Virginia Autumn by Sara Mitchell

Author:Sara Mitchell [Mitchell, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-25T18:00:00+00:00

For the next several hours they drove without regard to a destination. Cade told Leah not to worry about becoming lost, then steered the horse apparently at random down Stillwaters’s side roads, which wound through woods-choked valleys and around the flanks of steep, rocky hills. For a while they continued to meet riders, parties of hikers, or other hotel gigs, driven by uniformed Stillwaters employees. But as time passed they met fewer guests. When Leah commented on it, Cade grinned and told her he’d deliberately chosen the less traveled areas, farther from the hotel’s main road.

“All well and good,” Leah retorted, “but I don’t want to find ourselves lost again.”

“Trust me, sweetheart. Over the past three months I’ve trod almost every inch of the resort grounds. Did you know it took Ben two years to widen the roads just enough to accommodate a carriage? He insisted on disrupting the surroundings as little as possible, so he made changes inch by inch.”

“Sounds like something you and Benjamin would insist upon.” Privately she thought the trees loomed over the road, and she could have done with more openness. Then, because she was determined to thoroughly test the strength of Cade’s promise that she could say whatever she liked, she told him so.

“Some guests have the same reaction,” he said peacefully. “Can’t please everybody. That’s why we haven’t seen anyone for the past half-hour. You complaining about that, too?”

Leah considered for a moment. “No.”

“I’m glad. Besides, this road we’re on now loops back around to the main drive to the hotel, just a ways down from where we left it three hours ago.”

With a mischievous grin he then launched into a scientific discourse on the variety of flora and fauna he’d discovered at Stillwaters, and the possibility that man-made disruptions would upset the ecological balance. Naturally Leah felt compelled to respond, often with the opposite point of view, for the delight of hearing Cade’s passionate response.

While the horse ambled along, she and Cade talked about anything and everything—except the immediate future, especially concerning J. Preston Clarke and the cloud of danger that lurked on the horizon. By unspoken agreement, both of them adopted Jesus’ admonition to take no thought for the morrow, leaving it where it belonged—in the Lord’s capable hands.

It was a glorious late September day, with a bright blue sky, mild temperatures, and all the colors in God’s autumnal palette seeping through the trees. Afternoon sunbeams shot streaks of pinkish gold across the western mountains, and the deep blue sky was smeared with orange and purple overtones. Leah couldn’t remember a day when she’d been so content.

They were approaching a curve when four men leaped from the trees, converging upon the buggy like a swarm of hornets.

They had no time to prepare, no time to react or truly defend themselves.

Leah managed a single healthy scream as two of the men dragged Cade from the buggy. Then the third man yanked her down as well, his hand clamping over her jaw. Leah

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