Love Blossoms: 7 Spring-Fresh Christian Romances

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  “I’ve always had the idea in the back of my mind. I like supporting local craftspeople, and the shop will be for Castlebury, besides the inn’s guests.” She’d had to convince Luke the efforts would pay off. Literally. “Oh, I meant to tell you. We have a bunch of activities planned for Easter week, and you’re welcome to come.”

  “Aren’t those just for guests?”

  “No, not anymore. I mean, some activities are. But the programs are open to the public. Luke wanted…Never mind.” Her brain floundered for the right words. No wonder she’d lost her job at the firm. Maybe she had a gift for words, but sometimes she bestowed the wrong words for the situation. Like now. As if talking about Easter festivities and activities wouldn’t be raking nails over an open wound for Peter.

  “It’s okay. We still celebrate Easter. What kind of programs?”

  “We have volunteer actors coming Thursday night to portray the Last Supper, and attendees get to participate in a Passover meal similar to what they might have had in the first century, followed by communion. Then there’s a service on Good Friday evening. The weekend finishes with a sunrise hike to the lake with a service, followed by brunch at the castle. Luke and Jayne are hoping to draw people who might not want to go to a regular church.”

  He nodded. “That’s a good idea. For us, Easter doesn’t just mean new life. It means hope. Maybe…maybe we’ll join you.”

  Sadie wasn’t sure if she should go on. This year, she would celebrate one of her favorite holidays in a way and a place she didn’t anticipate. The thought caused her some discomfort, yet she hadn’t faced the same life-altering changes as Peter and Marin.

  They’d nearly cleared out the food on their plates and a glow lit the kitchen window on the west side of the room.

  Peter set down his fork. “Well, would you like to see the sugar house when we’re done eating? That is, if your ankle’s not too sore?”

  She wiggled her ankle and tried not to wince. Yes, it ached some. But she had crutches and ought to be able to maneuver across the yard easily enough. “I’d like that.”

  “Do I have to go, too, Dad? Can I stay inside?”

  “Can or may?”

  “May I stay inside?” A dimple appeared in Marin’s cheek.

  “Yes, you may.”

  Sadie finished the last few bites of her supper, and Marin collected their empty plates and stacked them beside the sink.

  “Delicious,” Sadie said.

  Within a few minutes, she and Peter stepped around muddy patches on the yard and headed toward the sugar house A tendril of smoke rose from its chimney. She’d seen photos of maple trees being tapped for their sap, and she vaguely remembered a field trip from elementary school.

  Peter flung open the door to the wooden building. “Come, see where maple tree sap is transformed into maple syrup and all kinds of goodness.”

  His flair made her stifle a giggle. “Thank you.”

  As she passed through the doorway, Peter winked at her. At that, the room’s walls seemed to close in around her, around him as he closed the door behind them.

  The air felt thick and heavy compared to the dropping temperature outside. A fire’s embers glowed beneath a massive rectangular metal pot, almost large enough to be a hot tub for eight, or even ten. Perspiration beaded up on Sadie’s forehead.

  She reached up to brush her brow, and her crutch fell over with a thump onto the concrete floor. “Ah, it’ll take me a while to get coordinated with these things.”

  Peter stood close enough to pull the crutch from the floor and help her tuck the cushion under her arm. “Here.”

  Applejacks Appleman—

  Sadie swallowed hard at his nearness. This was a bad idea. A bad idea to visit the sugar house

  “Tell me, tell me how this is made into syrup.” The thought of maple sugar candy, a little sweet indulgence she enjoyed every spring, filled her mind. She licked her lips.

  Peter began a fumbling explanation. But he stepped a few paces away as he talked about tubing that ran from maple trees throughout the woods, and how the sap “ran” from the trees all the way to the massive pot in the sugar house

  For now, Sadie could breathe again. She needed to get on her feet again, not be faced with the complication of someone like Peter Appleman.

  Chapter Five

  Peter yawned, stirring the beautiful syrup. He checked the time on his phone. One a.m. on Sunday morning. Soon, very soon, the amber syrup would be ready to store in jars labeled Appleman’s Maple Syrup, then sent out to shops throughout Vermont. Including next door, at Barncastle Inn.

  Ted Barncastle, Jayne’s aging father, had been an extremely helpful neighbor when Peter arrived with the Volvo packed to the gills, following a moving truck with all their worldly goods. Although more than ten years had passed since Peter lived next door, Ted—he no longer asked Peter to call him Mr. Barncastle—welcomed him back almost like one of the family.

  Sadly, Peter saw the void that Diane Barncastle’s passing left in his neighbors’ lives, especially Ted’s. He remembered her cookies the best of all, along with chilled pitchers of lemonade served up on humid summer days.

  “How do you go on without her?” he’d asked Ted a few weeks ago. The question remained unanswered in his own mind, even two years past Kate’s death.

  “I ask God for enough grace to face every new day,” Ted said. “When I think of the years I’ve been without her, I know my time on this earth is growing shorter until I see her again. However, the remaining years feel like lifetimes. So I concentrate on day after day. It doesn’t hurt as bad now. I’ve made my peace with it.”

  Enough grace to face every new day. Peter could handle that. He’d never imagined, though, facing the task of raising Marin solo.

  He’d never imagined anyone capturing his interest like Kate had, once. Sadie’s reappearance in his life had hit him like a line drive.

  Not for the first time during the past week, his thoughts drifted to Sadie. Her laugh, her smile, her quick wit, the way she managed Marin and her precocious ways. He recalled the blush that had swept across her face yesterday when she caught him staring while she gave him an enthusiastic tour of the new shop at Barncastle Inn.

  “I bought this end table for five dollars at a tag sale in town.” Sadie ran her fingers across the table’s maple surface. “It was scratched up and someone had painted it a garish purple. So I sanded it down to the wood underneath and stained it. Now, I’m selling it for fifty dollars. And it’s beautiful.”

  “Yes, beautiful.” But he’d been looking at the way her hair glowed, the way the sunlight coming through the window caught hints of red among the gold strands.

  “You weren’t looking at the table.” A dimple appeared in her cheek.

  “No. Yes. No.” He raised his hand to brush a wisp of hair over her shoulder.

  “Dad,” Marin called across the shop, where she stood at a display of handmade soap of different varieties and scents. “Goat’s milk soap. It’s good for eczema. Don’t you have eczema?”

  The mood crasher made him smile now, but not then. Sadie, however, had laughed.

  The sugar house door swung open, the nighttime chill dropping the temperature by at least twenty degrees. Even so, sweat still beaded on Peter’s forehead.

  Marin stood in the doorway of the sugarhouse. The top of her long nightgown covered her boot tops. Her coat was draped over her shoulders. This time, she’d interrupted thoughts of Sadie, besides the moment between the two of them earlier at the store.

  “I can’t sleep.” In the middle of the night, she looked even younger than ten, her brow furrowed, her cheeks round. A light sleeper from infancy, Marin would only be soothed with music or kept asleep by white noise.

  “I’m almost done here, then I’ll make you some warm milk.” Peter eyed the fire. Next year, if he decided to open the sugarhouse, he’d invest in a gas cooker instead of using wood.

  “Why do people make warm milk to help other people sleep?”
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  “There’s an enzyme or something in milk that when it’s heated, supposedly makes you drowsy. Or that’s the idea.” The chilly air outside battled against the heat of the building “Come in and close the door.”

  She stepped completely into the glorified barn and let the door swing shut behind her. “It’s kind of gross. Even when you add vanilla and sugar to it.”

  “Well, what do you propose to help you sleep?”

  “Mama’s CD.” She studied the pot.

  Kate had recorded a few of her original songs, Psalms set to music she wrote and arranged. The songs had become a treasured memory that Kate Callaghan Appleman had lived, loved, and shared her talent with those who knew her best, if not the music world.

  “I thought you said you didn’t need it anymore.”

  “I do tonight.”

  He wouldn’t tell her no, of course. You couldn’t tell someone else when to let go, even a child. Maybe you could guide them along, but not by force. His own grief had taught him that.

  “Okay. I’ll find the CD.” He’d meant to transfer the sound files to a more portable digital format, but life had intervened.

  “You like her, don’t you?”

  “Like who?”

  “Sadie Barncastle.” Marin blurted out the five syllables.

  “Yes, I like her a lot.”

  “I do too, but not for us.”

  “What do you mean, not for us?”

  “I don’t—I don’t know.” Her lower lip trembled and she rubbed her eyes. “She’s nice and she’s funny and smart. But she’s not for us. She almost said so.”

  “What? Why are you bringing this up?”

  “I saw you today. You were both smiling at each other, the way Luke and Jayne smile at each other. You can’t like-like her.”

  “Like-like?”

  “More than friends-like.”

  He shouldn’t have let the conversation drift this way, but three a.m. probably had a lot to do with it. That, and one persistent child.

  “The thing is, Marin, Sadie and I knew each other as children, and now we’ve been getting to know each other again as adults. I’m not even thinking of like-like right now.” Which maybe wasn’t entirely true.

  “Good. She said you needed to be happy on your own before you’ll be happy with someone else.”

  “Ah, so you two have been talking about me?”

  “Once.”

  She said you needed to be happy on your own before you’ll be happy with someone else. He didn’t want to let that idea roll around in his brain right now.

  “I’m happy enough, Marin, being here and having you as my daughter.” He didn’t want to ask her if she missed Newburyport, or the ocean, or her old school, or the home they’d left behind where strangers now lived inside its walls.

  “See? She was right. She’s not for us.”

  The thought followed him back to the house after he locked the door to the sugar house behind them.

  *

  Palm Sunday. Sadie always liked the sound of it, with Easter one week away, going to church and reenacting the Triumphant Entry with the sounds of “hosanna” and the waving of palm branches. The church in town where they attended staged a parade of sorts on the grounds. The pastor then spoke of the way the crowds hailed Jesus as king, but only days later screamed for his execution.

  “Do we ever do the same thing, in a manner of speaking, when God doesn’t do what we think He should?” The little takeaway even now rang in Sadie’s ears as she picked a few weeds from around the crocus that bloomed near the main house.

  She knelt, her ankle barely giving the tiniest twinge since the sprain. Thankfully, Luke’s veterinarian friend had x-rayed her ankle at cost. Thankfully, too, there was no break, since she couldn’t pay for any extra treatment besides what she’d already done for her ankle.

  She’d begged God, pleaded with Him to give her a new job. She had a good life in Andover, a great job she loved, a circle of friends, a good church. Maybe her romantic life was nonexistent, but she’d kept hoping that one day the right man would come across her path, or she’d come across his.

  Then, she’d had such a vivid night with Peter. They’d laughed and talked as if the best of the old times had caught up with them after so many years.

  So natural, so special. So real.

  Marin, too. Sweet, smart, funny little girl that had them chuckling over the most unexpected things.

  Peter had driven her home, helped her to the front door. She tried not to imagine what it would have been like to kiss him there, on the front steps. Hold your horses, girl.

  Ironic, with all her scheming not to leave the city, she’d ended up here. As had Peter, months before. No, it needn’t be a sign of anything.

  “Lord, I’m going to trust that You’re sorting this out. Because I’m tired of trying to figure things out and getting disappointed,” she murmured aloud. Yes, sometimes she was like that crowd in Jesus’ time, fickle in her worship and devotion when God didn’t seem to cooperate with her wishes.

  “You don’t have to do that,” a voice said nearby. Uncle Ted.

  “Oh, I saw these strays here. I figured a few pulls will help. It’s going to be a busy week.”

  “That it is.” He sank onto the nearest step. “Diane planted those flowers, all of them. It’s been a while since anyone’s tended to them properly. We’ve done our best.”

  “Of course.”

  “She’d have been up to her elbows in that store, planning it. She always liked to poke around in a good gift shop.” He gazed out across the yard, across the parking area and at the carriage house, where a brand-new sign now hung: Carriage House Gift Shoppe. The sign company had installed it yesterday.

  “I’m glad. I’m going to do my best to help bring more exposure to the inn. I want to see all the rooms booked, every week, every month, every holiday because people can’t resist coming here.” Sadie’s own determination surprised her.

  “Good. I didn’t think much of Jayne’s idea at first, years ago, but it was an answer to prayer. Just like you coming here.”

  “You…you prayed for this?”

  “Maybe not specifically you coming here.” Uncle Ted rubbed his chin. “We needed something new. Not that Jayne and Luke weren’t doing an outstanding job with the inn, but even I realized the importance of trying to offer our guests, old and new, something different.”

  Sadie nodded. She understood that. “When my company—my old company—helped businesses evaluate their marketing plans, we found a lot of people reluctant to change, especially to try something different.” She tried not to think of the promotion around the corner, before her hopes shattered into countless pieces. “You know, I think I’m on the brink of something new myself. Change isn’t easy.”

  Uncle Ted nodded, then his expression brightened at the sound of a vehicle coming up the lane. “Ah, the Applemans.” He shot her a pointed look. “They’ve been coming around a lot the past couple of weeks.”

  “Yes, they have.” Sadie turned from where she knelt. Here came Peter’s Volvo, and her heart leapt. She almost reached to smooth her hair, but thought better of it when she looked at her fingers covered with soft earth after pulling weeds. She couldn’t hold back the grin when Peter exited the vehicle and Marin hopped out from the other side.

  Uncle Ted heaved to a standing position. “Peter, good to see you.”

  “Mister—Ted, same here.” He smiled at Sadie, who found her feet and brushed the dirt from her knees.

  “I’ll leave you kids to talk.” Uncle Ted winked at Sadie before ambling off toward the barn.

  “See you,” Peter called after him, then turned those beautiful blue eyes back in Sadie’s direction. “Hey, I have a favor to ask.”

  “Sure, what it is?”

  “Marin and I are taking a drive this afternoon, and we won’t be back until late. We haven’t taken time away from the house in a few weeks. So, I was wondering if you could check on the sugar house every three h
ours or so?”

  “Oh, okay.” At his first words, “taking a drive this afternoon,” Sadie thought a road trip sounded just dandy. She ignored the disappointment that swirled around inside her.

  Marin beamed. “We’re going up to Quechee Gorge.”

  Sadie nodded. “That sounds fun. I think I’ve been there once. It’s beautiful.”

  Peter held out a key ring. “This has the house key on it too. Not that you’ll need it. The sugar house key is the silver one.”

  Sadie accepted the key, warm from being in Peter’s pocket. “You two have a great time.”

  Get over it, girl. You’re not part of the family, not even more than a friend.

  Chapter Six

  “I told Justin, the next trip I take to Europe on business, I’ll take better pictures,” Jessica said.

  Sadie fought to keep focused on the phone conversation with her friend, but her feet throbbed after standing all day. Her ankle complained, too. She settled onto the stool behind the gift shop’s register.

  “When are you going to Europe again?”

  “The company’s sending me to the London office for a week in June. I just booked my flight.”

  “Nice. I’m trying not to be jealous.” She set the phone down on the counter and turned on the speakerphone.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said, I’m trying not to be jealous,” Sadie said a little louder. She pulled out her receipt book and scanned the room. After the grand opening sale, she needed to replace some of the inventory. Good. She’d been in the process of tallying sales for the day when Jessica had called to congratulate her.

  “Well, I checked the job listings on the HR page, to see if there’s anything in our marketing department you might be qualified for.”

  “Oh, you did? Thanks.”

  “I didn’t see anything this time, but if I do find anything, I’ll forward it to you. Anyway, that’s not the only reason I called. I meant to let you know…I think Justin is going to propose.” Jessica ended the sentence with a squeal.

  “Wow! How do you know?”

  “We’re going to visit his family for Easter weekend, and we’re driving to the White Mountains, and having dinner at Le Chateau on Saturday night.”