Hannah laughed, utterly delighted. “Would you look at him! He’s so adorable, I want to take him home with me.”
Sherwin bounced over to them, then started nibbling on the cord of Jake’s boot. He leaned down to gently pull the cord away, then scooped the little thing up in his arms. “Well, Bailey does sell them; in fact most of them are sold before they’re even born. This little guy is already spoken for. Bailey never names them. She lets the new owners do that.” He suddenly looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have picked one that wasn’t—”
Hannah looked from the goat to Jake. “Oh, no, don’t worry. I was only joking. Well, dreaming, more like, but that’s pretty amazing. Eleven years old and she has her own goat-breeding business.”
“Like I said, Bailey might be eleven in calendar years, but she’s . . . well, she’s like Yoda or something. Like she knows a lot more about everything than anyone else, but in a good way. She’s a good judge of people, too. She sees a lot more than I do.”
Hannah liked how respectful Jake was of his younger friend. “I hope I get a chance to meet her.”
Jake nodded, then paused, then said, “Well, I probably shouldn’t say this, but she’s dying to learn how to ride. Horses, I mean. I heard your other friend—Miss McCafferty? I’ve heard she’s maybe going to start giving lessons sometime?”
Hannah still hadn’t gotten used to how everyone in Blue Hollow Falls seemed to know everything, especially when they all lived so far apart. She was surprised that anyone was paying attention to what they were doing out at the farmhouse. “She’s talking about it, yes. I don’t think she’s decided on anything yet, though, but I’ll let her know. Maybe having some local interest lined up will help sway her.”
Jake nodded at that, then looked a little worried. “The thing is, Bailey doesn’t have a lot of money. Like I said, what she makes with the goats—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Hannah interrupted gently, not wanting him to feel bad for trying to help his friend. “If and when the time comes, Cheyenne will make it work. She’s great like that. If Bailey wants to ride, she’ll ride. You can trust Chey.”
Jake looked relieved. “Thanks. That would be awesome. I won’t say anything to Bailey, though. Not until Miss McCafferty makes it official.”
“Good plan,” Hannah agreed. “I’ll be sure to let you know one way or the other.”
Jake walked over and gently deposited the baby back in with his fellow stall mates.
Hannah followed him and peered inside the stall one last time. “I never knew goats could be so darling,” she said.
“They seem to have that effect on girls,” Jake said, starting to walk toward another, smaller door at the rear of the barn.
“Just girls, huh?” Hannah teased, following him.
Jake glanced over to her, grinned. “They’re little pieces of work, if you ask me, but I can see the appeal. I know girls like little things.”
Hannah nodded, then stepped through the door that Jake held open for her. She figured he was a few years away from having girlfriends, but Hannah suspected someone was going to be very lucky to have Jake McCall looking her way.
It wasn’t until she drove the two of them down the long driveway to the farmhouse an hour later that she realized she’d spent the rest of her time with Jake, including the drive back, chatting and laughing, without a single twinge about Liam. Jake got out and rolled up one of the garage doors for her. Hannah and the others had all agreed to park inside for the time being, and leave the front loop of the driveway open for the various contractors who would have to park there until the chimney situation got resolved.
She pulled in and parked, waved to Jake as he went around the side of the house to find his dad, and she went on upstairs to her loft to change her clothes, which had gotten a bit muddy tromping in the field with Dexter and the sheep. She felt good about being able to keep everything in such clear perspective, and also a tiny bit guilty. Part of her wondered how dare she lose sight of her own child while in the company of another. It was silly, that latter part, she knew. She went for long stretches without actively thinking about her loss, or of Liam, at least directly, and that was as it should be. She’d worked hard to get herself to that place.
Today, spending time with a boy who was the same age her son would be now, there was simply no avoiding the twinges, but it was also okay that she’d been able spend time with Jake without that awareness being a constant undercurrent. She walked over to the big windows at the far end of the loft and looked out at the farmhouse in time to see father and son give each other a welcome half hug, half clap-on-the-back. The guilty feeling dissipated. She looked from them out to the fields and beyond. She’d come a long way, figuratively and literally.
“And you’re going to keep on going,” she murmured, looking back at the house, but Will and Jake were no longer in view. “Here’s to new adventures and future achievements. Whatever they may be.” She gave the window a little fist bump, then did the exploding gesture. Laughing at herself, she turned away and went in search of a fresh set of clothes.
Chapter Five
“So, what do you think? Can we save it?”
Will straightened from his crouched position and took another walk around the old, stacked stone well. He turned toward Addie Pearl. “I think so. Doesn’t mean it’ll be functioning, though.”
“Oh, I checked that out before I called you,” Addie said, waving away his concern. “Didn’t want you making the trip down here for nothing. I tossed a stone in, heard water when it finally hit bottom. The springs are still feeding it.”
Sometimes it was just that simple, Will thought. “As overgrown as this was before you cleared away the brambles and vines, I imagine there’s a fair bit of nature down in there, too.”
She nodded. “That was my next question. Do you have any connections or recommendations on who I could get up here to clear the thing out? Once we’ve got it restored, with a new crank and handle, I’ll make a cover for it.”
“I can clear it out for you,” he told her. It would be a pain, but for Addie, he’d do that and a lot more.
Addie Pearl was Addison Pearl Whitaker, born and raised in the Falls, and lifelong friend to Will’s mom, Dorothy. At seventy-four, she could still exhaust most folks half her age with her stamina and determination. She was a master weaver, among other things, and had been the driving force behind launching the Bluebird Crafters Guild. The town largely had her to thank for seeing to it that the centuries-old, abandoned silk mill she partially owned was renovated and turned into something useful. Now an artisan center and soon-to-be music venue thanks to Seth’s wife, Pippa, the mill at Blue Hollow Falls was a thriving community for the artist colony Addie Pearl had slowly been cultivating in the area. It was also a growing tourist boon and source of increased income to the entire town.
Will had done a large part of that renovation himself. It had been back-breaking labor, all of it contributed as a volunteer. Happily so. But he could still remember those times when he’d be dragging himself out to his truck after putting in a full day tacking down that slate roof, or rebuilding the stone wall that partly surrounded the place, and Addie, who’d been up since before dawn, running ragged herself, was still just as spry as she’d been when she’d brought them all coffee just after sunrise that morning. Oftentimes, she’d be heading home to start work on her latest loom-weaving project, while Will wanted nothing more than to eat, shower, and face plant into bed.
“Wonderful,” Addie said, looking satisfied. “I truly appreciate the effort. Let me know if there’s anything I can do, or tools I can provide to make it easier to clear out.”
She turned and looked at the small pasture that ran down the slope in front of them. Her log-on-log, cabin-style house was perched up the steep incline of pines, boulders, and woods behind them, almost directly overhead. Several sections of the pasture before them had been fenced off, and there were a few outbuildings dotting the edges. One old st
one building, one shed—both recently restored—and two newer buildings that had just been put up in the past year. Will knew all this, because he’d helped Sawyer and Seth build them.
The fenced-in areas held Bailey’s Herdwick sheep, with the stone building doubling as a place to keep the new babies that had started to come. The shed held the feed and other supplies, and the new buildings held fully enclosed pens that acted as a stable of sorts during extreme bad weather. Herdwicks were native to England’s Lake District, on the small end, size-wise, and hardy, making them the perfect breed to handle the elevation, the terrain, and the elements here. Addie’s place was at a higher elevation than both the mill and Seth’s winery, up close to the peak of Hawk’s Nest Ridge, which soared above them in all its jagged, granite glory. Sawyer and Sunny’s place was just down the ridgeline, nestled in a beautiful, high pocket meadow. The view up here never ceased to fill his heart.
“The well will come in handy,” Will told her, turning back to it. “You won’t have to run hose all the way from that tapped spring.”
“My thoughts exactly. Would be worth the effort, most assuredly.” She ran a hand along the partially tumbled stone along one side of the well rim. “And it’s a piece of history. The hands that laid these stones made use of this land long before I was born into it. Seems right.”
Will nodded. “Agreed.”
She beamed up at him and nodded, the matter settled. She wore her long hair pulled back in a skinny gray braid that hung all the way to her belt loops. Her face was weathered, lined, and tanned, a beautiful testament to a life happily lived. What caught and held most folks’ attention, though, wasn’t that she was short, just an inch or two past the five-foot mark, with broad hips bracketed by narrow shoulders above and skinny, but sturdy, legs below. Nor was it that she favored tie-dyed shirts tucked into army shorts that hung down below those knobby knees, their frayed, cut-off edges stopping just above her well-worn leather boots. Or even the variety of old beat-up hats she favored, season-depending. At the moment, she was wearing an old, soil-and-sweat-stained canvas hat that looked like it had come straight off an Australian cattle station. One half of the brim was tacked up on the side, and the knotted cord fell below her bony chin. And every part of the getup suited her to a tee.
No, what caught and held one’s attention, even when cast in the shadows beneath the wonky brim of that hat, were her lavender eyes. They were pale, but crystalline sharp, like sunlight piercing through amethysts. Will had always thought she had some kind of special powers that enabled her to see far beyond the gaze of the mere mortal eye. Everything he’d learned since moving to the Falls had only cemented that belief.
“Work me up an estimate and I’ll cut you a check for materials,” she told him.
He nodded. “You know I’ve got that chimney and fireplace work out at the old March place to finish up first. Turns out there’s more to do there than I realized, and it’s put me behind a bit on two other jobs I’ve already committed to doing. I’ve been rotating among the three. The other two will be done by end of next week, weather permitting, so I can rotate you in then, if that’s okay by you.”
Addie nodded and they turned to head back up the steep trail to her house. Today she was using a hand-hewn hiking stick made from a hickory tree. She had a whole umbrella stand full of hiking sticks on her porch and another one, equally full, inside her house. The knob of this one had been carved into the head of a pileated woodpecker, probably a gift from one of the guild members. They had a few woodcarvers who did amazing work. Addie never went anywhere without one of her sticks, despite the fact that Will had never once seen her breathing hard, or covering ground in anything less than a determined stride. Now was no different.
“I heard about that chimney coming down,” she said. “Not a surprise, I suppose, but a shame. How are things going out at Lavender Blue otherwise?” She made steady progress, chatting easily as they traversed the steep incline. “I’m happy to see new life being breathed into that old place. Sat empty for far too long. Drove by and was amazed they were able to recover as much of the planted fields as they have. Lavender is pretty hardy, though, so they lucked out with that. Not so much with the old house I’m guessing.”
She’s part Sherpa, Will decided with an inner head shake, pacing his words when he replied so he wouldn’t sound like he was wheezing. And you thought you were fit. “You guessed right,” he said. “Going well, though. The chimney work, anyway.”
“That’s good to hear. They’ve been working so hard since they took over the place. I’ve been meaning to get back out there once everything started blooming, meet the rest of them. I’ve only met Vivienne and Hannah so far. But with the music venue about to open at the mill, I just haven’t had time.”
Will didn’t want to talk about the music venue. He heard enough about it from Jake. It was still a tough subject for Will. Jake honored his sensitivity as best he could, but Will knew his son was excited about his opportunity to perform there with Seth’s wife, Pippa, during the festival that was set to launch the place in late August. Will was supportive of his son’s new passion for music, proud of him for wanting to follow in his mother’s footsteps, and his own as well, but that didn’t mean Will was handling it any better now than he had when he’d first heard his son sing and play the fiddle the previous summer.
Jake sounded just like Zoey. And he seemed to have Will’s own talent on the fiddle. Will had been teaching Zoey to play when she’d died and knew he should have had a hand in teaching his own son to play. He told himself that Jake had gotten a far better deal learning from Pippa, who happened to be one of the best fiddle players on earth. Most days that assuaged his guilt over not participating directly in his son’s musical discovery. Most days. Will hadn’t touched a fiddle, much less made one, in a very, very long time. Twelve years ago. Twelve and a half, actually.
He shut all of that down, and the memories that would come along with it, shoving them back up on a dark shelf where they belonged. With all the rest of the things he didn’t want to think about. Or deal with. Jake was happy; he was getting to do what he loved. That was what mattered. “I know they’d like to see you out there,” he told Addie. “They seem to be taking all the work and repairs in stride. Things are going as planned, at least as much as I can tell. We’ve only talked about the repairs to the house, so I don’t really know.”
As they hit a switchback on the trail Addie paused and looked at him. “You’ve been out there for what, three weeks now? A month?”
“About that. Three of the four chimneys needed a full rebuild. Takes time.” He was thankful for the pause and tried not to look like he was sucking air.
“No doubt,” she said, then pinned him with that crystalline gaze of hers. “Wasn’t my point.”
Will swallowed a sigh. This was another thing he didn’t want to deal with, but he suspected he wasn’t going to have the luxury of shoving it on a shelf, as he did with the memories of his late wife, something that had become harder and harder now that his son had gotten older and wanted to know more about her. Will’s mother had shared a great many stories with Jake when he was little, but he was eager to hear the stories only Will would know. “I’m not much for small talk, Addie.”
She snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.” She shifted her weight and leaned both hands on the head of her stick, clearly not planning to move on until she’d had her say.
Will knew better than to hurry her up. Better to let her get it out so they could go on with their day. It would just postpone the inevitable if he didn’t. He sensed she’d been building up to speaking her mind for some time. This wasn’t the first pointed hint she’d dropped. She’d helped him with Jake since his mother had passed, so she had ample opportunity to make her opinions known to him. She’s certainly never shy about it, either, he thought with an inward sigh, and braced himself for what was about to come.
“You take after your daddy that way,” Addie said. “Only met the man one
time, the day he married your mama, but Dottie used to say that trying to get that man to have a decent conversation was like pulling teeth.”
Will flashed a brief smile at that. “She might have mentioned that a time or two to me as well.” Had it been left up to him, Will couldn’t have said if he would ever have gotten past being a polite acquaintance of his mother’s dearest, lifelong friend. He’d met her first as a child when he’d come to stay with his grandparents, but Addie had just been another adult neighbor to him at the time.
Addie Pearl, however, had made up her mind on that subject the moment Will had moved to the Falls full time to help care for his mother in her final days. Addie had already gotten to know Jake quite well by then, seeing as he’d come to live with Will’s mother five years earlier, after Zoey’s death. Will had come to the Falls in between missions, but his stretches stateside had been brief, and he’d spent most of those times focused on being with Jake and helping his mom, knocking down the lengthy to-do list that always built up while he was gone. Those had been some of the best times of his life back then. He’d missed Jake so much. And his mom had been a parent, ally, and friend to him, which had helped ground him. Because those had also been some of the hardest times for him. “The colonel was better at giving orders,” Will told Addie, referring to his father. “He preferred ‘discussing’ things rather than talking about them, which meant he lectured and we listened.”
“Sounds about right,” Addie said with a laugh, her expression one of fond reminiscence. “From what I heard, she was pretty good at getting your daddy to do her bidding, though. She just had to learn how to make him think it was his idea all along.” Addie gave him a sideways look. “Might have said the same about you, once or twice.”
Will chuckled then. “Sounds about right,” he said, echoing her earlier comment. They both shared a laugh. For all that the colonel had been a gruff sort who didn’t suffer fools gladly, there had never been a single doubt in Will’s mind that his father was head-over-heels in love with his wife. Will’s mother had a way of smiling at his father, or saying just the right thing, usually something that meant nothing to Will, but was clearly some kind of private thing between the two of them, and his big bear of a father would grin and let out a rarely heard belly laugh . . . then do whatever she asked of him.
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