Country Dream (Belle Ridge Book 2), page 1
COUNTRY DREAM
A BELLE RIDGE NOVEL
BOOK TWO
Text copyright © 2019 by Charlene Bright.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronical, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
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Country Dream
Sophie Michelson has always been serious. Even as a little girl, she knew what she wanted out of life. And, unlike other little girls, that definitely wasn’t a husband and children. Sophie has a head for business and a burning desire for one thing: to own a bed-and-breakfast, just like the one she stayed at as a child. It will take everything she has, and she’s prepared to do anything to realize her dream.
Now, after years of hard work, the time has finally come. With her brand new—okay, so maybe a little old—bed-and-breakfast in the small town of Belle Ridge, Tennessee, she is set to become the successful business owner she was always meant to be. There’s only one thing standing in her way: renovating the run-down B&B in time for Belle Ridge’s annual Harvest Festival and the beginning of the season for tourists looking for the fall colors of the Tennessee mountains. Lucky for Sophie, her mother is there to guide her through it and keep her life distraction free.
Soon, though, the renovations get delayed, and Sophie starts to wonder if her B&B will ever be ready to open. The only solution is to call upon Belle Ridge’s best carpenter to speed construction along. But as it turns out, Drake Tanner is exactly the kind of distraction she doesn’t need.
Drake has spent his entire life in the quaint town of Belle Ridge. Everyone there knows he’s the one you call when you need a hand. When he meets Sophie Michelson, he thinks his search for love might finally be over.
As the two grow closer, Sophie learns that sometimes feelings can’t be denied no matter how hard you try, and she eventually has to admit to hers, just before a tragic accident threatens to tear them apart. Soon, she’s faced with a choice: follow her head, as she’s done all her life, or finally trust her heart.
1
Sophie stood outside in the crisp morning air and stared up at her dream. It felt almost surreal to her, like it had happened so fast. She couldn’t believe that she was not even thirty years old and about to achieve a dream that had been in the works for almost more than half her life.
When she was about eight years old, her parents had taken her on a trip to New England where they stayed in a bed-and-breakfast. The old house with the comfortable, warm furnishings and all of the kind people had made such an impression on her that it became her dream to own one of her own, though she’d prefer one in the South where any season was a good time to visit the mountains and stay at a bed-and-breakfast. Especially since Southerners were so well known for their hospitality.
When she got back home to their North Carolina home from that trip, she’d set up her Barbie Dream Home to emulate the late 1800s house they’d stayed in as well as she could, and then she set about convincing all of her dolls and stuffed animals to come and have a stay. As she grew up, she became such a good hostess to all of her non-stuffed friends that there was rarely a weekend she didn’t have company.
Just a few weeks before graduating high school, she saw a Help Wanted ad for a bed-and-breakfast in the mountains on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. It had always been her intention to go to college but even at such a young age, she already knew that no amount of studying could rival experience. She applied for the job, got an offer, and, to her mother’s and her friends’ chagrin, she took it. Her father was supportive—he always was—but it took him quite a few months to stop calling her every night and reminding her to lock her doors.
Her mother was more worried about her mental health, expressing concern that she was becoming so driven and focused on her goal that she might be forgetting the whole reason that bed-and-breakfast dream had spoken to her in the first place. Sophie knew this was a matter that concerned her mother very much, but she believed that all of her focus and hard work would pay such great dividends and that she would rebuild those friendships when she could give others the attention, they all deserved.
For three years at her first B&B job, she worked for a middle-aged couple with three children. She loved it, and the family loved her back. The had begun including her in all of their family gatherings. She might have stayed there until she was able to afford a place of her own, but tragedy struck her family when her father had a heart attack and died unexpectedly.
Sophie’s mother, Brenda, was devastated by the loss. She and Jack had known each other their entire lives, and she often told Sophie the story of her father proposing when they were only ten. At that tender age, Jack had made Brenda promise she’d only marry him. Though they had each dated different people in high school and in college, they found each other again when they both returned home from college to Carolina Beach. Brenda told her the first time she saw him in town, she knew she’d almost walked away from her destiny. He reminded her of her promise, and they were married a year later and, as far as Sophie knew, were still just as happy after thirty years of marriage as they had been as newlyweds.
After her father’s death, she rushed home to be near her mother and spent months nursing her out of her deep depression. Brenda eventually came back around to being herself. Sophie suspected that it had been more for her daughter’s sake than anything. She’d told her in one of their late-night conversations that the loss of her one true love had left a hole not only in her heart, but in her very soul and that she believed part of her had died with her father.
Sophie had done a lot of soul-searching after that and decided that she was better off investing thirty years of her life in something that couldn’t die and leave her alone and wounded. She put the small amount of money her father had left her into a mutual fund and got back to the business of working toward her dream.
She got a job at a B&B right on Carolina Beach facing the ocean. She worked the front desk, did light housekeeping, and eventually became in charge of arranging activities for the guests like bike tours and clamming nights with bonfires on the beach. She worked there until she was twenty-six, and along the way she lived a pretty simple and—some might say—uneventful life. She still tried to hold on to the friendships she’d had since early childhood, but she didn’t go out much. She kept her focus on the endgame … being the proud owner of her own B&B someday.
Sophie had one boyfriend during those years that she might have termed “serious.” He had been serious anyway, and he talked about marriage and children. Sophie had to admit to him that she wasn’t ready for any of that, and she wasn’t sure she ever would be. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she also didn’t want him wasting his time thinking he would convince her otherwise. Once she’d set her mind to doing something, she knew she would move heaven and earth to see that it happened.
When Sophie wasn’t working, she started taking classes at the local junior college, eventually getting a degree in business with an emphasis on general management. She also took cooking and baking courses. Her mother had done a good job of teaching her how to cook, but she wanted to have special skills for her B&B. In her imagination, she’d always have baskets of home-baked goodies ready for the guests in their rooms to surprise them when they arrived.
She learned how to make her own soaps, and she’d even taken a gardening class in case the place she bought had room for a backyard garden. She never lost sight of what she wanted, and one morning while having breakfast with her mother, she saw the ad that would change her life:
Three-story Bed-and-Breakfast in Belle Ridge, Tennessee. Family owned and operated for over eighty years. Home and five-acre property for sale. Pet-friendly inn with hardwood floors and wood-paneled ceilings. Bathrooms all have tiled showers and original fixtures.
The Lounge & Tavern boasts a large open space for couches, televisions, and pool and video games. There is a large dining room and a beautiful outside wooden deck with killer views of the Tennessee mountains on a sunny morning. The kitchen is spacious and equipped with both commercial and residential equipment. Two rooms on the ground floor are perfect for a spa and storage, and the basement and garage can be used for storage and laundry as well.
It’s located on a small farm that has been equipped for horses and chickens. There is also a small pond surrounded by a grassy knoll area that is an ideal spot for weddings. The owner’s quarters consist of an open multi-use living area and bath and extends the full length of the third floor. There are two smaller guest houses on the property that both sit about a mile from the main lodge, perfect for use as a mother-in-law house or employee quarters alike.
“This is the one, Mom!” she’d said excitedly, waving the paper and running to her mother who was sitting in her dad’s favorite chair. “I can feel it! This is the one I’ve been waiting for!”
Brenda looked at her as if she worried that Sophie had lost her marbles until Sophie set the paper down in front of her. Brenda skimmed through the ad, and when she looked back at her daughter, she forced a smile and said, “This one does sound like it’s calling your name.”
“You know it!” Sophie immediately knew this was what she’d scrimped and saved for over the past nine years. She didn’t let it bother her that her mother wasn’t more enthusiastic about it. She believed Brenda would be happier for her once she could see how much having her dream become reality meant to her and she could relax after focusing everything on her plan.
Two days before her twenty-seventh birthday, Sophie signed the final paperwork. She was the proud new owner of a bed-and-breakfast. It had taken some doing, but she finally talked her mother into selling the house in Carolina Beach and moving with her. In the end, she knew, Brenda had agreed to go with her because she was worried her daughter would forget to actually live once the B&B was up and running. They decided together that Brenda would live in one of the guest houses, and Sophie would take the top floor of the main house. It was perfect … almost.
The first thing Sophie noticed when she arrived to tour her dream was that “original fixtures” actually meant original. They had come with the house when it had been built a hundred years earlier and were all sorely in need of replacing. The “commercial” equipment in the kitchen had been replaced at least once—the last time in the 1950s. The gorgeous wooden banister that led to the upper two floors of the house was scratched, dinged, and missing barrier pieces, and there were two places on the stairs she’d nearly fallen through. The front porch needed a new floor, and everything needed some more modernization to make it more comfortable for twenty-first-century-guest expectations.
The outside was overgrown, the pond needed to be cleaned out, and the fences all needed mending, but none of that discouraged her. If there was one thing Sophie wasn’t afraid of, it was hard work. And because of all of the needs of property, the price had been too good to pass up. She still had enough savings left after putting the down payment on the property to do the major repairs. The minor things could be tackled even after the place was up and running. The thought of all of that work didn’t dampen her excitement at all. She had done a lot of research into the quaint little town that she hoped to become a part of soon, and ultimately, she’d decided that September 22nd—the day of the Harvest Festival—was the perfect day for the grand opening. That gave her two months to get the inn ready.
She’d seen the signs for the Harvest Festival as she drove through the picturesque little town for the first time when she’d driven the six hours to get a look at the property. She passed the community bank and a cute little restaurant painted blue called “The Dixie Table.” There was a small clothing store and a five-and-dime and what looked like a family-owned grocery store. There was a small bar with a wraparound porch that was surrounded by giant red and silver maple trees. The leaves were still green, but Sophie could already picture it when they turned the bold orange and crimson colors that autumn was famous for.
She was almost in love with the town before she had even made it out past a beautiful apple orchard and up to the bed-and-breakfast, where she met with the realtor and toured the property. It was love at first sight when she saw the house, but one look at the breathtaking views of the mountain the property butted up against cemented the deal.
She knew that it would be a lot of work, but her heart told her she could take this old place and breathe new life into it. She made an offer that very day and then drove back home. For the next three weeks, she prayed a lot and kept her fingers crossed, and the day they called her to let her know her offer had been accepted had been the happiest of her life.
Now, as she stood looking at the old inn—her inn—she knew she was about to reach a lifetime goal few people could even conceive of until nearing their retirement years, and she hadn’t even seen three decades pass her by. She was suddenly brought back to the present when Brenda walked up beside her and put her arm around her.
“What are you looking at, honey?”
“Oh, Mom! You startled me.” She looked over at her mother. “I was just thinking about how lucky I am,” she told her as she laid her head on her mom’s shoulder, enjoying the warmth of her mother’s love.
Brenda’s smiled, kissed the top of Sophie’s head, and brushed a lock of her daughter’s dark hair back that had fallen into her eye over her shoulder. “This place has nothing to do with luck. This is all you, baby. You have worked so hard for this, and I’m so proud of you.”
Sophie raised her head and then put her arm around her mother’s waist and gave her a squeeze. “Thank you, Mom. I’m proud of me too, but I certainly never could have done this without your support.” She couldn’t stop smiling as she talked.
They walked back to the car to unload a couple of boxes of priority items, things they would need immediately while they waited a few days for the moving vans to arrive.
“What time is that carpenter coming by?” Brenda asked. Sophie had contacted the only carpenter in town by phone about starting on some of the repairs. She immediately liked the sound of his voice. He was coming by that afternoon to have a look at what needed to be done and give her an estimate.
Sophie pulled her phone out of her back pocket and looked at the time on the screen. “He should be here in half an hour or so.”
Her mom nodded. “Okay, I’m going to take in the box of cleaners and start scrubbing that kitchen.” The inn had been vacant for almost three years, so besides the repairs, it was going to take a lot of elbow grease to clean it up. Sophie was grateful for her mother’s help, but she knew her mother was just as grateful to have something to do, and her mother could handle a lot of mess and grime as long as the kitchen was clean. She had been a hands-on mother and wife for thirty years, and even her active circle of friends couldn’t seem to fill the void that her daughter leaving home and then her husband dying had caused.
Sophie was heading back inside the house when she heard the sound of a pickup approaching. She stepped up on the front porch, making a mental note of the way the wood on the steps had given under her weight, and watched the old green Ford come toward her up the rutted dirt road. The driver parked in the small lot, and as he stepped out, Sophie’s breath was actually taken away for a few seconds. She was glad it would take him a minute to reach her so that she could put her composure back together. She rarely lost control of her emotions, and even more rarely over a man, but this one … she was openly gaping before she caught herself. She shook her head and reminded her that all of her emotions were currently in overload and things that might not normally affect her might cause some short circuiting. Though it was hard to imagine she wouldn’t have at least some kind of immediate reaction to the man walking toward her.
He was all hard angles and sharp lines with the most beautiful, long-lashed brown eyes that she’d ever seen. He had on a ball cap with the words “The Fix-It Man,” and warm chocolate waves of thick hair peeked out from underneath it. His work shirt molded to his broad chest, and his biceps swelled out of the short sleeves. He had long, jean-clad legs, and as he strode toward her, his handsome face broke into a wide grin.
His teeth were white, but not exactly perfect, which made him even sexier in Sophie’s eyes. Perfect people are boring people, she’d always thought. Imperfect ones had much more character. He had full lips that looked incredibly soft. She shivered a little as her mind went to a place it rarely did the first time, she met a man: What would they taste like?
When she was about three feet away from him, she told herself to get a grip, sucked in a shaky breath, and forced what she hoped passed for a non-lecherous smile.
“Hi, I’m Drake Tanner,” he said in a silky, masculine voice. He held out his hand and Sophie took it. It was big and warm, and she felt jolts of lightning shoot all the way up her arm.
She held the smile and was grateful when her voice didn’t come out shaky. “Hi, I’m Sophie Michelson. Thank you so much for coming so quickly, Mr. Tanner—”
“It’s Drake,” he said, “And it’s not a problem.” He looked up at the house and said, “I used to come here a lot when I was a boy.”
“Really? You grew up in Belle Ridge?”
“Born and raised,” he said. “My best friend’s parents ran this place for a while. The owners lived in Rhode Island, and they paid them to live here and take care of the place.”
