Under a Firefly Moon

by Donna Kauffman

  Hannah’s smile was soft and full of such genuine happiness, it made Chey’s heart fill right up. No one deserved that joy more than she did. “It has, yes. Remarkably so.”

  Vivi turned to Avery. “I know you and Ben have done much the same, seeing as our farm and his aren’t so far apart. But I know he wants to travel and continue doing his work with his prosthetics development, and you want to be able to join him, at least from time to time.”

  “I do, but not at the expense of the fearsome foursome.”

  Vivi lifted their joined hands. “That’s what I aim to do, dear. Figure out a way where we all get what we want with as little compromise as possible. I don’t want your joy, or mine, to come at the expense of something or someone else.”

  Chey nodded. “I love where you are going with this, Vivi, but with Wyatt, it’s not just the occasional corporate trip or research symposium. His whole life is on the road.”

  “Doesn’t he have a farm in Wales? I think I heard him mention it at the picnic grounds when someone asked.”

  Chey nodded. “He does, yes.”

  “Seeing as his work takes him all over the world, couldn’t he swap a farm in Wales as home base for a farm here in Virginia? Or keep both?”

  “He hasn’t stayed at his farm in Wales for more than four days at a stretch since he bought it years ago. This summer was to be his first long term stay, and that was just for two months.” She smiled. “And look how that worked out.”

  “But he’s staying here, right?” Hannah asked. “For the summer? I mean, that part hasn’t changed?”

  Chey shook her head. “No, that’s still the plan. He’s slated to be here until August, which is going to come way too fast.” She looked at the three of them. “Dom gave him the list of final options for their next mission, or case, or whatever you want to call it. So, things will start to swing into motion soon; then it’s just a matter of time before he heads out.”

  “Have you talked about it?” Avery said. “Do you know what he wants? He seems to really like it here, and I don’t mean superficial like, but sincere like. He’s already one of us, Chey, with everything that happened, with the lake and the lodge.” She smiled. “He found his space here even faster than we did, and I thought we did pretty well.”

  “I know, right?” Chey said with a dry tone. “And we have talked about it. I know he wants this, and me, and us.” She was well aware she hadn’t responded to his declaration of love with one of her own, but she didn’t want her first time saying those words to be a “yeah, so do I” declaration. What he’d said to her had been reverent and beautiful. And funny, sweet, the perfect mix of old Wyatt and new. She wanted her moment to make him feel equally cherished. “He also wants the life he has now, and seeing him in action, watching some of the videos of the things he and Dom and the team have accomplished, I can’t imagine him walking away from any part of that. And even if he did, then walk away to what? Helping us on the farm?”

  “Would he consider doing fewer of them a year?” Hannah asked. “Strike a balance of some kind? Maybe there are things he could do in between to raise awareness in some other way?”

  “Would you want to go with him?” Avery asked. “Some of the time?”

  Chey let go of their hands and picked up her coffee mug. “I know it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, like, every single time.” She paused, then said, “I would have been perfectly fine never doing things like he does. I don’t have that kind of bucket list. But I also know how it has made me feel to watch him here, doing what he does—and for that?” She nodded vigorously. “I would love to be with him, truly with him, to witness everything firsthand and share it all with him.”

  “Well,” Vivi said, “this has been very illuminating.” She smiled, and there was something private about it, something she was clearly thrilled with.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Chey said. “What about you? Grant lives across the country.”

  “Yes, darling, but he has his own plane. Several helicopters, too. Now, I realize he’s not on a farm down the road like Ben, or close to town like Will and Jake, but he can be quite mobile if he sees fit.” She beamed. “And I believe he will.”

  “Yes, well, he seems to have no problem whisking to Valley View and taking you to New York for lunch. I guess we just have to expand our minds to understand that kind of life.”

  Avery propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. “Do you want to go west? Hang out on his real estate out there?”

  Vivi nodded. “He has real estate, as you call it, all over the world. And yes, I’d love to see all of his properties.” Her smile was fond. “I do have a bucket list.”

  They all laughed with her. “You should check off every item,” Chey said.

  “Well, that’s the plan, but it won’t happen fast. For two retired people, we’re both very busy. He’s serious about the work he’s doing to promote green energy and environmentally sound new development. It keeps him busy as the farm keeps me busy. He travels a great deal and I’m afraid I’d find that dreadfully boring. I think we can strike a balance between our high season here and his work travel. And focus our work time so we can travel for pleasure, be out west, as well as be here together.”

  “So, you’ve talked about this already?” Chey asked.

  Vivi nodded. “Haven’t you?”

  “Not specifically, though I think we may have opened that door today.”

  Vivi covered her hand. “Well, darling, Grant and I have. Talked about you and Wyatt, I mean. It’s not my place to say. Grant has some ideas for Wyatt, but that’s for them to discuss.”

  It should have terrified Chey how quickly her heart leapt to her throat at even the whiff of a prayer that there might be a solution.

  Vivi squeezed her hand. “Be hopeful,” was all she said.

  “I’ll be choosing happiness either way,” Chey said, repeating Vivi’s wisdom. “You were right about one thing. The more time we spend together, the more I know what I’d be willing to risk, or to do, for us to have a chance.”

  Avery tapped her pen on the spiral notebook. “So, why do I need this notebook?” she asked.

  Vivi sat up straighter and took on an official air. “I want us to go through our calendar year here, with an eye toward what is demanded from each of us, each month. First column will list our obligations here on the farm. Second column will list our outside obligations. Your working with Ben and Hannah, your painting, Chey with your horses.” She smiled. “Then we go through once more with an eye toward the key times we would want to spend with the men in our lives, or family, as is Hannah’s case. Those can’t-miss times.”

  “And?” Chey said.

  “And we see if a glimmer of a schedule starts to emerge, one that allows each of us to have what we need. Yes, there will be compromise, but there are other options that can aid our cause. Like Tory being here to take on some of the workload with the stables and horses,” she added. “We plan to hire seasonal help for the gift shop, and to wait tables in the tearoom. Then there’s the lavender production itself, the cutting and such, and the classes. We decide which of those things we want to do, and which we’d be comfortable hiring out. Like the classes. I know we each enjoy them, but we can occasionally farm some of them out as needed to facilitate the other things we want.” She turned to Avery. “Then we let you do your thing and make us some charts, see what we can do.”

  “I can do that,” Avery said happily.

  Vivi nodded, content with where this was going. She looked at all of them. “It’s a start. Without compromising our happiness, or the quality of the experience we offer here to our customers and visitors, I think we can keep what we love, but we adjust where we can, so we can also keep the people we love.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chey needed to be more of an optimist. They’d spent another hour that morning in the kitchen, making lists and columns, so many columns, and Chey wanted Avery to chart them into oblivion if it meant findi
ng a workable solution. But she’d left really uncertain that was possible. It seemed too complicated trying to make sure they all got what they wanted. Even hiring out part of the farm workload—she just didn’t see it coming together without someone making fairly major sacrifices.

  She recalled Vivi’s veiled comment that Grant had some ideas about Wyatt’s future, but she couldn’t count on that for anything. Their column-making meeting had been a week ago and Wyatt hadn’t heard anything from Grant. They knew he’d flown Vivi out to his ranch for the weekend, wanting her to spend time in his home as he had hers. Hannah had covered the tearoom hours, which were reduced for a little while longer, until Memorial Day weekend. With lavender season underway, Tory had been taking on more and more of the stable management and was already teaching classes and bringing in new students after Bailey started talking up the whole barrel-racing thing. Chey had never once thought about teaching that particular skill. It wasn’t something she saw herself doing again. It was part of her past now. But she’d sure enjoy watching Tory take it on.

  So, things were changing, even without their deciding anything concrete. Some things were simply solving themselves as they happened. Chey had hoped that maybe they could just take it one thing at a time, like Vivi going to Montana, or Wyoming, or wherever she was, and Hannah covering for her. And Tory taking on the stables, freeing up Chey to get her farm work done with time leftover to explore as yet unseen parts of Blue Hollow Falls with a guy who was making her appreciate it in a whole new way.

  But she knew it wouldn’t always be that simple. Wyatt and Dom, Jon and Peli had decided on their next adventure. They were going to Canada, near the Arctic Circle, to focus on a threatened plant that was vital to the food chain for a host of mammal species. Fixing the plant sustainability problem could result in removing numerous animals from the threatened and endangered list.

  Actually, it had been Sunny Goodwin, who owned the greenhouse and was the horticulturalist working with the rare and endangered orchids, who had put her head together with Wyatt’s after he consulted with her on some of the methods she’d discovered for propagation. Together, they thought they might find a solution for the plant problem. Chey was pretty sure Wyatt had also chosen that particular project because part of the plan was to transport plant specimens back to Blue Hollow Falls and Sunny’s greenhouse, where she’d be joined by two specialists who’d agreed to come out and help test her theories and track the plant development from there. Which meant a chunk of the adventure would take place right in Blue Hollow Falls, and Wyatt would do all the postproduction work from there, too, while setting up the next trip.

  She was touched and grateful that he’d done his best to keep their two orbits as connected as possible on his first venture out since they’d become a couple. But Chey knew his projects wouldn’t all be like that. There were only so many connections he could make between his work and her home. Their home.

  Ultimately, Chey was glad they’d done all those charts in the kitchen that day. Not because they’d yielded any plans yet, but because talking about what she wanted for herself, putting her thoughts into words, had helped her to solidify what she wanted, what she’d be happy to compromise on, and what she’d hoped she wouldn’t be asked to do.

  And then she’d laughed at herself as she walked out to the barn that afternoon, because once Planet Reed was done in Canada, and Wyatt flew off to God only knew where next, for who knew how long, she was pretty sure she’d be the Grant Harper in their situation. If Wyatt so much as crooked his finger, Chey would be on the next plane to wherever he was and thrilled for it.

  And in the end, that had been answer enough for her.

  It had taken some time to put her plan into motion, but now the day was here. And it was time to take the plunge. Hopefully, a figuratively speaking plunge, but whatever it took, she’d do it.

  Laughing at that thought, Chey turned her truck onto the road that led back to the boat ramp to the lake. Ground had officially been broken and the park was officially closed to the public for now, but other than a crew beginning to clear the land on the opposite side of the lake where the lodge would be located, not much else had happened.

  She’d gotten permission from Bryan for her little mission today. The road back to the boat ramp was open, and when she arrived lakeside and parked her truck, she saw someone else had come through for her, too. There was a rowboat tied to the dock. She smiled. “Thank you, Grant Harper.”

  She climbed down out of the truck, then took a minute to adjust the flowy, floral print dress she had on. Thank you also, Hannah. It had bunched up around the waist and the belt had gone a little sideways. “The things we do for love,” she muttered as she got it all straightened out. How did people wear these things day in and day out?

  She went around to the passenger side, grabbed the big covered basket and towel from the seat, along with her cowboy hat and the other item she’d borrowed, then tucked her keys under the mat and headed to the dock.

  It took a bit of finagling to get everything in the boat, as well as herself. She was never more thankful that she was alone and the park was otherwise closed, because she was fairly certain she’d flashed most of the wildlife in the area several times going up and down the little ladder, trying to keep her skirts from blowing up while simultaneously not flipping the boat over. Perhaps cowboy boots had also been a poor choice of footwear.

  She sat on the bench seat until the boat stopped rocking, then organized the oars while silently wishing part of the exploring she and Wyatt had done included boating. It was on the list, but they hadn’t gotten that far, yet.

  “But how hard can it be?” After a few attempts to sync the motions of the left and right oar resulted in a lot of water slapping and not a little splashing, she finally got the hang of it and headed out to the middle of the lake.

  The sky was blue, the sun just the right amount of warm, and the usual breeze off the lake surprisingly nonexistent. The water looked like glass and reflected the mountains, clouds, and sky. Satisfied, she pulled her cell phone out and sent a text, then stored it away without waiting for a response. She made sure she was well out in the middle of the lake . . . then she purposely let the oars slip from their locks and float away on the glassy surface.

  “Now, that is love. And trust,” she said; then she picked up the borrowed item, and opened the umbrella she’d borrowed from Vivi, giving the fringe a little shimmy as she settled in to wait.

  * * *

  Wyatt’s cheeks hurt from grinning all the way to the lake. His smile only slipped when he pulled in and didn’t immediately see Chey’s truck anywhere in the lot. Then he spied the ramp road open and went from grinning to singing. One of Pippa’s tunes he couldn’t get out of his head. And didn’t want to.

  He saw the boat well out in the lake when he made it to the dock, and if he hadn’t already decided to ask her to marry him, seeing her out there in a dress, with Vivi’s crazy umbrella, sealed the deal. He quickly stripped off his shirt, and this time, his pants, and made a clean dive into the water.

  Chey was twirling the parasol when he popped up next to the boat. “You seem to have lost your oars,” he said, as he tossed his wet hair back from his face.

  “Why I declare, it was so clumsy of me,” she replied in a terrible southern accent. “They were so big and heavy, I could barely manage. What with my little parasol and all.” She twirled it again, a little snicker escaping despite her best efforts to look fragile and stranded.

  He swam out and retrieved the oars, then swam back and stored them the same way he had with Vivi.

  “Hold on to the bench,” he told her, then as gently as he could, gripped one side and levered himself into the boat.

  “Why sir!” she said. “Why, I thought you would tow me to shore. I believe you’ve gotten water all over my dress.”

  He sat on the bench seat opposite hers. “Well, I hate for you to be all damp. I believe I mentioned before that I’d be happy to help you out of yo
ur dresses. Anytime.” He slid the oars in the locks and accepted the towel from her.

  “What a kind and gentlemanly offer,” she said dryly. “But I fear I burn easily. So, I’m just going to sit here and enjoy you in those snug boxer briefs. And all that delicious tan.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “Why, I believe you’re flirting with me, ma’am,” he said, taking a turn with the drawl.

  “You wouldn’t be wrong,” she said, then laughed. She opened the big basket stowed in the back and took out a pair of his shorts and a shirt and handed them to him. “I can’t be held responsible for what I might do, so you’d better cover up.”

  “I’ve heard about women like you. Impulsive and lacking all self-control.” He grinned. “I like it.”

  She batted her eyelashes, making him laugh. “Hungry?” she asked. “I had Hattie pack us a picnic lunch.”

  Wyatt thought his eyes might have rolled back in his head just a bit. He and Chey had eaten at Bo’s twice now and he was already planning some kind of homage to Hattie’s cooking in his next stream.

  “I am now.”

  “All that swimming,” she said. “Works up an appetite.”

  He smiled, then slowly ran his gaze from her boots to her umbrella. “That’s one reason for it.”

  She held the front of her dress closed with her hand, despite the fact that it was buttoned up to her neck.

  He just made a growling sound and she laughed.

  “Don’t even,” she told him when he shifted off his seat. “We’ll both end up in the lake.”

  “I’m already wet,” he said, “and I know you can swim.”

  In response she handed him the container of Hattie’s fried chicken. “Down, boy.”