Under a Firefly Moon

by Donna Kauffman

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

Synopsis

An Amazon Best of the Year Selection

Blue Hollow Falls may be a small Blue Ridge Mountain town, but it’s big on love—and second chances . . .
 
When former barrel racer Cheyenne McCafferty left the circuit, she left her past behind too. Now, as part owner of Lavender Blue farm, she’s content rescuing and rehabbing horses, and growing a new business. She’s only got one regret: letting go of Wyatt Reed. When he professed his love, she was too young and foolish to know her heart. After that he disappeared. But when his beloved horse turns up on the auction block, Chey makes a bid and wins more than she bargained for . . .
 
Chey believed she was ready to face Wyatt again, to explain herself. But seeing the man he’s become, she’s unsure. Gone is the quiet, gentle boy she knew. In his place is a rugged, confident adventurer who’s seen the world. Yet the longer Wyatt sticks around, the clearer it is that the feelings of their youth aren’t so easily dismissed now that they’re adults. In fact, the timing may be just right to make the dreams they’ve shared under a firefly moon come true . . .

Release date: January 28, 2020

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 271

Sample

“You’re breaking my heart, Buttercup.” Cheyenne McCafferty buried her nose in the gelding’s mane and smiled when she heard him snuffle, even as she tried to blink away the moisture that continued to gather at the corners of her eyes. “Yeah, well, you might think the name is an indignity, big guy.” She straightened and rubbed her palm gently over the horse’s cheek, looking him straight in his weary, lackluster eyes. “But we both know it’s perfect for you.”

His ears flicked forward and Chey had zero doubt that this horse knew exactly who she was, despite the more than decade-long gap since she’d last seen him. Her heart squeezed in a painful knot as she tried, and failed, not to remember, with crystal clarity, the circumstances surrounding that last time.

“Well, I don’t know what son-of-a-bitch let you get in such deplorable condition,” she murmured, working to keep her voice smooth, calm, and the anger tamped down deep. “Although I have my suspicions. Don’t you worry, though. Thanks to Tory, you’re going to be fine now. And for all the rest of your days, too. I’m going to see to that.” She laughed and sniffled at the same time when Buttercup nodded and snorted. “Exactly. I’m only sorry I didn’t find out sooner.” She rubbed his neck. “So sorry,” she added in a whisper.

Chey didn’t want to think about the reasons why she hadn’t known anything about Buttercup’s life once he and his first owner had left the rodeo circuit all those years ago. She’d eventually left it, too, gone her own way. She didn’t want to think about the reason for that, either.

“You two getting reacquainted, I see.”

Chey dashed at the dampness on her cheeks, unconcerned by the streaks of dirt her gloves left behind. She plopped her cowboy hat on her head, pulled the brim down, but kept her palm on Buttercup’s neck as she turned. She wanted the horse to know she wasn’t leaving. Not now, not ever again. A sincere smile on her face, she turned to look at her dear friend. “We most definitely are. Thank you,” she said, those two words never more heartfelt. “For letting me know. I realize I keep saying I’ll do better about staying in touch—”

Tory just laughed outright at that, and Chey knew she deserved it.

“As I may have mentioned in my previous, oh, four thousand e-mails and letters, there are these marvelous inventions you Yanks call cell phones for folks who hate to write,” Tory teased, her British accent always a bit crisper when she was giving Chey a hard time. So, pretty much always. “You don’t even have to actually talk to people, either. You can send these wondrous things called text messages.”

“I’ve heard about people like you.” Chey pretended to grumble, then chuckled along with her.

“I have to say, I was really surprised to hear about your new venture,” Tory said. “You said you were working on a farm now but neglected to mention the part about owning it. And that it’s a lavender farm, not a horse farm.”

“Part horse farm,” Chey corrected. “My part anyway. I didn’t tell you about the lavender?”

“I believe I’d have remembered that bit.”

“I could have sworn—anyway, I’m only part owner. I’m working with rescues, giving lessons, doing some training.” She shrugged. “Pretty much the same thing I’ve been doing since I left the circuit.”

Tory folded her arms and tilted her head to the side, her expression telling Chey she wasn’t buying it. “You mean other than launching a lavender farm complete with pick-your-own lavender, a tearoom with a wonderfully diverse menu, offering classes in making your own lavender products, which you all also sell in your adorable little gift shop.” At Chey’s lifted brows, Tory’s smile merely curved a bit deeper. “They also have these incredible new things called Web sites. You do know your farm has one?”

“Not my wheelhouse,” Chey said wryly. “My guess is my partners had something to do with that.”

“Have you even seen it?” Tory deadpanned.

“Why would I? I live on it.”

Tory laughed, her expression making it clear she thought Chey was a hopeless case where modern communication was involved. She wouldn’t be wrong. “Well, I might have drooled a wee bit whilst scrolling through it. It looks like a slice of mountain heaven.”

Chey’s smile warmed at the thought of home, and she felt her heart fill, just as it did every time she thought of her new place in this world. She missed Blue Hollow Falls. Even being away for just a few days. More than she’d thought she would. Which was saying a lot for a former vagabond. “I like it.”

Tory merely shook her head, her smile rueful. She was the effusive one, not remotely staid or stuffy as one would assume based on the accent. Chey was more of the observational type, not into big displays or chatty exhortations. Not that she was shy. Far from. She simply didn’t feel the need to fill up the space around her with words. She spoke when she needed to, said what she wanted to say. No less, but no more.

“Well, it looks like a wondrous new life adventure to me,” Tory said. “And it looks good on you,” she added, giving her oldest friend a once-over. “I’m happy for you, Chey. I know it hasn’t been easy.”

Chey nodded and was relieved when Tory didn’t go any further. They both knew why Chey had left the circuit, left that life behind. It didn’t need to be dragged out into the open and examined all over again. Chey had made her peace with her older brother’s passing. Owning and running a lavender farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, far away from the life she and Tory had led out west, was part of that process.

Chey suspected Tory had figured that out, too, and remembered again why they’d become so close when they’d been kids on the rodeo circuit together. Tory was a champion barrel racer, as was Chey, or they both had been, back in the day. Where Chey was the assertive, in-your-face kind of competitor, Tory had been the darling of the circuit. Pretty, always cheerful, a friend to everyone . . . and a dogged competitor in the ring. Pretty determined outside it, too, as Chey had come to know all too well.

Even as a kid, when Victoria Fuller decided a person was worthy of her friendship, she went about making it happen, and then she stuck by them, through thick and thin. Through years of not exactly being the best pal in return, too, Chey’s inner voice nudged. Of course, Chey hadn’t asked for that friendship then or now. In fact, she’d actively done everything she could to shake the vivacious youngster who’d joined the circuit at age seven when she’d come to the States to live with the American side of her family, all of whom rode the circuit as well. Tory had been to-the-saddle-born in Sussex, England, but had taken to the western style of riding like a fish to a pond and immediately threatened Chey’s title of reigning champion.

Tory had beaten her plenty inside the ring, but outside it, she’d been even more determined, pushing her way past every wall Chey could put up between them. And Chey had been a champion at that, too. Eventually it had just been easier to give in and let Tory have her way. A pattern that had continued ever since. Chey smiled to herself, knowing she was more grateful for her friend’s persistence than Tory could possibly know. Then, and now.

When Chey’s older brother Cody had been killed during a bull-riding competition, Tory had been the only one capable of shoving her way through Chey’s fierce bluster and anger, pushing her to let the pain of her brother’s death in, so she could then let the grief out. Not that Chey had been all that thankful at the time, and she’d let Tory know as much. What Tory didn’t know, couldn’t possibly know, was just how much her persistence and mere presence had meant to Chey. She owed her dear friend more than she could ever repay. Which was why she’d pretty much rearranged her entire life and that of a few others so she could drop everything and drive all the way across the country when Tory had called and told her about finding Buttercup on the auction block.

Chey accepted the little stab of guilt for letting the ball drop more often than not, when it came to maintaining contact. Tory wasn’t just her closest friend from those days, but the only person Chey had stayed tethered to from her former life. She tried like hell to ignore the even bigger stab of guilt as she leaned in close to Buttercup. Tory wasn’t the only one Chey hadn’t kept in regular touch with over the years.

“Living in the Blue Ridge must be quite wonderful,” Tory said wistfully. “I’ve only been out there once, to a show in Asheville, North Carolina. Simply gorgeous.”

Chey laughed and swept her arm wide. “Seriously? You live in Sedona. Possibly one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places I’ve ever seen. I would never tire of this view.” The red rock mesas and jutting buttes, their striated lines showing the layers of the earth that had formed them, stretched out as far as the eye could see. All outlined by a cloudless sky of such rich blue, the stunning contrast rushed into her soul with a wave of awe and appreciation for what nature was capable of producing. The view was that profound.

“It certainly puts things in perspective,” Tory agreed, slowly inhaling as she scanned the breathtaking vista beyond the paddock and stables, then letting her breath out in a longer sigh as she shook her head. “But an eye candy view isn’t everything.”

“It’s certainly a good place to start.”

Tory shared Chey’s smile, nodding in agreement, but Chey hadn’t missed that brief moment, that flicker in her friend’s big blue eyes. Though they kept in touch, or Tory did, at any rate, it had been years since they’d laid eyes on one another. Some things were timeless, however, and reading Tory’s every emotion as it played across her pretty face was one of them.

“What’s going on, Victor?” Chey asked, kindly but directly, using the nickname she’d given her friend the first time Tory had stolen Chey’s title. “Trouble in this desert paradise? You said you weren’t able to keep Buttercup here, which was why you contacted me.” Chey gestured to the expansive and beautifully maintained stables they were standing in. “I’m forever grateful you did, but it doesn’t look like there’s an issue here with room. Are they working you too hard? Want too much board for him? I know you’ve had nothing but kind things to say about your employers, but—” She broke off, thinking maybe it wasn’t her place to push. Not that such qualms had ever stopped her before. Or Tory, for that matter.

Tory looked as if she was going to shrug off the question, but at the last second, she caught Chey’s eye, and their gazes held. Tory lifted a shoulder and let it drop in a helpless sort of half shrug. “The Parmenters—the owners, my bosses—are going to sell this place and move to northern California to help out with their grandchildren. They’re selling the house, the stables, the land. All of it.” Her expression turned a bit bleak. “To developers who plan to turn the place into a sea of desert condos. Even if I was able to buy it, which I’m not, I couldn’t compete with that.”

Chey’s expression fell. “Oh no. I’m so sorry. I know how much you’ve loved working for them.” Chey might not have been good at keeping in touch, but Tory had. Chey knew what was going on in her friend’s life, even if she’d generally only given a cursory overview of her own. Tory hadn’t told her this, though. “I can’t imagine they’ll give you anything other than the most glowing reference, and you have so many contacts built up.” Chey smiled. “Your e-mail and letter-writing skills must have held you in good stead where that’s concerned.”

Tory let out a somewhat watery laugh at that, then wiped the back of her hand over her cheek. “They’ve already offered to do whatever they can. They are lovely, with huge hearts, and I don’t fault them for wanting to go be with family.” She looked up and down the wide aisle and the row of roomy stalls that lined both sides. “One winning lottery ticket and I’d shut that developer out in a blink.” She chuckled and let out a shaky sigh, all at the same time.

“You’d hate running this whole place,” Chey said dryly. The stables were just a sliver of the property Tory’s bosses owned.

Tory wiggled her eyebrows. “If the win was big enough, I’d hire a majordomo for that.”

“Ah. Solid business plan then.”

Tory nodded and brushed at her sleeves, as if duly accepting her friend’s trite apology. “Have a little faith.”

They both laughed then, but it didn’t diminish the sadness Chey saw in Tory’s eyes. Or the weariness. Chey knew what that felt like, to have to pick up and move. Again, and then again. No matter how long the interval, or how often you did it, the process never got easier. Chey also knew that when she’d moved to Blue Hollow Falls and helped to launch Lavender Blue, she’d found her forever home. She’d been tired of traveling, tired of picking up and moving. Losing Cody had been a large part of that. Her joy was gone. Chey had long since accepted that her heart was no longer in competing. It had taken a bit longer to admit she was also tired of traveling, but she didn’t know any other way of life. It had been time to find something stable, permanent. Maybe Tory was feeling the same way, and the idea of packing up and moving again was one time too many.

On instinct, Chey reached out and took hold of Tory’s upper arm, gave it a light squeeze and a rub. Chey wasn’t much of a toucher, so that might as well have been a bear hug coming from her, and Tory knew it. “You’re going to land on your feet. Why don’t you come east? Blue Hollow Falls will pull you right in.”

“Lots of ranching in the mountains of Virginia, is there?” she said dryly, though she’d clearly been touched by the gesture.

Chey laughed. “Okay, maybe not. Not like out here, anyway. But there are plenty of horses and riders to go with them. At the moment, I’m the only game in town, at least where lessons and training are concerned anyway. As you duly noted, I’m also part owner of a lavender farm and we’re in full swing this year, so my horse side gig is honestly just that. You could pick up my lessons and go from there. I’ll help. Not that you’d need it, but I can introduce you around, vouch for you.” She grinned.

“That’s truly kind of you—”

“Don’t brush me off, now,” Chey said, a teasing note in her otherwise dead serious offer. “I’m not tossing that out there like a bone to a starving animal. You could get a job in every single state in the union, and many other countries besides. You loved your time in Canada—”

“I don’t want to leave the States,” she said. “That much I know. I may still have the accent, but I’m part American and a citizen here for far longer than I was a resident there. I’ll admit it was a bit of a thrill when I left the circuit and traveled as a trainer, being in demand in countries other than the US. Or it was when I was younger at any rate. Now?” She lifted a shoulder. “Not so much. These shores are home to me and I plan to stay somewhere between them.”

“Even better. But I’m not just offering you a chance to find work.” And as Chey spoke the words, she knew the truth of them. “I’m offering you a chance to find a home.” Not giving her friend even a moment to say anything, Chey went straight on. “How many of these mounts are yours?”

“Two are mine,” Tory said, looking confused by the subject change. “Buttercup makes three. Why?”

“I’m buying Buttercup from you, so that makes two.” She lifted a hand when Tory started to argue on the buying part. “At the very least I’m paying you back whatever it cost to get him away from those meat grinders.”

Tory shuddered, but simply nodded.

“You have a trailer?” Chey asked.

She nodded. “One-horse. Had a two, but it fell apart and I haven’t had the chance to upgrade again. I use the Parmenters’ ranch trailer when I need anything big—”

Chey talked over her. “Fine. I’ll put Buttercup in your one-horse, and leave the two-horse I hauled here. When the time comes, drive it back east for me and we’ll swap back.” She eyed her friend, wouldn’t let her look away, and stuck out her hand. “Deal?”

“Chey—”

“You’ve got no family left. I’ve got no family left,” Chey baldly stated in a way she wouldn’t have done with anyone else. “Blood family, anyway. I have three close friends who are family to me now. We own and run our farm together, and it turns out that has come with a whole town full of adopted family. The Parmenters are pulling up stakes.” She smiled. “I’m sure you’ll write long, lovely letters to each other and you can visit over the holidays. But in the meantime, you’re a horse trainer in need of a job. And a new home. And I just happen to have one of each I can share.”

“You came out here for Buttercup,” Tory said, but Chey already saw the considering look in her eyes, and the way her shoulders had straightened a bit. Both good signs.

“Lucky me, then,” Chey said with a smile. “Twofer.” She wiggled the fingers on her still outstretched hand. “Deal?”

“I don’t know when it will be,” Tory said. “I promised to stay until they got things completely settled here.”

Chey just kept wiggling her fingers. “Stop stalling.”

Tory rolled her eyes and Chey’s smile split into a wide grin. Now, that was the Tory she’d gone up against in the ring.

Tory took Chey’s hand in a grip that was unsurprisingly strong and deliberate. “If it will keep you from nagging, sure, I’ll come east and save your sorry little tush from being so overwhelmed you can’t even handle a few measly mounts.” Her utterly inelegant sniffle ruined her superior tone when she added, “I don’t know how you’ve managed to get along without me all these years.”

Tory didn’t let go of Chey’s hand and instead pulled her in for a tight hug. Chey stiffened and Tory just held on tighter. “Thank you,” Tory whispered in her friend’s ear. “You saved two lives today. I won’t forget this.”

Chey relented then. Hearing Tory’s choked gratitude undid something inside her. She’d been in a place far lower than Tory’s in her life, and she knew what a kind hand meant more than most. “Good,” she said gruffly. “I hope you still feel that way after harvest.”

Tory let Chey go, but immediately slung her arm over Chey’s shoulders as they turned to face Buttercup. “You gonna still feel that way when I farm the hell out of that lavender better than you and take all your students away?”

Chey hooted. “Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be? We’re not in the show ring any longer, you know.”

“What, you think I’ve grown soft and complacent over the years?” She eyed Chey. “Have you?”

Chey looked at the horse. “You hear that, Buttercup? Big words. She has no idea, does she?”

The horse snuffled and ducked his head, as if he was agreeing with Chey. Chey and Tory both laughed. “I have a witness,” Chey said, looking at her friend and grinning. “You’re on.”

This time around, Chey did keep in touch, albeit not quite as loquaciously as her friend did. Three months had passed since Chey had successfully transported Buttercup back across the country to his new home in Blue Hollow Falls. Spring had arrived after a particularly stubborn winter had finally made its long-delayed exit, and things on the farm had started to hop.

Chey’s to-do list felt like it had tripled overnight, but she took a moment, folded her arms on the fence rail, and propped her chin on them. She watched from under the brim of her hat as Buttercup grazed contentedly in the pasture just beyond the paddock. The old gelding still had a long way to go, but he’d been slowly and steadily putting weight back on. His coat still looked pretty shabby, but it was growing back in, and his mane, though still thin and stringy, had an actual luster to it now. Best of all, the gelding’s eyes, despite being permanently clouded with age, were alert now, and focused. Buttercup wasn’t a fully healthy horse—that would take a much longer period of time, if it ever happened—but he was a happy horse. She’d take that.

Her gaze shifted from the pasture they’d dedicated to the horses to the farm beyond. Row after row of lavender bushes filled the landscape all the way to the horizon, where the peaks of the Blue Ridge rose up and filled the skyline, and her heart. It was a vista that never failed to move her. Now the lavender was coming to life, the buds creating a hint of that gorgeous purple hue, and the fields were showing signs of green. “The season is coming. Ready or not,” she whispered.

The sound of Foster, one of her rescues, kicking his stall door, drew her from her thoughts and she headed back inside. The rambling old stone stables had come with the farm, as had the stone and wood stable manager’s house that was now her home. It had been over a year since Chey had teamed up with her three “life warrior” friends and taken on rehabilitating the farm property and turning it into both their collective home and future livelihood. This would be their first complete beginning-to-end season, with Lavender Blue Farm and Tea Room fully open and operational.

The tearoom stayed open all year, though on reduced hours just three days a week in the off season. They held special events for each of the seasonal holidays from late October through May, but were otherwise closed to the public during that time.

Over the past sixteen months, like the rest of the property, both the stables and her house had undergone endless renovations to make them livable and functional after sitting empty and abandoned for many years. Decades of them. Given the age of the buildings, that would likely be an ongoing, lifelong chore. Chey would happily take it on.

She continued scanning the property until her gaze landed on the main house, and she smiled thinking about how far they’d come already. All four of them. Seeing Tory again had made Chey a little more reflective than she generally allowed herself to be, but these memories were all good, warm, forward-moving ones that filled her with optimism and hope. Hard to believe, from the outside looking in, that four uniquely different women, from very disparate paths, not to mention varying generations, could come together to not only forge this new life venture, but develop a bond so deep it rivaled any family unit. “And from that, we did this,” she murmured, shaking her head, still finding it hard to believe.

Chey knew she didn’t stop often enough to appreciate things; she was always too busy racing ahead to the next thing. She knew that came from a lifetime spent not allowing attachments to form, affections to grow, whether for a place, or the people who inhabited it. She’d always be leaving soon, so why set herself up for heartbreak and grieving over things, people, places lost?

Turned out life handed out heartbreak and loss no matter how careful you were. From that brutal reality, Chey had learned the value of investing herself—all of herself—in people, in a place, for the long term. And look at what we’ve done. They’d dubbed themselves the “fearsome foursome” the day they’d met at a grief counseling group, one they’d immediately ditched, opting to forge their own form of group therapy. That nickname had been more prophetic than they could have ever predicted. “Fearless foursome” might have been a better fit, Chey thought, and smiled.

Vivienne Baudin, a New Orleans-born former showgirl-turned-costume designer with her seventieth birthday on the not-too-distant horizon, had been the one who’d actually inherited the property, though they all owned a fair share now. Vivi lived up in the big main house, a part of which also served as the tearoom and, for now, the gift shop. Construction was starting on a separate shop space for that, turning the old potting shed into a unique, restored entrance to the actual shop, which would be built onto the back of it.

Hannah Montgomery, nine years Chey’s senior at thirty-eight, was an artist and former children’s book illustrator. She had her artist’s loft and living space over the large, detached carriage house. While Avery Kent, their resident genius and the youngest of the clan at twenty-five, had what they teasingly referred to as her mad scientist lab set up in her apartment, located in the addition that had been added to the back of the main house sometime in the middle of the previous century. Four women whose paths would have likely never crossed if not for that fateful afternoon.

As fate would have it, after moving to the middle of nowhere, somehow both Hannah and Avery were now in committed relationships with what Vivi called their “better halves,” and Chey wouldn’t be surprised if there were wedding bells for one, the other, or both, before the year was out.

She reached over the stall door and gave Foster a good rub along his neck. “You’re my better half, eh, Fos?”

The horse snorted, then lowered his nose over the stall door and started nudging Chey’s pocket. She laughed and dug out the apple she had stuffed in there earlier, for this exact reason. She held it while he nibbled off a chunk. “If only men were half as easy as you. Feed ’em, water ’em, put them in at night, and give them an occasional sweet treat? I might put up with one if that were the case.”

“Question is, would they put up with you?”

Chey whirled around at the sound of that British lilt. “Tory?”

Tory stepped into the aisleway and posed with a flourish. “’Tis I. Surprise!”

“Yeah, that it is!” Chey said, stunned. “How is it you can talk my ear off pretty much every other day but not mention that you packed everything up and headed east?”

“Well, I kind of took a detour, so I wasn’t exactly sure when I’d get here.”

Chey finished feeding an apple to Foster, then wiped her hand on her pants leg and turned toward her friend. “What detour? Don’t tell me. You found someone else’s horse on the blocks?” Chey had been kidding, but Tory didn’t laugh.

“Not exactly,” she said, then turned to look outsi. . .