Find Me at Whisper Falls

by Ellyn Oaksmith

Genres: Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction; Clean & Wholesome Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Whisper Falls, in beautiful Washington hill country, seeks veterinarian. Must enjoy rural life.

Freya Johanssen needs a fresh start. A recently heartbroken and newly-graduated veterinarian, she will take any job that gets her away from Seattle—for now. Her plan is to spend two years in the small town of Whisper Falls, and then head back to the city and civilisation. But does Whisper Falls have different plans for her?

Stepping off the bus in the prettiest town she’s ever seen, she drags her enormous suitcase down the rough lane towards her new home and sees the land fall away into rolling gold and purple hills that stretch for empty miles to the horizon. And despite everything she starts to feel optimistic for the first time in months.

And then Trent Crossley arrives: the last person she expected—or wanted—ever to see again. This is the guy who thinks he’s God’s gift to women; who breezed through vet school without studying and who betrayed her in a way she’ll never forgive. Now he’s in her clinic, and the fluttering in her stomach must mean she’s still mad at him.

It seems they have both been hired for the same job—and now neither is backing down. But as Freya works to outdo Trent at every turn, she starts to see a different side to the man she thought she knew. Falling in love was never part of her plan. And if she wants the new beginning she’s worked so hard for, can she afford to give away her heart?

A totally unputdownable feel-good read about finding yourself, and love, in the most unexpected places. Fans of Virgin River, Debbie Macomber, Jill Shalvis and Carolyn Brown will love Find Me at Whisper Falls.

Readers can’t get enough of Ellyn Oaksmith

“Kept me hooked from start to end, I read it in one sitting… heart-warming.” Bookworm 86, 5 stars

“A delightful story… warmed my heart and made the book impossible to put down… the perfect read.” Tessa Talks Books

“A perfect summer vacation must-read… A well-deserved five stars.” Fiction Flock, 5 stars

“I found myself staying up through the night swooning and sniffling in this heart-wrenchingly amazing romance… I was hooked from the very first page.” Nurse Bookie, 5 stars

“This engaging and heart-warming story is so inspiring… a must read. It will have you flipping through the pages so fast, you will find yourself experiencing all the emotions with this one.” Page Turners, 5 stars

“I adored it… Some funny little things that made me smirk and some sad ones that broke my heart AND a scene that made my eyes well up and my heart melt. Great ingredients mixed into a wonderful story…

Release date: September 30, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

The ad reads: Small town seeks veterinarian for two-year contract. Student loan payment or bonus upon signing. Large and small animal practice. Must love small towns.

Her roommate, Chalyse, spots it on LinkedIn. “What kind of a cow turd backwater is this? They have to offer a bonus for signing a two-year contract.”

Freya, sitting on the apartment’s shabby window seat, perks up. Behind her, flurries of fat snowflakes dot the black sky. “Send me the link.” She returns to her laptop. She’s studying bovine intestinal parasites, which, she has to admit, are clever little creatures despite the havoc they wreak on innocent cows.

Chalyse rolls her eyes. “Freya, come on. Small towns like this specialize in alcoholism and gossip.”

Freya stays focused on her computer. Her concentration is such that she can study something and talk at the same time. “Then I’ll always have someone for a chat and a drink.”

Chalyse, another Doctor of Veterinary Medicine student, already has a job lined up. She finds it amusing exploring the world of veterinary medicine by looking at the job postings. Last night, there was one on a cruise ship caring for exotic species. “You don’t even like people that much.”

Freya’s eyes flick up from the computer. “Last I looked, you were semi-human.”

Chalyse waves a hand. “Stop with the compliments. The point is, rural practices are rough.”

Freya looks out at the snow, thinking about her student loan. Sure, she applied for every grant and scholarship under the sun. Together they paid for a month, maybe two. The size of the loan feels like a block of cement molded to her feet. Chalyse’s parents have financed a good chunk of vet school. Like Freya, she is from Seattle, where she will return to join her aunt’s small animal practice in fancy Madison Park on the shores of Lake Washington. Madison Park is populated by new-tech cash and ancient money. The waiting room at her aunt’s practice, Chalyse says, has a five-thousand-dollar espresso machine.

“What exactly do you know about small towns?” Freya asks.

Chalyse finishes filing her nails. They both keep their nails scrupulously short and clean. “My dad is from a small town. My grandma knew he’d flunked a class before he opened his report card. His teacher stopped her in the grocery store to complain about how he wasn’t applying himself.”

“That’s funny.” Freya tilts her head. “How do you know I’ll hate it?”

Chalyse rubs her eyes. Finals are coming. As fourth-year students, they both have overnight rotations in the Washington State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital. They’re also cramming for their licensing exams. This is the final stretch. “You heard the lectures on rural medicine. On call twenty-four seven. Below-zero conditions. Icy roads and bad cell coverage. Farmers who don’t think women can do the job. Massively huge animals who can bust your arm during delivery if they don’t like you all up in their business.” She lifts her tea mug. “Meanwhile, I will be warm and dry, stitching up labradoodles who get handsy with bitches at the dog park.” She takes a long sip from her mug. “Think about it.”

Freya has opened up another window on her computer. She studies an image from a Google search. Whisper Falls, Washington is surrounded by rolling green Palouse Prairie hills of wheat. Thousands of acres of farmland. Farms, she mentally acknowledges, that she’d be visiting on frigid nights, dealing with anxious farmers and animals worth thousands of dollars which she’d be expected to save. Animals that could slam her against stalls, break her ribs and bite her. But her student loan debt will crush her if immediate action isn’t taken.

Freya doesn’t need a soft life. Has never lived one. It is choose your own adventure time.

“I might not even get the job.” Surprisingly, she realizes: she does want it. Maybe too much. She thinks about the orphaned wolf pups she cared for last year, now running wild. Also, there is the fantasy world in her mind based on a book series she fell into at thirteen. All Creatures Great and Small. The idea of a clean world. A fresh start. “Physically, I am small.” She holds up her hands, perfect for surgery. Not great for holding down large animals. Lilly used to tell her that she was built for the city although Freya suspects it was just Lilly’s way of encouraging her to stay in Seattle.

Besides six years of academic life in Pullman, all she’s known is suburbia as a child, and at twelve, when Lilly took over, urban Seattle, where anything Lilly or Freya might have needed or wanted was available. If it wasn’t, Amazon, headquartered nearby, would deliver it within a few hours. How many times had Lilly picked her up at Juanita High School, headed to the Evergreen Floating Bridge, and asked her to choose the restaurant while they drove to Capitol Hill? “But not Ethiopian again, Freya. How about the new Nepalese place?” Freya remembers rolling her eyes because she loved Ethiopian and was always hungry. Lilly was a terrible cook.

Chalyse snorts. “Right. As if that’s ever stopped you from anything. You love ordering people around. What’s this about?”

Freya traces a question mark in the foggy window. “I don’t know.” She does. “Money, I guess.” She’s lying. “Student loans that need their own zip code. It doesn’t feel great, not knowing where I’m going. I’ve known where I was headed since I was thirteen.” Much closer to the truth.

Chalyse laughs. “Freya, if I was a betting woman, which, obviously, I am, I’d put every cent on you. The number-one graduate of one of the top veterinary schools in the United States? They will throw money at you—” Chalyse, who is a keen poker player, studies her friend, narrows her eyes. “Oh, hang on. You just wanted to hear yourself described that way, didn’t you?”

Freya suppresses a grin. “I think the word is ‘gloating.’”

“You’re a horrible person.”

Freya smirks, but inside, her mind flits through all the drawbacks of a rural practice. Her finger hovers over the link for the job application. “Maybe. But I’m one hell of a veterinarian.” She tells herself sternly that there’s more to life than trendy bars and traffic snarls, and clicks. She’ll miss Lilly, sure. But Whisper Falls is a five-and-a-half-hour drive from Seattle. Maybe green hills and farms will be a welcome change of pace.

Stepping into the spotlight, Freya wants to bolt. It’s been two weeks since she applied for the job. The reply was nearly instant. Bonnie, who is responsible for the hiring, seems to love her. Now she just wants to make like a spring foal and take off. Eager faces wait in the dark auditorium for the valedictorian, wondering why their son/daughter/nephew/niece isn’t standing in her place. Freya’s throat constricts, trapping the words. The audience in the dim recesses of Washington State University’s Bryant Hall shift in their narrow seats. Some cough. Can she bend down and whisper to Professor Linderman, who is sitting at the end of the row, say she’s got a migraine? She glances at professors flanking her, solemn and quiet in their black robes, perched on folding chairs like buzzards. It’s too late to quit, isn’t it?

Ugh.

Sucking in a stale lungful of conditioned air, Freya reminds herself, I’m not a quitter, stopping short of a pep talk. She thinks of what her aunt Lilly always says: “You need to find a way…” It stops there. No sense in continuing. Freya’s great at creative thinking when it comes to animals. Freshman year she found a used toy while walking around campus, sterilized it and kept it in the animal clinic break-room freezer with her name on it for a month, thinking it might come in handy. One day she was examining a puppy and offered a frozen teething toy while she did her exam. Her supervising professor asked Freya who had suggested it.

Freya was puzzled. “Nobody. It just makes sense.”

All her work is paying off now. They’ve permitted her to string three letters behind her name. D-V-M. Certified fresh animal fixer.

Finally.

She’s wanted this since she was thirteen years old.

She squints into a sea of cowboy hats, baseball caps, ladies’ sun hats, short hair, long hair, and everything in between.

Little kids roll programs into spyglasses. “Where’s Uncle?” “When can we eat?” “It’s too hot!”

Aftershave mingles with perfume.

During surgery on a goat with the interior of a baseball wrapped around its intestines, Professor Linderman quietly informed Freya of the privilege. She’d been selected by her peers. It was, he said, neatly clipping and removing the string, the highest honor. Valedictorian.

He was thrilled.

Freya politely said no thank you, distracted him with two questions about goat guts and one USDA goat herd vaccine query for good measure. After surgery, he brought it up again. Thought she’d been joking. Left her in the shiny white clinic hallway saying she’d need a solid draft in three days. He’d shoot her an email address on where to send it.

After agonizing over it up until 2 a.m. the morning it was due, she decided, the hell with it. She’d write the truth. Memorize it using the same system she used for digesting vast amounts of scientific information faster than all her classmates.

Find a way, she tells herself.

One.

Two.

Three.

Freya searches the dark for Aunt Lilly’s calm brown eyes. Finds them in the fourth row.

Lilly grins, waves her pink nails, nodding once. Out of business wear for once, Lilly has dressed up in white and pink, which is jarring.

Freya picks a cat hair from her robe. Closes her eyes, opens them and begins. “After four years of classes and clinics, I know many of you feel that I don’t like you, which is perhaps why I got the feeling that many of you don’t like me. The truth is, I don’t like you.”

Everyone laughs, which she didn’t expect.

Another deep breath. “Not as much as I like animals. Honestly, I love animals. Not as a child. We didn’t have them. When I was in middle school, I realized that they are much easier to understand than most humans.” She blinks into the lights. “Perhaps that says more about thirteen-year-olds, but I don’t think so. Animals are easy to help. Most of the time.” She lifts her robe, kicking her booted foot to the side. “A Percheron broke three metatarsal bones in my foot because he didn’t want his eyes examined.” Waving her hand in the air, she points. “I received three stitches in my wrist, courtesy of a cat who didn’t want to be removed from her kennel before surgery. I can’t even count the number of rabbits that have pooped on me.”

People laugh.

This time she expects it.

She continues on the same theme. Relating to animals better than people. Understanding that it wasn’t, perhaps, a healthy way to go through life, but she’d make a career out of it. Healing animals makes her a better person. Maybe, just maybe, some day in the future, it will help her understand the human animal, including herself.

Although the speech receives enthusiastic applause, Freya doesn’t enjoy it.

Not at all.

The whole ceremony is stifling, pompous, and insufferable. She wrote the speech for the one person who matters. Aunt Lilly had given her the books about the young veterinarian tramping all over the Yorkshire Dales in a time so distant, it seemed like a fairy tale. A place so foreign, she could make it her own. A city man trying to find himself in a jaggedly beautiful countryside when England could offer no jobs, no leads, and seemingly, no hope.

And yet.

Aunt Lilly had said, “Find a way,” even if it meant she would, for a while, lose Freya to school, animals, and hopefully, a thriving rural practice.

As the applause dies down, Freya smiles gratefully at Lilly, raises both hands, clapping them in her aunt’s direction. “I love you,” she mouths, ignoring everyone else in the auditorium.

“Here you go,” Lilly says, handing Freya a flute of champagne at the window of their hotel. She’s splurged on a one-bedroom suite at the Residence Inn by Marriott. The room overlooks campus and the wheat fields surrounding Pullman. Rather than try to find a table in the crowded small town, Lilly’s brought in a celebratory lunch of curried chicken salad sandwiches, a fruit platter with chunks of cheese, and tiny chocolate cakes for dessert. Freya’s told her about the job and Lilly’s pretended to be totally excited, although Freya heard the wistfulness in her voice. It made her feel guilty about leaving home. Lilly has been there for her since she was twelve and her world became unhinged.

“Nice view,” Freya says, downing her champagne. She’s tired from all the intense emotion. Exhausted from packing up her share of the apartment last night and saying goodbye to Chalyse. Now she has to worry about Lilly being alone.

Yes, technically, she moved out for college, but this feels different. There’s a finality in being close to taking a job far from Seattle and the home they shared for six years.

Freya remembers Lilly crying, saying she couldn’t afford to keep her parents’ house. Freya’s home. The mortgage payments were too high. Her parents’ estate had too much debt. Lilly had to save for college, braces, and all the things you have to think about when your sister and her husband suddenly die.

To her own surprise, Freya was relieved to leave her old home. She wanted to move. If she lived at Lilly’s house, maybe she wouldn’t think of her parents all the time in an exhausting loop. Lilly’s house was only five blocks away.

Shockingly, unlike everything else in her young life, it worked. The pain wasn’t erased but it was blunted.

“That’s expensive French champagne. You’re not supposed to guzzle it.” Lilly tops up her niece’s glass.

Freya counts on her fingers as she curls up on the couch. “One, I made it through that speech, and two, I’m not the one driving back to Seattle tonight.”

Lilly kicks off her heeled sandals and sits beside Freya. “I wish I could have gotten the day off.” She chews on her sandwich. “I tried.”

“Ah, but you’re leaving me the hotel room. A room like this to myself? A huge tub? Most of this bottle of—” Freya leans in, reading the label. “Completely unpronounceable French champagne.” She lifts her glass. “Netflix and HBO. I’ll be fine.”

Lilly wipes her eyes. “I’m so proud of you. If your parents were here—” She swipes a couple tears, shaking her head. “I swore I wasn’t going to cry.” She grabs a few Kleenex from a nearby table, dabbing at the corners of her eyes to prevent smearing her mascara. “I just know you’re going to get that job too. I’m not going to lie; I’ll miss you, but you’ll get time off—right?”

Freya laughs. “It’s not prison.”

Lilly grins, raising her perfectly arched brows. “Smart-ass. I know how hard rural vets work. I read that James Herriot series too, you know. All Creatures Big and Beautiful.”

Freya passes Lilly the box of chocolate cakes from The Goose House bakery. “All Creatures Great and Small. You owned it. You don’t even like reading.”

Lilly peruses the contents of the box, selecting one, biting it, and rolling her eyes. “Oh my goodness. Heaven.” She wipes frosting off the corner of her lips. “Okay, I skimmed it.”

“I know you did. You told me the owner of the veterinary practice was Roy. The character’s name was Siegfried. You confused a book about rural English countryside life in the 1930s with a campy Vegas tiger show.” Freya is definitely buzzed.

Lilly selects another cake, sniffling as she tries to keep a straight face. “I take it back. I’m not going to miss you at all.”

Outside the auditorium, sun shines on graduation day, clear and high, beating down on parents and family gathering around the freshly minted Doctors of Veterinary Medicine. The graduates wear black gowns with thick gray stripes to distinguish them from the undergraduates as they stream from the doors.

Trent Crossley sweats under the polyester gown as he scans the crowd looking for his parents. He lingers on a few pretty grad students with whom he has shared memorable nights. One or two of them might have noticed him, but then he spots his family, moving towards them. His dad, Mike, checks his watch, eager to be on the road. His mother, Diane, brightens when she spots him in the crowd, waving excitedly. She’s wearing one of her best dresses, a pale green dotted with bright pink flowers. She congratulates him with gushing praise and a fierce hug.

Mike grumbles, “Good job.” His highest praise, employed for a mechanic who fixed a tractor or a dinner his mother has slaved over all afternoon. “We’d better get going,” he says as soon as his wife lets go of their son. Time is money and graduation ceremonies are something he attends because his wife puts her foot down. “No” wasn’t an option. Every minute spent off the farm is money lost.

Trent wishes he had a dollar for every time he heard his father say, “We’d better get going.” Although his father is rich—one of the wealthiest farmers in Washington State—there will never be enough time or money in Mike’s world. Trent has known this for as long as he can remember. Dad is out of the house before the sun comes up three hundred and fifty-five days a year. Once a year, in February, his parents fly to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico for ten days, but even this is only a recent development. When Trent was in high school, his mother said she’d leave if they didn’t take one vacation a year. Mike hates lazing around the beach. He doesn’t read, golf, swim or do anything for fun other than take his wife out to eat a couple times a month. Once, at a wedding, he got drunk and line danced. People in Walla Walla still talk about it. The Mexican vacation happens like clockwork because, as his sons joke, it’s cheaper than finding a new wife.

Although Trent’s dad could have easily written a check for all four years of veterinary school, Mike Senior—because Trent’s oldest brother is also a Mike—cut all of his children off financially at eighteen. They all got the same speech. Mike Senior was raised hungry on a dirt farm. Worked like a dog every day of his life. His children would earn their own way. Sometimes Trent wonders if they would have gone hungry too if their mother hadn’t been there to feed them. Mike Senior is a big fan of deprivation.

Trent’s two brothers work the farm alongside their dad. If they don’t, Mike Senior won’t, in his own words, leave them one red cent. When he was in grade school, Trent heard Mike Jr. getting the red cent speech and wondered why anyone would call pennies red. He didn’t dare ask his father.

Pullman is crowded with families going out to dinner, strolling the town in happy crowds, eating ice cream and laughing. Trent walks his parents to their truck, dragging his feet, delaying what he’s planned in great detail.

They reach the old truck. It will be kept until there is more rust than steel.

His mother gives him another hug, whispering, “Your father is proud too. You know how he is.”

Trent thinks, Yes, I know how he is. And that he will never change. He’ll always be a tight-fisted, humorless, quiet man who leaves his affections unspoken and undemonstrated. Trent likes to think that maybe, in Mexico, Senior shows his wife a little tenderness. Smiles. Buys her a flower or a pretty piece of jewelry she admires. He knows that Mike Senior worked hard to give his family a better life but also resents his sons for being raised in the relative lap of luxury. Ice cream every night and modern farm machinery. His sons listen to podcasts while ploughing fields in air-conditioned John Deere cabs. Tractors that cost more than Mike Senior’s childhood home.

Trent has lied to his father. Or maybe he hasn’t. Trent doesn’t remember the conversation where he agreed to return home and become a full-time vet on Crossley Farms. Care for the herds of cattle, horses, chickens, goats, family dogs, and host of barn cats. It is more than a full-time job. Crossley Farms has a lot of livestock.

It was assumed that Trent would work the farm, like his brothers. He went along because nobody dared cross Senior. He’d been raised rough. Trent’s grandmother smoked a pipe. She died of a stroke, famously cussing a blue streak to a sweet nurse who nearly died of mortification. His father whipped his sons, which Mike Senior never did. Not once. As his mother always said when Mike Senior wasn’t listening, her husband was doing the best he could, given his start in life. Trent never bought that explanation, but he couldn’t afford tuition on his own, nor would he qualify for student aid. He’s put off delivering bad news until the very last moment. A boulder he’s been carrying around for four years. He’s tired.

“See you back at the ranch,” his father says, an attempt at humor, calling the farm a ranch. Their main crop is high-nutrient alfalfa sold to foreign markets.

“Mike, don’t you want to tell your son something about how you feel?” Trent’s mother says, which is uncharacteristic, likely the result of the beer she drank at lunch.

Mike Senior’s calloused hand is on the frame of the truck cab. Trent wonders if this suit is the one his dad wore to Trent’s high-school graduation nine years ago. Probably. Mike Senior steps back onto the sidewalk, taking off his straw cowboy hat. It’s the good one he wears to church. “About how I feel? Huh.”

Trent has a sinking feeling in his stomach. This isn’t going be good.

“Yes, I feel—” His emphasis eloquently conveys his thoughts on how little he thinks emotions matter. “I feel that Trent should have been the top graduate.” He lifts his index finger. “Not the second. The top. That’s how I feel.” He climbs into the cab, slamming the door.

Trent and his mother exchange a long-suffering glance.

Trent shrugs. “Now you know.”

“He doesn’t mean that.” His mother pats his arm, her eyes sad.

Diane doesn’t know that Mike Senior said exactly what Trent needs. It. . .