Chapter 1

At the ripe old age of thirty-six, Sarah Cannon is quite a handsome woman if not a ravishing beauty, although that might not be so easy to discern under her bedraggled gray wig, the artfully applied wrinkles and crows feet on her face and the faded, loose-fitting summer dress carefully designed to add an apparent fifty or so pounds to her frame. The frazzled-old-hag look is, of course, exactly the image she wants to present to any visitors to her apparently humble abode. Sarah saves her well-constructed, alluring self for special occasions and special people. The old woman persona is Aunt Sarah Cannon and the younger version is her niece, Mona Cannon. She does NOT suffer from the rare multiple personality brand of schizophrenia.

She's a relative newcomer to the mountain. Very few people have seen her in her old woman get-up and even fewer have met her at all. She bought the mountain about a year ago after her male biological parent (she can't bring herself to refer to him as 'Father') did her and the world a big favor and died, leaving her more wealth than she could possibly spend. Her agent searched far and wide for a property with some special features and finally found one she agreed was suitable.

There were actually three families living on the mountain but they all gladly accepted the very generous offer of at least double the market value for their modest homes and land. As soon as they moved out, all the buildings on the mountain except the house nearest the top were taken down. It was a rather shabby-looking place but the appearance of living in very modest circumstances suited her needs. She didn't want to stand out in any way.

The mountain wasn't all that big, as mountains go. Purists or snobs living in the Rockies might have called it a hill. There was a little over four hundred and thirty acres of total surface area, but it had the features she wanted and so it became Sarah's Mountain.

There were several reasons why this now very wealthy, attractive woman wanted to live in relative isolation. First among them was that she didn't really care for people all that much. Nearly everyone she'd ever met managed to disappoint her in some way or another. She didn't shun humanity all together; no, it was more like she didn't care to waste brainpower and energy trying to decide whether the way someone presented to her was honest or crap. She was quite content with the one very trustworthy friend she possessed. It was her considered opinion that somewhere around the age of sixteen or seventeen, childhood innocence and trust faded forever into oblivion and grown-up affectations began to dominate and taint people's sensibilities, making them lesser creatures to her way of thinking.

Sarah hadn't always been so cynical. Even though she grew up in a mansion crawling with servants and sycophants, she and her mother somehow managed a relatively normal, loving relationship. That is, until her mother died. Sarah was eight at the time and was inconsolable for quite a long time afterward. Before that tragedy, she kept hoping her mother would divorce her male parent and the two of them could move away. Her mom's death killed everything in her that felt like family. Her male parent was so distant and aloof that he barely acknowledged her existence. There was very little in this world that interested him outside of accumulating more wealth. It was commonly gossiped among the household staff that he was supremely disappointed that his wife bore him a daughter rather than a son.

Although her nanny couldn't take the place of her real mother, she was a sweet, caring older woman who saw to Sarah's every need, including frequent hugs and pats. If it hadn't been for her, the girl would have probably grown up just another snooty, resentful, smartass rich kid. As it was, her nanny, Margaret, nurtured her through her difficult teens and into college where she eventually earned an MBA. From there, she worked in one of her male biological parent's many enterprises until his death. From the day she left home to attend college, she never again stepped foot inside his mansion fortress.

It was common knowledge that he was obscenely rich but even his daughter had no idea of the extent of his vast stock holdings in dozens of major corporations. His name wasn't well known by the public and he worked hard to keep it that way. He preferred to be a silent power.

The day he died and Sarah became the controller of his financial empire, she resigned her position and dropped out of sight. Millie Dougherty, her closest and only friend as well as her accountant, hired a staff of six whose job it was to sell off nearly all of her newly acquired assets and oversee all future financial dealings.

As was mentioned before, she had more money than anyone had a right to and had resolutely decided to spend the rest of her life giving it away. She and Millie's staff actively looked for organizations and individuals in need of help and found ways to provide it in the form of outright anonymous gifts. Sometimes it seemed that as fast as she gave it away, stock dividends and interest replaced it. Sarah wasn't interested in venture capitalism and the hope of making a big profit. Any self-respecting Republican would have thought her totally insane but to her way of thinking, her male parent's ruthlessness in accumulating his global holdings needed a lot of atoning for.

Sarah never married, though she came close twice. It didn't take a genius to quickly discern that her suitors were mostly interested in her money, or rather, her male parent's money. She was smart enough to give them their walking papers before any legal documents were signed. But being a very physical, sensual woman, she missed the regular sex. Her practically insatiable need for erect penises figured into the reasons she bought the mountain.