Legacy Read online

  When cousins Jo and Carter Lemke hike up to their family cabin after two years away, they’re not surprised to find the place a disaster. What they weren’t expecting, however, is a mysterious presence in the cabin that seems intent on getting rid of them.

  With the help of some friends, Carter’s wife, and a gorgeous forest ranger Jo can’t take her eyes off, Jo and Carter set out to reclaim their home from the presence that haunts it. As danger mounts, they'll have to decide if it’s worth risking their lives or if it might be better to leave it to the woods.

  Praise for Charlotte Greene

  A Palette for Love

  “The relationship really works between the main characters, and the sex is steamy but not over the top.”—Amanda’s Reviews

  Pride and Porters

  “Have you ever wondered how Pride and Prejudice would work if it were two women falling in love with a brewery as a backdrop? Well, wonder no more!…All in all, I would say this is up near the top on my list of favorite Pride and Prejudice adaptations.”—Amanda Brill, Librarian, Rowan Public Library (North Carolina)

  “Greene’s charming retelling of Pride and Prejudice transplants the Bennets into the world of Colorado craft beer…The story beats are comfortingly familiar, with the unusual backdrop of brewing and beer competitions, modern setting, and twists on the characters providing enough divergence to keep the reader engaged…Feminism, lesbianism, and class are all touched on in this refreshing update on a classic.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred review)

  Gnarled Hollow

  “Greene has done an outstanding job of weaving in all sorts of layers; mysterious patterns in the gardens, missing rooms, odd disappearances, blandly boring journals, unknown artwork, and each mystery is eventually revealed as part of the horrific whole. Combined with intensely emotional descriptions of the fear the characters experience as they are targeted by the tortured spirit and this book is genuinely a page turner…not only could I not sleep after reading it, I didn’t want to put it down.”—Lesbian Reading Room

  Legacy

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

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  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Legacy

  © 2019 By Charlotte Greene. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-491-5

  This Electronic Original Is Published By

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: September 2019

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

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Shelley Thrasher

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  A Palette for Love

  Love in Disaster

  Canvas for Love

  Pride and Porters

  Gnarled Hollow

  Legacy

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to my amazing editor, Shelley Thrasher. This novel had a little more work than usual between the first and final drafts, and I couldn’t have done it without you. My very deep gratitude to you and your insightful mind.

  Thanks also to my beautiful, wonderful, loving wife, who supports my writing and adds to my happiness more than she will ever know. I love you forever and always, hon.

  Finally, thanks to the wonderful rangers at our beautiful national parks, without whom so many of us would be hopelessly lost. Keep fighting the good fight.

  For my supportive, dedicated family. You guys are everything.

  Chapter One

  Jo grabbed her pack from the back of Ronnie’s truck and leaned it against the nearest tree. Ronnie had gotten out of her truck and was bending, side-to-side at the waist, stretching. The air up here was thin, the last of the day’s summer heat harsh and uncomfortable, and Jo knew the hike to the cabin would be rough.

  Ronnie rolled her neck and shoulders a couple more times and then stopped, peering at Jo, her expression grim. “Are you sure you want to be here by yourself?”

  Jo nodded. “I told Carter I’d check out the trail, just in case something’s wrong with it, and maybe get started on the cabin. No one’s been up there for two years.”

  Ronnie shuddered, staring into the woods. “Better you than me. I’d never go up there by myself.”

  Jo camped, backpacked, and climbed by herself all the time, but it was hard to convince most people that it was safe. Even her parents, die-hard mountaineers themselves, often chided her for it. Truthfully, she liked being by herself in the woods. Her cousin Carter and two of their friends were coming up tomorrow, and, knowing the three of them, once they arrived, it would be anything but peaceful. Carter, a lawyer, liked the sound of her own voice. Their grandmother used to say she could talk the bark off a tree.

  Jo shrugged. “I’ll be okay. It’s just one night.”

  Ronnie was still frowning, staring up the trail, and Jo stepped toward her to get her attention. She opened her arms and they hugged. Ronnie drew back first and squeezed Jo’s shoulders.

  “Be safe, okay? I don’t want Carter to kill me if something happens to you. I’m so pissed I can’t go up there with you and help out. Friggin’ work.” Ronnie had planned to stay through the weekend, but her boss had called her this morning with a last-minute emergency. She was flying to New York later that day.

  “I’ll be fine,” Jo repeated, “and don’t worry about it. We can show you the cabin, all cleaned up, when you get back from your trip.”

  Ronnie nodded, clearly reluctant to go, and then sighed. She gave Jo another tight hug and climbed back into her truck. The windows were down from their drive up, and she put her arm on the edge, grinning.

  “Keep your nose clean, kiddo.” She gave her a mock, two-fingered salute.

  Jo laughed, returned the salute, and then watched as she drove away. Ronnie stuck her hand out of the window, waving, and then disappeared around a curve in the road. Jo waited until the sound of the truck faded, and gradually the silence of the woods overtook her. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. Down here on the road, the clean air was muddled slightly with the scent of pavement and road dust, but her sensitive nose caught the heady odor of pine and wet leaves from the woods.

  She opened her eyes, her stomach lurching with excitement. She’d been looking forward to this for a long time, had saved all her vacation time just in case she could come here for this two-week trip. Now, finally, she was here, and she had an unexpected night to herself. She felt like laughing, almost giddy.

  She checked her backpack one more time, making sure the zippers and straps were properly fastened, and then pulled it onto her back, using her core and her legs to stand up with it safely. Tomorrow she would help Carter and the others lug a great deal of equipment up this same trail, but for today she just had her pack—a pack she’d carried thousands of miles at this point. Despite the weight, it was comfortable, familiar, even, like an old friend. She cinched the belt at her waist, adjusted the shoulder straps, and started up the trail, nearly skipping with suppressed joy.

  Despite being firmly within the bounds of Rocky Mountain National Park, beyond the little parking lot, the trail Jo was hiking and the mountain itself was family property. In the late
nineteenth century, her ancestors had bought this land, long before it was a national park, and built a cabin at the top. When Rocky was first developed, anyone with land inside the boundaries was allowed to keep it through a policy called inholding. While most of the other families inside the park had sold out to the park system long ago, no one in Jo’s family had even considered selling, even at the height of the Depression. For generations, her family had spent vacations here, had weddings here, and, in the case of some of her ancestors, had been born and died here. This land and the cabin were the family haven.

  Then, after the death of her grandparents, one of her aunts had started arguing with her siblings about the property rights, and no one in the family was allowed to come up here while they duked it out with her in court. The cabin had been virtually abandoned for the last two years, and no one knew how it had held up. Carter, as one of the lawyers in the family lawsuit, had gotten permission for this visit, but it had taken months to sort it out. Now, after all this time, Jo was finally going to see her favorite place in the whole world.

  The plan, for the next two weeks, was to assess the trail and the property and start cleaning and repairing the cabin and anything else that needed work. Still, even with what was likely to be a very difficult job ahead of her and the people joining her tomorrow, Jo was thrilled to be here. It had been very difficult to stay away, and being here again was like coming home. A hollow, empty part of her felt fulfilled, whole.

  Because of several delays—all Ronnie’s—it was now late afternoon, and Jo knew she needed to hike as quickly as possible if she wanted to make it before dark. She was fairly certain she would have to sleep in her tent tonight, as she imagined the cabin was in shambles, but it might just be possible to clean a space inside for a sleeping bag. It was only about a mile to the top, but it was a steep mile, especially the second half. Despite the hour, she started to sweat heavily almost at once. This September had been unseasonably warm, even up here, and the exertion of carrying a heavy pack always made the heat seem twice as intense.

  The first quarter of the trail, she walked through a thick grove of aspens, some of the leaves just starting to take on the famous gold they would become over the next month. Then, almost as if there were a barrier, the aspens fell behind, and as she walked farther, she was surrounded by thick pine. Their mountain was covered almost entirely with Lodgepole pine and Ponderosa, and her nose filled with the strong scent of butterscotch and vanilla from the warm trees.

  In her jubilance and haste, she ignored the sound in the woods for several yards, stopping only when she heard it more distinctly—a crashing, lumbering sound breaking through the trees and bushes some distance to her right. She peered that way, squinting in the bright sunshine, and waited for the animal to reveal itself. About fifty feet away, the branches of some thick bushes were swaying dramatically, as if something were fighting its way through. Jo expected to see a deer or elk walk through at any moment. Regardless of what animal it was, she was safe at this distance, as even a bear would likely ignore her. The branches stopped moving almost at once, and Jo held her breath, waiting for something to appear. She stood there, motionless, long enough that she began to tremble from suppressed nerves, and she finally let out her breath and relaxed her shoulders.

  Despite the thick pine on the mountain, in several spots on the trail, like the one she stood in, the sky opened up entirely above. The trees had either been cut back or grew naturally farther away. As she waited, still hoping for the animal to appear, she suddenly realized that the heat of the sun on the back of her neck was no longer as intense as it had been. Then, as she continued to stand there, she no longer had to squint as intensely, the light gradually dying out of the sky. She glanced upward, expecting a cloud, and had to stare for a moment longer, confused. The sky was clear above her, the fierce blue unbroken, but the light was still fading. She glanced at her watch, confused, but it was much too early for sunset, and anyway, she could still see the sun.

  She shivered then, intensely, and rubbed her arms, which had broken out in gooseflesh. A tree branch is blocking the light somewhere, she told herself. She watched the bushes for a few seconds more, still hoping to catch a glimpse of the animal over there, but an acute anxiety was suddenly making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She felt as if she were being watched.

  She shook her head, scolding herself for being silly. Of course she was being watched. Whatever was hiding in the bushes over there was clearly watching her. It had seen or smelled her standing here and was waiting for her to move on, motionless with fright. Still, the sensation was unpleasant, and she had a sudden wild, almost desperate urge to start moving again. She didn’t want to see what was out there any longer—no, more than that, she knew she shouldn’t let herself see what was there. She understood, with complete conviction, that she wouldn’t like what she saw.

  Fighting a compulsion to run, Jo turned back to the trail and started hiking toward the cabin with a haste just shy of jogging. Having stopped for perhaps five minutes, total, to wait for the animal or whatever it had been, she was surprised by how chilled she was. Within a few yards, the sun started blazing down on her again, and she was sweating soon after.

  By the time she reached the last switchback ten minutes later, she wanted to laugh at herself. There she’d been, not twenty minutes after Ronnie’s departure, creeping herself out. All it had taken was a deer and a shadow, and she’d wanted to run away and hide. She shook her head, grinning sheepishly. At least her cousin Carter hadn’t been there to see her make a fool of herself. She’d never live it down.

  When the cabin finally came into view, it seemed even smaller than Jo remembered. Some of this illusion was the effect of the trees, whose growth had nearly swallowed it over the last two years. She was used to the sparse, almost desert-like effect of beetle-kill in other parts of the state. The dense pine near the cabin looked foreign, unfamiliar, almost like she had walked out of Colorado altogether. Only the glint of glass and the edge of the porch suggested the presence of a cabin there.

  The cabin stood at the far edge of a flat clearing. Her ancestors had cut the woods back to give themselves a kind of yard here on the flattest part of the mountain. Still, the trees grew high on all sides, so that the effect was only slightly successful. Already, just in the last two years, saplings and a few larger young trees grew in several places in the clearing, and Jo was certain that if more time passed without maintenance, the clearing would entirely disappear. The family used this space for larger gatherings, setting up tents around the picnic table and fire pit with only a lucky few able to stay inside. Knowing she was likely staying outside tonight, Jo set her pack down on the table, surprised to find it sturdy and solid, though filthy. She opened the top zipper on her pack and dug around for the keys and a headlamp, then walked toward the cabin’s small porch.

  The neglect was even more apparent up close. Jo spotted one broken window, suspecting there were more. Glass littered the ground beneath the window, sparkling in the bright sunshine. She frowned, staring at the shards. She would have expected most of the glass to go inside unless it had somehow broken from the inside out. She took a step closer and peered at it, deciding this was what had happened. She couldn’t see anything inside that might have broken out, but it was too dark in there to see anything clearly.

  The other windows on this side of the cabin were intact but cloudy with dirt and grime. The porch was covered with streaks of mud and little drifts of leaves and pine needles. The furniture on the porch was, in some cases, literally on its last legs, a few pieces already caved in and broken. She would never have thought two years could cause this much damage. She had to struggle with the locks for a few seconds, and the door opened with a loud, piercing squeal.

  Inside, it was incredibly filthy, and so dark it might have been the dead of night. The light from her headlamp barely penetrated the murky gloom. Jo walked farther in, pausing in the kitchen, leaving a track of footprints behind her on th
e dusty floor. From what she could make out in the gloom, the place was in shambles. This was the main room, a combination kitchen and living room. Two closed doors, one on either side of the room to the right and left, led to the two bedrooms. The upholstery of the living-room furniture had been destroyed, likely by animals or insects. Tufts of stuffing poked through the cushions or lay in little white piles all over the room. Dust and dirt coated every surface. The air was dense with it, almost foggy.

  The bedrooms were identical, but she went to the one she knew had a broken window, knowing she would likely find real weather damage in there. She had to put her shoulder into the door to open it. The wood had obviously expanded with the summer humidity, and it took all of her strength to force it. Suddenly, almost as if it had been held closed on the inside, the door gave way all at once, and she crashed into the wall, the reverberation sending a shock through the right side of her body. She cursed and rubbed her wrist, and then, as the light of her headlamp penetrated the dark room, she froze.

  It took her a long moment to make sense of what she was seeing. All the bedroom furniture had been placed in a large pile from floor to ceiling, stacked precariously on top of itself, but arranged in a way that was almost artistic, not haphazard. Rather than thrown there together in a heap, the furniture had been carefully arranged so that each piece supported something on top of it. The base of the structure was the large, antique dresser that had been in here since the cabin was built. Three twin-sized beds rested upright against it, and they held four upright wooden armchairs, which in turn supported the final twin bed and a smaller dresser, lying upside down. Four lamps sat on the top bed, flush with the ceiling. She moved her light up and down the pile several times, but she stayed where she was, almost petrified with fright.