by Lin Stepp
As a first surprise change, she spotted a new country store by the familiar turn at the Farm Road. She slowed, reading the sign as she passed: Cunningham Country Store. Well, well. They had finally renovated that old, broken-down store building on the corner into a viable business.
It looked rustic, charming, and appealing, making Lydia smile and then feel a tug of pain at her heart. She’d proposed the idea of opening a store in that old building many times over the years, only to have Estelle ridicule her ideas and her enthusiasm time and again.
Shrugging away the old pains, she drove down the rural road, clattering over the low, wooden bridge across Jonathan Creek before coming to a battered stop sign and intersection. The arched sign for the Cunningham Farm, and the long avenue of trees to the main house and farm buildings, stood directly across the road, but Lydia wasn’t ready to take the old familiar road yet.
She turned left instead and drove a mile down Black Camp Gap Road before turning right at the western end of the farm to reach Hill House via the old Creek Road. After opening and shutting the entrance gate, Lydia drove uphill through the farm property, past the Side Orchards and a few outskirting farm buildings on her right, with Garretts Creek twining along behind the trees to her left.
Cunningham Farm lay within a long rectangular property bordered by Garretts Creek to the west and Indian Creek to the east. The land rolled in undulating layers of rich, green farmland and gently wooded hillsides from the lower valley to the steeper, forested slopes above. At its northern end, the property stretched to meet the Great Smoky Mountains National Park boundary, the farm acreage covering over 3,800 acres in all.
Glad for the new car with its V-8 engine power, Lydia felt the vehicle shift gears and begin to climb smoothly up Chestnut Ridge toward the turn to Hill House. A smaller gate protected the driveway to the house, which lay on a ridge near the Upper Woods. Hill House, a small, double-gabled country home, sat on a high peninsula of land, almost surrounded by Garretts Creek as it wound its way downhill from Strawberry Knob and the mountains above. Not a broad stream, Garretts Creek never endangered the snug house on the hill above it, but Lydia had always loved listening to the merry sounds of the mountain creek and walking down to wade in the cool waters on a hot summer’s day.
She sighed as her gaze took in the idyllic scene. How could John even think of selling this property? she thought as she wound up the driveway to the old house.
But Lydia knew the answer, in a sense. Development had spread its fingers deep into the mountain lands west of the house as tourism grew in the valley. Log mountain homes now sprawled across the hillsides on the adjacent property not far away. Rebecca said you could even see the house lights blinking through the trees sometimes in winter. It would take only a minimal investment to wind a road through the woods to the Hill House property.
Lydia well knew the lucrative offers of developers proved hard for a farmer to resist when facing a difficult financial year after reversals or hardship. Other Cunningham generations had, by necessity, sold off vast tracts of land along the highway and on the mountainside that had once belonged to the family.
She pulled her mind back to the present as she came to the end of the driveway in front of Hill House with its gabled roofline. The old shade trees and shrubs formed a panorama of rich green around the old home place, and in the warmth of June, early summer flowers—yellow sedum, pink astilbe, white Shasta daisies, and orange lantana—crowded the flagstone pathway as it curled toward the front porch. It was as lovely as she remembered. Tall purple cornflowers and white hollyhocks grew against the side of the old garage, and pots of pink begonias stood invitingly by the front porch steps.
Lydia’s heart caught in her chest as she drew nearer and saw a big banner draped over the front porch railing that read: “Welcome Back.” As she got out of the car to walk closer, Lydia saw that the letters painted on the sign looked a little crooked and childish but the message felt very sweet.
Smiling, she headed toward the old screen door, knowing she’d find a spare key hidden under the fern on the wicker stand by the front door. But before she could get there, the door opened and there stood John.
Lydia stopped short, not prepared to see him this soon. Her breath caught in her throat. He stood tall and handsome, dressed casually in jeans and a lightweight flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows, his dark hair showing only a scattering of white around his temples since she last saw him.
“Uh . . . hello, John.” She scrambled for something to say. “Did you make the sign?”
He grinned, his eyes twinkling with merriment before he laughed—a warm sound that tingled along Lydia’s senses. “No, the boys made it, with Mary Beth’s help.” He walked closer to study the sign. “They cut up an old white shower curtain and painted the letters on with markers. It took them the better part of the day. They were hoping you’d like it.”
“Well, tell them I do.”
She swallowed, ill at ease, twisting the key in her hand and watching John scratch his neck, obviously uncomfortable, too. They stood awkwardly, shifting their feet, not sure what to say to each other next.
“What are you doing here, John?” Lydia asked finally, annoyed by the continuing silence. “I don’t need your help in settling in to Hill House. It’s been a rental for over fifteen years. I hope you haven’t come to say you changed your mind about me leasing it.”
She watched his smile fade and his face close up. He studied her then for several moments without an answer, making Lydia feel churlish for being so inhospitable.
Finally he spoke. “I thought I ought to come and explain the cat.”
Lydia’s eyebrows lifted. “What cat?”
He stepped back inside and returned in a moment with a fuzzy ball of a kitten, meowing and clinging to his shirt. “This cat.”
She stepped up on the porch to take the kitten from his arms. A little smile touched her mouth as she examined it. “It’s a calico kitten.”
“Yeah.” He grinned again. “Showed up yesterday in a box on the front porch with a note in it saying: This here is for Miz Lydia.”
Lydia couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, gracious heaven,” she said, sitting down on a porch chair to cuddle the kitten. “Surely that old practice isn’t going to be revived.”
“I reckon it might. Folks haven’t forgotten you like calico cats.” John leaned against the doorway of the house, watching her with the kitten. It began to purr as she stroked it.
“I’d have kept the kitten down at Main House, except for Annabel,” he explained. “She’s getting cantankerous in her old age, and she was giving the kitten a hard time.”
“You still have Annabel?” Lydia looked up in surprise. “That cat must be about fourteen years old now.”
“Yep, and we still have Trucker and Junie, too. That’s two more calicoes we got gifted with after you left. Notes with them suggested you might want to come back to look after them. Mary Beth and I didn’t have the heart to carry them off to the pound.”
Lydia shook her head in wonder. “People don’t forget things easily around here, do they?”
“No, they don’t.” His tone grew soft, and Lydia looked up to see him watching her with tender eyes.
His look made her nervous. She wet her lips. “I remember when the first calico cat got dropped at the farm—”
“So do I,” John interrupted. “We were newlyweds, and you told a number of folks around the valley how much you loved calico cats and how you’d always had one.”
“They started showing up on doorsteps and in baskets and boxes for years after.” She moved the conversation quickly forward. “Annabel got left on the porch of Main House in a wire chicken cage. Your mother found her and threw a hissy fit.” Lydia’s face fell at the memory.
John moved past the subject. “Somebody left Trucker in the front seat of my truck while I ate lunch at Pig’s Bar-B-Q in Maggie. Junie showed up in early June a few weeks later. Those two bonded and left Annabel alone so she d
idn’t bother them like she did this one.”
“Poor thing.” Lydia watched the kitten nod into sleep on her lap.
“Here.” John reached for the cat. “I’ll put it in its box in the house so you can start unloading your stuff. I know you’re eager to settle in after the long drive.”
She smiled up at John as he lifted the kitten. “I came across the parkway coming in. Stopped at Waterrock Knob. It was so beautiful. A cloud lay deep in the valley over the mountains, all misty and shroudy.”
It seemed so easy to pick up, just like in the past, and to start sharing with him. It seemed like only yesterday they’d sat on this porch and talked.
He reached out a hand to smooth his fingers down her cheek. “It’s a pretty place at Waterrock Knob, isn’t it, Lydia?”
Feeling like she might suddenly cry, Lydia slid away from his touch, stood, and headed for the car. “I’ll start unloading.” She didn’t turn to look at him. “I need to go into Waynesville to the grocery before dark falls.”
“No need,” he said behind her. “Mary Beth put in enough food to last a few days, and Ela Raintree made a casserole for your dinner and put it in the refrigerator for you.”
She turned without meaning to. “Ela and Manny are still here?”
He nodded. “Not much has changed. Ozetta Sheppard sent you an apple pie, Doris, green beans, and Nevelyn, one of her loaves of homemade banana bread for your breakfast. She said she remembered you liked it.”
The tears threatened again. “Tell them thanks and that I’ll be over to visit tomorrow.”
He took the cat into the house and then returned to lift a box out of her open trunk.
“I can do this, John.” She lifted her chin. “You don’t need to help.”
He looked at her as though she’d said something foolish and then hefted yet another box onto the first and started toward the house.
Lydia sighed, following him toward the porch with her own load. She hadn’t expected John to walk right back into her life in this way so quickly, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.
They unloaded the car in silence, although Lydia’s awareness of John, working closely alongside her, began to invade her senses. Once, as they passed in the doorway, they brushed against each other intimately, making Lydia’s blood rush. She looked up to find John’s eyes on her, watching her, looking for a response. Panicked, she dropped her gaze, pushing into the house with her armful of clothes.
Listening for the screen door to close, she knew he stood a moment in the doorway, watching after her. What is he thinking? she asked herself. And then she wondered whether she even wanted to know.
As they finished unloading a short time later, Lydia came out to find John closing the trunk of her car.
“New car?” he asked, obviously noticing the fresh smell that only new vehicles seemed to have.
“New to me,” she answered. “A dealer’s car, only a year old, but nicely cleaned.” She laid her hand on it. “I needed a good car for getting around the mountains again. Left my small city car with Parker.”
She saw a flash of pain cross his face. “How are the boys?”
“Good,” she answered, not adding any more, and unsure whether she could even take on that subject after all the emotions of the day.
“Clyde will be glad you didn’t buy one of those foreign cars.” He sent her a grin, easy with himself again.
Lydia laughed. “I thought of that when I shopped. I knew he’d only fix my car for me if it was a Ford.”
“Yeah, well, Clyde’s funny that way.”
“Is he doing all right?” Lydia knew Clyde Sheppard had some cognitive slowness that made life difficult for him.
“He’s good.” John nodded.
Their conversation felt stilted again, and Lydia found herself growing uncomfortable once more. “I need to settle in, John,” she said at last, hoping he’d take the hint. “I’ll look after the cat. I don’t mind. It will be company.”
He leaned toward her and his nearness made her catch her breath. “You’re still a beautiful woman, Lydia Ruth Cunningham.” He lifted a hand to touch her face, grazing the backs of his fingers softly down her cheek. “You take my breath away. You always have.” He swept an arm around her and kissed her before she realized what he intended to do.
Looking up at him with wide eyes afterward, her heart hammering, Lydia whispered, “I don’t know if I wanted you to do that.”
He winked and kissed her forehead. “Well, too late.”
He ran a hand down her back and beyond in an all-too-familiar way, and then the two stood staring into each other’s eyes like a couple of starstruck teenagers, John’s arms still wrapped around her back.
He smiled at last, when Lydia couldn’t seem to find any words, and then he moved away to start down the driveway. “I’ll see you later, Lydia. Call if you need anything.”
Waving a hand, he strolled away down the road in that loose, loping walk of his, the picture so achingly familiar to Lydia.
“Oh Lord, what I have I done by coming back here?” Lydia wondered out loud as he disappeared from view. She didn’t know whether she felt ready to resume a relationship with John—or if she even should. There was so much unresolved between them.
Shaking her head at her thoughts, she wandered back up the flagstone walk to settle in to Hill House.
CHAPTER 2
Finding the cat on the front porch of Main House gave John the perfect excuse to go to Hill House and wait for Lydia to arrive. The day before, he, Mary Beth, and the boys drove over to hang the sign the boys had made for her, but he knew no legitimate reason to return to the house today. They’d lived separated for ten years, after all.
John tuned in to the conversation in the Main House kitchen.
“I can’t believe folks would sneak right up on a body’s porch and dump off a little kitten.” Ela Raintree huffed around the kitchen as she complained, making warm milk for the small, frightened scrap of fur they’d found cowering in a cardboard box.
“Better than drowning it,” her husband, Manu, added. He leaned against the kitchen counter watching her.
Ela stifled a gasp. “I’m surely glad you went out to trim the front shrubs early this morning and found the poor little thing on the porch. With Annabel pushing its box around and hissing the way she was—it probably scared that kitten half out of its mind.”
“What do you think we ought to do about the cat?” Manu asked John. “Annabel is old and crotchety in her ways now, and even Trucker and Junie didn’t act kindly toward this little mite. If I don’t take it to the shelter, somebody will need to tend to it until it gets enough size on it to make its way around here.”
Ela turned to glare at him. “Well, don’t you be looking at me when you suggest that. There’s three cats around this house already to take care of plus the two dogs—John’s collie, and our Harley.”
“I’ll carry it up to Lydia’s place,” John put in. “She’ll have some time before she starts at the college in August from what Rebecca said. Maybe she’d like to mother it. The note did say the kitten was for her, after all.”
Manu grinned, pushing back the battered straw hat from his broad face. “So it did. Seems only right then, since the kitten got left for her.”
“Hmmmph,” Ela grumbled, setting the bowl of milk down into the kitten’s box. “It’s not much of a way to welcome our Lydia back, by dumping her with a kitten.”
“Might be she’ll like it.” John leaned over the box to touch the kitten’s nose down into the milk. His move did the trick and the kitten started to lap up the milk hungrily. “I’ll take it up there this afternoon after my meeting at the extension office in Waynesville.” He looked at Ela. “Will you keep it until then?”
“I suppose. I’ll keep it here in the kitchen.” She nodded at her husband. “Manu, you go dig around in the attic and find some of those cat things Miz Lydia packed away years back. There should be an old wicker cat bed, a litter box, that scratching post
you built for her, and some cat toys. You can take those to Hill House when you go put the new bolts on the doors later.”
She turned to John. “Do you want Manny to take the kitten to the house when he goes? He can shut it in the laundry room and leave some food. Then you can check on it in the afternoon before you head home.”
“That would be good,” John answered. “It will be okay there.”
Ela turned her back to peek in the oven. “I’m making an extra casserole for Lydia so she won’t have to cook tonight after her trip. Ozetta, Doris, and Nevelyn have sent food over, too. Manny, you’ll need to take that up, as well.”
He nodded. “Then I’d best be getting the shrubs trimmed and the rest of my yard work done.”
“Thanks, Manny.” John lifted a hand in a half wave as Manny let himself out the back door. He still praised the day he’d met Manu Raintree and his wife, Ela, and learned they were looking for work in the valley. They’d moved into the small house behind Cunningham’s main house, simply called Little House, Manny doing grounds and maintenance work around the family home and farm and Ela settling in to run the kitchen and household with a steel hand, despite her diminutive size. She and Manu were Cherokee in lineage and pleased to find work and a new home in the area near Ela’s parents, after living out West for several years.
After his Waynesville meeting, John came home, cleaned up, and decided to walk to Hill House rather than drive. He could stroll through the Side Orchards rows on his way to check for pests and disease among the trees. The spring fear of frost and freeze was past, but with the apples forming, the trees needed checking often for other threats.
He looked at his watch as he arrived at Hill House. Nearly four. She ought to be here any time. He could hang around to tell her about the cat.
