A woman branches out in this novel from the author and TV producer whose credits include Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and HGTV’s House Hunters. House enough to hold her dreams . . . Aspiring engineer Molly McGinnis is one master’s thesis away from conquering the universe. But in the meantime, she’s struggling to make ends meet, working at a tree farm while stowing away in a Tiny House on builder Bale Barrett’s property. Of course, she only plans to hide out until the weather improves, or until she finishes her own Tiny House project . . . But when Bale discovers her, rather than send the hapless designer packing, he offers her a place to stay and solid advice, on her thesis—and her life. Just as Molly feels like she’s getting back on her feet, things start to fall apart, like her project, and her romantic illusions about her outrageously good-looking boss, Quinn. It’s enough to make a girl wonder if by focusing on the trees, she’s missing the forest . . . Praise for Celia Bonaduce and her novels “Celia Bonaduce writes well rounded, real life characters straight from the heart. I loved this book!”—Phyliss Miranda, New York Times bestselling author “ The Merchant of Venice Beach has a fresh, heartwarming voice that will keep readers smiling as they dance through this charming story by Celia Bonaduce.”—Jodi Thomas, New York Times bestselling author
Release date:
November 20, 2018
Publisher:
Lyrical Press
Print pages:
206
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Molly stared down at her hand, where she was writing her words of affirmation. She’d meant to write “Gratitude.” She let out a sigh, took a dab of antibacterial gel, and rubbed at the “d.” All it did was smear. But Molly was determined to stay positive. She shook her wrist until the gel dried. She wrote in a “t” where the “d” had been—and frowned. It now read “GraTitude.” She was a perfectionist, and the aesthetics of the word bothered her. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and smiled encouragingly.
“Today,” she said out loud to the image in the mirror, “I will let the little things go.”
She mentally embraced the outsized “T.”
Having to remind herself to see the good in life was new to Molly. When she was a kid, her brother, Russell, who the family called Curly due to his wild corkscrew hair, used to say she was upbeat to the point of annoyance. She’d taken her perky outlook with her to Cobb, Kentucky, where she was working as a waitress until she got her master’s degree in civil engineering. The last few months had been tough. Her car needed work, but the money she was making at Crabby’s Restaurant barely paid for food.
Let’s not even mention rent.
She’d hoped to finish her thesis in time to graduate in June, but she’d accepted the impossibility of that. She had informed her family in Iowa that she now hoped to graduate in December. It was only eight months away, but it seemed like forever. Missing her June deadline also felt like a failure. But the biggest obstacle to a peaceful mental state was the fact that, even with the breathing room of eight more months, her master’s thesis was not going well.
It was not going well at all.
Molly was working on a scale model of a tree house, complete with electricity, ramps, and plumbing. One member of her thesis committee, Professor Cambridge, a compact man with a perpetual frown, seemed skeptical.
“Civil engineers use their knowledge and expertise to make society a better place through infrastructure,” Professor Cambridge said. “A tree house seems a bit…lighthearted…for a thesis.”
Molly wanted to say she thought she was going to have to defend her thesis at the end of her master’s program, not before, but she held her tongue.
“I realize that, sir,” Molly said, wondering if the “sir” was laying it on a bit thick.
The frown lines in the professor’s forehead neither tightened nor slackened, so she proceeded. She drummed up all the University-Speak she could remember.
“Civil engineering is also about design and beauty—a bridge that is aesthetically pleasing as well as a way of getting from point A to point B. And fountains, which usually have no reason for existence except to…cheer people up.”
“Cheer people up?” Professor Cambridge sneered. “You are getting a degree to cheer people up?”
Molly was silent. She knew “yes” would be the wrong answer…but her answer was “yes.”
Molly was passionate about her idea. She argued that she considered a tree house the perfect subject for a scale model. Tree house designs could be miniatures of traditional houses, so a tree house model was a scale of a scale.
Professor Cambridge said she might be better suited to a philosophy degree. But in the end, her thesis was approved. Immediately another problem arose. While Molly had lots of theories about how to build the structure, she found her knowledge was lacking when it came to a very fundamental element—the tree.
After her thesis was approved, Molly had visions of securing a job at the large Christmas tree farm just outside of Cobb, owned by the handsome-to-the-point-of-absurdity Quinn Casey. Quinn was a town legend. He piloted his own helicopter—a beat-up chopper he called Old Paint—harvesting the largest trees on his farm, carrying them through the air at top speed to the trucks that were waiting to take them across the southern United States for distribution.
Quinn’s farm boomed with workers from October to December, but he kept a skeleton crew year-round who trimmed growing evergreens, uprooted felled trees, and planted saplings. She could learn firsthand what it took to live with evergreen trees, the first step in envisioning what it would take to live in one.
Molly was gregarious by nature and was loved by the locals who hung out at Crabby’s. But she was shy around Quinn. Whenever Quinn was in the restaurant, which was often, given that he was Crabby’s nephew, he was surrounded by people. She practiced her pitch for weeks. But before she got up her nerve to ask for a job, her research revealed a new snag.
It was possible to build a small tree house or decorative platform in a pine, spruce, yellow poplar, cedar, or redwood tree. However, she learned that the strength of the wood was a factor. So hardwood trees like oak, hickory, walnut, or cherry lent themselves more to her ambitious ideas. While this smashed her hopes of having an organic reason to work alongside Quinn, she’d magically picked the right state in which to do her homework. Kentucky was one of the most biologically diverse temperate zones in the world, with oak and walnut dominating the landscape. She spent much of her free time walking in the woods and studying trees.
She never did ask Quinn for the job.
Galileo, the cantankerous African Grey parrot her father had rescued twenty years ago who now lived with Molly, was the first to point out her obsession with Quinn.
“I love you,” Molly said to Galileo one morning.
Waiting for his ubiquitous “Bite me” response, the bird startled her with:
“I love you, Quinn.”
“Whose side are you on?” Molly asked.
“I love you, Quinn.”
She felt her cheeks redden just at the thought of Quinn hearing this. She realized that when she tried out new lipsticks, she’d kiss her hand and say, “I love you, Quinn.”
The African Grey never missed anything!
“Let’s stick to ‘Bite me,’ shall we?” she said.
Molly checked her cell phone for the time. The days of worrying about Quinn learning of her secret crush seemed years—instead of months—ago. Crabby’s had been jumping and the tips plentiful. If she could keep her mind off Quinn, she could focus all her energy on her thesis.
But Crabby’s wasn’t very busy of late. With money worries always in her thoughts, the tree house languished. It sat on a table by her front door, the tree’s limbs stretched out for attention. One evening, as she covered Galileo with a sheet—a standard practice among many parrot parents—she did the same to the tree house.
In the morning, she only uncovered the parrot.
Crabby Cranston was trying everything he could think of to resuscitate the business. He’d opened for breakfast, closed for breakfast, reopened for breakfast. He made the dining room more formal, then more casual, turned up the volume on the TVs in the bar, then taken the TVs down. But so far, nothing seemed to be working.
The words “Joy,” “Focus,” and “GraTitude” bounced up and down as she flicked on a coat of brown mascara. She thought her good thoughts.
There was Joy in going to work at a place she liked.
She refused to think:
Even though the place is tanking.
She would Focus on her thesis.
She stopped herself from adding:
…and not on my money problems.
She had GraTitude for her health, her family back home in Iowa, and the progress she was making toward her life goal of being a civil engineer.
By the time she had her lipstick on, she actually did feel better.
Grabbing her messenger bag, Molly opened a latch on Galileo’s cage. The latch swung down, creating a ledge, so he could hang out during the day and not feel locked up. Her father had spent years teaching Galileo not to fly away when the cage was open.
“You’re spoiling him,” Molly’s mother would say. “Maybe you could help with dinner instead of spending all your time talking to that bird.”
“How would you like to spend your life in a cage?” her father would reply, when dinner was ready without his help once again.
At the time, Molly agreed with her mother. But now, she was grateful to have such an independent and well-trained companion.
“See ya,” squawked Galileo, swaying manically on the ledge. “Wouldn’t want to be ya.”
You and me both, she almost said.
Instead, she held out her hand to Galileo.
“See this?” Molly pointed to “Joy,” “Focus,” and “GraTitude” one at a time. “This is the new order of things around here. Got it?”
“Bite me!”
Molly headed confidently out the door. She jumped into her old blue Buick Lucerne and started the ignition. Instead of the snort of the engine roaring to life, all she heard was a rapid click click click. She tried again, but the clicks just came faster. Then it stopped entirely. She dug through her purse, looking for her AAA card.
Please don’t be the alternator.
The last time the AAA guy came by to jump-start her car, he looked apprehensive. He said it sounded like her alternator might be going. And if the alternator broke, it would stop charging the battery. She still didn’t exactly know what an alternator was, but from the look on the man’s face, it was expensive.
Molly found the card. It was expired. She slumped in her seat. She’d let her AAA membership lapse in a misguided attempt at economy. She stared accusingly at the positivity radiating from her hand. She closed her eyes, trying to come up with her next move. Her apartment building was on the main road. She could probably stand next to the car looking pathetic and hope some local person might give her a ride.
A knock startled her. She opened her eyes to see Bale Barrett smiling through the window. Bale was the owner of Bale’s Tiny Dreams, a tiny house emporium that kept expanding as interest in minimalist living continued to sweep the country. Molly and Bale had gotten to know each other during Bale’s visits to Crabby’s Restaurant. She tried to roll down the window, but since everything in the car was electric, nothing happened. She opened the door.
Bale’s dog, Thor, jumped in her lap and gave her an energetic kiss.
“Hey, Bale,” Molly said. “Hey, Thor.”
She knew her voice was shaking—a dead giveaway that tears were soon to follow. Trying to buy some time before the tears started, she gave Thor a quick human kiss on the red patch of fur that sprouted between his ears.
“Hey,” Bale looked at her, concerned. “I was driving by and saw you sitting in your car. Everything okay?”
Molly turned away from him as hot rivulets of tears rolled down her cheeks. Joy, Focus, and GraTitude were deserting the ship. She put her head on Thor’s and sobbed.
“Don’t cry,” Bale said. “Whatever it is, I’m sure we can fix it.”
“I think it’s the alternator!” Molly sobbed.
“See? No big deal. We can rebuild it.”
“We?”
“Well, ‘we’ being me.”
Molly laughed as Thor licked at her tears.
“Sorry. I’m just being stupid.”
“You’re not stupid. I mean, how many stupid people know their alternator is shot?”
She looked at him as he knelt on the open door frame. Bale was always so cheerful. Molly was disconcerted being eye to eye with Bale. He was a large man who usually towered above her. Although a decade or so older than she, Molly and Bale had bonded over their passion for miniature house solutions and ideas, sharing discoveries and failures whenever Bale stopped in at Crabby’s.
Molly didn’t want to admit she had no way to get the car to his lot, thanks to her less-than-brilliant decision to dump the AAA. Bale saved her from her confession.
“I’ve got my truck. I can drop you off at work, then come back and tow the car over to my place.”
Molly was about to ask him how he knew she was on her way to work, but she remembered she was wearing Crabby’s latest uniform—black pants with a stiff white shirt with the name “Crabby’s” embroidered in cursive over the left breast pocket. Above the name was an unpleasant-looking cartoonish crab. It was the owner’s latest attempt at energizing the place.
Where else would she be going? Her life revolved around work, Galileo, and her thesis.
“That’s way too much trouble,” she said. “Thank you, though.”
“No trouble. Happy to help.”
Molly thought she should protest a little more, just to be polite, but decided that was a waste of energy. And she really didn’t have the money for Plan B—if she even had a Plan B. She grabbed her messenger bag and hopped into Bale’s truck.
“How are things going at Crabby’s?” Bale asked.
Molly knew this was just small talk, but she longed to talk to somebody about how dismally sparse the crowd had been lately. Even thinking the word “crowd” verged on hyperbole.
“We’re hoping things will pick up,” she said, looking down at her uniform.
“I’ve heard that trendy restaurants are in, then they’re out, then in again,” Bale said. “Popularity comes and goes.”
“I’ve never really thought of Crabby’s as trendy.”
“Then you guys might be in trouble.”
Molly looked at Bale. He shot her a wink. She wished she had just a touch of his que será, será attitude. In any language.
Bale’s truck pulled into Crabby’s parking lot. There were two cars belonging to locals and an overloaded pickup truck with out-of-state plates parked in front. Bale and Molly exchanged a look. A stuffed pickup truck not belonging to someone from Cobb usually meant a new tiny-house owner was heading to Bale’s to pick up his or her (mostly “her,” Molly noticed) new house on wheels.
“Expecting company?” Molly asked as she got out of the truck, nodding toward the pickup.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Bale said. “A lady is coming by to pick up one of the log cabins with the whiskey barrel shower.”
Molly remembered how she and Bale sat in Crabby’s late one night after she’d closed the place, perfecting the whiskey barrel shower. She planned on using one in her model tree house as well. She was surprised to feel a little pinch of jealousy at the mention of the “lady” who was the latest owner of one of Bale’s tiny masterpieces.
Jealousy was a new sensation. Molly chastised herself. She’d met a least two dozen women who had stopped by Crabby’s on their way to Bale’s. Bale even brought a few of them to dinner before the women headed off on their new adventures. Molly had never felt anything but mild interest in why the women had chosen their new lifestyle. Was jealousy brought on because Bale was being kind to her and she was feeling alone and a little fragile?
Get over yourself.
“Thanks for everything, Bale,” Molly said. She patted the dog. “You too, Thor.”
“I’ll text you later and update you on the car.”
“Great. I’ll bring you a cinnamon bun…. I’ll bring you two.”
“Deal,” Bale said. “Oh, and if my hunch is right, the lady with the green truck and New York plates is named Cynthia. Tell her I’ll meet her over at the lot in about an hour. That’ll give me time to get your car.”
Bale could be such a sweetheart. Her car was taking precedence over a New Yorker named Cynthia. A paying customer!
Molly looked down at her hand.
GraTitude.
Probably not what the self-help books had in mind…but it was a start.
Chapter 2
Molly rushed into the kitchen, relieved she’d beaten Crabby to the restaurant. With business being slow, he would be less-than-philosophical about broken-down cars.
She nodded to Manny, the short-order cook. From her days of being both waitress and cook, she recognized the orders on the grill…a ham-and-cheese omelet and two over-medium eggs with a side of bacon.
“Thanks for letting the customers in,” Molly said as she washed her hands—careful to keep her affirmations intact. She raced toward the dining room. “I owe you.”
“You owe the lady out there a bowl of oatmeal,” Manny said, nodding toward the front counter.
“I’m on it,” Molly said.
“Hi,” Molly said to the woman who must be Cynthia. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“That’s okay,” Cynthia said.
Molly placed a bowl of steaming oatmeal in front of her. “Can I get you anything else? Eggs? Toast? A pastry?”
“No thanks,” Cynthia said. “Just oatmeal.”
Molly suspected nerves might be the reason for Cynthia’s lack of appetite. She had the slightly dazed look Molly had come to recognize in Bale’s clients. It was as if they couldn’t quite believe they’d pulled the plug on their past lives and were now moments away from embarking on the unknown. Cynthia appeared to be in her late fifties, a little older than most of the women who swung into Bale’s, but by this time, Molly had seen everyone from very young women to retired couples stop in for a bite at Crabby’s before picking up their tiny house over at the lot.
Manny flicked the service bell on the counter. Molly retrieved the omelet and bacon and eggs. She took them to Sammy and Fred, two locals sitting together at one of the tables.
“Hey, Jane,” Sammy said, scooting back his chair to make room over his ample belly so Molly could put the omelet on the table. “How about more coffee?”
“Anything for you, Sammy,” Molly said with a bright smile.
She refused to give him the satisfaction of reacting to her nickname, “Jane”—so given because word of her tree house model reminded the people of Cobb of Tarzan’s house. Very few people had actually seen her work in progress, but that didn’t stop the good-natured teasing.
When Molly returned from refilling the coffee cups, she noticed Cynthia had gone. Molly silently wished her well. With the work Molly was doing on her tree house model, she’d come to appreciate the details of living tiny—although she personally had no desire to haul her home around the country. Her tree house was taking shape—even in miniature—to be her dream home. Instead of wheels, she was looking for roots.
Sammy and Fred were next to leave. Molly had the sinking feeling the morning rush was over. She stopped filling the sugar containers and counted her tips. Three dollars—which she would split with Manny. Her stomach did a flip. Even if Bale could fix her alternator, the day her rent was due was coming at her like a bullet train. She felt her pulse quicken with anxiety.
Joy.
Focus.
GraTitude.
Joy.
Focus.
GraTitude.
Joy.
Focus.
GraTitude.
She felt herself calm. Maybe this affirmation thing would work! Molly returned to the sugar shakers. She heard the front door open and looked up. Her heart started to race again.
It was Quinn.
“Hey there, Jane,” Quinn said, throwing a muscular leg over a stool at the counter.
When other people called her “Jane,” it seemed as if they were making fun of her. But when Quinn said it—and now that she thought about it, it was Quinn who first dubbed her “Jane”—it seemed like an intimate . . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
