Blue Hollow Falls

by Donna Kauffman

  “There you are,” her newly inherited stepmother said. Addison Pearl Whitaker was another aging hippie, but that was where the comparison to Sunny’s own mother began and ended. Where her mother had been all fluttery scarves, flowing gypsy skirts, and love beads, Addie Pearl was more the tie-dyed, oversized T-shirt, faded old green Army shorts, and well-worn leather work boots type. Her gun-metal gray hair was long—very long—and plaited in a single, narrow braid all the way down her back, past her wide waist, to the equally wide, but flat-to-almost non-existent fanny below it. Her face was well-tanned, well-worn, and deeply creased, but her eyes flashed the most peculiar shade of crystalline lavender, which made her look both kind and a bit spooky all at the same time. Her smile, which she flashed naturally and quite often as she spoke, showed two rows of well-maintained, perfectly aligned dentures. She used a walking stick made from a hand carved oak tree branch, though Sunny was fairly certain from the woman’s sturdy arms and legs, not to mention her bubbling energy, that she could climb Everest without aid of walking stick or Sherpa. Her posture was a wee bit stooped, but even standing perfectly erect, Sunny figured Addie would top out a good five or six inches shorter than herself, no taller than five-foot-one or two at most.

  Addie Pearl, as she’d asked them to call her, was followed out by ten-year-old Bailey Sutton. Apparently, Doyle had continued to father children out of wedlock all the way into his mid-seventies. At least that they knew of. Only, in Bailey’s case, her mother had taken Doyle’s support money, dumped her infant daughter into the foster care system, and headed off for parts unknown, never to be heard from again.

  Bailey looked tall for her age, thin but in a wiry way, not frail. She had naturally pale skin, freckled cheeks and nose, strikingly bright blue eyes, and a waterfall of strawberry blond hair—heavy on the strawberry—that hung in rumpled waves down to the middle of her back. She had on old but clean blue jeans, a western-style, teal blue and green plaid shirt buttoned up over a pale yellow T-shirt, and beat-up cowboy boots on her feet. All she was missing was the wide-brimmed cowboy hat, and Sunny didn’t doubt she had one tucked away somewhere. Possibly with a horse or three.

  Sunny looked behind Bailey, assuming the young girl’s caseworker, who’d accompanied Bailey to the legal proceedings, would be stepping out next. Only, the door closed behind Bailey. And stayed closed.

  Sunny looked at Addie Pearl. “Where’s Miss Jackson?”

  Addie shrugged one knobby shoulder, but the gleam in her ethereally colored eyes was an undeniably satisfied one. “On her way back to where she came from, I guess.”

  Sunny’s eyes widened and she glanced briefly at Bailey. “But—?”

  Addie reached for Bailey’s hand, and kindly tugged the girl, who was almost the same height as she was, forward a step. “She has real family now. Doesn’t need herself a caseworker, much less that fake family she’s been staying with.” Addie’s voice was a bit rough, which went along with her weathered appearance, and had more than a bit of a Southern twang, which Sunny was coming to realize was the norm in this mountainous part of the state. She supposed if she’d thought about it, that would make sense, but she’d spent her whole life in the metropolitan part of Virginia, which wasn’t Southern at all, so the voices she’d heard in the courtroom had momentarily surprised her. There was a bit of a western-mountains lilt to the accent as well.

  Sunny looked at Bailey, who hadn’t spoken more than the few words necessary inside the courthouse to make it clear she understood what she’d been bequeathed. She knew from the court proceedings that Bailey’s most recent foster family owned a farm that ran right along the border of West Virginia, a few hours northwest of Turtle Springs, but beyond that, Sunny didn’t know her history. The young girl met Sunny’s gaze easily. Not defensively, but not shyly or uncertainly either. She gave a small shrug in response to Addie’s sentiment, but said nothing, apparently unfazed by this latest transition in her life. Sunny wished she was handling the events of the past hour with such easy aplomb.

  She glanced down at the papers clutched in Bailey’s small hands. And the key to the mill she’d also been given. Sunny had wondered about that. She looked back at Addie Pearl, who hadn’t gotten a key, as she’d already owned her part of the mill. It had been part of her divorce settlement from Doyle—whom Addie had referred to in court as D. Bart—over twenty years prior. And if there was a sliver of suspicion in Sunny’s expression over possible motives Addie might have for befriending the girl, she wasn’t going to apologize for it. Addie was the only one of the three of them who came from Blue Hollow Falls, where the mill was located.

  The mill had been only one of many properties Doyle had apparently owned in his lifetime, if not at the time of his death. He’d handed off a number of them over the years. Not only the row house Sunny still lived in, but, as she’d learned from asking Doyle’s attorney during the court proceedings, he’d also owned the property the mountain commune had used, the one her mother had lived in from the age of eighteen until she’d given birth to Sunny. According to Addie, Doyle hadn’t actually been part of the commune, but he’d enjoyed visiting from time to time, when he wanted to “get away” for a bit. Sunny got the feeling Doyle had been more interested in checking in on his “cash crop,” but what did that matter now?

  The commune, long since disbanded, had been located close to two hours south and west of Blue Hollow Falls, near the North Carolina border, where the Blue Ridge became the Smoky Mountains. Sunny’s inheritance wasn’t that far from Turtle Springs, but given the old mountain roads and the steep climb, Addie said it would take her almost an hour to get to it. Blue Hollow Falls was still in Rockfish County, but well up into the Blue Ridge, high above the Hawksbill Valley. Addie described it as deep woods surrounded by high meadow, tucked in along Big Stone Creek, which was the source of the falls that had, in part, given the tiny town its name. She explained how it tumbled over boulders beside the mill, then wound its way down through the steep mountains, before feeding directly into the winding Hawksbill River far below. She’d made the Hollow sound both historic and not a little magical.

  Addie had lived in Blue Hollow her entire adult life, and as the only woman to actually ever marry Doyle, one could easily assume she’d have believed the remainder of the mill would be passed down to her.

  Well, Sunny decided, giving Baily a brief, but hopefully encouraging smile, if the old woman thinks she’s going to take advantage of a poor orphan girl, she has another think coming. It hit Sunny in that moment that she, too, was now an orphan. She’d never thought about it like that. However, she was a grown adult. Bailey was a child. A minor. With no one to look out for her best interests, other than a foster family who got a paycheck for housing her and an overburdened caseworker who likely was happy to have one less file stacked on her desk.

  “You need a ride?” Addie Pearl wanted to know.

  Sunny blinked, realizing Addie was talking to her. “Oh, no, but thank you. I have my own car.” Sunny paused, then said, “Ride to where?”

  “Blue Hollow Falls.” Addie nodded to Sunny’s right hand. The one that held the key. “Don’t you want a look at your inheritance? You’ve come out this far.”

  While Sunny didn’t want Addie Pearl to take advantage of Bailey’s situation, that didn’t mean she wanted to be wrong about the woman’s intentions in general. If Addie wanted to take good care of Bailey, and oversee her inheritance in a fair and legal manner, Sunny didn’t plan to stand in the way. Personally, she had no need for any part of a two-hundred-year-old, long-defunct silk mill, and she hadn’t even begun to wrap her head around what having a ten-year-old half sister might mean. Other than being surprised to know there had actually been silk production in the state of Virginia, or any of the original colonies, for that matter, she wasn’t interested in owning a share in the mill.

  In fact, she’d already been planning to make Addie Pearl a deal she couldn’t refuse. Then Sunny looked at Bailey again, and caught a brief, unguarded m
oment in which the child looked behind her at the empty space where her caseworker had been, then down at the key and envelope holding the legal papers she had clutched in one hand. Despite having eyes that looked like an old soul lived behind them, she was just a ten-year-old kid. As Sunny had once been, when confronted with the reality that she was going to be caretaker to her mother, and not the other way around.

  “Yes,” Sunny said, “I guess I should take a look, shouldn’t I?” She smiled. “I’ll follow you.” It was probably a good idea to check it out anyway, if for no other reason than to assess it and come to a fair agreement with Addie on divesting herself of her share. Then, if everything looked kosher, she’d be heading back to Old Town, back to her life. Back to her work as a horticulturist for the U.S. Botanic Garden. Back to that old row house on King Street. The one that seemed impossibly quieter now, without her mother’s musical laughter filling the rooms, without her endless chattering to the songbirds who favored, as Daisy Rose had, spending a great deal of their time in the keyhole garden nestled in the tiny, brick-walled backyard.

  Sunny had begun that garden as a nine-year-old who’d always had a penchant for digging in the dirt, and she’d continued to build on that scruffy and scraggly early effort, nurturing to life something beautiful for her mother, something that had eventually become her own life’s calling. Sunny pictured the padded turquoise chaise her mother had loved, perched under an awning made of beaded scarves, like the throne of a fairy queen. Sunny smiled briefly, sadly. Her mother had been very much that. Maybe Sunny would invite Bailey to come visit. Bring some life and new perspective to the place. Yes, she thought, satisfied with the idea, that might be a very good place to start.

  Sunny followed along behind Addie Pearl’s ancient, forest green Subaru in her own little robin’s egg blue Mini Cooper, thinking they made a kind of cute little caravan, winding up and up into the hills, deeper and deeper into the mountains. She felt like she was a world apart from her life in the city, finding it hard to believe she was only a few hours away from home. She decided to simply enjoy the seasonal colors and the opportunity the twisty mountain roads gave her to use the lower gears of her zippy little six-speed to their fullest potential. There would be plenty of time to sort through all the new family information and figure out how it would fit in with her life going forward.

  Sunny admitted as she drove through Buck’s Pass, along the rushing waters of Big Stone Creek, and eventually up into the bucolic idyll of the high pocket meadows and deep forest that housed Blue Hollow Falls proper, that the utter beauty of it all tugged at her soul in ways she couldn’t put into words, and made her itch like mad to sink her fingers into the dirt.

  The rolling hills and dales of rich, verdant farmland rose up into the dense forest, showcasing an artist’s palette of vivid autumnal colors, and disappeared into ancient, rounded mountain peaks. She assumed those peaks were the ones Addie had said were known to the locals as Hawk’s Nest Ridge.

  It was up in those hills, in the shadow of the ridge’s crest that she finally pulled in and came to a stop, parking next to Addie. In front of her sat the Hartwell Silk Mill, her inheritance, along with a good deal of the property that surrounded it. But it wasn’t the mill alone that had caught her breath tight in her throat. Compelled, as if being physically pulled from her vehicle by some giant hand, she climbed out of her car, and simply stared. It was, quite literally . . . breathtaking.

  She’d had no idea what to expect, but she’d have never imagined this. The mill itself was an old pile, to be sure, but a much bigger one than she’d pictured. Built out of stone and old weathered wood with a paneled tin roof, the building was at least two stories from the front view, possibly three given there was a lower part she couldn’t see where the land sloped down around the back. It was set at the top of a steeply sloped crook of Big Stone Creek. The main part of the long front and shorter side walls of the building were paneled in old gray wood, structured like an old warehouse, with rusted metal-framed windows marching along the front. There was a crooked and bent weather vane topping the large cupola at the center of the peak of a tin panel roof that had seen better years. Decades, most likely. There were two stone chimneys that she could see, framing either end of the building, and the bottom part of the front and side wall, and all of the lower part of the back of the building, were built from stone as well. There was a small dirt lot down there, which she could see now was connected by a narrow service road to the upper dirt lot they’d pulled into.

  None of that was what had tugged her from her car. No, what made her heart drum inside her chest was the tumbling waterfall that began as a glassy cascade over the boulder-strewn ledge jutting out from the side of the mill, then churned into a froth of white as it tumbled down over huge, waterworn boulders. It rushed on down the mountainside, but not before passing under the giant metal waterwheel that was attached to the far short side of the mill.

  The whole of it looked like something out of a vintage, black and white postcard, only it was in full, vivid color, framed by a forest of rainbow-colored trees. Far above the treetops soared a ridge of jutting gray rock, capped by the startling blue sky. She could barely take it all in. Despite the dilapidated state of the mill itself, the beauty of the scene was beyond picturesque. It was truly staggering.

  The waterwheel, which appeared to have once been painted red, wasn’t functioning, and the property surrounding the centuries-old mill appeared to be long out of use as well, looking overgrown and scrubby. However, once she could pull her attention away from the falls and really look at the place, she immediately realized there was work going on. In fact, a renovation appeared to be under way. Once she adjusted to the thundering roar of the falls, she heard the unmistakable sound of electric saws whining, hammers being pounded against wood, and the lilt of folk music echoing through the much cooler high mountain air.

  Before she could turn to Addie, ask her what was going on with the place—now partly her place—a man strode out of the open, barn-style sliding doors. He gave a short wave and headed across the scrabble of grass and stone toward the lot where they stood.

  “That would be Sawyer Hartwell,” Addie told Sunny and Bailey as the man approached.

  If the mill and its surroundings were a thing of natural beauty, the man now striding toward them fit right into the picture. Dear Lord, have mercy.

  Sunny had asked Addie about Sawyer back at the courthouse, whether she knew him, knew why he hadn’t shown up, and all Addie had said was, “Well, Sawyer isn’t much of one for following convention or worrying what other folks think.”

  So Sunny hadn’t known what to expect. She’d figured maybe he was some backwoods hermit type, too stubborn to venture forth, even if it meant he might have inherited something of value. He had the same last name as her father, but that could mean anything. Brother, cousin, who knew? Other than his ownership of the silk mill along with her, Addie, and Bailey, the magistrate had skipped over any other parts of the will that pertained to him since he wasn’t there to hear them.

  The man was definitely no hermit, backwoods or otherwise.

  Sawyer Hartwell was a bigger-than-life, broadly smiling, welcome-everybody kind of guy. Emphasis on the big part. A towering six-five to her heretofore-thought-of-as tall five-foot-eight frame, he had a white slash of a smile that some might describe as cocky but was at the very least boldly confident. That smile was framed by twin, deep set dimples that propped up well-defined cheekbones, all of it topped by a pair of crystal blue eyes that appeared to channel every bit of light in that beautiful sky above directly through them. His dark hair was close cropped, almost military style, which only served to enhance his chiseled . . . everything. He was, in a word, gorgeous. As all hell. And then some. And me with no fan.

  He filled out his filthy white T-shirt in ways that made all of her girl parts wish like hell the two of them weren’t possibly related, as he did those equally filthy and beaten-up old jeans that hung on lean, narrow hips. Jeans
that slid down just enough in the back as he reached down to pick up a handful of nails that fell out of a hole in his back pocket to show that one of the conventions Sawyer Hartwell apparently flaunted was wearing underwear. Heaven help us all.

  He gave Addie a quick, one-arm squeeze before turning to her and Bailey, welcoming grin still in place. Sunny quickly jerked her gaze up to his, hoping he hadn’t caught her all but ogling him. It wasn’t like her to have her head turned so easily. Or at all, really. Maybe it was finding him amidst all the other overwhelming beauty of the place that had her heart skipping a beat or two. Or three. Maybe.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice deep, silky smooth, and unsurprisingly as perfect as the rest of him. He tipped his head toward Bailey as well. “Nice to meet you both.” His open, engaging smile earned him a brief one in return from the young girl, the first Sunny had seen from her. Handsome men, Sunny thought wryly, lethal to a girl at any age.

  He leaned down, gave Addie’s weathered cheek a quick peck, then pulled his battered leather and suede work glove off to extend a broad, well-tanned hand to Sunny. “Any friend of Addie’s,” he said, his smile deepening, making his blue eyes twinkle. Eyes, she realized now, that were the same crystalline blue as Bailey’s.

  So, she thought, that answered that. Settle right back down, she schooled her still-galloping hormones, we’re related. Dammit.

  “Meet our one and only Sergeant Angel,” Addie said proudly, sliding her arm through his, her lavender eyes full of love and admiration.

  The man gave Addie a dry, if affectionate look. “Please,” he said with a wry twist to his mouth, then looked back at Sunny, his dusty hand still proffered. “I’m Sawyer. Sawyer Hartwell.”