Three Brothers Lodge
Morris Fenris
Three Brothers Lodge Box Set is a compendium of the following 3 novellas:
Justin
Mason
Kaillar
All the above novellas can also be purchased individually, both in eBook and Paperback formats.
Three Brothers Lodge Box Set
Copyright 2017 Morris Fenris
Changing Culture Publications
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Book 1: Justin
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Book 2: Mason
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Book 3: Kaillar
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Thank You
Book 1: Justin
Chapter 1
Late October, Colorado Mountains…
Jessica Andrews clutched the steering wheel so hard, her knuckles turned white. She was currently driving her old Ford Explorer through the passes in the middle of a snowstorm that was quickly becoming a full-on blizzard. It was the end of September and she’d not even thought about checking the weather report to learn the road conditions. The leaves hadn’t even finished changing color, or dropping from their summer homes!
“Why did I decide a job in Colorado was a good idea?” she muttered to herself.
She’d left sunny Arizona two days earlier, with nothing but a suitcase of clothing that she now saw was going to be completely inadequate in her new place of residence. And a small cardboard box that held the few possessions that actually meant something to her. She was running away, and while she knew it wasn’t the smartest move to make, she just didn’t have the strength to stay and fight.
And it was all on account of her good for nothing ex-boyfriend, Jason Walker!
Just thinking his name put a sour taste in her mouth. She’d been dating the handsome football player for just under a year, and she’d convinced herself that her future was with him. “Guess that was my first mistake!” she said aloud.
She’d taken to talking out loud to herself; occasionally she had even been known to answer her own questions. She didn’t consider herself crazy, just fed up!
Jessie had been raised by her elderly grandmother in a nice Christian household where attendance at church every time the doors were open was a foregone conclusion. Her mother and father had been called to missionary work in Africa years before, and when her mother had found out she was pregnant, they had put in a request to return stateside on furlough until after their daughter’s birth.
Due to tremendous civil unrest and the rise of several Islamic terror groups in the region where they normally ministered, their return to Africa was delayed by eighteen months. At that time, neither of her parents had felt comfortable taking their young toddler to such a dangerous place. Her maternal grandmother had offered her a home while her parents were overseas, and her parents had gratefully accepted. They were only supposed to be gone a year and then they would return stateside once again.
Before leaving on furlough, they had begun working on a school that would allow native South Africans to study and learn how to become missionaries to their own people. It had been the popular protocol for overseas missionaries, and while they normally supervised these schools, her parents would be returning to the States and someone else would be taking over.
Jessie had been too young to realize the sacrifice that had been made by the adults in her life, but as she grew older, she’d come to realize that without her grandmother’s sacrifice, she would have most likely died right next to her parents four months after their return to missionary work. Their deaths had been brutal and designed to send terror throughout the land. The Muslims didn’t want the Westerner’s coming into their land with promises of hope and Christianity. Their murderers had raided the school compound, brutally murdered everyone inside, and then filmed it and placed the films on the internet. The videos had been horrific, and as a result, other American missionaries in the region had been called home.
Jessie had been told all of this when she turned sixteen and started asking questions about her parents. Her grandmother had tearfully showed her the newspaper clippings and magazine articles written in response to the brutal murder of her parents and their entire missionary team. In all, nine Americans had been murdered that day. Thirty-three South Africans had also been killed, amongst them nine children under the age of ten.
That day had been a turning point for Jessie, although she kept her thoughts to herself until she’d graduated the next year and headed off to college. She always considered her parents heroes. They’d abandoned the comforts of home to help bring hope to a desolate land and its people. But after reading the articles, and doing some of her own research, she’d come to the conclusion that only an insane person would have willingly gone back to the region.
She blamed God for not protecting the very people he had sent to such a dangerous place. Her parents had been doing His work, and He’d allowed them to die, leaving her an orphan and hurting. What good was it to follow a God who wouldn’t protect you? She’d managed to hide her broken faith from her grandmother as she finished high school, but her anger had only built inside, until she’d finally found an outlet.
Once she’d arrived on the college campus, she’d done her best to partake in all the things she knew went against her Christian upbringing. Parties. Drugs. Alcohol. And then she’d met Thomas in her first classroom clinical. He’d been a bright young man of eighteen, and throughout her sophomore year, she and Thomas became great friends. And then he’d been struck down with an aggressive childhood cancer. He died three months after being diagnosed, and once again, Jessica was le
ft trying to come to terms with a God that allowed a little boy to die in such pain, and his parents to suffer so much grief.
She’d retreated into herself, abandoning the parties and every other social activity at school. She’d been immersed in her grief, and when she met Jason Walker at the end of her junior year, she was merely going through the motions.
Jason drew her out of herself, sweeping her off her feet and bringing a smile to her face for the first time in almost a year. Her teachers all commented on the difference, and even though a little voice inside told her that she was compromising her values to be with him, she became his steady campus girlfriend. She was the eye candy and easygoing girlfriend who demanded nothing and made him look good.
He was a receiver for the football team, a senior, and a promising future as a lawyer awaiting him. He was gorgeous and sought after by lots of girls on campus. But he’d chosen to spend his time with Jessica and that had made her feel special in a way she’d never felt when dating boys before him. She’d managed to retain some of her upbringing, never quite able to abandon her ideas about morality because of her grandmother. Jason had encouraged her to give up the few friends she’d made, telling her they were holding her back and asking too many questions. She’d done so readily, not really needing them, just needing an escape from her reality that Jason constantly provided. He created a fantasy world for her, and she lived there happily.
They’d both graduated and while he’d started law school, she’d begun working on her Master of Education. She’d been convinced that the lack of true emotion she felt for Jason was a good thing and her problem, not his. She’d talked herself into believing that a true emotional connection led only to heartache, and if she could just keep her distance, and still enjoy the benefits of being in a relationship, everything would be fine. The fact that Jason had been willing to keep his emotional distance as well had been seen as a bonus, not a warning sign!
But then she’d received a phone call in March just before completing her master’s degree. The call had been the pastor of her grandmother’s church, notifying her that her grandmother had passed away. Jessie had gone home a week early for Spring Break, packed up the few things she held dear, and given the rest to charity. The house had been sold and she’d used it to pay off her student loans, and stuck the rest of it in the bank.
Something had shifted in her thinking through that experience. Once again, she blamed God for taking someone she loved, the only family she had left in this world, away from her. She’d returned to school, determined to show Him what she thought about His kind of love. She’d ignored the doubts and inner voice that cautioned her she was going down a slippery slope, and forged ahead. She’d been determined to prove to herself and God that she didn’t need His brand of help or guidance in her life.
She’d shoved her inner voice to the side, and even when it had been screaming at her that Jason was playing her, she’d ignored it. She’d convinced herself she was happy, and that Jason’s recent inattention was just a phase their relationship was going through. She’d been so wrong!
The car’s tires slipped on a patch of ice as she drove across one of the many bridges on this strip of road and she yanked the wheel into the slide, gritting her teeth as she brought the car back under control. Guess that chapter in the driver’s ed book wasn’t a waste after all! I certainly would never have put it to good use living in Arizona!
The car slipped again, this time careening towards the metal guardrail and she gripped the steering wheel so tightly her hands hurt. She took her foot off the gas pedal and looked steadily ahead. She could barely see the white line at the right side of the road now, and the way the snow was falling, she figured that wouldn’t last much longer.
“I should have pulled off at the last town!” She’d filled up on gas at a small station and she’d ignored the conversations going on around her about the potential road closure coming. She’d hurried back into her car, pressing hard on the accelerator as she climbed in elevation and headed for the next mountain pass. The snow had been falling steadily for over an hour when she approached the bottom of Vail Pass. Two State Patrol cars had been parked there, the men unlocking the gate that would effectively shut down that stretch of highway until the storm passed. She drove straight through, pretending she didn’t see them try to wave her down and stop her. “Dumb, Jess. Really dumb!”
An hour later and the highway was completely snow packed, and large flakes were coming down so fast, she was hard pressed to tell where the road began and ended. The white line was nonexistent, and she only prayed she was actually still driving on pavement and not the shoulder of the highway. She had her headlights on, even though it was still early afternoon, wanting to make sure she could be seen by any other vehicles on the road. Not that there were any still moving!
She passed several passenger cars that had pulled off the road, but there didn’t seem to be any people in them. She guessed they had hitched a ride with other vehicles that were more suited to the snowy conditions, rather than be trapped on the mountain when night fell.
That thought was terrifying to Jessica so she kept moving forward. She reached the top of a big hill and briefly glimpsed a sign proclaiming it the “summit”. It listed the elevation, but the numbers were already obscured by blowing snow that had partially covered the sign.
The highway seemed to be headed downward now, but it had also gotten icier as well. She found herself switching the aging SUV into low gear, thankful she wasn’t having to apply her brakes quite as often, but wondering how long they would keep working before they overheated and gave out.
Her vehicle was in serious need of some maintenance, but as a struggling college student, she hadn’t had the money in her budget for car repairs. Her grandmother had offered to help out however she could, but Jessica also knew her grandmother lived on a fixed income that was barely enough to keep one human being alive. She’d not wanted to burden her, and so she’d developed a policy of only telling her grandmother what she needed to know. The fact that her car had been in danger of falling into pieces was not on that list! Then her grandmother had died…
She looked at the gauges on her dashboard and bit her bottom lip. “Oh man! That is so not what I need right now.” The thermostat was showing on the hot side! She rolled down the windows and turned the heater up to full blast, hoping to pull the extra heat away from the engine so she could keep making her way to the next town.
She’d missed the green sign informing travelers of that distance, and she only hoped it wasn’t very far. A little voice inside her urged her to pray for help, but she ignored it. As she had been ignoring it for the last six years. She could do this, if she just kept inching forward. She would do this!
She might have made it too, if she’d kept her eyes glued to the road. But while she’d been fiddling with the heater, she’d failed to notice the large white truck parked off the road. She also hadn’t been aware that she was driving more off to the side of the road than in her lane.
When she slammed into the back of the vehicle, both facts were made known to her as she hit the steering wheel with her forehead. She felt her car come to an abrupt stop; the sound of metal hitting metal ringing in her ears just before everything went black.
Chapter 2
Three Brothers Lodge, just above Silver Springs, Colorado…
Justin Donnelly lifted the pan of lasagna from the oven and sat it on the stove. “Grub’s ready,” he called out to the two men he felt privileged to call brothers. They all worked together in the outfitting and guide business they’d inherited from their uncle. They also volunteered as firemen in the small town at the base of the mountain where they lived, and they were the key personnel in the search and rescue team for the county.
It was a perfect combination of being outdoors, helping people, and not having to wear a suit and tie to work every day. The three brothers couldn’t imagine living anywhere else or doing anything else.
As winter had come suddenly to Colorado, their lives became much less complex and all three of them were looking forward to the holidays and a slower pace around the lodge where they lived. They’d just completed one of their best tourist seasons ever, and with the exception of a few backcountry hunting trips still scheduled, they were ready to settle in for the winter and relax.
Mason and Kaillar wandered towards the kitchen table, sniffing as they took their seats. “Smells good, man.”
“Thanks. I made enough for leftovers as well,” Justin told them, pulling out his chair and having a seat. They always made twice as much food as they would eat in one sitting, having gotten into the habit of eating leftovers the next day; it took the burden off of everyone in the household.
The men all took turns cooking and doing the laundry, and tonight was Justin’s turn. He’d made his signature dish: lasagna, garlic bread and a tossed salad. Mason and Kaillar had just returned from a three-day hiking trip and he knew the pasta dish would be welcome. “So, how did things look up there?” he asked, scooping a generous portion of the lasagna onto his plate.
“Quite a bit of bear activity still, considering how much snow’s already fallen,” Mason said. He was the youngest Donnelly brother, having just turned 22 a few weeks back. He was the only one to have taken any college classes, but he’d quit over a year ago, the classroom having no more appeal for him. He wanted to be out in nature, not sitting in a classroom learning about it from a book!
“There’s another storm brewing out there right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t get a few feet out of this one,” Kaillar added. He knew the ski slopes would be rejoicing at so much new snow, and he was right there with them. He loved to ski and was looking forward to his fifth year on the ski patrol team. He’d also started a youth ski-racing program several years earlier, and was looking forward to the competition season starting up again. He had some very promising youngsters on his team, and was looking forward to seeing them reach their full potential.
Three Brothers Lodge - The Complete Series Box Set Page 1