Chapter Twenty – Colton
Epilogue – Autumn
Acknowledgments
Chapter One – Addison
Dedicated to the girls that had to forge a new path
to make their dreams reality.
Chapter One – Autumn
“And then she asked if we had any larger eggplants just as she was making eyes at Coach Chisolm.”
“She said what?” I asked my sister Rory just as I set my oversized shopping bag at my feet, gently pushing the material with the toe of my boot to tuck it under the wooden table that made up my family’s vegetable stand. The farmers market stood in an open field in the middle of our town’s main thoroughfare and had been a staple of the community for decades. There were even pictures of my great-great-grandparents standing in the same spot as my sisters and I currently found ourselves.
Rory squealed, her eyes lit like a child watching fireworks when she realized I had snuck my way to the market. Alex quickly joined in. And as a trio, we rocked back and forth ignoring the looks of the people milling about.
I spoke with my sisters frequently, but there was something different about being in their presence. They had a calming effect on my ambition. The same ambition that had me leaving town six years ago without a backward glance.
It wasn’t until I was in their company that I remembered how much I missed and loved them.
They were also never sure when I would follow through on a promise and return home for more than a weekend. This time had been out of my hands, which left me a bit more bereft about my current situation. But I didn’t want my amazing sisters to think it was because of them. They’d always championed for me.
After consolidating years worth of embraces into a solid minute, I asked Rory, my innocent school teacher sister, to continue.
“Old Mrs. Hensen stood at our booth, stroking an eggplant, asking if we had any that were larger just as Coach Chisolm and his wife Lily walked by. Then that crazy spinster asked if we could try to grow them bigger next season because she liked the size of our cucumbers from the summer. Autumn, I was mortified.”
Alex stepped from around Rory and tossed her arm haphazardly across my shoulders while saying, “See what you missed all these years?”
“It’s definitely good to be back,” I replied as I squeezed her hand.
Rory chimed in again as Alex released me. “That wasn’t even the best part. Lily, being the badass that she is, walked over to Mrs. Hensen, inspected the eggplant, and agreed that we need to have bigger ones next season.”
“She did not!” Alex exclaimed.
“Oh, she definitely did. Most of the people here heard her.”
“Well, at least we know what coach keeps in his Wranglers.”
“Ew,” Rory cried out, scrunching her perfect button nose in the process. “He’s like. . .older than our brother.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t admire him. Isn’t that right, Autumn?” Alex asked with a cunning slit to her eyes as she looked over at me where I was unabashedly examining the eggplants. Considering the direction of my love life, perhaps Mrs. Hensen was onto something. But Alex was right. It was no secret that I’d crushed on the high school and minor league hockey coach when I was younger. I’d always been attracted to older men. As the eldest of our parents’ four children, I always felt older than my twenty-four years. My grandfather used to say I had an old soul. Whatever that meant.
As my sisters went back and forth nagging each other just as they always had growing up, I took a moment to look around the market. It had grown exponentially in the years since I’d left Ashfield. Booths not only lined the open field, but they curved around the sidewalks and alleys.
Turning my back toward the crowd, I inhaled the thick mountain air as I stared at the Great Smoky Mountains off in the distance. There was something about their grandeur that always left me feeling lost. That I’d never know my place in the world. I’d always felt so minuscule in their shadow.
At one point, I thought I’d find my place in the bustling City of New York working for one of the top event planners in the nation only to learn that I was as expendable as a penny. Easily lost and forgotten. Especially when the man who promised you the world, and signed your paycheck, left you for his newest client. Taking your self-esteem and apartment with him.
Talk about a blow to my confidence.
Turning back around to look at my sisters, I couldn’t regret rushing back to Ashfield. I had wanted out of this small town when I was younger. It wasn’t that I disliked it here. I just thought I was destined for bigger and better things. I was the ambitious Easterly daughter. So arriving back at my family’s farm with my tail tucked between my legs wasn’t the way I had wanted to prove myself to everyone. I worried everyone would think that I’d chased my dream and failed. It wasn’t in my plan to return so soon.
“When did you get back to town?” Alex asked as I rejoined my sisters as they greeted customers and waved at the people walking past. “You should have called us.”
“Last night, just after dinner,” I mumbled as I snagged a carrot from the stack at the top of the vegetable display.
Our family farm functioned as corn growers, but my sisters and I carried on my grandmother’s penchant for gardening. Even as little girls, we kept up with her vegetable garden that had expanded from a small plot of land to two and a half acres of seasonal vegetables. The market stand that my family used in the past for homemade sauces and jams (which my mother still made in small batches to sell) transitioned to a booth for us. It made just enough to keep the garden growing, but I wasn’t sure how much longer my sisters could keep it up. We all had regular non-farming jobs that required a lot of time. I hoped to return to event planning, Alex managed a local bar, and Rory was a first-grade teacher. Only our youngest sister, Aspen, still worked at the farm with my father. Collectively, we had a friend of the family that ran the stand if we were absent, but typically my sisters and I rotated shifts. That was all before I moved away. I had a feeling that as we got older and busier, we’d come out less and less and would need more help with the stand. Who knew what would happen when we started our own families?
“Did you see Dad at all?” Alex asked.
“No, but Mom was up with Aspen.”
“That’s good,” she murmured under her breath the way she did when we were teens and she had more she wanted to say. I couldn’t help but notice how her knuckles whitened as her fingers bit into her palms. I got along with all of my sisters, but Alexandra and Aspen fought like caged animals. They were truly like the summer and winter. Two polar opposites.
I wanted to ask more, but I noticed a crowd was growing across the way and I wondered what had captured everyone’s attention. The nosiness of small-town living was in our blood from birth and there was little any of us could do to fight it off.
“What do you think is going on over there?” I asked no one in particular as I grabbed another carrot to munch on.
“Oh! Coach Chisolm was talking to some of his players about his protégé coming into town to visit for a while. It’s the biggest thing to happen to Ashfield since we heard you were coming back.” The petite blonde standing across from me stared with wide eyes as if she would blink and I’d disappear. There was a look of both mystery and envy in her gaze, and it left me feeling. . .lacking.
“Well, that’s something,” I said, munching on the orange veggie.
The girl stared for a second longer, then leaned closer toward me over the display as if she was about to tell me all of the world’s secrets. Her eyes glistened with excitement and the corners of her mouth tipped up in suppressed joy.
“What’s it like? New York? Is it just as beautiful as all the movies make it out to be?”
