Appalachian Prey (Lavender Mountain Book 1; Appalachian Magic)

by Debbie Herbert

  Lilah moaned and pressed her hips into his arousal.

  Harlan cupped her heart-shaped face in his palms and stared into gray eyes that darkened with a passion that met his own. He remembered that expression well. “Lilah?” he asked, her name harsh on his lips.

  In answer, she took his hand and led him down the hallway to his bedroom.

  He was out of his clothes by the time they reached the bed. His body ached as he watched Lilah lift the shirt over her head and swiftly shrug out of her jeans and panties.

  She was so beautiful standing in the moonlight pouring through the window. How had he ever turned her away? He must have been out of his mind. Out of habit, he pulled open the drawer of his nightstand for a condom.

  “A little late for that,” she said with a breathy laugh.

  “Right.”

  He didn’t want even the thinnest barrier between the most intimate parts of their bodies. Harlan went to her, ran his hands over her breasts—definitely larger—and the soft mound of her abdomen.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said simply. “There’s been nobody else.”

  A beat of silence hung in the air and his brain roared like thunder. This must mean she’d been with another. Which meant the baby very well might be another man’s. Or was this where she expected him to say he loved her? His tongue lay thick, heavy and unmoving in his mouth. He cleared his throat.

  Feathered kisses trailed along his jaw. “You don’t have to say a word,” she whispered.

  With that, Harlan laid her on his bed and gently kissed her forehead. “You won’t be sorry, Lilah. I promise to take care of you. If you’ll let me.”

  She pulled him against her. “Sometimes, Harlan, you talk too much.”

  Chapter Ten

  Go or stay? Tell Harlan the truth or not?

  Lilah gathered her hair into a bun at the top of her head, grabbed the water bottle and checked her cell phone. She shook her head in disgust—the battery was only at 12 percent. Probably no reception up here, anyway. She tossed it on the passenger seat and locked the car. Nothing like a walk in the woods to clear her mind and make a decision.

  Only twenty yards into the Mossy Creek Trail and her jumbled emotions had lightened. The scent of cypress and pine invigorated and heightened her senses. The occasional sounds of cars passing by eventually faded and a heavy silence engulfed her, like being wrapped in a giant green cocoon.

  Lilah continued on and memories of Harlan’s touch last night absorbed her thoughts. It had been wild and magical—better than ever. No problem between them when it came to sex. He’d walked into the house yesterday evening and she’d instantly recognized the pain behind his smile. The one he always wore after visiting his mother. She’d gone to him at once, willing to ease his misery, no matter the cost to herself. Making love to Harlan had felt natural and right and she could no longer hide from the truth.

  She still loved him.

  Which left her with a decision to make. Stay and try to win his love—or leave to protect her heart and pride? The problem was, besides her own happiness, she had to consider what was best for their baby.

  On she walked, sweat soaking her T-shirt as she weighed her options. The path stooped downward and a hint of running water freshened the air. Another quarter mile and she’d be at one of Dad’s old stills by Mossy Creek. She glanced at the sky uneasily. Couldn’t tarry too long or the path would be dark when she headed back.

  A barely discernible glint of copper shimmered in the dying light, peeking out between leaves of dense mountain laurel and a patch of witch-hobble. If she hadn’t known the location of her dad’s still, it would have gone unnoticed. Lilah went to the brush and peeled back a limb.

  Sheets of copper bonded together formed a boiler large enough to hold two hundred gallons of corn mash. Behind it was the thumper barrel, which caught the distilled alcohol as it evaporated under the heat. The clear liquid would then travel through a worm and be released out the money piece spigot where Dad used to bottle it up into gallon jugs.

  Curious, Lilah knocked her fist against the steel drum. You never knew when someone in the family would take a notion to reuse one of their many old stills. It always paid for them to keep shifting from one site to another. It kept the long arm of the law guessing. But as she’d suspected, this one gave only a hollow echo. Empty.

  For the first time since her dad’s death, Lilah wondered if Uncle Thad would continue on with the business. Even if he did, there was the possibility he’d lose a large portion of his customer base. Dad had been the one with the special touch for cooking up the best-tasting moonshine. Uncle Thad could mix the same ingredients of rye, barley, sugar water, yeast and wheat bran, all in the same proportions as Dad, but it didn’t taste the same.

  “Gots to watch it close all the time,” Dad would say. “Then you gotta keep the right temperature in place, use only the freshest ingredients, know when the mash has fermented just right and then you gots to aerate it and test yer brew.”

  Much to Uncle Thad’s chagrin, if the liquor didn’t meet Dad’s high standards, he would refuse to bottle and sell it. But that attention to quality had garnered them a broad and loyal customer base over the years.

  She bent to untie her shoes and a gunshot ripped the air directly above her body. Shotgun pellets tore into the bark of a nearby pine and splinters cascaded like rain.

  Run.

  The animal instinct to flee spiked adrenaline through her body like an electrical storm. She ran blindly, with no thought of direction, only mindful to keep her body low and be less of a target. The sound of her own breath was heavy. So loud, she feared it could be heard within a mile radius.

  Brambles and vines cut into her legs and arms as she trampled off the main path. A small price to pay for cover. She didn’t dare look back or stop to hear if anyone approached. Another shotgun blast exploded and she ran faster. The tip of her right foot caught under a tree root and Lilah tumbled forward, jaw and nose slapping the ground. She scrambled to her feet and kept running, spitting out mouthfuls of blood—expecting any moment for a pellet to rip into her backside.

  Only her breath and the pounding blood in her ears sounded for a long stretch. Was the shooter still pursuing? It felt like a knife was plunged into her left side and she leaned against a wide oak, her breathing jagged and painful.

  A long shrill whistle pierced the woods.

  That was no bird.

  Painful or not, she had to keep going. Lilah forced her leaden legs to move forward and gasped when she came upon the mouth of a familiar cave. She hesitated, debating the wisdom of seeking shelter within its stone walls.

  Another raucous whistle materialized from the opposite direction of the first one. She had to do something. Trotting in a low crouch, she broke for the cave and plunged into its darkness.

  Its familiar musky scent greeted her, a reminder of childhood afternoons when she, Jimmy and Darla had played here. They’d named it Hideout Hideaway and had pretended they were pirates. The only booty they’d ever found, though, had been twenty-pound bags of grain and sugar. Jimmy had explained they were for making hooch. The cave had served as an outdoor kitchen pantry of sorts.

  Lilah pressed her hands on the damp walls, making her way deep into the cave’s recesses, until she reached the back wall.

  There was no exit.

  She sank to the ground and held her side, trying to breathe shallow and avoid the slicing pain. Had they seen her? Time crawled by while she waited to be discovered. Seconds—or perhaps minutes?—later, bass rumbles vibrated from beyond the mouth of the cave. Two male voices.

  The rumble increased as they drew closer. She drew her knees into her chest and stared at the narrow entrance, which offered a view of blooming laurel and a thick clump of pine trees.

  Footsteps pulsated from above—they were so close. Did they know about the cave? From their
position, it would only appear to be a clump of stone.

  “Where’d she go?” one of the men asked.

  Lilah stuffed her knuckles in her mouth, afraid of making a sound.

  “No clue.”

  Hold on. That voice had a familiar ring. She tried to process where she’d heard it before.

  “Any idea who that woman was?”

  The other man hesitated. “Maybe. Might have been one of my cousins.”

  Cousins? Her mind whisked as fast as a kitchen beater on high speed.

  “Damn, kid. You a coldhearted one shootin’ at kin.”

  “Kin or not, they ain’t got no business ’round here.”

  “I reckon you scared her off, no harm done.” The man paused a heartbeat. “That’s all you were doin’ right? Scaring her?”

  “Right,” the familiar voice answered.

  He lied. Lilah could tell it by the flat, hard inflection of his voice.

  “Let’s head on back, be getting dark soon.”

  A shotgun blast unexpectedly erupted and Lilah clamped her hands over her ears.

  The men laughed.

  “If you can hear me, take warning,” the man shouted. “Stay away from here and mind yer own business.”

  Would she ever.

  Mercifully, the footsteps resumed, heading away.

  Whew. She leaned her head against the cool damp stone and waited for her thrumming heart to settle. Had Dad and Uncle Thad always kept someone on guard near their still? Strange how she’d never associated the moonshine operation with violence. Yes, it was illegal and yes, the state sent tobacco, alcohol and firearm agents scouring the mountains once every few years, but it had never crossed her mind that protecting the still meant shooting anyone who stumbled across it.

  Her mouth tightened in anger. Uncle Thad be damned. Soon as she got back to Harlan’s, she’d report the location and have this still—and the others—shut down once and for all. Those old monsters of welded copper and steel had caused enough pain in the family. No point in some wandering, innocent tourist being killed over that metal apparatus someday.

  Might have been one of my cousins one of the men had stated.

  She had a good many second and third cousins scattered over the county, but Lilah’s mind leaped to her first cousin. Lavon.

  Definitely Lavon. They’d never gotten along—but did he really hate her enough to want her dead? She recalled the cold, hard set to his eyes when she’d caught him eavesdropping on her conversation with Uncle Thad.

  She rose to leave the cave, but her legs shook too bad to support her weight. Anger melted, leaving a crippling paralysis in its wake. Lilah sank back down onto the damp ground. A little more time to rest and get herself together, then she would head home. Must have run faster and farther than she’d thought. No matter how many deep breaths she tried to take, her lungs demanded more oxygen. And her heart issued its own brutal demand, a rapid and incessant pumping.

  Calm down. This would pass. A few more minutes...

  ...Only it didn’t pass. Surely, she was too young for a heart attack. The baby. Had she damaged her unborn child? Don’t go there. Yet, the worry festered and the more she tried to dismiss it, the more it loomed. Lilah placed one hand on her heart and the other on her stomach, willing mind and body to slow down. We’re safe, she repeated like a mantra.

  A bit of the tension eased. It was working. Lilah gingerly sank down and rested her entire body on the slab of stone. Closing her eyes, she melded into the darkness and the protection of the cave’s thick unyielding walls. Just a little rest before she left its shelter. A little more time to quiet her heart, revive her legs and let Lavon and the other guy move out of the area.

  * * *

  WHERE WAS SHE?

  Harlan paced the den and tried to ring her cell phone for the hundredth time, but there was no answer. He walked through the house again, checking tables and counters for a note. Lilah knew he would worry if she was unaccounted for.

  Something was wrong. Outside, the shadows had darkened and deepened to the point they were almost indistinguishable in the evening’s landscape.

  He wasn’t taking any chances. What good was it working in law enforcement if you couldn’t pull a few strings? Quickly, he dialed the county dispatcher and set up an APB for Lilah’s car. Next, he called the landlord of her apartment building in case she’d returned there.

  His stomach took a dive. Had she left him for good? Yes, they’d made love last night, and it had been amazing, but he hadn’t said the words she’d needed to hear. Maybe she’d finally had enough—had grown weary waiting on him to get his act together.

  He couldn’t sit in this empty house and imagine worst-case scenarios involving Lilah. Harlan hightailed it to the cruiser and kept the police scanner on as he sped to Thaddeus Tedder’s place. With any luck, Lilah was visiting kin and the time had slipped away from her. He flipped on the blue siren switch and climbed the mountain.

  The moment he pulled into the driveway, disappointment washed over him. Lilah’s car was nowhere in sight. He parked on a diagonal just by the porch where Thaddeus, his wife and their eldest son sat. The cherry from Thad’s cigar glowed and moths fluttered around the overhead light.

  “You seen Lilah?” he asked without preamble, exiting the car.

  Thad spoke for the group. “Not today. Why?”

  Viola started to rise from her rocking chair. “She in some kind of trouble?”

  “Only trouble she’s in is from our deputy here,” their son joked.

  Everyone kept assuming he was the father. If only he could be as certain. Harlan’s hands went to his hips and he glared at the guy—Lavon, if he was remembering correctly. Punk kid. The name Lavon Tedder had come up a few times over the years. All minor incidents—a school fight, petty theft, vandalism. Never could pin anything on him, though; kid was as slippery as his dad. How had Lilah risen above this despicable family?

  “Lavon!”

  Even in the darkness, Viola’s red face was evident.

  “When you going to do right by Lilah?” Thad smirked, ignoring his son’s rude comment. “Although, if you ask me, she can do lots better than a do-good nobody like you. Told her so, too.”

  Nobody had asked Thad’s opinion. Coming here had been a complete waste of time.

  “You hear from Lilah, let me know.”

  “Can’t keep tabs on your own woman?” Lavon mocked.

  That did it. “What’s your problem, kid? Two people in your family are dead and Lilah’s unaccounted for.”

  “He didn’t mean nothing by it,” Thad said. “She’s probably just visiting a friend.”

  Harlan wished he could believe in a simple explanation. He also wished for a crime free community, prosperity in Appalachia and world peace. But wishing didn’t make it so.

  “Let’s hope that’s the case.” He returned to the cruiser and got in, ready to pull out, when Viola came to the door and motioned for him to roll down the window.

  “Call me when you find her.” Her face taut. “Lilah’s always been one to hike out in the woods, alone, but she don’t need to be running around at night all by herself.”

  “Under the circumstances, I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  Harlan drove back to the main road. What next? Lilah claimed to have lost touch with old childhood friends, which just left family. She hadn’t gone to visit Ed or her nephews—he’d already checked. And she wasn’t with her elderly aunt—he’d called there, too. Which only left Jasper Tedder. The old coot would be even less happy to see him than Thad, not that it mattered.

  Darkness seeped in by degrees as he climbed to the top of Lavender Mountain, and with it a heavy blanket of dread weighed on his heart. He had to find Lilah soon. What if she were out in the woods and had turned her ankle—or something worse? Over ten years as a deputy sheriff had pr
ovided too many horrific examples of tragic accidents and crimes.

  His cruiser headlights pierced the ramshackle building Jasper called home. It was slapped together from sheets of pressed wood and sported a rusty tin roof—one stiff wind away from annihilation. The porch was haphazardly strewn with an ironing board, an old school desk, boxes and plastic bins. Harlan parked and got out of the vehicle.

  Jasper stalked out the front door waving his arms. “My peppers!”

  Huh? Harlan scanned the premises.

  “You run over my pepper plants.”

  Harlan looked back and, sure enough, he’d driven over a couple. “Sorry, sir. I’ll come back out later this week with new plants.”

  Jasper rubbed at his beard. “I reckon that’ll be all right then. See that you do.”

  “Yes, sir. I came to ask if you’d heard from Lilah today.”

  White scraggly eyebrows lifted. “She don’t come to call very often. Why you asking?”

  “It’s late and getting dark. She usually lets me know if she won’t be home for dinner.”

  “Well, now don’t you paint a nice cozy picture. Fact is, son, you’re living in sin with my niece. You can pretty it up any way you please but facts is facts. The Lord don’t—”

  “If you don’t mind, sir. Have you seen Lilah or not?”

  “Not today. Maybe she’s come to her senses and gone back to her own place like a nice respectable young lady. Back in my day, we didn’t cotton to this foolishness of make-believe marriages and such. Far as I’m concerned, y’all are playing house.”

  He’d been lectured enough today. “The point is—Lilah might be in danger.”

  The walkie-talkie belted by his hip crackled and the dispatcher’s voice sounded: Navy blue compact car located. License plate ALA34892. Registered owner listed as Lilah Tedder. Found by entrance to Mossy Creek Trail. Vehicle is unoccupied.

  Damn. Adrenaline flushed his body. What was she doing there? Something bad had happened to her, he just knew it, had felt it all along. Harlan rushed to his car.