Chapter One: Autumn

"And then she asked if we had any larger eggplants just as she was making eyes at Coach Chisolm."

"She said what?" I asked my sister Rory just as I set my oversized shopping bag at my feet, gently pushing the material with the toe of my boot to tuck it under the wooden table that made up my family's vegetable stand. The farmers market stood in an open field in the middle of our town's main thoroughfare and had been a staple of the community for decades. There were even pictures of my great-great-grandparents standing in the same spot as my sisters and I currently found ourselves.

Rory squealed, her eyes lit like a child watching fireworks when she realized I had snuck my way to the market. Alex quickly joined in. And as a trio, we rocked back and forth ignoring the looks of the people milling about.

I spoke with my sisters frequently, but there was something different about being in their presence. They had a calming effect on my ambition. The same ambition that had me leaving town six years ago without a backward glance.

It wasn't until I was in their company that I remembered how much I missed and loved them.

They were also never sure when I would follow through on a promise and return home for more than a weekend. This time had been out of my hands, which left me a bit more bereft about my current situation. But I didn't want my amazing sisters to think it was because of them. They'd always championed for me.

After consolidating years worth of embraces into a solid minute, I asked Rory, my innocent school teacher sister, to continue.

"Old Mrs. Hensen stood at our booth, stroking an eggplant, asking if we had any that were larger just as Coach Chisolm and his wife Lily walked by. Then that crazy spinster asked if we could try to grow them bigger next season because she liked the size of our cucumbers from the summer. Autumn, I was mortified."

Alex stepped from around Rory and tossed her arm haphazardly across my shoulders while saying, "See what you missed all these years?"

"It's definitely good to be back," I replied as I squeezed her hand.

Rory chimed in again as Alex released me. "That wasn't even the best part. Lily, being the badass that she is, walked over to Mrs. Hensen, inspected the eggplant, and agreed that we need to have bigger ones next season."

"She did not!" Alex exclaimed.

"Oh, she definitely did. Most of the people here heard her."

"Well, at least we know what coach keeps in his Wranglers."

"Ew," Rory cried out, scrunching her perfect button nose in the process. "He's like. . .older than our brother."

"Doesn't mean we can't admire him. Isn't that right, Autumn?" Alex asked with a cunning slit to her eyes as she looked over at me where I was unabashedly examining the eggplants. Considering the direction of my love life, perhaps Mrs. Hensen was onto something. But Alex was right. It was no secret that I'd crushed on the high school and minor league hockey coach when I was younger. I'd always been attracted to older men. As the eldest of our parents' four children, I always felt older than my twenty-four years. My grandfather used to say I had an old soul. Whatever that meant.

As my sisters went back and forth nagging each other just as they always had growing up, I took a moment to look around the market. It had grown exponentially in the years since I'd left Ashfield. Booths not only lined the open field, but they curved around the sidewalks and alleys.

Turning my back toward the crowd, I inhaled the thick mountain air as I stared at the Great Smoky Mountains off in the distance. There was something about their grandeur that always left me feeling lost. That I'd never know my place in the world. I'd always felt so minuscule in their shadow.

At one point, I thought I'd find my place in the bustling City of New York working for one of the top event planners in the nation only to learn that I was as expendable as a penny. Easily lost and forgotten. Especially when the man who promised you the world, and signed your paycheck, left you for his newest client. Taking your self-esteem and apartment with him.

Talk about a blow to my confidence.

Turning back around to look at my sisters, I couldn't regret rushing back to Ashfield. I had wanted out of this small town when I was younger. It wasn't that I disliked it here. I just thought I was destined for bigger and better things. I was the ambitious Easterly daughter. So arriving back at my family's farm with my tail tucked between my legs wasn't the way I had wanted to prove myself to everyone. I worried everyone would think that I'd chased my dream and failed. It wasn't in my plan to return so soon.

"When did you get back to town?" Alex asked as I rejoined my sisters as they greeted customers and waved at the people walking past. "You should have called us."

"Last night, just after dinner," I mumbled as I snagged a carrot from the stack at the top of the vegetable display.

Our family farm functioned as corn growers, but my sisters and I carried on my grandmother's penchant for gardening. Even as little girls, we kept up with her vegetable garden that had expanded from a small plot of land to two and a half acres of seasonal vegetables. The market stand that my family used in the past for homemade sauces and jams (which my mother still made in small batches to sell) transitioned to a booth for us. It made just enough to keep the garden growing, but I wasn't sure how much longer my sisters could keep it up. We all had regular non-farming jobs that required a lot of time. I hoped to return to event planning, Alex managed a local bar, and Rory was a first-grade teacher. Only our youngest sister, Aspen, still worked at the farm with my father. Collectively, we had a friend of the family that ran the stand if we were absent, but typically my sisters and I rotated shifts. That was all before I moved away. I had a feeling that as we got older and busier, we'd come out less and less and would need more help with the stand. Who knew what would happen when we started our own families?

"Did you see Dad at all?" Alex asked.

"No, but Mom was up with Aspen."

"That's good," she murmured under her breath the way she did when we were teens and she had more she wanted to say. I couldn't help but notice how her knuckles whitened as her fingers bit into her palms. I got along with all of my sisters, but Alexandra and Aspen fought like caged animals. They were truly like the summer and winter. Two polar opposites.

I wanted to ask more, but I noticed a crowd was growing across the way and I wondered what had captured everyone's attention. The nosiness of small-town living was in our blood from birth and there was little any of us could do to fight it off.

"What do you think is going on over there?" I asked no one in particular as I grabbed another carrot to munch on.

"Oh! Coach Chisolm was talking to some of his players about his protégé coming into town to visit for a while. It's the biggest thing to happen to Ashfield since we heard you were coming back." The petite blonde standing across from me stared with wide eyes as if she would blink and I'd disappear. There was a look of both mystery and envy in her gaze, and it left me feeling. . .lacking.

"Well, that's something," I said, munching on the orange veggie.

The girl stared for a second longer, then leaned closer toward me over the display as if she was about to tell me all of the world's secrets. Her eyes glistened with excitement and the corners of her mouth tipped up in suppressed joy.

"What's it like? New York? Is it just as beautiful as all the movies make it out to be?"

This girl could be no more than fourteen, fifteen at most, and I didn't have the desire to burst her bubble and tell her that New York was both beautiful and lonely. For every shining beacon, there was a shadowing hole ready to envelop you. But I remembered the excitement and thrill of imagining such a glamorous place and I would have sneered at anyone telling me differently.

I opted for the closest truth I could muster. "It is beautiful and when they say no one ever sleeps, they mean it. But you know what?" I told her, watching as her chest puffed out, holding in her exhale with bated breath. "I missed home. There is nothing quite like it." While it was true, it was definitely a stretch. While Ashfield was my birthplace, I grew up thinking the place was holding me back. There was nothing besides family that ever made me want to stay.

"Wow," she exhaled with a whoosh, the hair surrounding her shoulders moving with the air.

I responded with a simple smile, hoping that I placated her dreams while internally I felt shame from the lie.

"It sounds so amazing. I don't know why anyone would ever come back. Nothing exciting ever happens in this town."

Internally, I agreed with the teen and my inner self was nodding her head enthusiastically, but externally, I continued to smile politely with a tilted head. My dad always called it my "you're not right, but I'll let you think you are" look.

"Well, never say never," Alex said with her signature sneer. For someone named after the birthstone of June, she had the cold temperament of the winter. Another reason she and Aspen rarely got along.

The teen trotted off, not nearly as affected by my sister's proclamation as I was.

"You shouldn't dismiss her hopes and dreams like that. Maybe she'll actually get out and find her way."

"Yeah, her way back home. Everyone always comes back - usually," Alex said as she began placing the vegetable trays in the back of her vintage pickup.

I knew what she meant. Everyone came back except for Rory's childhood friend and our neighbor. It was a sore subject with our sister and we rarely spoke about it, but I knew that was what Alex was implying.

They weren't surprised when I called up last Sunday and said I had packed all my belongings and would be home the following weekend. It had offended me they weren't bowled over to hear the news, but Mom asked at the end of every phone call when I was going to move back home. To them, I was living some childhood fantasy and needed to get my head on straight.

But until my ex had destroyed everything, I had been happy. I'd loved my life.

Right?

I remembered the perfect little apartment we'd leased on the Upper East Side. It had been in his family for years and was rent controlled. We would have never been able to afford it any other way. I'd adored the apartment and thought of how we could raise a family in the three-bedroom space. I'd even hoped that he was going to propose the exact night he dumped me.

It was the same tragic tale that I'd seen in movies countless times. I just never expected it to happen to me.

Fired and dumped in the middle of our living room, surrounded by hundreds of candles. I'd set up the room for our anniversary, expecting something else entirely.

Heaving a sigh, I lifted one of the trays and placed it in Alex's truck.

"What's the matter?" Rory questioned. She'd always been the most intuitive of the sisters. We could usually speak without saying a word.

"Nothing," I said with a chipper edge I knew wasn't going to fool anyone.

"Liar, but I'll let it slide this time," she added as she joined us to load the truck with the food left from the stand. If it wasn't something we could use within the week or pickle, we donated it to the local church, which distributed them to families in need. It was a way for us to help the community.

Silently we loaded the rest of the empty trays into the truck and then broke down the items used at the stand. Rory and I both jumped when Alex slammed the tailgate of the cargo bed. She shrugged her shoulders in a silent apology as she made her way back to us.

"What are your plans today?" Rory asked us both as she counted the money in the metal box.

Alex replied as she opened her door. "I need to do inventory at the bar."

"I need to hit up the grocery store. Mom and Dad are making my favorite since I'm home. You both will be there, right?"

"Of course. We never miss Saturday dinners if we can help it. Is that why you were here today? I loved having you, but it was a surprise for sure."

My sisters stared at me with rapt attention, which made me feel like I was back in college public speaking, standing in front of an auditorium full of my peers giving a speech.

"Well, I felt antsy being at home, so I thought I'd go out for a drive and run some errands for Mom."

"Oh, yeah?" Alex said with a smirk. "There was no pit stop or drive that you detoured?"

"Alex," Rory scolded.

"It's fine, Rory. Yes, I drove by the house. It looks so sad just sitting there on that hill. It needs so much love. I just wish there was something more I could do."

The house sat on a plot of land in the middle of our family's farm. It used to belong to our great-great-grandfather and was the original farmhouse, but when he passed away, he left it to his youngest son who had a penchant for gambling.

The story goes he lost the title to the house and the hundred acres of surrounding land in a bad poker hand. My great-grandmother had tried her hardest to get the property back into our name whenever it would go for sale, but she was always outbid. It had sat vacant for as long as my family could remember.

Last I'd heard, it was still in the name of the previous owner, but it was at the point I wouldn't be stunned to find it condemned. Dad did his best to check on the property when he would inspect the adjacent land and would board up windows and holes. He'd even laid a tarp on the roof when a tree branch fell through ten years prior. But there was nothing more we could do but sit and wait.

It felt like it was what I'd been doing my whole life. The house was a fairytale to me, just like my previous job. All of it now out of reach and feeling more like a pipedream with every passing day.

"Have you thought about reaching out to the owners?" Rory questioned.

"Only every day. But all I have is my piddly savings and who would sell their home to someone without a job or any job prospects? It's not like Ashfield has a need for an event planner or someone with a degree in hospitality. Hell, there isn't even a hotel close by.

"And by the time I could probably afford the down payment, the developers that keep bugging Dad for some of his land will most likely have swooped in. I'm actually surprised they haven't already," I said exasperatedly. It was the same argument I had with myself whenever I drove by the two-story farmhouse.

I could close my eyes and see myself on the upper porch looking over the front yard where my kids would play on the wooden swing dangling from one of the centuries-old oak trees. My husband would stand behind them, pushing them with each passing. It was all so clear in my mind that sometimes I felt bereft realizing that it was all in my head.

It was also no secret in town how much I loved that house; which made it all the more upsetting that the owners didn't even reside in our town. My nails bit into my palms at my sides and my gut churned just thinking about it.

My sisters must have noticed how I'd grown rigid and tense as they quickly apologized for bringing up the subject at all.

"It's okay. It's not like it's a big secret. I just hate that the town can't do anything about it."

I did have some research in my back pocket, though. It was something I wanted to share with my dad first, and I wasn't ready to divulge it to anyone else.

"I'm heading out," Alex said as she stepped back from the truck. Rory and I stepped away from the tailgate and watched as Alex jumped into the cab of her vehicle.

"See you guys tonight?" she called out and we both nodded in unison, my arms wrapped around my waist in a protective gesture. Being around my entire family was overwhelming and I didn't always know how to act. I wasn't slim and petite like my sisters. My body had curves that mimicked the natural waves in my hair. But I'd also been the only Easterly to ever leave the homestead, something none of them ever let me forget. Tonight I was going to feel more than just a disappointment, I was going to feel like a failure. They wouldn't do it intentionally, but it would feel that way regardless.

Once Alex's truck sputtered away, the dark clouds puffing from her exhaust finally clearing in the air, Rory turned and asked if I was parked nearby. We'd both left our cars in the public parking lot by the town bakery and we opted to walk together.

Rory was a good buffer for the townspeople when they'd stopped and waved. Despite them asking her if she was ready for a new school year as a first-grade teacher for our local elementary school, I noticed how their eyebrows raised in surprise when they realized I was her companion. It seemed the confirmation of my return hadn't begun spreading yet.

"Don't let them get to you, Autumn. Everyone is really excited to see that you're back."

"Yeah, right. They probably think I'm a joke."

"Well. . .um. . .no, but you're the town sweetheart. They were all devastated when you left."

"Yes. The once valedictorian has returned uninspired, unattached, and unemployed. What a sad story they're going to paint of me."

"Don't think like that," she scolded as she followed me to my small red two-door coupe. "Have you thought about speaking to Dad about using the old barn on the outskirts of the west field as a wedding venue? That was always your backup plan if the internship after college didn't work out."

In fact, I hadn't thought about it. The prospect hadn't crossed my mind once. I'd been wallowing in an Olympic-sized pool of self-pity that I hadn't even considered any other options than to start sending out resumes. But Rory was right. And thank goodness she had the memory of an elephant.

"Maybe I'll speak to him tonight about it. I'm not sure how open he'd be to the suggestion, though. You know how he feels about tourists and that is mainly who we would target."

"Well, I'll back you up. I think it's a great idea and think about how much revenue that could bring to the farm. And you could probably look at partnering with the bed-and- breakfasts in town for sleeping arrangements. The possibility is there."

Turning around, I looked at my little sister. There was a hopefulness in her enthusiasm that I couldn't deny. Her eyes glistened in the early afternoon light like sun rays on a pond and the corners of her mouth reached upward in an encouraging grin.

"You're excited," I teased her as I shifted my bag from my shoulder down to my waiting hand and began searching for my car keys.

"I'm excited to have you home. And if I can find a way for you to stay, I'll do whatever it takes. Besides, I think Jeremy may propose soon."

Her high school boyfriend was a sleazebag to the first degree, but Rory would hear none of it.

"Ulterior motives, I see." With the key fob in hand, I pressed the button to unlock my car doors. The resounding beep and flash of yellow startled the couple crossing the lot in front of my car and I winced when they sneered at me.

Replying with a quick one-armed hug across my shoulders, Rory replied, "Always. See you tonight."