“I’m so sick of rain.” Nate Colvin was sitting on the front porch of Wanda’s Bed and Breakfast having coffee with Colt Richards. Colt was an old timer who had delivered mail in Blossom Hill for over sixty years before his arthritis finally got so bad that he couldn’t walk his route, or even get in and out of the mail truck any longer. When he retired, he got a plaque from the USPS and a certificate signed by the President of the United States. He was only one of a handful of people that had ever served the post office for that many years. By virtue of spending all those years in the same small town, he knew everyone’s business and he had some great stories.
He was almost ninety now and he spent his days drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with the locals or tourists at Wanda Lewis’s bed and breakfast, telling his stories to anyone that would listen. Some of the locals avoided him because now that he was getting up in years, he seemed to tell the same stories over and over and they got annoyed with him. But Nate just figured that once you’d been on this earth for almost a hundred years, you had a right to be slightly annoying. The old guy had a good heart and it made him happy for Nate to spend an hour or two with him having coffee in the mornings, so when Nate had the time to spare he did.
“We need it,” Colt said, looking out at the rain. Their little mountain haven had been in a drought for over a year so the rain was a welcome relief to the wildlife and farmers in the area for sure.
“Yeah, I guess, but it’s been raining non-stop for two days. I went up to feed Cade’s dogs yesterday and even with my four-wheel drive I barely got out of the driveway. That hill is nothing but mud.”
“Yep,” Colt nodded. “The county needs to put some work into their roads too. They’re almost as bad as that hill going up to Cade’s place. That poor little girl that got stranded here last night had a thing or two to say about that.”
Another thing about Colt was sometimes he thought he already told you a story when he really hadn’t. “What little girl?” Nate asked curiously.
“I didn’t tell you about the girl?” Nate shook his head. “You didn’t run into her when you got in last night?” Colt asked him.
“Nope.” Nate hadn’t seen any girl when he got back, little or otherwise. He had spent fifteen minutes just slowly working his way to the bottom of Cade’s muddy driveway after he fed the dogs, and then he decided to check on things at Marcus and Grant’s places too. All three men lived up in the mountains in a remote area, and all three were out of town at the same time that week. After he was satisfied that no major damage had been done to any of their places because of the storm and no wildlife had taken up camp in anyone’s living rooms, he’d made his way back down the hill and stopped by Mickey’s bar, Benny’s, for a drink. When he made it back to the B&B, it was around ten p.m. and the place was dark and quiet. It hadn’t been that long since every room Wanda had was filled with the actors and film crew of a movie that was being made nearby. They’d been loud and some of them had been quite obnoxious. None of them went to bed before two a.m., and even that was early for most. Nate had reveled in the silence that came from being the only guest, or at least the only one he knew about when he got back the night before. He had headed up to his own room and turned in early.
“Well, she must have been asleep…unless she called someone to come and get her, but I doubt anyone could have gotten up here that quickly in the storm last night,” Colt said.
“Was she all alone? What would a little girl be doing out in that storm all alone?”
“Oh, now, I reckon she ain’t what you would call a little girl. She’s probably around your age. But she’s just a little slip of a thing, and to a ninety-year-old man, hell, even old Wanda could be considered a little girl, I suppose.”
Nate laughed. “Well, that’s a relief anyway. I had an actual child pictured in my head.”
Colt chuckled and said, “No, but to tell you the truth, the poor thing did seem almost as confused as a child. She was real emotional. I had just finished my dinner and was headed back over to my trailer when this pretty little thing came wandering up, sloshing through the mud and soaked to the skin. The sun was just starting to go down. She said her car got stuck up on County Road 97, and she was mighty pissed off. Wanda calmed her down a little. She told her she’d give her a room and something to eat and they’d figure it out in the morning. The little girl was reluctant to stay at first, but you know how convincing Wanda can be. After the girl took a long shower, Wanda stuffed her full of tea and biscuits. I reckon Wanda called Tate after that.”
Tate Benning ran the only gas station and auto shop in town. He had an old tow truck that worked about half the time. The other half, anyone that needed a tow had to wait for forty-five minutes for a truck to come out from San Antonio.
“Well, I’ve got nothing going on this week with Cade, Marcus, and Grant all out of town.” Cade Travers was Nate’s boss and the other men his friends and co-workers. Cade ran a security company providing bodyguard services, search and rescue, and private investigations. Blossom Hill never had much call for most of that, but Cade seemed to have contacts all over the U.S. and Nate got to travel more than he ever had in his life and having a great time doing it.
Nate’s plan when he went to college had been to become a police officer. He was almost finished with his Administration of Justice degree when his mom got sick. He’d been going to school and living in Dallas, but despite her protestations, he’d gone home to be with her in San Antonio. In his free time when the nurse was with his mom, Nate would go to Blossom Hill and hang out with his cousin Sadie or his old friend Billy Joe Mason. That was how he met Cade Travers. When his mother went into remission and no longer needed him as often, instead of going back to school in Dallas, he took a job with Cade. He’d been working for him for almost a year now and so far he hadn’t regretted it. He was thinking about finding his own place, however. As many benefits as living at the B&B provided, he realized firsthand when the Hollywood people took over for two weeks that he did need his privacy.
Nate stood up and said, “I’ll go talk to Wanda and see what Tate said.”
Colt nodded. “While you’re in there will you ask that old woman if we’re doing brunch today instead of breakfast? It’s nigh on eight o’clock and she ain’t served me so much as a morsel of toast.”
Nate laughed. “Yeah, I’ll check for you.”
He patted Colt on the shoulder and went in through the heavy wooden front doors with the frosted glass windows. When Wanda first turned the old house into a bed and breakfast, she had the wall between the foyer and the living room taken out. There was a long, wooden counter parallel to the wall that led to the kitchen now where the guests signed in and out and picked up fresh baskets of fruit, nuts, and homemade breads that Wanda left out for them. Nate had to be careful because everything she cooked was filled with fat, carbs, or sugar and now that he wasn’t going to the gym every day, the pounds had a way of creeping up on him. It was especially bad when he was the only guest. Wanda left pastries out whether or not she had guests.
To the left of the counter was the formal dining room and to the right was the wide-open common room where there was a large, comfortable sofa and several recliners as well as a fully stocked bookshelf against the back wall. The floors were polished wood and there were hand-made rugs that Wanda had picked up at the Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation. The place was warm and homey-looking and Nate felt right at home there.
“Breakfast is almost ready!” Wanda called out from the direction of the kitchen. Her voice had that quality to it where she sounded like she was singing all the time, even when she was just talking. Nate followed the sound of it and found her scooping scrambled eggs onto a plate that was already filled with fried potatoes and biscuits and gravy.
“Good morning,” Nate told her, going over to fill up his coffee cup.
“Good morning, dollface. Are you hungry?” Over the past year, Nate and Wanda had bonded and she’d become a second mother to him. She was one of his favorite people.
“No thanks, Wanda. I ate earlier this morning. Colt’s getting a little grumpy out there, though.”
She rolled her eyes. “I really don’t care if that old man starves.”
Nate smiled and looked at the plate in her hands. “You want me to take that out to him?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “No, I’ll take it so I can tell him he’s not eating here anymore unless he pays me like everyone else.” Wanda said that at least once a week, usually more. She and Colt fought like an old married couple, but he kept coming back and she kept serving him free meals anyways. “Fix yourself a plate.”
“Really, I ate, but thank you.”
She put her free hand on her hip and sighed. “What did you eat? I know you don’t have a hotplate up in that room.” She threw up her free hand and said, “Jesus, please tell me that Marcus Black doesn’t have you drinking those nasty protein shakes of his, does he?”
Nate laughed again. “No, ma’am. I don’t drink anything that looks like blended grass. I had a bowl of cereal.”
“That’s not breakfast for a grown man,” she said disapprovingly. She sat Colt’s plate down and started fixing one for Nate. It looked delicious, but he honestly wasn’t hungry. If she kept this up he’d have to add another mile to his daily hike.
“Actually, Wanda, the reason I came in was because Colt was telling me about that girl who came in last night…”
Wanda continued fixing his plate as she interrupted him, “Poor little thing was soaked to the skin.” She chuckled then, shaking her head. “She’s a little spitfire, that one. She might just be the one to get this county to fix these roads.”
“Yeah, Colt said she was plenty pissed off. So, did you call Tate?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Tate’s truck is down again, of course. That boy either needs to get a new truck or quit calling himself a tow service. Hell, if I had a tow bar, I’d go pull her out myself. I gave her the number for Adios Towing in San Antonio. I’m not sure if she’s called them yet or not. I told her they’d be kind of expensive coming all the way out here. She wasn’t any happier to hear that than she had been about being covered in rain and mud.”
“Okay, well if she hasn’t called them yet I was going to offer to help. I have a new winch and some heavy-duty tow straps and nothing going on today.”
“That’s nice of you, baby. I knocked a bit ago to ask if she wanted breakfast. She said she’d be right out. Sit down in there at the table. You can talk to her while you both eat.”
Nate took the plate she was holding out to him. He wasn’t even sure why he tried to tell her no about anything. “Okay. Thanks, Wanda.” She got up on her toes and Nate leaned down and gave her his cheek for a kiss.
“You’re welcome, baby.” She patted his cheek fondly. He started to take his plate out to the table and she suddenly said, “Hey, you know what?”
“What?”
“Angelina is quite pretty.”
“Angelina?”
“The girl, Angelina Masters. She’s the one who needs help with her car. She’s more than pretty. Even drenched and covered to her knees in mud, she was just as cute as a button, like a little pixie.”
Nate didn’t have to ask Wanda why that should matter since he was simply bored and wanted to feel useful. His mother and Wanda were both eternally trying to set him up with one woman or another, as if he couldn’t get his own dates. He didn’t have any problem getting a date when he wanted one. What he had a problem with were the lack of choices in Blossom Hill. He hadn’t had much luck with relationships in the past anyway, so for now he was content with the girls he met while traveling with his team. They were different, fun, and not looking to settle down. He smiled and shook his head at Wanda.
“I’m not looking to date her, Wanda, thank you. I just thought I’d offer her my help since I’m here. I’m kind of bored with everyone out of town and nothing going on for over a week now.” He shrugged.
Wanda winked at him. “Just ask her if she’s single…casually. Maybe she’ll go to the dance with you tomorrow night.”
He rolled his eyes and took his plate out to the dining room. It was a room Wanda had added onto the old house and it had a huge, wooden farmhouse style table with about twenty chairs. Three of the walls were windows. One side looked out onto the rolling hills of Texas and the other two offered views of the quaint little town they lived in. Nate took a seat at the end of the empty little table closest to the entrance of the room where he could see the hills.
He was almost halfway finished eating all the food that Wanda had piled on his plate before he heard footsteps approaching. He looked up and for just a second, time stood still. The woman standing in front of him was, like Wanda said, more than pretty. Her hair was light brown with white blonde highlights running through it that gave it a sun-touched look. She had the biggest, bluest eyes that Nate had ever seen and her features were all small and delicate. She was only about five-foot-tall but she had a curvy, yet slim, body most runway models would kill for, minus the long legs. She kind of did look like a little pixie. Nate smiled as he wondered if she had wings tucked underneath her blouse and, for the first time ever, he thought maybe there was something to the matchmaking services Wanda and his mother offered.