Katherine said. “When we were walking around the unit your dad picked out, I said, ‘Now I’m in my living room.’ Then I moved forward a few steps and said, ‘Now I’m in my bedroom.’ Then I walked a few feet over and I told him, ‘Now I’m standing in my kitchen.’ At least the bathroom has a separate door.

  “So I don’t really need to be worrying about that land. Besides, everyone in our family lives in Florida, and the land is on a mountaintop in rural North Carolina. Owning it doesn’t make any sense.”

  Amelia pursed her lips. She could hardly argue with her grandmother’s reasoning. “But Dad says he and his sisters used to love the family trips to the cabin when he was growing up.”

  “Yes, and he hasn’t been back since,” countered Katherine, fingering her cane, lost in her memories. “None of your aunts have expressed an interest in the property, either. It was your grandfather’s dream. We did love it up there. It was so quiet and peaceful, far away from the real world, like Shangri-La. There was even mist on the mountains. Those mountains are some of the oldest in the world, and they go all the way up to heaven. Grandpa used to sit on the front porch in his rocker, and I used to mosey. He loved to go ruby mining, and sometimes we’d both go traversing the property, with walking sticks he made from tree branches. Land was so important to your grandfather. He grew up in the Great Depression, you know.”

  How many times had Amelia heard her grandfather’s story of deprivation?

  “He was convinced there were rubies on his property,” Katherine said. “Later, the dream of building a nice vacation home all the grandchildren could enjoy is what kept him going. But now he’s gone, and because of my arthritis I can’t really travel, so I won’t be going up there anymore. I want to sell the land before I completely lose my mind.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “That’s what happens when you get to be my age. I’m not completely gone yet, but I want to tie up loose ends while I still have something going on upstairs, and I don’t mean here on the fourth floor. I don’t want to saddle my children with the burden of selling this property or have them squabbling over the land. I want this handled so I can go in peace.”

  “Go where?”

  “You know, wherever it is people go after they leave this earth.”

  “Grandma, I wish you would stop talking like that.”

  “Why? Does it make you uncomfortable? How do you think it makes me feel? Would you like a piece of key lime pie, dear? Mrs. Bailey from next door brought it over this morning.”

  Amelia had already eaten a delicious slice of Mrs. Bailey’s key lime pie with a generous helping of whipped cream when she arrived at her grandmother’s condo, but she didn’t want to call attention to the fact that her grandmother had already forgotten.

  “I’d love a slice, Grandma. Let me get us each a serving.”

  “I love key lime pie. Did I tell you Mrs. Bailey made it fresh this morning? You know, there are no key limes on our property in North Carolina.”

  Her father had told Amelia that his mother was repeating herself more frequently, and she had tossed it off as the normal forgetfulness that comes with old age. But now that she witnessed the behavior in person, the signs seemed more ominous.

  Amelia looked across the room at a painting of a cabin in the woods. She’d never seen the property for herself, but Katherine said that was a picture of their cabin in the mountains. The painting had always been her favorite of her grandmother’s possessions. It was a Moss Hathaway, one of the last paintings he’d done before he disappeared thirty years ago. It was probably worth a small fortune, but her grandparents had never considered selling it. And when she asked where her grandmother had found the painting, she refused to say.

  “I want you to have that painting when I’m gone,” Katherine stated now. “I know how much you love it. And you’re the only one in the family who can appreciate it, with your degree in art history. But I don’t want you to sell it.”

  Amelia stared at the painting. “Thank you, Grandma. It will always remind me of you and Grandpa.”

  Amelia walked to the kitchen and cut two more slices of key lime pie and placed them on the dessert plates they’d already used. At this rate, she was going to turn into a blimp. It was a good thing she had canceled the wedding. She didn’t need to fit into her wedding dress, so she could eat key lime pie to her heart’s content. On her way back to the living room, she walked past the sliding glass door at the back of the condo and examined the darkening sky. She drew a sharp breath. The black clouds were a certain sign of a gathering storm.

  Her cell phone beeped. It was an alert signaling bad weather in the area. Confirmation.

  “I need to go,” she announced abruptly, placing the plates on the coffee table in front of her grandmother.

  “But you just got here.”

  “Grandma, actually I’ve been here for a while. Did you see the sky? The meteorologist on the news this morning mentioned some kind of system coming in from the Gulf. A stalled front, and they’re predicting a bad rain storm. I just got a storm alert on my cell phone.” Amelia paced the length of the condo and rechecked the sky from the front window.

  “You must be channeling your grandfather. You’ve inherited his weather issues. What do you think will happen to you? It’s just a little rain. It always rains in South Florida. You won’t melt. You’re weather-obsessed just like he was.”

  “Grandpa was a smart man. He’d understand I don’t want to be out on the road in a thunderstorm,” Amelia explained, taking another bite of pie. “There’s so much traffic on the expressway. The car could skid, and I could get into a head-on collision, like that accident in Kendall yesterday where the woman was killed. And there’s a hurricane forming over the Atlantic.”

  Amelia’s heartthrobs were not movie actors or rock stars. They were meteorologists on The Weather Channel. Or storm chasers. In fact, she’d had an erotic dream last night about the sexy new weatherman on Channel 9, Gil Pomerance. During hurricane season she remained glued to the TV set and refused to travel on a plane to any destination from June to November.

  “It’s heading for Bermuda. It’s nowhere near us,” Katherine pointed out.

  “Hurricanes are unpredictable. They can turn.”

  Katherine sighed. “Come sit with me, sweetheart. There’s something I want to ask you.”

  Amelia’s breath came out in rapid spurts. She pinched her hands until they hurt. Her grandmother had eaten her second slice of pie, so she cleared both plates from the table and put them in the sink. Then she sat down on the couch next to her grandmother and tried to settle her galloping heart.

  “I’ve made up my mind. I want to sell the land.”

  “What does Dad say?”

  “He says I should have sold it years ago, right after Grandpa died.”

  Amelia’s grandmother got that faraway look whenever she talked about her husband of almost sixty years, twice as long as Amelia had been alive. What must it be like to have loved somebody for that long? In comparison, Amelia’s relationships fizzled out in a matter of months. The concept of a long-lasting relationship was
inconceivable to her. She was a loser in the love department. Not so long ago she thought she’d found Mr. Right. In fact, they were engaged, but she had called the wedding off last month. She and What’s-His-Name had been sitting at the bar at a Miami restaurant when the server, built like a blonde Uber Barbie, came up and bent down right in front of her fiancé as she set a rare burger and fries on a plate before him. Barbie had been wearing what looked like a powder blue lace bra under a tight, clingy shirt, and everything she had to offer, and more, was sticking out. What’s-His-Name didn’t even pretend not to stare, open-mouthed, with his tongue hanging out.

  Amelia couldn’t believe how much he was salivating. It looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her. Or scarf her up for lunch as his second course, after the hamburger.

  “Hello, I’m right here,” Amelia had pointed out, like a harping fishwife.

  What’s-His-Name didn’t take his eyes off the waitress but said, “What’s wrong with looking? We’re not married yet. I wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t look.”

  “It seems like you want to do a lot more than look.”

  “So what if I do?”

  “I don’t believe you just said that.”

  What’s-His-Name took a bite of his burger, and juice dripped down his chin. He just kept eating until he finished the entire burger and fries, like nothing was wrong. Amelia couldn’t eat her seafood salad. She was waiting in vain for an apology or an admission or something. He didn’t even notice she hadn’t taken a bite of her meal.

  The server came back, and when she brought the check she scribbled her phone number and the words “Call Me” on the customer receipt. Then she branded the receipt with her bright red lipstick. What’s-His-Name, normally cheap, slapped a fifty down on the counter and then slipped the receipt into his pocket. Amelia reached into his pocket and pulled it out. The server was a skank, but What’s-His-Name didn’t have to pocket her telephone number.

  What’s-His-Name tried to grab the receipt out of her hand.

  “You’re not seriously going to call her, are you?”

  “You know the rules, babe. Until there’s a ring on my finger, I have the freedom to do whatever and whoever I want. I may as well get it out of my system before you tie the noose around my neck.”