Chapter 2

Darlene moved around the front bumper and gave me a hug as she murmured in my ear, “Did I mention that this is an all-women survival commune?”

“You forgot to share that little detail with me. What the hell we gonna do now?” I muttered back.

Darlene was like that. She tended to skimp on the details and fill the void with trivia or useless facts. She held my hand as we broke from our embrace, and spoke to the assembled women on the porch.

“I would like you to meet my partner, Dennis Richards, everyone. He’s old, but he’s kinda cool once you have a chance to know him.”

An older woman, who turned out to be the group’s leader, stepped forward. “I’m Sheila Carson, Mr. Richards. Please come inside. I think we need to have a talk.”

I had the same, uneasy “Oh crap! Now, what?” feeling that I used to have when summoned to the principal’s office as a kid.

Sheila turned on her heels, walked inside, and the rest of us followed into the cabin’s great room. If the building appeared big from the outside, standing in the middle of the cathedral hall, the misty room seemed to go on forever. A massive freestanding stone fireplace dominated the central space with a blazing fire radiating heat and light in all directions.

The distant ceiling towering over the open space was almost lost in the shadows and the smoky haze of the great room. Rustic rough wooden balconies ringed the wall on all sides at the second story level. Thousands of LED icicle lights hung from the unpainted railings and stairways. A soft, comforting glow bathed the room in the soothing and pleasant colors of an autumn sunset.

Sheila directed us to accompany her to her upstairs office. She stood about five feet six inches and was a good looking professional woman about my age. Without a trace of makeup. She needed none. Streaks of red highlighted her short cropped brunette hair, and she appeared to be in magnificent physical condition.

Her skin had the bronze tan of someone who was no newcomer to hard outdoor work. Her face was more handsome than beautiful. She was wearing faded work jeans and a low-cut wool sweater, which allowed an excellent view of well-tanned, medium-sized breasts and the valley between.

Sheila’s office featured a giant oak desk and a stone hearth. A picture window filled one wall with a breathtaking panorama of the frosted mountains painted silver in the light of an almost full moon. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase crammed with books covered the opposite wall. There were several oriental rugs scattered about on the wood floor.

“Make yourselves comfortable, I’ll be right back.” Sheila made a quick exit through a side door.

Her abrupt departure startled me. Something was brewing. Darlene and I took a seat on a small loveseat in front of a coffee table and exchanged worried glances while we waited.

I bent close and whispered, “What the hell is going on? This ain’t the warm and fuzzy welcome we expected.”

“No kidding. I don’t understand. I told Sheila’s assistant that you were coming with me, and she said, ‘Great, the more, the merrier.’”

We could hear the muffled voices but not the words of two women engaged in a heated exchange in the next room. The argument stopped abruptly, and a moment later, Sheila entered the office with another woman in tow.

“Your presence here presents us with something of a problem, Mr. Richards. Darlene sent us a text to our satellite phone. She told us she would be arriving with her lover ‘Denise’. It was on that basis that we gave you permission to stay with our family of sisters.” Sheila crossed her arms and studied me closely.

Darlene let out a little gasp before she burst out laughing. “Fucking auto-correct gets you every time. I dictated it on my iPhone. I never noticed it changed Dennis to Denise,” Darlene said.