Mountain Shadows Farm
Nine months later
Lucy closed the exercise book and placed it on top of a tall, leaning pile. This was it for the day. The simple wooden desks in the humble classroom were empty of students and late-afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows. Her desk, a simple wooden affair with three drawers, stood in front of a large chalkboard. The contrast between this simple farm school and the high-tech classrooms she’d worked in back home still surprised her.
She had no smart board or overhead projector, and there would be no iPads for these children, who were, for the most part, the sons and daughters of farm laborers. They arrived each morning, many of them barefoot, and left each afternoon in a few old minibusses. They carried their school lunches, usually a white bread sandwich with bright-pink sandwich meat, and their school books in plastic shopping bags.
With a bag of books in one hand and her laptop bag slung over her shoulder, Lucy locked the classroom door. Swartberg Community School stood at the end of a dusty farm road on the large Mountain Shadows Farm. The farm itself was nestled at the foot of the imposing Swartberg Mountains. They rose steep and purple on this clear day. The summers in this part of the world were long and brutally hot, but today, she sensed the first hint of autumn. She inhaled the sweetly scented air and pulled her shawl closer against the slight chill.
What never ceased to amaze her was the silence out here. Apart from the occasional bird song, once the children had left the school, taking their chatter and laughter with them, everything fell into a deep, luxurious silence. The school had only six classrooms; simple white-washed buildings with tin roofs. A cheerfully converted barn served as the staffroom and office. If there was to be a school assembly or concert, it was held outside on the field, a dusty patch of grass with leaning soccer posts.
Mountain Shadows Farm lay at the foot of the mountains and a few miles from the small town of Lourensville. The district was known as the Little Karoo. Beyond the towering mountain range lay the Great Karoo, an enormous area of vast, dry desolation. The town and its surrounds were only accessed by means of the steep Swartberg pass on one side and the vast expanse of the Great Karoo semi-desert on the other. The brooding sense of isolation soothed Lucy’s soul.
After exposing Jason Palmer’s shocking secret life via social media, she had fled Chicago and then the United States itself. The revelations had blazed through Facebook and Twitter, creating a storm of controversy. People on all ends of the political spectrum had shared and commented and, in a few days, a shrill chorus of outrage had ensued, and the Palmer family name had been dragged through the mud. Lucy had never anticipated the full extent of the scandal. The smug satisfaction she’d felt when posting Jason’s private life soon gave way to regret and then fear as she anticipated a backlash from him and his family.
Lucy had left her old life quickly. She’d resigned from her job and packed up her apartment, taking only the basics and dropping most of her possessions at a charity. Her cousin Peter had helped her destroy all traces of her online activities.
“Digitally, I need to die,” she had told the twenty-two-year-old. And so, she had.
Peter had given her some pointers. After deleting her social media accounts, she had destroyed her phone and SIM card and used temporary email addresses to connect with family and a few very close and trusted friends. Online, she made sure that her username and email address were not linked. The Palmers had money and contacts at their disposal and as the fallout of her online revenge snowballed, Lucy had gone underground, staying first with her brother Steve and his wife Molly and then keeping a low-profile house-sitting a friend’s cabin on a remote lake.
It was there, scrolling through pictures of exotic locations for she had had very little else to do, that she came across the Mountain Shadows Farm website. There among the shots of stunning vineyards and orchards, she’d seen a picture of the Swartberg Community School. That it looked so impossibly small and rustic meant it captured her heart immediately. When she read that the school was looking for qualified teaching staff, she had applied within hours.
With only one suitcase, she had arrived at Cape Town Airport in early January, the week before the new school term began. The farm had sent a vehicle and driver all the way from Mountain Shadows to fetch her. As they drove out of Cape Town and up through winding, rugged mountain passes, Lucy had been awestruck by the fierce and wild beauty of her surroundings.
It had taken them four hours to get to Mountain Shadows Farm. “Swart means black, madam,” the driver had told her. “The mountains look black in the morning and purple in the evenings.” The gabled farmhouse in the old Cape Dutch style lay a mile down a dusty road. It was here, surrounded by mountains, where she felt safer than she had in months.
Lucy hoisted her backpack to her shoulder; her own accommodation was a simple but comfortable thatched cottage about half a mile away from the school. She enjoyed the walks morning and afternoon, and most evenings, she spent in comfortable solitude, reading, preparing lessons, or sketching in charcoal on her large sketchpad.
She inhaled the clear mountain air and both heard and saw a vehicle coming from the direction of the farmhouse. A large twin-cab pickup threw up plumes of dust. By its silver color, she knew it belonged to the farm’s owner Josh de Lange.
“Isn’t it kind of late to still be at school?” Josh stepped down from the truck. He wore khaki trousers, boots, and a white t-shirt under a faded denim jacket.
“I stopped by your place and found no one home, so I figured I’d find you here.”
Lucy reckoned Josh stood six feet tall, his build solid and compact. His skin, tanned to a deep olive, belied the hours spent overseeing work in the vineyards. Dark hair flecked with gray at the temples was cut short. His default expression was one of easy-going affability, and when he smiled, it showed first in his dark-brown eyes and then spread across an imperfectly handsome, but deeply appealing face.
“Would you like a lift? We can chat while we drive.”
“That’s kind of you, but walking is about all the exercise I get these days.”
“Well, actually I didn’t just come just to offer you a lift. I wanted to ask you to dinner at the main house tonight.” As though sensing her reluctance, he added, “It will be just my mother, myself, and my sister Suzanne who’s visiting from Cape Town. Suzanne wants to hear how things are going with the school.”
Lucy suppressed a smile. For months now, she’d been patiently rebuffing Josh’s advances. It hadn’t been easy. Every time she was in his presence, she felt a soul-deep stirring. The physical longing was there all right, but there was something else she couldn’t put her finger on. Whatever it was, she knew that in her current fragile state, it was dangerous.
At moments like these, she prayed that Josh couldn’t see through her affected air of cool indifference. She had to hand it to him. This time, his ploy was a good one. The de Lange family owned the farm and sponsored the school. Lucy could hardly turn down the invitation.
“That would be lovely.” She took a deep breath, so unused to company these days. “Is there anything I can bring?”
“Nothing but yourself. Shall we say seven?”
“Yes.” Her expression was still reserved.
“You know, I have to say you really do turn the old schoolmarm stereotype on its head.” A hint of mischief twinkled in those eyes.
“Looks can be deceiving,” she said. “I’ll have you know I carry a large ruler and I’m not afraid to use it.”
“I’ll remember that.” He smiled, hauling himself into the truck. “See you at seven.
***
Josh drove off but kept glancing in the rear-view mirror. As she stood there in the late afternoon, her hair golden in the slanting sun, she looked like a painting brought to life.
He couldn’t help thinking that she cut a lovely but rather lonely figure. He thought of her face and wondered what exactly it was he found so compelling. He’d seen prettier girls, but pretty wasn’t exactly how he would describe her.
Her face was fine-boned and her skin delicate, and those eyes! Were they blue or gray? He couldn’t really say, but he was sure they held some private hurt. In fact, her entire being emanated a certain wariness. She had a habit of standing defensively with her arms crossed and had a skittishness about her personal history. On the few occasions he’d been in her company, she answered his questions succinctly, in a manner that didn’t invite further conversation.
All of this made her deeply intriguing. Where was she from again? Chicago. She had never given him a convincing explanation for what had brought her out here in the first place. A qualified teacher. His mom had said that she had a master’s degree in special education. So what the hell was a mysteriously beautiful, big-city girl doing on his family’s farm out here in the damn Karoo? Josh was curious to find out who she really was. He was a persistent man and one with good instincts. But he knew that unless he was prepared to tread lightly and be patient, all would likely be lost.