Chapter 1 - Clover

CHAPTER 1 - CLOVER

I enter the Dixie Yonder bright and early Monday morning, ready for what's next after an exhilarating weekend of perfectly-planned wedding events. Nearly the moment I enter the hotel my boss, Clarissa, is calling out my name from across the expansive lobby as she strides towards me. "Great job, Clover! That wedding yesterday—fan. Tastic! Went off without a hitch." She's reached me now and Clarissa is a toucher, so her hand claps down on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze and her big brown eyes sparkle with excitement. "Wedding season is just about over and I know how much you love summers because they're so busy, but don't worry, girl, we've got parties booked every weekend through December."

"Wonderful!" I tell her, flashing back a smile as big as her own. Because I can find the joy in any season, really. Even ones that don't typically come with weddings. "You're right," I tell her, "wedding season is my favorite, but party season is like a Christmas star, shining in the sky!"

"And with you planning the parties, they'll sparkle in the darkness like fireflies in the night." Then she leans in to me, lowering her voice. "Mr. Sutter has asked to see you in private as soon as you have time. And if you ask me"—she pauses here to flash a huge, all-teeth smile—"I think you're getting a promotion." She practically sings out that last word.

"What?" I say, feigning surprise. "Really?" I've been working at the Dixie Yonder Hotel for nearly seven years now. I didn't start in weddings—I was Clarissa's Girl Friday for three and a half of those years making a pretty meager salary. But she and I clicked immediately and she's been pushing me up the ladder of high-society event planning ever since. So, I've kinda been expecting this.

"Well"—Clarissa removes her hand from my shoulder—"I don't know for sure, but why else would Sutter call you in? And yesterday's wedding—oh, my God." She puts a hand over her heart. "It's being featured in Vanity Fair , you know that, right?"

"I do." And boy, was I nervous about that. My name will be mentioned for sure. And while it's an honor, it's also a lot of pressure. These elite people we cater to can be a bit obnoxious at times, but I aim to please and when my Dixie Yonder clients come to me with a request, I get the job done.

I hold up my hand and cross my fingers. "Here's to my promotion. But… what about you? I mean, your job is the only one I'm qualified to do."

"Oh, sweetie, I got my promotion this morning."

"What!" I jump up and down a little. "Holy crap! You finally got promoted to general manager?"

"Yep!" She shrugs up her shoulders real big. "Finally. But not here."

" Whaaaaaat? " This word comes out as a whine. "Not here? You can't leave me!"

"I've been promoted to general manager of the Wicked Scrod in Boston."

"Boston?" My smile falls. " Boston ?" I'm so shocked, I say it again. Like maybe I just heard her wrong. "You can't go to Boston."

"Ooooooh, you're so sweet, Clover. I know we've been a great team, and I seriously owe you everything. Without your support I would never have gotten this far. But you're gonna be just fine, I know it. You're gonna nail this."

"But… it's not boss you I'm going to miss. It's friend you, Clarissa." I pout. Because even though we don't really hang together outside of work, she's my best friend these days. I tell her everything. And when things go wrong, she's the one who makes life better. Without Clarissa, I wouldn't have scored the cottage I live in on the Yonder grounds. It was hers before it was mine. And when she moved out to rent a little house in the nearby village, she told Sutter I should get it.

Which is the whole reason why I can afford to keep renovating my childhood home back in Disciple. One day—hopefully before I grow old—I will turn that old mansion into my own niche hotel and plan events on my own estate grounds. It's my dream. Clarissa has been helping me make my dream come true and now she's leaving.

I cannot hide my disappointment.

"Aww, I feel the same way, Clover," Clarissa says. "And I'm gonna miss you like crazy. But we're meant for bigger things, friend. And this is the next step on our journeys. We need to spread our wings."

"Yeah… I know. But we need to make sure we meet up. Once a month, just like I do with my childhood bestie, Lowyn, back home in West Virginia."

"It's a date." And she smiles at me, cementing these words into a promise. "Now go. Have your meeting with Sutter. I'm on my way to the airport." She points to a pink wheelie suitcase that I hadn't noticed.

"You're leaving now ?"

"It's just a one-week trip to get a feel for the place. Don't worry, I'll be back and we'll have a proper goodbye then." She twiddles her fingers at me. "See ya soon!" Then she takes off at a determined walk towards the revolving front doors of the hotel, her heels clicking on the polished marble floors, and a moment later, she's gone.

I let out a long breath. I love working under Clarissa. She's very upbeat, her smile is wide and contagious, and even when people mess up, she only has encouraging things to say.

I want to be sad about this turn of events for a few more hours, at least. But I owe it to my boss to rally and meet the moment with dignity. And anyway, it's not a setback, not at all. This is a good change and now that I'll be the boss it will be my turn to pay it forward and mentor an up-and-coming event planner, just like Clarissa did for me.

So I straighten my back, turn on my heel, and head straight to Sutter's office.

Ten minutes later I'm sitting in an oversized leather wingback in front of Sutter's massive mahogany desk with my mouth open.

"Did you just say… I'm fired?" I blink at him. Like seven times in a row, because this can't be happening. "How?—"

"Look, Miss Bradley, you've done a great job here. I'm not unhappy with your work at all."

"Then why?"

He shrugs with his hands and sits back in his chair, making the leather creak. "Downsizing. The economy is terrible. The Dixie Yonder has been losing money for over a year now. Something has to be done."

"But we have events scheduled for the entire year, Mr. Sutter! If Clarissa is leaving for Boston, then who will do the events if not me?"

"Brian can handle it, I'm sure."

" Brian ? But he's my assistant."

"Exactly. He's mostly qualified and makes half as much as you do. And… well, that's really all that matters. The bottom line is king, as they say."

"But he's only been here six months. He can't possibly produce the quality of event that Clarissa and I did."

"You're right." Sutter sighs. "He won't. He'll muck it all up, I'm sure. But this isn't my decision, Miss Bradley. It came straight from corporate. They told me to fire you. I'm sorry. I really am." But then his sympathy fades and his business face returns. "Now. About your cottage."

"Oh, my God. You're not kicking me out of the cottage!"

"I'm sorry about this too, but I was ordered to book it up and… well, the first guests are arriving tomorrow."

"Tomorrow! But how will I pack?—"

"Oh, don't worry about packing." He waves a careless hand through the air. "It's been done. All your things have been loaded into a rented Haul-It trailer, courtesy of the hotel. You have a hitch on that that brand-new SUV you drive, right? I'm sure I saw a hitch and it's a monster of a car, so the load shouldn't be a problem."

For a moment I can't speak. Hell, I can't even think. What is happening here? "You… packed up my cottage?"

"No need to thank me, it's the least I could do. I'll email you all the details for returning the trailer—it's booked for two days." He shuffles some papers on his desk and then smiles as he finds what he's looking for. "Here it is. Your final paycheck." And then he slides it across the desk. "Good luck, Miss Bradley."

I don't cry as I drive myself and all my worldly possessions across the state of Virginia and into the hills of my home state. I am numb, actually. Still in shock at how my life could be turned upside down in a matter of minutes.

Of course I tried to call Clarissa, but it went to voicemail and I didn't leave a message because… well, it's her parade and raining on it feels gross. At least for a few days.

I didn't call my parents, either. I didn't call anyone. I didn't even call Lowyn, even though I'm headed to Disciple right now.

I might be having trouble processing.

So I just… drive. And the next thing I know I'm pulling into my childhood home, just off the Loop Highway, in Trinity County, West Virginia. I cut the engine and sit in my driveway, gazing out at the rolling green hills and distant woods of the estate. Allowing myself a few minutes to come to terms my new reality.

What just happened? I was doing so well. I was on a trajectory and now I'm not falling, I'm… fall en . It is done. And I had no say in the matter whatsoever.

It doesn't make any sense. What did I do to deserve this?

At least I have some place to go. That's a lucky break. But I still can't get over how a corporation that I've given my life to for seven years could just throw me away like this. I mean, what if I didn't have a childhood estate to run home to? What would I have done? Rented a motel, I guess. You can't just find an apartment on the turn of a dime in these times. It's a process. Not a fun one, either.

"Count your blessings, Clover," I tell myself. "Just be grateful that you still have this place."

My childhood home sounds good on paper. An historic country estate in the hills of West Virginia sounds very fancy-fancy, as Lowyn would put it. And it is quite spectacular—a four-story, twenty-two-room Victorian Queen Anne-style mansion that originally started out as a one-room log cabin in the early nineteenth century, but was gradually added on to and converted into what it is today over a period of a hundred years.

The old cabin is still here. As it was originally built as an earth-sheltered home with three sides already underground and just one side open, it was a sensible decision to build the new house right on top of it. Today, that old cabin is only accessible by a trapdoor in the library. When I was a kid, it was my playroom. I loved it. It was like having a secret fort inside your house. Lowyn and I spent whole summers down there in the underground coolness because the AC units barely worked back then and don't work at all now.

I sigh just thinking about those days. I had a great childhood filled with ponies, and horses, and rafting on the river. We had big summer garden parties, and lavish winter Christmas parties, and every year on Easter Monday—which is a school holiday in these parts—my parents organized a giant Easter egg hunt because, of course, Easter Sunday is Revival opening day and all us kids were required to be there working.

Egg hunts were pretty much the only way Disciple, West Virginia, celebrated that holiday. But it was fun. I love this estate so much, I bought it from my parents when they decided to sell it and move out of state. They let me buy it for a tenth of what they could've gotten for it because, well, no one in town was gonna pay that amount of money for a house—not even Jim Bob Baptist—and you're not allowed to sell a home in Trinity County to an outsider, so they were never gonna get top dollar for it.

Add in the fact that the moment I went off to college, they went down to Florida and never came back, and well, this place turned into a bit of a mess. It hadn't been kept up.

I hadn't needed to tap into my Revival trust for college because my parents paid for all of that, so that's what I gave them in exchange for the deed. One and done. An entire country estate for thirty-thousand dollars.

It was a great opportunity and certainly an amazing deal, but the place is a freaking mess, a top-to-bottom money-pit mess, and it's cost me a small fortune to even get this far in the renovations. Which is not far enough to even start thinking about paint colors, let alone event planning.

I guess I will have to join the Revival again. The season is well past half-over now that September is here and that means it's only one weekend a month until Christmas, but whatever I earn, it will be better than nothing.

Next year, I'll go full time and the January first after that, I will probably have enough to finish the electrical and start on the drywall.

Wow. I'm trying to rally here, I really am, but when spelled out in no uncertain terms, my future is depressing.

There are no workers and no work being done at the estate this month because I used this month's reno budget for a down payment on this huge SUV—which feels like a really stupid thing to do because the payment is fifteen hundred dollars a month and who the hell needs something that seats seven? But I was smitten with it in the showroom, not to mention flush with money at the time, so here I sit.

I look around at the interior of my Navigator, taking in all the luxury perks. The heated leather seats, the heated leather steering wheel, the massive display and reversing camera. It's got three rows of seats and can pull a horse trailer. That's why I got it. I was gonna buy myself a horse and start showing again next year and the extra-roomy interior was going to come in handy when hauling all my gear.

But I guess that dream is bust now.

I'm probably gonna have to turn this thing in and go beg Ethan Sardis, Disciple's town mechanic, to sell me some used compact thing he got on special from a dealer auction. It'll be a stick-shift and I'll be lucky if I have electric windows and rear defrost by the time all this dust settles.

How? How can a life get so derailed in the span of one morning?

I don't get it.

So I sit there for a few more moments, just blinking in surprise.

However, things must be sorted. I need a place to live and I'm not even sure this place is habitable. I've made incremental progress, but the only room that hasn't been ripped down to the studs is my childhood bedroom in the attic. And while there are worse things in life than sleeping under a lacy, white canopy on a twin bed in your princess bedroom of yesteryear when you're pushing thirty, it definitely wasn't on my bingo card.

I might have to move in with Lowyn. Nothing like crashing your bestie's new good thing.

Whoo. I need to pull myself together. So I shake my head. "All right, Clover. Rally, girl. You're fine. You're home. No one in Disciple is gonna let you sleep in your luxury SUV. It's all gonna be fine."

Once the pep talk is over, I get out and start rummaging through my purse, looking for my keys, as I make my way up the back porch and to the door.

I have a panic moment when I can't find the little keyring and start picturing how I'll have to break one of my new, very expensive, custom-made windows in order to get inside when I feel the cold metal between my fingertips.

Wow. I am not in a good place. My imagination is as wild as that horse I had as a teenager.

I twist the key, open the door, and step inside.

It's… hmm. Not a total wreck. In fact, there's drywall already up down here. It doesn't have tape or mud yet, but there are walls! That's something.

Maybe this isn't gonna be as bad as I thought? Maybe it'll be…

This optimistic train of thought comes to a screeching halt in my head as I notice a sleeping bag on the floor in the far corner of the front room, near the fireplace. "What?—"

But that's as far as I get, because… is that the sound of a shower?

I stand still for a moment, convinced my wild stallion of an imagination is getting the better of me, but then the sound of water stops and the familiar creak of a door—a creak I grew up listening to—filters down from the second floor.

What the hell is happening?

Is someone living in my house?

Should I run? Should I scream? Should I call Abel Bettington down at the police station?

These thoughts take up several precious seconds in real time and I still haven't come to a conclusion when a naked man comes bounding down the stairs, his junk bouncing every time his foot hits a step.

My mouth drops open. I am in shock. Also unable to tear my eyes away from this man's nether parts. "What the?—"

That's as far as I get. Because this massive, muscular (and unfortunately very handsome) man comes rushing at me, and the next thing I know, he's got his hand pressed against my mouth, his naked wet body is pressed up against my back, and I'm being dragged down the hallway.

A moment later, he stuffs a rag in my mouth, ties my hands behind my back with a leather belt that is cinched so tight, it cuts into my skin, and I'm thrust face-first into the closet under the stairs.

The door bangs closed just as I hit my head on the floor, and everything goes black.