Altitude Is Everything

Altitude is EverythingTeal stopped looking at her vandalized cottage to watch the cowboy galloping towards her. She couldn't get the image of the way he sat a horse out of her head. He rode like he was part of the animal. He'd swung off the horse with athletic ease. His long legs were encased in tight faded Levis and a western shirt stretched over his broad shoulders. He smiled, "Hi, I'm your neighbor, I own Altitude Ranch right down the road." He reached out his hand. A second cowboy galloped up to her fence, he was dark complexioned and wore a black cowboy hat. He didn't dismount but sat his horse watching her. Teal wondered what she was she doing in this lonesome valley with two strange men as lengthening shadows crept from the forest.Teal wasn't new to the mountains. Her family had lived in the four season resort town of Big Bear Lake until she was twelve. That's when her life fell apart. Her parents divorced and she and her mother ended up in a gang infested apartment in North Hollywood. While her mom worked as a bar maid Teal was left mostly on her own. A fourteen year old's decisions come back to haunt her years later.Despite finding the cottage left to her by her godfather, vandalized, Teal has no choice but to continue with her moving plans. An El Niño style 'storm of the century' traps Teal and her new neighbor. The week she and Gavin spend isolated from any other form of human contact changes their lives forever. But Teal has always struggled with trust issues and they are complicated by her relationship with Gavin.Someone continues to vandalize her cottage, trying to drive her from the mountain. And gang ties she had as a teenager reemerge to threaten not only her new beginnings, but her very life.