Blue Hollow Falls

by Donna Kauffman

  All that was left was tying up the loose end that was Sunny Goodwin. And if he thought that was what had prompted Addie Pearl to head to D.C., he’d have driven her there himself. Unfortunately, he knew Addie too damn well to suppose that was the case. “Did she say how long they’d be gone? Were there overnight bags involved?”

  Will frowned. “I didn’t think to look. I was already up the scaffolding when she stuck her head in to say they were heading out. Sorry.”

  Sawyer shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry about. Not your problem.”

  “What’s not his problem?” Seth strolled in just then, a tray of take-out coffee balanced in one broad hand. A white pastry bag with steam escaping the top and grease soaking through the bottom was clasped in the other. He lifted both. “Whatever it is, I can guaran-damn-tee this will make it better, cher.” He said that last part in a mock Cajun accent.

  Wilson leveled a very serious look at Seth. “Hattie’s back?”

  “She is.” He grinned, proffered a cup, but held the bag back.

  “Thank you, Jesus,” Wilson murmured, cradling the cup between two broad palms and taking a nice, long sip, the scalding temperature of the coffee be damned. “And there will be life,” he added, clearing his throat a few times as the hot liquid went down.

  Sawyer took his cup, nodding his thanks. “You can skip showing me what’s in that bag, though. The last thing I need right now is a sugar rush.”

  Seth just grinned. “Don’t have to tell me twice.” He uncurled the top and let Wilson peek inside the bag. “More for us.”

  Will groaned in deep appreciation. “God is good.”

  “Hattie is better,” Seth said, chuckling, as Will reached in and pulled out a plump, golden brown beignet, the dusting of sugar coating the surface glinting in the morning sun. He closed his eyes as if in prayer as he sank white teeth into the warm, puffy pastry.

  “Damn straight,” Will said, around a second bite.

  Hattie was Henrietta Beauchamp, who ran Bo’s, the only diner in town. She opened at six every morning, seven days a week. Her menu boasted all-day breakfast, a daily lunch special from eleven to two, and supper served from four to six every evening. Closing time was seven-thirty sharp. She’d run the place longer than most folks in Blue Hollow Falls had been alive, but “her people” as she termed them, hailed from Louisiana. As did her cooking. All of it learned at her mamere’s knee, as she liked to tell pretty much anyone who’d listen.

  She’d recently taken a trip south to attend her great-nephew’s wedding and visit family. Likely the last time, given her advanced age, that she’d be able to make such a trip. Privately Sawyer was pretty sure she and Addie would outlive them all, but he’d been happy she’d worked it out to get down there, with the help of her great-granddaughter.

  What the whole town, such as it was, hadn’t been okay with, was her shutting down Bo’s for the duration. As she made clear, she didn’t give her recipes out “to nobody.” So while she was gone, they’d just have to feed themselves, now, wouldn’t they? She’d smiled her partially toothless grin and told them they’d respect her more for it, be more thankful for her on her return. As the collective reverence for Hattie Beauchamp was second only to God, he wasn’t sure how much more revered she could be, but folks certainly wouldn’t be taking her for granted anytime soon.

  “I’m glad she’s back, too,” Sawyer said. “Her biscuits and gravy are like no other. And if you tell Addie I said that, I’ll deny it.” They all chuckled and the two other men continued to groan in abject sugar bliss as they polished off the bag. At the last second, Sawyer snagged the bag and wolfed down the final one himself. Maybe he needed a little fortification after all. “Dear Lord, it’s almost better than sex,” he said on a groan.

  Seth did a fake jab to Sawyer’s midsection. “Brother, if you think anything is better than sex, then you definitely ain’t doing it right.”

  “Don’t let Hattie hear you say that.” This from Will, which had the other two men bark out a surprised laugh.

  “Listen, I need to head out of here for the day,” Sawyer told the two men, hating to miss a day, but knowing damn well it was his only real option. “Will, go ahead and start in on repairing the mortar joints on the exterior lower stone wall.” Then he turned to Seth. “Have a go at that wheelhouse. I know you’ve been dying to get your hands on it.”

  Seth’s eyes gleamed. “Damn straight. But I thought we were continuing on the frame out of those upper-floor joists. That other stuff is extraneous, at least until the important work is done.”

  “I know, but I have to—”

  “It’s like he doesn’t think we can handle it unless he’s here ordering us around,” Seth told Will in exaggerated dismay.

  Will, who was used to their back-and-forth, but refused to play the straight man, merely shook his head, then took their empty coffee cups and doughnut bag and headed over to dump them in the mortar bucket that doubled as their trash bin.

  “I’d love nothing more than coming back to find those pain-in-my-ass boards in place,” Sawyer told him. “It’s not that. I’m just thinking it might be in all our best interest if I clear up a few things with my new, uh, partner before we go any further.”

  “Ah, yes,” Seth said with an appreciative sigh. “I’m guessing you mean the lovely Miss Sunshine. You heard her whole name, didn’t you? All five of them? There she was, all business on the outside, but peace, love, and rock and roll underneath. Now that’s just damn sexy.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Perhaps you should give dear old sis a call and ask her to drop on by again. I’ll be happy to help you negotiate.”

  Sawyer just shot him a level look, and completely ignored the sudden protective streak he felt at the thought of Seth doing anything with Sunny. It was one thing to instinctively want to protect Bailey; she was just a kid. But Sawyer was pretty sure if anyone could take care of herself, it was Sunshine Goodwin. In fact, according to Addie, she’d done just that, as well as taken care of her flower child mama, from the time she was around Bailey’s age. “What I mean is that Addie Pearl is up in D.C. right now, on a ‘field trip’”—he used air quotation marks—“and I think I know who is on her first tour stop.”

  Seth’s suggestive smile fell. “Oh.” He winced. “Yeah, an intervention might not be a bad idea.”

  “Why does it matter?” Will wanted to know, surprising them both by giving an opinion on the matter. When Sawyer and Seth turned to look at him, he merely shrugged and said, “Looks to me like Miss Goodwin could care less what you do to this place. She came, she saw, she split.” He pulled his work gloves from a back pocket and put them on. “It’s not like she’s going to be upset that her share is worth more, especially seeing as you’re not expecting her to chip in on the restoration costs or anything else.”

  It was a fair point and one Sawyer had been telling himself the past two weeks. “True,” he told Will. “But, end of the day, I don’t know what she wants or doesn’t want. What I want is for her to sell her share to me or Addie, or at least give one of us legal control over the decision making for her. Letting it simply sit in limbo like this isn’t making me all that comfortable. Apparently Addie is feeling the same.”

  “But?” Seth prodded, knowing Sawyer well enough to know that wasn’t the whole of it.

  “Only, I’m afraid Addie is looking for a different resolution than I am, or she’d have discussed it with me, and we’d have moved forward on it together. And she wouldn’t have taken Bailey along with her.” Sawyer sighed. No, Addie wanted to keep Doyle’s newfound offspring in the immediate orbit of his other newfound offspring, and if Sunny wasn’t going to initiate contact, she’d take matters into her own hands. “You know Addie, she’s all about family, and I suspect she’s going to make this one happen whether said family members want it to or not.”

  “When do you figure you’ll be back?” Wilson asked.

  “Sometime tonight.”

  “Lot of driving in one day,” he replied. “
We can keep on getting on while you’re gone, if you need to stay up there a night or two.”

  “I appreciate that, but I suspect Miss Goodwin will be quite happy to tell us whatever she’s decided without a lot of haggling. She didn’t strike me as being particularly wishy-washy.”

  “Truth,” Seth agreed, and Sawyer noted the gleam of interest once again.

  “Simmer down, big guy,” Sawyer told him. “One thing I’m pretty certain about, no matter how she decides to manage her share, is that it will be a way that doesn’t require her on-site presence. You saw how fast she lit out of here. She’s a city girl.”

  “I was born in Seattle,” Seth reminded him.

  “Yes, well, you’re also a child of the leprechauns and wee folk, so we can’t go by you.”

  “If only it were true. My nana Aileen would be so proud,” he replied, his grin ever wider when Sawyer just rolled his eyes. “All I know is I saw Sunny sitting out there in her car, and she didn’t look like her mind was all that made up.”

  “According to you, she shot you down right easily enough.” This from Will, which made Sawyer choke on yet another surprise laugh. Must be all that sugar.

  “If I had time, I’d ask for details,” Sawyer said. “But I don’t. Which is probably just as well.” He pulled his truck keys from his jacket pocket.

  “You gonna call Addie and let her know you’re coming?” Seth asked. “That might be enough right there to get her to hold off on whatever she’s got planned.”

  Sawyer gave Seth a look. “Again, I ask, have you met Addison Pearl Whitaker?”

  Seth chuckled. “Right. Well, we’ll be here, keeping it real. It’s not like we’ll run out of stuff to do. Just let us know if things change. I’ve got to see a guy about some wine casks later this afternoon, and Will’s got something at Jake’s school, so—”

  “No worries,” Sawyer said. “Do what you have to do, I’ll check in later. And thanks,” he said to Seth, and to Will who was already heading over to where he’d spread his tools out. Will just gave a short wave over his head, and continued on with the work at hand. “I do appreciate it,” Sawyer called as he headed out, already mentally reconfiguring the rest of his day. Unfortunately there was no squeezing in a six-hour minimum round trip plus whatever time they all spent chatting over the future of the mill and still getting any significant part of the daily to-do list done. Most of which required daylight, and as fall raced toward winter, those rapidly shortening hours were more in demand than ever.

  “Well, sis,” he muttered, as he stuck his key in the ignition. “I hope you appreciate the intervention I’m about to mount on your behalf.”

  Chapter Five

  “So, you haven’t talked to them? Any of them?” Stevie was crouching down, checking the undersides of the glossy green leaves of a recent arrival at USBG’s production facility. The Cinnamomum kotoense was five feet tall and had the look of an ornamental tree. Currently on the critically endangered list, the species was part of the Care for the Rare program. “It’s been, what, two weeks?” she added. “And they haven’t called you either? Not even Abbey Road?”

  “Addie Pearl,” Sunny corrected her, with a wry twist to her lips. “And no, I haven’t.”

  “Nothing from Ringo or Paul, either?”

  Sunny spent most of her time working with the endangered orchids that were part of the same program, but she and Stevie often worked together on new arrivals, checking them before introducing them to their specified greenhouses. In this case, the new Cinnamomum kotoense plants were on the list to be moved to the conservatory where the public could see them, along with several other endangered and rare species that would be new to public view. She stopped her own examination and straightened. “I’m afraid to ask which one you think is which. And what’s with the Beatles references? You’re way too young to remember them.”

  “You knew who I was talking about, and we’re the same age.”

  “Because my mother was the queen of oldies,” Sunny said. “Unfortunately, I am a walking encyclopedia of all music from the sixties and seventies.” She shot her friend a smile. “Whether I want to be or not.”

  “The Beatles weren’t unfortunate,” Stevie said. “They were brilliant. And I have you trumped on the mom deal.”

  Sunny laughed at that. “Oh, my young padawan, I think not.”

  Stevie merely arched a brow. “Okay, Obi-Wan. My name? Stevie? It’s not short for anything. I’m not a Stephanie, or a Stevanna, or anything lovely and exotic like that. I’m just Stevie.” When that didn’t make Sunny so much as blink, she said, “You know my folks are musicians. I was named after my mother’s favorite group, Fleetwood Mac. She loved Stevie Nicks.”

  That had Sunny’s eyebrows lifting. “We’ve been working side by side for, what, a year and a half now? How is it I never knew that?”

  “I try not to let it come up in conversation. You don’t even want to know what my middle name is.”

  Sunny’s smile grew. “Only one middle name? Good try, but again, I’ve got this. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee you that you’ve finally found the one person on earth who will think your name is downright boring. At least by comparison. But you go right on ahead.”

  Stevie slid off her thin blue gloves and folded her arms. She was slightly shorter than Sunny, with enviable curves where Sunny had none, skin the color of golden mahogany, beautiful green eyes that were bright and sharp, and a thick head of reddish brown hair that she kept tamed into a bun during work, but that Sunny happened to know sprang into a full, gorgeous afro when all the pins were out of it. Stevie gestured at herself with one hand. “Do I look like a Stevie Nicks to you? Even if I donned the boots and the scarves and had a painfully thin, guitar-playing husband, do you see any Stevie in me? Do you honestly think my mama took one look at me when I was born and thought, Hey, little Stevie Nicks?”

  Sunny cocked her head to the side. “Little Stevie Wonder, maybe,” she deadpanned.

  Stevie’s eyes went wide but she hooted in laughter. “Oh, no, you didn’t. Okay, I see how it is. You must know we’re good friends. I can’t believe you just said that.”

  Sunny smiled, knowing they were, indeed, good friends, and thankful for it. “You’re going to make me guess your middle name, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, no, honey. I’m not telling you now.”

  Sunny pulled off her own gloves and extended her right hand. “Hello, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Sunshine Meadow Aquarius Morrison Goodwin.”

  Stevie goggled. “You are making that right up. Props for creativity though.”

  “Would you like to see my driver’s license?”

  Stevie’s smile faltered. “You’re serious? They got all that on your license?”

  Sunny just smiled. “And you think you have it bad filling out paperwork.”

  “We’ve worked together for what, a year and a half now, and I’m just now hearing about this?” Stevie parroted back at her.

  “I don’t like to talk about it,” Sunny shot right back. She wiggled her fingers. “So, cough it up. Stevie . . . Janis? Stevie Grace?” Her eyes widened and she grinned. “No! Could it be . . . Stevie Cher?”

  “Aretha.”

  That stopped Sunny. “But . . . isn’t your last name—”

  “Franklin? Mmm-hmm,” Stevie said. “My father had a sense of humor. And he’d already relented on the Stevie part.”

  Sunny reached out and laid one hand on Stevie’s arm as she pretended to wipe away a mock tear. “I just want you to know, I have never felt so close to another human being in my entire life.”

  Stevie brushed Sunny’s hand off, but she was laughing, and she gave Sunny’s shoulder a quick squeeze before they both got back to work. “So,” she said, as they worked their way through the specially zoned greenhouse, “you never answered me. Are you going back to the mountains?”

  They were in one of thirty-four greenhouses that made up the largest greenhouse facility of a public garden in the United Sta
tes. The greenhouses were carefully modulated into sixteen different temperate zones, depending on the plants they housed. The production facility held all the plants that were rotated into and out of the public conservatory on a seasonal basis, as well as a significant number that were never on display, but were grown and cared for there as part of any one of a number of different programs. The Care for the Rare program was one of those, but there were others that focused on things like sustainability and conservation.

  The orchids under her care were part of a joint collaboration with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. It was, in all ways, her dream job. She spent her days tending to some of the most fantastic and amazing plants in existence, and was left largely alone in her happy place. What more could anyone want? Not a defunct, crumbling silk mill in the middle of nowhere, that’s for certain.

  “Earth to Sunshine,” Stevie said, then chuckled at herself. “Ha! I like it.”

  “Show some respect, Aretha,” Sunny shot back. They shared a grin, then a laugh.

  “So,” Stevie prodded. “Have you decided to sell your share? What about your new baby sister? You said you thought about inviting her to come visit you. I think that sounds like a good plan. I can see why you wouldn’t want the hassle of that place, or to get tied down again in any way, but if you invited Bailey here, then she can become part of your world. Doesn’t mean you have to do the same in return. I bet she’d love to see your place, visit here, or at least tour the conservatory.”

  Sunny smiled to herself as Stevie chattered away. She knew she’d be in for an earful when she told Stevie about her inheritance, and the basics about the convoluted family tree, but that was precisely why’d she’d told her about it. Sunny had never been good about talking things through out loud. Her mama had done enough talking for both of them, and it wasn’t as if Sunny could talk to her own mother about the conflicts she felt because Daisy Rose was at the heart of them. Yet, at the same time, Sunny fiercely protected her mother, so talking about her to someone else seemed like a sort of betrayal. Stevie, on the other hand, had none of those reservations. Quite the opposite. So Sunny let her good friend talk through things for her.