Mountain Hideaway. Christy Barritt

       ONE

      Tessa Jones flung herself across the couch toward the lamp and pulled the switch so hard the ceramic base nearly toppled onto the wooden floor below. With quick breaths, she darted toward the wall.

      She pulled her sweater closer around her neck and forced air into her lungs. Anxiety pressed down on her and adrenaline surged, the mix making her head spin.

      Slowly, she edged toward the window. She had to look. She had no choice.

      With all the lights extinguished in her home, anyone lurking outside shouldn’t see her. Still, she had to be careful. She had no idea who or what was on the other side of that glass. Here in the middle of nowhere, there were no neighbors to hear her scream, to rush to her rescue. If something happened to her, she might not be found for days.

      That had worked to her advantage...until today.

      At this moment, she craved having someone nearby to help her, to be a second set of eyes. But she’d been mentally preparing for months to be self-reliant if a situation like this ever occurred. She’d only hoped it would never come to this.

      As she turned toward the window, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She stared hard yet cautiously into the abyss of thick woods surrounding the property.

      Certainly, the speck of light bobbing on the horizon had just been her imagination. There was no one out there among the trees and the steep landscape of the mountain terrain. There couldn’t be. No one even knew this place was here.

      Blackness stared back, and her heart slowed.

      It had been her imagination. Just her imagination. Maybe her paranoia. It didn’t matter, as long as what she’d seen hadn’t been real.

      Just then something flickered in the distance.

      She blinked, her momentary relief instantly vanishing. She clutched her chest as her heart thumped out of control. Despite the cold, sweat spread across her forehead.

      The light was small, like a flashlight, and it continued to bob through the woods.

      Someone was walking. Toward the cabin. Toward her.

      Leo’s men had found her, she realized.

      Fear paralyzed her.

      It didn’t matter that she’d run through this potential scenario a million times. That she’d rehearsed what she would do. That she’d planned the best course of escape.

      Right now, all of those thoughts disappeared.

      She’d been here eight months. She’d thought she was safe. She’d prayed she was.

      But God had stopped answering her prayers a long time ago.

      The beam grew larger as it neared the property. Whoever was holding the light had probably seen the lamp on. Knew that Tessa was here. Hiding, at this point, would be fruitless.

      No, she had to run.

      She shook her head, thoughts colliding inside.

      If she ran, the mountains would kill her, even if whoever was after her didn’t. It was too dark. There were too many cliffs. Too many unknowns.

      Either way, she had to move, and now!

      She grabbed a backpack from her closet. She’d put it together just in case something like this ever happened. It had a flashlight, some cash, some water and a small blanket. After she slung the bag over her shoulders, she crept to the back door. She had to be decisive, to stop hesitating. If she wasn’t, the person out there would reach the cabin and might hear her leave. Might sneak around to the back and catch her.

      It took every ounce of her determination to pull the door open. A brisk wind blew inside. Though it was late autumn, the air felt brutally cold here in the middle of the mountains, especially at night.

      She was going to miss this cabin. Miss this life.

      The thought of starting over again made Tessa’s head pound, made her feel as though a rock had been placed on her chest.

      But she’d have time to worry about that later. Right now, she had to concentrate on surviving.

      She quietly closed the door behind her. On her tiptoes, she started toward the woodshed in the distance. She’d hide out there and see what unfolded. She didn’t have much choice. If the intruder came too close, she could dart into the woods. She’d take her chances there before she’d take them at the hands of the ruthless men who Leo had probably sent after her.

      Ducking behind the rough wood of the shed, she crouched, desperate to stay concealed. As the wind blew, the leaves swept across the ground. The sound, normally comforting, made her nerves tighten.

      She held her breath, listening for any indications of the intruder.

      She heard nothing.

      That was when her mind began running through scenarios and she remembered—

      Her car!

      Of course, anyone after her would see her car. They’d know she was here. They’d tear everything apart until they found her. And once they found her... She shuddered to think of what would happen then.

      If she somehow happened to escape, they could easily trace her license plate. They’d put one and one together. She felt hunted and as if there was no safe place for her to hide. Her cubbyhole away from the world had been compromised.

      She’d have to start over again with a new identity, a new home, a new everything.

      How could she go on like this for the rest of her life? Living with this kind of fear wasn’t living at all. It was surviving.

      Just as she closed her eyes, on the verge of praying for mercy, she heard a bang. She clutched her chest. As she peered around the corner, the back door flung open.

      The wind! Tessa realized.

      The door had never latched easily. In her haste to get out of the house, she must not have pulled hard enough.

      Now there was no hiding the fact that she was nearby. It was a matter of evading the intruder more than it was about hiding.

      Despair bit deep. Maybe it would just be easier to give up.

      No, Tessa reminded herself. No matter how tempting the thought might be at times, she knew she couldn’t surrender. Leo didn’t deserve to win, and she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

      Leo McAllister, her ex-fiancé, had already turned her life upside down when she’d caught him in the middle of smuggling blueprints for dangerous weapons to terrorists overseas. She’d tried to gather evidence to nail him, but she’d failed. That was when she’d known she had no choice but to run.

      He’d sent men after her and they’d soon found her at the first place she’d sought refuge—an old house she’d rented with cash and a fake name. She’d discovered the cottage off a lonely country road in the rolling hills of Virginia and had thought she’d found the perfect hideaway. She’d been wrong. While coming home from buying groceries, she’d seen the men inside her temporary home and had fled.

      Tessa had barely gotten away. She wouldn’t have escaped if it hadn’t been for a drawbridge that she’d crossed just in time.

      Now Tessa waited, holding her breath, to see what would happen next. In theory, she’d been living like this ever since that life-changing day when she’d discovered Leo’s true colors.

      The light appeared