Passions Read online

  Passions

  Sheritta Bitikofer

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Sheritta Bitikofer

  Copyright © 2016 Sheritta Bitikofer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means – except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews – without written permission from its author.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover art by Angela Quincoces Rivera at http://www.dream-designz.com

  Created with Vellum

  Dedicated to those passions that burn inside, waiting to come to light.

  Also, thank you to Miss Angela for stepping out of her shell to help edit this manuscript.

  Chapter 1

  Chloe was still sitting in her car fifteen minutes after pulling up the gravel drive. She stared out her windshield to the cabin before her, still in disbelief that she was actually here.

  It seemed only a few days ago that she received the call from her aunt’s attorney when it actually had been over a month. Once the grief subsided from the news that her favorite – and only – aunt had passed away in her sleep, Chloe was thrown into a whirlwind of life changes. She regretted nothing regarding her decision to move into the cabin.

  Along with a sizable trust fund that her aunt had been secretly stashing away into for decades, she received this cabin—a two story house that was at least a couple hundred years old but renovated within the last few years to accommodate tourists who wanted to rent out the cozy cabin for their vacations. When her aunt had been told she could no longer live by herself, she had moved into an assisted living home in Savannah while renting out her former home here in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  Chloe immediately told the real estate company that she had no intention of letting the home remain available for weekend getaways. They were also dismayed to hear of her aunt’s passing. She was a beloved woman in the small town of Carter Lake. Everyone knew her and the cabin well. It was old enough to be declared a historic landmark, but Chloe had other intentions for the home.

  She took a deep breath and finally slid out of her silver sedan. Her stylish leather boots crunched against the gravel walkway as she made her way slowly towards the front steps. She had taken several trips to Carter Lake since the news about her aunt, but she had never stepped foot into the cabin. Her scouting trips had been consumed by settling affairs with the realtors and acquainting herself with the town a couple of miles away in the valley.

  Carter Lake was a modest town with only one school, one grocery store, a bank, a few diners, a gas station, and city hall. The town had grown since she was a child, but not by much. The mere presence of an ATM was a major improvement.

  The cabin was quaint, sitting upon a sloping hill that crested to the right of the house. The pathway had been leveled for the convenience of the temporary tenants, but Chloe remembered a time when she had a hard time keeping her balance while making the trip from the car to the porch. But that was many years ago.

  Childhood images flashed in her mind of winter afternoons spent riding a plastic trashcan lid from the front steps down to the creek that bordered the cabin’s property to the south. Her girlish squeals could probably be heard for miles around as she steered her makeshift toboggan around tall pines and fallen logs.

  The porch had been reconstructed, the old squeaking floorboards replaced by new planks. A carved log railing with balusters now skirted the edge of the porch, where it used to be open years before, giving the cabin an even more rustic, homey feel.

  Even the column supports for the second story had been replaced with brand new beams, free of carpenter bee holes and jagged cracks in the sides. The old rusted tin roof had been refreshed, too.

  The second story edifice hadn’t changed much, still retaining the two dormers that jutted out from the upstairs bedrooms. However, Chloe knew that behind those lacy curtained windows would be a whole new interior, much different than what she knew before.

  Such improvements were necessary for safety regulations, but a part of Chloe wished that everything could have remained the same; a little piece of her family’s heritage serving as a time capsule for her in this dismal hour of her life. Instead, there were only the memories of its former self to remind her of a time when she didn’t have to care about anything beyond having a good time.

  Things had certainly changed since she last visited in her youth. But then again, Chloe had changed a lot, too.

  She fished out a single brass key from her jean’s pocket and unlocked the front door. The lock was new, too, sparkling like it had been recently polished.

  But she froze there, her hand gripping the cool golden knob. This shouldn’t have been so scary. Chloe had faced worse things. Why should this place, an icon of her childhood, prove so terrifying?

  She steeled herself, squared her shoulders, and opened the door.

  Her chest squeezed tight as her dark hazel eyes surveyed the inside.

  Stepping into the living room, she breathed in the earthy scent of wood and musty furniture. One thing she was glad for was the fact that the cabin came fully furnished. This was a relief, because she would have hated to ship her apartment furniture from Atlanta. She doubted a moving truck, no matter how small, would have been able to traverse the miles of winding mountain roads to make it to the cabin.

  Even she had a hard time making the trek in her car. She had made a mental note earlier that she would need to get a more efficient vehicle such as a jeep or truck. The idea of her, a born and bred city girl, driving a truck made her shiver. What a change.

  Light streamed in through the front windows, filtered only by the gauzy curtains that framed the panels. None of the furniture was the same. The couch was no longer the vintage sofa with coarse cushions, but a piece reminiscent of cabin life with a carved log frame, much like the balusters on the front porch, lacquered to a smooth finish.

  The upholstery was a dark burgundy, almost brown hue, with a throw blanket draped over the back. It was woven, depicting a moose and its offspring in the early winter forest. Chloe recognized it as something anyone could buy from Wal-Mart, not the hand-sewn quilt that her aunt had cherished as a family heirloom.

  Catty-corner from the sofa was a single armchair made in the same fashion, and both were pivoted around the fireplace, the focal point of the room. Only a coffee table separated them. Underneath the living room furniture was a thick rug spread over the hardwood floor. The patterns on the rug reminded Chloe of Native American art with their symmetrical shapes and vibrant colors.

  The stone hearth of the fireplace was just as she remembered. At least one thing hadn’t changed. She used to spend hours sitting by the warm fire, listening to stories the adults shared and roasting marshmallows after supper.

  Ch
loe’s eye was drawn to a corner stone on the hearth that was cracked down the center. The ghost of a smile passed over her lips as she remembered how it became chipped like that. She must have been only five years old at the time, playing with the fire poker while her mother and aunt were baking in the kitchen. Chloe, though a small child, got too rowdy in her pretend game and smacked the stone, causing it to split. Her mother was furious, but her sweet aunt only laughed. She could still hear that bubbly laugh echoing in her mind.

  The same stones that made the hearth also decorated the flue, climbing up the wall to the ceiling. Just above the firebox opening was the hardwood mantle, decorated with a stock photo picture frame and a stuffed black bear in the corner.

  Chloe noticed that the real estate company had failed to take most of their decorations, and she was fine with that. It made the place feel a little more like home and not as barren.

  Past the living room, she could see into the cozy kitchen. The positioning of the counters and cabinets hadn’t changed, but the doors had been replaced with new polished oak panels carved with leaf patterns. A small island separated the kitchen from the dining area where four spindly chairs were pushed under a matching round, mahogany table.

  Straight ahead from the front door was the back door in the kitchen, leading out to the deck that overlooked the snaking creek and tall pines that hid the cabin from the rest of the world, almost in perfect isolation.

  Another window illuminated the dinette area and the space between. Stairs lined the other adjacent wall, leading to the second floor.

  Taking slow, deliberate steps, she ascended the stairs. The treads no longer groaned under her weight as they had before. Undoubtedly, a tenant had complained about the creaking and had the realtors fix it, just like they fixed the rest of the cabin.

  The hall twisted around, leading to the only bathroom in the house and two bedrooms. The bathroom was tastefully decorated in everything black bear, whereas the bedrooms were inhabited by moose and deer; definitely a tourist rental. Chloe knew she would have to remedy this before long. She could only take so many beady eyes staring at her.

  And just as she had predicted, the bedroom furniture matched the sofa and chair from downstairs. What used to be the old guest room she slept in as a child when her family visited was nothing like she remembered. The furniture was arranged differently. Unless she moved the dresser and nightstand back to where it used to be, she’d stub her toes in the dark until she became used to the new arrangement.

  But she didn’t have time to move anything right now. There was still a carload of luggage that she needed to bring inside. And there was also the dilemma of what she’d have for dinner. The fridge downstairs was bare, as were the cupboards.

  Taking a soothing breath, she whipped out her elastic tie and pulled back her long, wavy, brown hair into a tight ponytail and then headed back downstairs.

  Chloe had almost forgotten how heavy her suitcases were until she began lugging them, one by one, up to her room. She counted her blessings that there was only one flight of stairs to climb instead of four like at her apartment in Atlanta. Of course, it was easier to drag luggage down steps than up.

  The job would have been easier if she had someone to help her. But Chloe was all too painfully aware of why she had no one to assist her with the move, and she didn’t want to think about that now. All she wanted to think about was the chance of a new life stretching out ahead of her in the months and years to come.

  She loved her cushy desk job as a receptionist at the dentist office in Atlanta, and she loved her apartment. Chloe would miss the stores, the convenience of civilization, and the great Chinese takeout. And even though her parents raised her in the big city, her heart yearned for the mountains, whether she realized it or not.

  The mountains offered something that the city could never give her; the fresh air, the friendly faces, and best of all were the memories. It was the memories of fishing by the creek and hiking in the woods with her parents; the memories of campfires, crafts, and getting lost in piles of autumn leaves; the cheerful holiday vacations spent away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

  Chloe berated herself for neglecting her aunt in her teenage years.

  Like all teenagers, she brushed off the offers to visit family, especially if it meant being away from her friends for more than a few days. Her parents had been lenient with her in those times and let her recalcitrant attitude slide under the radar. If Chloe could have done things over again, she would have been the first one to jump in the car with her backpack filled with books and pajamas.

  She would have given anything to undo all the terrible mistakes she had made in the last decade of her life. But the past was the past. It couldn’t be changed. All there was left to do was to move on and learn the lessons that foolish choices had forced her to experience.

  Once all of her luggage was upstairs, she sat down heavily on her mattress. Despite the cool breeze outside, a thin sheen of sweat coated her forehead. Even after stripping off her brown canvas jacket downstairs, she still got a good workout from the task. She was used to trekking up flights of apartment buildings stairs, but the added weight of all the clothes she owned was too much.

  Chloe fell backward onto the downy comforter, threw her arms above her head and sighed. Now that she was still and mentally unoccupied, she finally noticed how deathly silent it was.

  In the city, traffic noises were constant, only interrupted by the occasional shouting match in the apartment down the hall or car alarm going off in the parking lot. But out here, there was nothing but peace. It unnerved her at first. She never thought silence could seem so loud in her own ears.

  She let her gaze wander around the vaulted ceiling. There was still unpacking to do, but it took a moment for her to fully register that the hardest part was over. All the paperwork, the move, and the flowers she left in the cemetery during the funeral were all behind her now. Now was the time for her to rebuild her life and do what she had always wanted to do. And nothing was going to hold her back anymore.

  Chloe had yet to tell anyone what her real motive was behind quitting her job and moving into the middle of nowhere. She knew they would all laugh and give her weird looks if she confessed she had dreams of becoming a writer.

  For years, she had compiled stories and fictitious characters that had become as real to her as anyone else. They became better friends when the bottom fell out and she was suddenly alone in the world.

  She never really told anyone about her secret passion. Not even her mom or her closest friends growing up knew the truth. They all just assumed she had an overactive imagination. Only her aunt, Mary Anne, saw her true potential and didn’t ignore it.

  Her aunt knew from the time Chloe was little that she was a natural-born storyteller. Every Christmas and birthday, she gifted Chloe boxes of books. Some were priceless and old, while others were second hand from the local bookstore in Carter Lake.

  She had given away a lot of the books and had loaned many others out to unfaithful friends who had not returned them. The rest were located in her Atlanta storage unit, and she knew she would need to get them before long

  She carried only one book in particular with her, nestled safely between layers of clothes inside her suitcase. It was a priceless and extremely rare copy of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, printed in 1857. It was her most prized possession, a gift from her aunt when she turned sixteen. The pages were so delicate that Chloe didn’t have the heart to open it and read the story that lay inside the cover. Instead, she purchased a brand new copy and read it while the 1857 copy lay inside its protective plastic case.

  But there was still the matter of procuring a bookshelf. She couldn’t find a single one in the cabin to accommodate her treasured collection.

  Chloe’s laptop bag sat downstairs on the sofa along with an external hard drive that contained all of her story files. Between work and other life obligations, it was hard to find time to write. But, now she could. With her
aunt’s trust fund to hold her over until the royalties started flooding in, she would have plenty of time to dedicate herself to the stories that had been mulling around inside her, bursting at the seams and screaming to be told to the world. Whether or not the world wanted to hear them was another matter entirely.

  That thought reminded her that there was still another person who knew about her writing dreams. Brent used to talk about how the world was clamoring at her door to hear what she had to say. But, he was always saying things like that. It wasn’t until later that she realized the bitter truth. Chloe would never forget the moment she woke up from the delusion she had been living for years.

  That wound was still too tender to touch yet. She blinked hard and long as if to push back the unsolicited thoughts. She wouldn’t think about it. Not about Brent, not about her old job, her old friends, and nothing about Atlanta. She was done with it and everything it represented to her. There was only this cabin, Carter Lake, and her stories. That’s all that mattered now. Returning here may be the best decision she’d ever made. It was a new adventure.

  Chloe opened her eyes and took a deep breath as if it were her first. It was clean, new, refreshing. And only then did she notice something.

  Apart from the silence, there was a presence about the house. Some spiritual types might have told her it was the imprint of those who lived there before. Chloe was too grounded to believe such things. It was just the oldness of the house, the memories, and the familiar warmth of childhood that she had almost forgotten amidst the craziness of adult life.

  With a stiff push, she rose from the mattress and planted herself heavily on the wooden floor. Some eerie auras weren’t going to keep her from doing what needed to get done.

  Chloe made her way back down to her car. Her new adventure still needed food. If her written words alone could sustain her, she would never be in want. But, her growling stomach was a good reminder that even artists needed to eat.