“Ditto,” Sawyer, Sunny, and Bailey said at the same time as they clinked their glasses together, then laughed to the point that they couldn’t take their respective sips.
The meal was consumed with great gusto as stories were shared and laughter continued to be the keynote of the day.
Sunny and Bailey were clearing the dishes as Sawyer worked on storing the leftovers. Addie was wiping down the table and shaking out the place mats, and had just proposed a hike down to feed some scraps to the lambs, in hopes of working up an appetite for her pecan pie when the phone rang.
It was Sawyer’s cell phone, which he found sitting on a wicker stool by the front door. It was Seth. “Hey, happy Thanksgiving.”
“Same,” he said, sounding quite jovial.
“You still in Seattle?”
“No, I opted out this go-around.”
Sawyer frowned. “Everything okay?”
“Excellent, as it happens. I just decided to take some R&R for myself while everyone else was preoccupied with turkey and pie. I had a little project I really wanted to get done. You and the tribe feel like a short road trip?”
“Road trip? Um . . . I guess, sure.” He looked up to find the other three had stopped what they were doing and were listening in. He lifted his shoulders, having no more idea than they did. “Where to?”
“Come on down to the mill. Bring the whole gang.”
Sawyer shared Seth’s request with the others and a few minutes later Addie and Bailey were heading down in her Subaru, followed by Sawyer and Sunny in his pickup. They’d just continue on up to his cabin from there.
The answer to what Seth’s little project had been about was answered before they even got close enough to park.
“Sawyer, look!” Sunny was pointing, but Sawyer had already slowed the truck so he could get a good look himself.
“The waterwheel . . . it’s working!”
And apparently, Sawyer wasn’t the only one Seth had contacted. The lower lot, the upper lot, and the sides of the road were all filled with cars and trucks, and even a tractor or two.
“The whole town is here,” Sunny said, as they parked and climbed out.
Bailey raced over to them. “Oh my goodness, do you see it?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but grabbed Sunny’s hand in one of hers, and Sawyer’s in her other. “Come on!”
Sawyer looked over his shoulder at Addie, who merely lifted her walking stick and shooed them on ahead, a big smile on her weathered face.
They all joined the rest of the folks who had gathered on the banks of Big Stone Creek. Seth had climbed up on an overturned wine cask and he lifted his hands, gathering everyone’s attention.
“So, I was talking to my dear auld mum the other day, about Thanksgiving, and family, and what it meant to me. Now, I love my mum, and my dad, and all my siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews. But when I thought about what home meant to me, what family meant to me, the first thing that came to my mind was all of you. You all welcomed me here, you took me in, and you made me feel like a part of this town I now call home.” He gestured to the mill. “And look. Look what we did here together!”
A loud cheer went up from the whole crowd, filling the chilly, late-November air.
Seth looked out at the sea of smiling faces. “There are new faces in the crowd this year. And you’ve been just as wonderful in welcoming them.” He tipped an imaginary hat toward Sunny and Bailey. The crowd turned to look at them, some nodding, some clapping, and a few others lifting their hands in a show of solidarity.
“And who knows what is in store for us in the next year,” Seth said, then shot a suggestive look at Sawyer and Sunny and wiggled his eyebrows. That caused a titter of laughter to run through the crowd, which quickly changed to cheers and more than a few whistles when they collectively turned in time to see Sawyer bending Sunny over his arm and kissing her soundly on the lips.
Bailey, who was standing right next to them, had covered her eyes. Addie put her hand on Bailey’s shoulder and beamed from ear to ear.
“Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!” he shouted.
There was laughter, and more than a few hugs. Parents warned children not to race too close to the water’s edge. Others went over to ask Seth how he’d gotten the ancient wheel to run again, discussing mechanics and bearings and engine parts. Someone brought a fiddle, another a mandolin, and music once again filled the Hollow.
And the universe looked down, nodding in satisfaction that its message had been duly received. The focus shifted then to a new story about to unfold . . . and orbits were once again spun into motion. Some would miss. Others would collide.
What was in store in the coming year? Indeed, Mr. Seth Brogan was about to find out.
He only had to listen....
Author’s Note
Turtle Springs, Hawksbill Valley, Big Stone Creek, and Blue Hollow Falls exist only in my imagination (and yours now, too, I hope!). However, the words used in the place names I chose for this book, as well as the some of the names of the people who populate my little mountain town, all originate in this lovely part of the Blue Ridge Mountains that I call home.
The history of silk production in the United States mentioned in the early part of the story, along with the origination of American silk mills, is based in fact. While most of those mills are now defunct or long gone, there are still a few in operation, even to this day.
In Blue Hollow Falls, Sunny Goodwin is a horticulturalist with the United States Botanic Garden. While I did take a bit of literary license with some of the elements surrounding Sunny’s job and the operation of both the conservatory and the production facility, both the USBG conservatory and the production facility are quite real. (You can even follow them both on Facebook!) The Care for the Rare program is also real. You can learn more about that program here: www.bgci.org/usa/carefortherare
And, lastly, there are indeed approximately 200 species of orchids that are native to North America. It is also true that many of them are threatened or endangered due to loss of natural habitat. The germination research mentioned in the story is part of actual research currently being conducted by the also very real North American Orchid Conservation Center. To learn more about the work they are doing, you can check them out here: www.northamericanorchidcenter.org (It’s worth a visit, if for no other reason than to see the amazing and awe-inspiring photos of some of the world’s most beautiful flowers. And yes . . . that crack Sunny made about their sex lives? Totally true! You can read more about that there, too.)
Oh, wait, there is one more thing! If you want to see how adorable a real Herdwick baby lamb is, go here and scroll: www.herdy.co.uk/blog/all-about-herdwicks/21/post (I knew I’d found my sheep breed when they compared a Herdwick ram to Russell Crowe in Gladiator!)
Thank you for spending time with me in my beautiful mountains here in southwestern Virginia. I hope you’ll drop by for another visit!
Read on for an excerpt from the eOnly
Blue Hollow Falls novella by
Donna Kauffman
“The Inn at Blue Hollow Falls,”
in which Stevie Franklin finds the true meaning of love!
Click here to PRE-ORDER your copy!
Stevie Franklin is ready to go all-out Grinch on Christmas this year, but a snowy trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains could provide some unexpected gifts...
Stevie is thrilled to help her best friend Sunny launch her new greenhouse business in Blue Hollow Falls. Not only does it give her a chance to visit the quaint location, but it’s a welcome distraction from Stevie’s recent bad luck with men. Just one catch: since Sunny’s home is under renovation, Stevie must stay at the local inn, whose amenities feature hunky innkeeper, Noah Tyler.
Noah may be as tempting as her grandmother’s famous sweet potato pie, but city-girl Stevie isn’t sticking around—and she doesn’t do flings. Yet when Noah’s chef gets stranded in a Christmas Eve snowstorm, Stevie can’t resist pitching in and serving up some of her family’s
favorite recipes. The magic of a Blue Ridge Christmas is already rekindling Stevie’s holiday spirit and making her wonder what else she might be missing out on. Now can Noah restore Stevie’s belief in love?
Chapter 1
Stevie Franklin stopped when the trail reached the edge of the woods and gasped. Sunny had told her that the photos didn’t do the place justice, and she hadn’t been kidding. Stevie’s best friend and former coworker at the U.S. Botanic Garden had sent dozens of photos since inheriting the long-abandoned Victorian greenhouse a few months earlier, but no camera angle could ever capture the scene spread out before her now.
“Look at you,” Stevie breathed, the words sending small, crystalline puffs into the air as she spoke. The temperature was barely in the teens this high up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a good fifteen degrees colder than the already-frigid temps she’d left behind in DC that morning. The winter air was still and silent, felt almost delicate. The sky above the clearing was an impenetrable pale gray, the air heavy with mist, turning the early morning light to a soft eggshell, which only leant to the sense of fragility.
The snow had stopped while she’d been traversing the wooded trail that led away from the parking lot back at the old silk mill. Everything was blanketed in a pristine layer of pillowy white. The only sound was her own breathing, and her pulse reverberating in her ears as she stared at the centuries-old, snow-shrouded greenhouse. Stevie felt as if she were standing in a frozen moment in time. She wanted to hold on to it, ward off anything that might shatter the moment.
In her mind’s eye, she saw the greenhouse as it must have looked in its heyday. It was enormous, almost as big as the commercial-sized structures she worked in, infinitely bigger than any one person would ever need for private use, though she knew from Sunny that it had been built more than a century ago as a wedding gift from husband to wife. The soaring center section was a scallop-shaped dome topped by a tall brass spire. It presided over two wings with hangar-style roofs, jutting out to the west and east respectively. Lacy ironwork, surprisingly delicate and intricate in its design, framed the front of the scalloped dome. Icing on the cake of the entire structure, itself a masterpiece of wrought iron and green glass.
The thick, leaded panes had been scrubbed free of decade upon decade’s worth of exposure to the vagaries of nature and once again gleamed like emeralds, sparkling against the snowy white landscape. The brass spire, however, was still a heavily patinated green, the lacy iron scrollwork rusted and badly weathered, damaged panes had been boarded over, and who knew what lay underneath the heavy blanket of snow surrounding the place. There was a third section behind the center dome, out of her sight range, that Stevie knew had crumpled and caved in. None of that mattered.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered, the excitement she’d held at bay on the long drive to southwestern Virginia bubbling forth now, despite the enormity of the task before them. “We’re fixing you up,” she whispered, cupping her gloved hands in front of her mouth to warm her nose and chin as the frigid air seeped in past both her fanciful reveries and the thick padding of her down jacket. “You’ll be a grande dame once again, you’ll see,” she added, even as her teeth began to chatter.
“Coming through!” came a shout from the trail just behind her.
Stevie jumped at the sudden bark of sound, and half-flinched, half-ducked at the same time, as if that fragile, frozen moment in time she’d been experiencing might indeed shatter from the impact of the sudden, noisy intrusion. She must have been so caught up, she hadn’t heard anyone approaching. On instinct honed from years of riding the always crowded DC Metro subway, she reached up to grab the heavy pine branch over her head to steady herself as she twisted around to see who, or what, was coming up the trail behind her. The swift action on her part did keep her from going down, as her boots had begun slipping when she’d been startled. It did not, however, save her from the pile of snow that had been layered on top of that pine branch and all the ones tangled in with it, the entirety of which pummeled down onto her head and shoulders, creating a small heap of fresh snow at her feet that piled all the way up above her calves.
She didn’t immediately react, afraid of what else might befall her, but did slowly lift her head as a deep, masculine voice sang, “In the meadow we can build a snowman.”
Flakes of melting snow dripped off the ends of her eyelashes as she got her first, slightly blurred sight of the owner of that highly amused, and, okay, sexy as hell baritone. Even the snowmelt couldn’t hide the fact that he had a face to match. Soul-deep brown eyes framed by thick lashes she’d have paid money to own, full mouth, strong chin, flashy white smile, and what looked like a mop of curly dark hair peeking out from under the folded-up brim of his knit ski hat.
“I’d offer a hand,” he said, “but they’re a little full at the moment.”
Her eyes widened as she took in the whole scene and not just his pretty, oh-so-pretty face. “Oh,” she gasped. “Sorry!” There was another man a few yards behind Mr. Sexy Baritone, and they had what appeared to be some very heavy, very long pieces of lumber balanced between them, hoisted up on their shoulders. Their very broad, manly man shoulders. “I was so caught up, taking her all in. I didn’t hear—” Stevie broke off and immediately shuffled her way out of her snow pile and off the path to make way for them, then instantly wished she hadn’t. The snow off the packed trail was even deeper. A lot deeper.
The fur-lined, knee-high boots had looked so cute when she’d picked them up on a Black Friday deal at Neiman’s in anticipation of her holiday mountain adventure. As it turned out, cute had been a trade-off for functional. Not only had the thin rubber soles done nothing to keep the cold of the snow pack from seeping through and freezing the soles of her feet and all ten of her freshly manicured toes, but the shallow-yet-ever-so-stylish snowflake-patterned tread had also failed to provide actual traction. Of any kind. “Holy . . . mother,” she said through gritted teeth, managing to bite off the rest of the less than ladylike retort that sprang to mind when the snow tipped inside the tops of her boots. It seemed to instantly melt into a frigid pool of icy water at her feet, soaking clear through her black, thick knit leggings along the way.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like getting wet or messy. She worked with plants and potting medium every day of her life. Digging in the dirt was what she did. And she loved it. But she wasn’t at work. At least, not yet. And it was precisely because she spent long hours every day with muddy streaks on her face and the better part of the rest of her body caked in dirt, that she expended the effort when she was on her own time to indulge in her love of doing up her hair, making up her face, dressing in fabulous clothes, and yes, feeling pretty. Not to impress anyone, but simply to feel good. “Don’t be a fool,” Granny May had always told her in that gravelly Mississippi twang that forty-eight years of living in the District hadn’t altered one bit. “You take care with those gifts God gave you. Don’t insult the Man, now.”
Her Granny May had worked long, hard hours as a hotel maid and seamstress for each of those forty-eight years, and she’d never once left their little apartment without her lipstick on, her eyebrows carefully penciled in, and her uniform freshly pressed. It was about taking pride in one’s self.
Standing there at that moment, however, Stevie could feel that the hair she’d carefully styled into a sleek little bun that showed off her cheekbones was now a soggy blob hanging halfway down the back of her neck, the perfectly applied mascara that made her green eyes flash was no doubt running in black rivulets down her cheeks, and the wardrobe she’d spent several very enjoyable hours shopping for now sagged under a pile of snowmelt. All of which forced Stevie to admit it was the teensiest bit possible that after Sunny had mentioned the abundance of lumberjack types dotting her new mountain landscape, Stevie might have been the weensiest bit hopeful that all her efforts would have an added side benefit. Maybe. Possibly.
“I’m fine,” she assured them with a weak smile, c
arefully wiping her cheeks with the side of a gloved finger. “Please, go on. That looks heavy.”
“You must be Stevie.”
She blinked against the rivulets of melting snow still trickling off her lashes and down her nose as she looked at Mr. Sexy Baritone. She took in his green plaid wool jacket, the dark brown canvas pants, and the heavy work boots laced halfway up his calves, then looked up to the heavy wood beams propped on his shoulder, and burst out laughing. All he needed was a big blue ox. Hot lumberjack types indeed. She hadn’t realized Sunny meant that quite so literally.
“I’m sorry?” he said, looking more concerned for her than insulted.
“No, I’m sorry. It’s . . . something a friend told me. Please, go, go. Don’t let me hold you up any longer.”
As if on cue, the man holding up the other end of the lumber shouted, “Noah, could you flirt a little later with the pretty lady, please? I think my shoulder has gone numb back here.”
Grinning now, Noah glanced casually over his shoulder. “I thought you special forces guys were supposed to be a little tougher than that.”
“Yeah, I’m not in that line of work any longer. Though if we don’t get this wood inside that greenhouse before Sunny comes out here to see what’s holding us up, I might have to consider re-upping.”
Stevie’s face immediately creased into a big smile as she registered the owner of that voice. She very carefully slogged a few steps to the side and peered around Noah to see the man behind him. “Sawyer! Hello!” She’d met Sunny’s hunky significant other when he’d come to see Sunny in DC during the whole inheritance situation. He was looking rather Hot Lumberjack himself. “Why don’t I go ahead and hold the door for you guys? Least I can do.”
She caught Noah’s gaze raking down her body, pausing noticeably not on any of the curves showcased by her snug leggings, black knit turtleneck, or the tailored, burnt-orange shortie winter jacket, but rather on her utterly ineffectual footwear. She followed his gaze, then looked up and smiled into Noah’s very handsome face. God hadn’t just been good to this man, she thought. He’d been on a benevolent bender. “I’m a city girl,” she explained with a cheeky grin. “We live to suffer for our fashion.” Her teeth might have started chattering again on that last part.
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