Sneak Peek at Harvest Hollow

 

I'm so excited to announce that my new book is now available! I wanted to share a little bit of it with you, so here is chapter one. Enjoy!

“I’m not going and that’s the end of the story!” Autumn couldn’t believe that her boss, and the person she considered a good friend, would even ask it of her.

On the screen of her laptop, Ally Breen tilted her head to the side. Video conferences were the only way she had seen her friend in over a year. Autumn had thought Ally understood, but apparently, she was like everyone else who thought it was time to get on with her life. As if that were a possibility!

“Autumn, it’s time.” Ally’s voice was low. Her light brown hair hung to her shoulders in waves and her eyes, the color of maple syrup, were framed by silver glasses. “I’m not telling you to move on.” Autumn snorted, but Ally continued. “But you haven’t left your house in over a year and it’s becoming a phobia.”

“So, send me to the grocery store! Don’t send me across the country!”

Ally’s eyes watered, and she looked away from the screen for a moment. As if gathering her composure, she leaned in. “This isn’t my decision, Autumn. I’ve given you as much time as I could. You have no idea how much I have fought for you, but Harmon is done. He hired you to be a travel blogger, not to sit at home. While we’ve appreciated your help working from home editing and brainstorming, Harmon says that if you’re not going to do what he’s paying you for, then he’ll find someone who will.”

Tearing up, Autumn looked over at the framed picture on her desk. The mountains in the background were covered in snow. In the foreground, a man with longish blond hair curling from under his red beanie had his arms around her. It seemed like a lifetime ago. “He didn’t hire me to be a travel blogger. He hired us, but there is no ‘us’ anymore.”

Ally leaned back in her chair. “Harmon sees your talent. Logan was not the only one with skills, you know. You have plenty of ability yourself.”

“I have no desire though. I don’t want to travel anymore.” Why couldn’t they all understand that her life had altered that day? She couldn’t be who she used to be.

“I understand, but unfortunately this is sort of an ultimatum. You either go visit Willow Creek for a month, writing a blog once a week with photographs attached, or you need to find another job. Harmon Bryant has been more than patient with you Autumn, but his patience has run out.” Ally leaned in again. “I know it won’t be easy, but this is a stay at a bed-and-breakfast in a small town in America. You’re not being asked to go backpacking across Europe alone.”

Autumn shook her head. It didn’t matter where they sent her, she wouldn’t go. “Then I guess I need to look for another job.”

She had never seen Ally look so sad and defeated. “I told Harmon that’s what you would say, but he was unflinching.” She sighed deeply. “Look, I don’t meet with him until the end of the week. Why don’t you consider it for that long, and then let me know? Everything is always scary at first.”

“I’m not going to change my mind.”

“Probably not.” This time Ally didn’t bother to try to hide the tear that slid down her cheek. “I guess I had hoped you would see that you still have a purpose, that you didn’t die with Logan for a reason.”

Another tear tracked down Ally’s cheek, and Autumn watched it in stunned silence. Ally was tough. She had never seen her cry.

Ally sat up straighter in her chair and wiped her cheek with such force that Autumn thought she was warning any other tears that might be ready to escape what would happen to them if they had the audacity to leave. “I don’t care what you say right now. I’m giving you until the end of the week. I’m begging you to talk to the people who love you most. If any of them tell you that you are handling this in a healthy way, then I will miss you, but I won’t say another word.”

“You don’t have to miss me. We’re friends. We’ll see each other outside of work.”

On the screen she saw her friend tip her head to the side and frown. “I haven’t seen you outside of a computer screen for a year and then it’s only been because you have to talk to me for work. Do you really think our friendship will survive if you leave Travel On?”

Autumn wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. In fact, the only people she had seen in person in the past year were delivery people, and her sister and brother who refused to let her completely disappear from their lives. She didn’t think Ally would count the delivery people in the list of ‘people who loved her most’ so it was only Gracelyn and Skylar, and she was fairly certain that neither of her siblings would agree that she was handling her grief in a healthy way. Both of them had tried to entice her out several times in the past year, but nothing had succeeded.

“I’ll think about it.” It was the most she could offer.

“That’s all I ask.” Ally’s mouth tightened for a moment, then she added, “You can do this, Autumn.” Then she ended the video call.

Her eyes went back to the picture on the desk. “Oh, Logan, why did you have to leave me?” It wasn’t the first time she had whispered the words. She had screamed those words, cursed God for taking her husband away from her, sobbed into her pillow until she fell asleep. Nothing dulled the ache. Nothing brought him back.

She stood up and tightened the drawstrings on her baggy plaid pajama pants and shuffled into the kitchen to get some dinner. Opening a can of soup, she poured it into a bowl and heated it in the microwave. Besides the humming of the appliance, there was nothing but silence. She hated it, and yet it enveloped her every day.

Other than editing other people’s blog posts and researching possible travel destinations for other bloggers at Travel On, her small apartment sat silent. She never turned on the television or listened to music. Books were her friends and her phone kept her as connected as she wanted to be.

At first her friends and family had respected her space. Then gradually they began to tell her it was time to rejoin the living, to stop grieving, as if that was possible. Friends eventually stopped trying. It was depressing spending time with her. She was well aware of it. They could only stand the darkness for so long, then they wrote her off and walked away.

Skylar and Gracelyn were different. Autumn couldn’t get rid of them if she wanted to. They came over unannounced and didn’t care what she wanted. Gracelyn would bring her new books and chatter until she thought her ears would go numb after being in silence for so long. Skylar always brought her favorite foods. He claimed she needed to take better care of herself.

Both of her siblings seemed sort of lost as well though. As the oldest, Autumn had protected them through school. Then their mom had left them when they were all still teenagers saying she needed to ‘find herself’ – whatever that meant. Autumn had taken over the responsibility of cooking and cleaning the house on top of her school work to help out her dad. Only six months after she had married Logan, her dad had died of a heart attack. Once again, it had been her that had held the family together.

But when Logan died, there was no one to hold her together. Try as they might, Skylar and Gracelyn had no clue as to what she needed. She didn’t even know what she needed.

Her phone pinged and she saw a text from Ally. Check out the b-and-b. It’s called Holliday Hotel. Super cute! She was about to toss the phone onto the counter and ignore the website link her friend had sent when it pinged again. You promised to think about it!

Autumn sighed. She clicked on the link and scrolled through the options. The rooms were each themed after a different holiday. While it could have been really cheesy, the decorations were well thought-out and beautiful. Nothing made her want to leave her tiny apartment though.

As she was about to close the link, something caught her eye. A room was called Harvest Hollow and it was supposed to be the Halloween themed room. It was strange that they hadn’t named it something that represented Halloween closer. She opened up the photos and scrolled through them. The room was decorated in various shades of oranges with pops of green and purple. Like the other rooms, it was decorated in a way that paid homage to the holiday without feeling like the room was done by a small child on a post-trick-or-treat sugar rush.

Her eye caught the room’s name again. Harvest Hollow. Her mind switched it. Autumn’s Hollow – a place to heal. The words repeated themselves through her mind again and again. It took her breath away for a moment. She hadn’t felt that still small voice in a long time. Was it possible that after she had turned her back on God, He still would speak to her?

“Is this where I should go, Lord?” It felt strange to pray. Since Logan’s death, she hadn’t prayed at all, except at the beginning when she begged for God to take her, too. When He hadn’t answered that prayer, she had stopped praying and wallowed in her grief.

Autumn’s Hollow – a place to heal.

She knew she needed to heal, but she wasn’t ready. The grief was familiar and if she decided it was time to move on, she was afraid that it would mean that she would start to forget Logan. It felt like a betrayal to move forward in life when he couldn’t.

It’s time.

She gasped at the words. They were so final and intense. It was time.

“I’m not ready. I can’t do it.”

Be strong and courageous. I am with you. I will not leave you.

Her eyes filled with tears. He should have left her. She hadn’t stayed faithful to Him. She didn’t deserve His love or compassion, but she supposed that was the point of grace. It was undeserved.

“I’ll go, but it won’t be easy.” She felt calm as she picked up the phone and sent a text to Ally.

I’ll do it. Please have them book Harvest Hollow for my stay.

The bookshelf near the computer was filled with notebooks. Most had already been filled in, but there were a few that were blank. She grabbed one of the blank ones. It had an orange cover, and made her smile as she remembered the orange palette the room had been decorated in. She opened it up and ran her hand along the first page. Blank pages were always so full of possibility. With a pen she began to write in her loopy letters a list of the things she needed to do before she left. Her hand only trembled a little as she realized that for the first time, she would be planning it all by herself.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could do this, and she wasn’t by herself. Opening her eyes, she steadied her hand, and continued to write.

If you're interested in reading the rest of Autumn's story, you can find it here: Purchase Harvest Hollow

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