Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
She nodded. “Yessir, he has.”
“And you know why he couldn’t.”
“Yessir, I do.”
“Why would they buy here? Why not in White Sulphur Springs?”
“Listen, if they’re trying to make Coille a resort destination or something, I say let them try. That would be lovely for the town.”
We had about fifteen hundred people in our small town, so I couldn’t see that happening, but I’d been wrong before. If it were me, I would have bought closer to White Sulphur Springs, or even better, in Lewisburg. Both places had double our population.
Visitors came to the area to go hiking, camping, fishing, boating, kayaking, stargazing, and, when weather permitted, take nice long scenic drives. They also came to hunt in the nearby Monongahela National Forest. I had no problem with hunting as long as they stayed off my land, which all my neighbors did. It was only out-of-town guests who sometimes got turned around and wandered in. Also, in my opinion, if you were going to hunt something, it was only fair that whatever it was you were trying to kill was outfitted the same. That only seemed sporting.
I suspected that the men had taken the survey map, come out here to take a look at the property, and realized that to access the Rader piece, which had several cabins built on it, they needed Desmond Laramie to sell his small parcel as well, which was the two acres that had access to the main road. Without Desmond selling—which he’d told everyone he never would because he hated Bill with the blazing heat of a thousand suns—the only other option was to see if I had any interest in selling a portion of the long drive up to my house. This had happened several times over the years, and each time, everything had crumbled when I said no thank you.
Hopefully Evie was wrong and they were just looking, and no money had changed hands. From where we stood staring at them, they all appeared to be young guys, so either they’d gotten royally screwed—Bill had never been forthcoming about the limitations of his land—or they were simply looking. I hoped, for their sake, that they hadn’t been duped.
And really, even aside from that, building in Coille was unrealistic. We were situated halfway between White Sulphur Springs and Tuckahoe, and there was nothing out here but miles and miles of nature. Perhaps they were opening a retreat, not a resort. Two years ago a very nice lady from New York—Victoria something; I couldn’t for the life of me recall her last name—had wanted to buy Bill Rader’s land to do just that. She had loved the vibe of The Bower and been thrilled to discover that I only employed women, and wanted to see if I would be interested in stocking her candles, lotions, and jewelry, which she would also sell at her spa, The Goddess.
When I’d told Idunn Shelby, who made all the beeswax candles for The Bower, as well as selling them online, she was not pleased. She didn’t want any candles but hers in my restaurant. As I’d only used her creations for years, I had to tell Victoria…something Italian maybe, that it wouldn’t work out. She’d insisted on speaking to Idunn, and that was the last I’d heard of her. Idunn was just a tad territorial and liked me quite a bit.
“Oh my God, why’re you yawning right now?” Evie asked me, dragging me back from my wandering thoughts.
“Need coffee,” I whimpered.
She muttered something about me being annoying under her breath but left, I was hoping, to procure me some caffeine.
“Mornin’, Mere,” Brandon Hubbell called over to me from his regular stool at the counter, sipping coffee I desperately needed.
“Good morning,” I greeted him and his crew, lifting a hand to them all.
Brandon was a landscaper, and he and his guys always stopped in for breakfast before hitting the road for Lewisburg. Not many people worked in Coille; there just wasn’t enough to do. So if the men standing in the courtyard wanted to try and bring some jobs here, it was probably a good thing. Besides The Bower, there weren’t many places to work.
Hard to account for it, but as usual, every stool at the counter was filled with regulars, the tables in the courtyard too. We had some empties inside, near the enormous hearth, but even though it was crisp outside, between low sixties and mid-fifties, people wanted to soak up the sun while they could still get it. It wasn’t time to fire up the hearth yet, though right before Samhain, or Halloween, I would get it going.
Even in our tiny town, on any given morning, we were packed. We stayed steady all day, with two peaks, one at nine in the morning and the other at seven at night.