Treasured in Tennessee

by Kirsten Osbourne

  “Is that what I think it is?” Emily asked, her heart pounding. A large black shape lumbered alongside the rocky stream on the other side of the road. Toddling along behind it were two smaller shapes.

  “Yep, a mama black bear and her cubs.” He accelerated slowly, still glancing at the trio. “I guess we shouldn’t stop like tourists to look at every bear we see. We’d never make it to our new house.”

  “You mean there are more of those around here?” Emily felt dumb, but she’d never considered the possibility that she might have bears for neighbors. Her foster parents’ house had practically been suburban, compared to this . . . wilderness. “Aren’t they dangerous?”

  “Not really,” Brodie assured her. She wasn’t convinced. “They tend to be more afraid of people than anything else. Just don’t get between a mama bear and her cubs. Not even by accident.”

  “Get between them?” Emily asked, half joking. “I don’t think I’ll even be leaving the house. I’d be too scared to run into one.”

  Not ten minutes later, the GPS on the dash sang out, “You have reached your destination.”

  What destination? She almost asked the question out loud. Emily just saw more trees and a dirt road. “Don’t you think we should have driven through a town at some point recently?” she asked instead. “I thought the property description said something about nearby shopping and nightlife.”

  Brodie’s face dimmed a little. “Is that what you want?” he asked as he turned onto the dirt track.

  “Not necessarily,” Emily hurried to reassure him, trying to keep an open mind. “I just want to know that the option is there, I guess.”

  The driveway was steep, and with all the bumps and washed-out areas, the jostling woke Alec. “Where are we?” he asked groggily.

  “Home,” Brodie announced proudly. The trees opened up suddenly, and as advertised, there were picturesque white fences enclosing overgrown pasture areas on either side of the drive. They needed a little bit of tending, but at first glance, everything looked fine. Farther up were the barns. And beyond that . . . Brodie felt his mouth literally drop open.

  “Whoa,” Alec mumbled from the back seat. “That thing looks haunted.”

  It really did. No wonder the listing agent had posted such a blurry picture. Gravel crunched under the truck tires as he parked on the circular driveway in front of the building. Brodie looked quickly at Emily to see her reaction, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy taking it all in. Slowly, she stepped out of the truck.

  “Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks,” he said in a shaky voice, mostly to himself.

  “Yeah, right,” came Alec’s voice from behind him.

  Uneven pavers led to a wide, wooden front porch that listed drunkenly to one side. Paint had long ago peeled and flaked away from the posts. Windows across the ivy-covered brick face of the house were cracked, broken, or just plain missing.

  “Um, should we see if there’s another way in?” Emily asked hesitantly, a determined smile pinned to her lips. “That porch doesn’t look like it would hold a big guy like you. Let’s go see if there’s a back door.” She headed off with purposeful steps.

  Emily couldn’t help but wonder what in the world her husband had been thinking by buying this farm online, sight unseen, but it seemed like it would be rude to point that out right now. Judging by the baffled look on his face, Brodie would come to that realization on his own pretty soon. She kept up a steady stream of chatter as she picked her way through fallen branches and knee-high grass, heading toward the far corner of the brick monstrosity. To the left, she saw a garage that looked in much better shape than the rest of the house, and above it, a small apartment.

  “Let’s check that out first!” Emily said, injecting some cheer into her voice. The garage itself was old but sturdy, and the stairs didn’t even creak as she climbed them to the apartment. The door was unlocked and swung open when she pushed it. The small apartment had apparently been added above the garage sometime in 1973, since the floors sported thick, gold shag carpeting, and the walls were a foil-embossed wallpaper she had only seen in pictures. One open room made up the living room, kitchen and dining room, and three doors led off into separate rooms. Everything was clean, and there was only a slight odor of disuse. She pushed open a window to let some fresh air in as Brodie and Alec trooped in the door behind her.

  “Pretty,” Brodie muttered sarcastically, running a finger around the avocado-colored sink.

  Alec had already checked out the three doorways. “Two bedrooms and a bathroom,” he announced.

  “Well, then, we can stay here while—I mean, in case the main house needs repairs before we move in,” Emily answered. Privately, she figured that whoever had owned this farm had lived here, rather than the crumbling house next door.

  Alec frowned. “No, this will be William’s apartment.” She didn’t argue with him. After Alec had perked up with the announcement that his friend would be staying with them, he had withdrawn again, as if afraid to get too excited about anything.

  “William will probably really like it,” she said instead. “So,” she cast a glance at Brodie, “Let’s check out our new home.”

  There was a back door that led into a kitchen area, and Emily, having taken charge of the expedition, entered first. She squealed loudly and backed up, running into Brodie. His arms came around her protectively as he moved to shield her.

  “What is it?” he rumbled, his voice vibrating against her back.

  Inside the kitchen, sitting up on his hind legs and blinking up at them owlishly, sat a small raccoon. He didn’t seem bothered by the company, just dropped back to all fours and waddled away.

  “I’m sorry,” Emily said, giggling as relief spread through her. “I thought it was a bear. A really small one.”

  Brodie didn’t seem so amused as he took in the disrepair in the kitchen. Linoleum floors were cracked and peeling. Cupboard doors hung drunkenly from broken hinges to show dusty, cobwebby dishes still in them. Drunken seemed to be a pattern with this house. The huge, white farmhouse sink still had a thick layer of grime on it that had turned it gray and rusty brown, and there were antique dishes waiting in the sink as if to be washed, left by some long-ago housewife who never returned. Judging by the appliances and the huge refrigerator, the kitchen hadn’t seen an upgrade since the 1940s.

  “It’s retro,” Emily said. “I haven’t seen a fridge like that… well, ever. I kind of like it.”

  Silently, Brodie walked through the kitchen, broken tile crunching under his boots. Under his gray T-shirt, his shoulders hunched. Alec and Emily followed him.

  “Check it out,” Emily commented, trying to keep things positive as they entered the dining room. “I bet you didn’t know this place came fully furnished.”

  A dining room table, at least ten feet long took up a large part of the room, and a chandelier, festively draped with spider webs and dirty crystal teardrops, hung overhead. There were chairs with rotting upholstery, a huge sideboard, and a china cabinet.

  “This place is totally haunted,” Alec said in a low voice, but a thread of excitement ran through his words.

  The living room was next: camelback sofas with what looked like horsehair spilling out of ripped seams; a large piano that gave an eerie, tinkling note when Alec plunked a key. A formal parlor, the velvet drapes sagging on old hardware, black and white photos and faded paintings decorating the walls, crackling leaves blown in through an empty window pane. A library, smelling of musty leather and old books. A staircase led upstairs, the carpeted runner threadbare and dirty, covered with animal droppings. Upstairs were the bedrooms, a few that might have belonged to children, with abandoned toys and sagging brass bedframes. The master bedroom was dominated by a dark wood four-poster bed, its canopy rotted and drooping. A nursery held cribs and small, child-sized furniture caked with dirt. The bathroom—even Emily shuddered, backing out quickly—had a massive claw-foot bathtub, with a fist-sized spider lounging in the center, surround
ed by dried bug carcasses.

  Emily snuck another glance at Brodie. His face was set and tight, and he suddenly turned and stalked down the hallway. She looked at Alec, but his face showed only interest as he opened doors and inspected closets. “You okay in here? I’m going to go talk to Brodie a sec.”

  “Sure,” Alec muttered. “Cool, an attic!” He disappeared up the stairs.

  “Be careful!” Emily called after him. Feeling torn between keeping an eye on him and reassuring Brodie, she hurried after Brodie, resolving to keep it quick and then come back and check on Alec.

  Brodie was sitting outside on the lopsided front porch steps when she found him, his baseball hat clutched in his hands, staring at the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”

  Her heart squeezed at his obviously dejected attitude. “Oh, snap out of it, cowboy,” she said briskly. “It’s a challenge, that’s all. Do you back down from grumpy cows, or whatever, the first time you get kicked?”

  He raised an eyebrow, his blue eyes sparkling a little with reluctant humor. “That’s the best ranch analogy you’ve got?”

  “What do you want from me?” she demanded, cocking a hip and putting her fist on it. “I’m a city girl.”

  His face fell again. “That’s right. And I married you and dragged you away from Park Avenue to live in backwoods Tennessee in a falling-down house in the middle of the woods.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself. I wasn’t exactly living the high life there, and I’m always up for trying something new.”

  Brodie’s head fell back, his longish hair brushing his collar as he looked up at the house towering behind them. “This isn’t new. This is old. Old and moldy.”

  “Whatever. You know what I mean.” She grabbed his calloused hand, pulling him to his feet. “Let’s go find Alec. He’s probably lost in there, and we don’t know where that raccoon went. Then we’ll dump our stuff in the apartment for now and go find pizza and a grocery store, in that order. Even backwoods Tennessee has to have a pizza place somewhere, and I’m going to need some serious cleaning supplies if I’m supposed to turn our house into a home.”

  He watched Emily as she trotted back toward the kitchen entrance, her cute little curves set off by the blue jeans she wore. Her red hair shone in the afternoon light like a beacon, trailing down her back in a curly ponytail. He wondered how long it would take even her upbeat, optimistic attitude to waver in the face of the disaster his farm was turning out to be. How quickly would she miss her old life and want to get back to New York?

  Emily had no idea where to begin. Technically, she had everything she needed. Her hair was tied back in a cute green bandana. The flower-covered apron she’d picked up from their whirlwind excursion to Wal-Mart the day before was adorable and made her feel very housewifely. It covered her cleaning outfit—a pair of designer denim capris she’d bought at a consignment shop in Manhattan and a green V-neck T-shirt—from neck to knees. She had mops, brooms, trash bags, buckets, rags, cleaner, soap, and even water, and electricity, thanks to her talented husband’s tinkering with the utilities in the basement the night before.

  Emily just didn’t know if she had the guts to get started. The kitchen was the worst room in the house—which wasn’t saying much—and despite her assurances to Brodie before she’d sent him off on his way to the barns, she had no idea what the heck to do. She would have liked the help but figured the house was going to be her domain, and anyway, they had horses being delivered in a few days who also needed a place to live. She would have recruited Alec, but he insisted on getting the garage apartment ready for William.

  So, she was on her own, and the only way to eat an elephant was one bite at a time, she reminded herself. She picked up the broom and swept the floor, pulling up the loose tiles and dropping them in a big, black garbage bag. That kicked up loads of dust, so she wrestled the old windows open, letting in some of the summer mountain air. She stood back, hands on her hips, but the kitchen didn’t look any closer to being usable.

  Shrugging, Emily started on the sink, gingerly lifting out dishes and setting them wherever there was room on the counter. When it was empty, the sink looked large enough to bathe a toddler in. She got out some abrasive scrubber and scoured until her fingers ached, finally sitting back and beaming at the gleam on the white porcelain. Checking her watch, she realized she’d already been at it an hour, and she had one clean white sink and one ratty-looking subfloor to show for it.

  It was time for a break.

  She was sitting on the front step with a cold iced tea she’d grabbed from the cooler when Brodie came walking up the drive, whistling. “Heya, sweetheart,” he teased, spotting her. “You done with that kitchen yet?”

  Calmly, Emily screwed the cap back on her plastic bottle and chucked the nearly-empty tea at him as hard as she could.

  She hadn’t forgotten her Little League pitching days. The bottle caught him neatly in the stomach, and he grunted with an exaggerated, “oof” before uncapping it and swigging the rest of the tea. “I’m just teasing, darlin’.”He winked.

  She crossed her arms and glared. “I got the sink clean.”

  “That’s good,” Brodie said, easing cautiously down on the step next to her. “Are you sure you don’t want me to hire someone to come in and help?”

  Yes! Emily wanted to yell, but pride stopped her. She was going to tackle this housewife thing and make it work, darn it. “No worries, sugar britches,” she teased back. “I’ll have this whole place clean in a matter of days.” A lot of days, she added silently.

  He eyed her with concern. “Just don’t wear yourself out.” Leaning over, he brushed a sweet kiss over her lips and tweaked a curl that escaped from her bandanna. “I don’t want you taking on too much.”

  As she watched Brodie walk toward his truck, his lanky stride self-confident and sure, Emily promised herself that she wouldn’t rest until their old house was polished and restored to its original glory. She knew that she had a tendency to get excited about new projects, only to abandon them when things got tough, but this would be different. She wouldn’t disappoint him.

  Five

  Over dinner that night, Brodie studied Emily. She looked exhausted. He’d only been joking when he’d asked her that morning if the kitchen was finished, but she seemed to have taken his words as a personal challenge. Her adorable face had been smudged with dust, and there was a cobweb hanging from the hem of the apron she wore, now dirty beyond recognition, but she’d given him a brilliant smile and shooed him on to the garage apartment. “Eat without me,” she’d said, “And have Alec bring me a screwdriver, will you?”

  “Phillips or flathead? And what size?” he’d asked. She just looked at him blankly for a second, and he decided to let her off the hook. “I’ll just have him bring a selection.”

  Brodie had spent the rest of the afternoon down in the fields, repairing fences, while Alec had wandered around, watching him quietly or playing in the rocky stream that ran through the meadow. When they returned to the house for dinner, his muscles were sore, but he welcomed it. Aches from a hard day’s work were the best kind. Emily, however, didn’t look like she shared that opinion.

  She’d finally finished the kitchen, to her relief. It was amazing to see that beneath the dirt and grime, the high-ceilinged room actually had some potential. She’d washed all the antique dishes, which included thick pottery plates with clever patterns and very few chips, and pink and green glass pieces that dated back who knew how many years, stacking them in the scrubbed cupboards that she’d removed the doors and hinges from. They sparkled prettily in the afternoon sunshine. The counters were clean, too, as well as the antique stove, with all its little compartments, and the refrigerator, with its curvy, rounded corners, that turned out to be pink instead of dirty beige, and the walls were washed up as high as she could reach with the little stepladder she’d found. She’d started a list of repairs that they’d need, too, and
so far had window screens and new tile. By the time five o’clock rolled around, she felt like she needed a four-hour nap. But she’d had men-folk to feed.

  Emily had hustled over to the apartment, quickly cleaned up, and started a double batch of Hamburger Helper by six in the evening. She winced at the idea of what a real country wife would probably say about convenience meals, but she couldn’t afford to feel guilty. It was all she knew how to cook, and she was too tired to try and fake something. Not that either of the males seemed to notice what she fed them. They just scarfed down the food as fast as they could.

  “I’m going back outside,” Alec said, leaving his dirty plate on the shag-carpeted floor, where they had eaten their dinner, picnic-style, and headed for the door.

  “I’ve got to run to Newport for some tools, so I can fix that stable door,” Brodie announced, leaving his plate on the floor as well. “I should only be gone an hour and a half or so. Do you need anything?”

  He hardly paused to hear if she responded on his way out the door. “More Hamburger Helper?” Emily asked weakly after he’d left. She collapsed backward on the floor, her muscles aching. “Or maybe a body transplant?” All she wanted to do was sleep even though the only bed she had to look forward to consisted of sleeping bags on top of carpet. But if she hurried and did the dishes, she might be able to start on the dining room yet tonight.

  The next week fell into a predictable pattern that left Emily wanting to scream. She got up early, made the “boys,” as she was starting to think of them, breakfast—cereal—cleaned up after them, and then headed over to the house to clean, breaking only for lunch and dinner to feed the boys again. Emily despised cleaning. It was endless. There was just so much house to deal with, and she missed her cozy little apartment that she could polish top to bottom in a weekend afternoon. She refused to give up, though, and every time Brodie asked if he could find someone to help, she just ignored the jabs of irritation she felt—didn’t he think she was doing a good enough job?—and worked harder.