CHAPTER ONE #3
“Molly has a great voice, but she doesn’t have your heart.
” Aunt Dahlia’s tone turned silky with affection.
“You touch people with your music. Molly just sings and prances around on the stage, treating the audience like a commodity to hoard and manipulate. Just keep lovin’ your fans, and don’t pay any attention to her. ”
Having worked in the fickle music industry since childhood, Aunt Dahlia should know. However, the producer’s rejection had told Ariel otherwise.
By the time the jet landed at tiny Jonathon Island Airport an hour before sundown, Ariel’s thoughts turned to her childhood home.
A month ago, when she’d landed here, she had only one day to spend on island—the day of her cousin Dani Sullivan Stone’s wedding—since their spring touring season had begun.
Her time with her family hadn’t amounted to much more than sitting together at the wedding supper.
She hadn’t even seen their old white farmhouse.
But soon she’d find her parents, her brother, and her nephew waiting for her at the other side of the terminal.
In Nashville, June had arrived with the heat of midsummer. But here in northern Michigan, the waning sun and cool breeze as she disembarked felt like a welcome change. She slipped her arms into the denim jacket she’d shed in the plane.
“I can’t wait to see all the town’s businesses reopened.
Last year, some of them looked as if they’d lost hope and knew they were dying but couldn’t quite give in.
” Ariel finally set foot on island soil—or rather, its runway pavement—with her Martin N-20 guitar, her pink crossbody bag and tote, and a giant Barry the Bear gift bag containing three stuffed bears for her nephew, Sam.
“Whenever Mama talked about all the loss the island suffered the past eleven years, I almost wished I wouldn’t have to come back until someone—probably Dani—restored it to its former glory. ”
Aunt Dahlia reached the ground, carrying her handbag, guitar, and rolling briefcase, and gave Ariel that big, toothy smile that always made her believe everything would eventually work out. Well, almost always.
“But we get to help bring back the island’s tourism through the music festival next month.
Between the proceeds from our concert and my cash donation, they’ll have no problem renovating a couple more abandoned shops on Main.
We’ll draw big crowds to the island. And we’re spending a month in the Grand Hotel’s most expensive suite.
” Aunt Dahlia’s voice turned businesslike, her Southern-country accent deepening as they crossed the tarmac.
“The songwriters start rollin’ in tomorrow, the production team later, and the band bus left Nashville this morning.
That’s a total of twenty more people staying here, and we’re all spending money on hotels, restaurants, souvenirs—and clothing stores. ”
“Plus the six big-name bands who agreed to perform after you contacted them. Aunt Dahlia, you’ve given so much to Jonathon Island through the years. You’re the most generous person in show business.”
“I know I am, darlin’.” Her big soprano laugh rolled out from deep inside. “I have a street named after me in this little ole town to prove it.”
They rounded the pretty little white terminal building with its copper-roofed breezeway and saw only a green dray wagon, pulled by a pair of brown Percherons, on the road ahead.
Aunt Dahlia squinted against the low-hanging sun, then took her Jep Horn sunglasses from her hot-pink Lady Dior handbag and slipped them on, looked around. “Where is everybody? I thought your family and Dani would meet us.”
Ariel pulled out her phone to check messages. Sure enough, she’d missed a text from Dani twenty minutes ago. She skimmed it, then dropped her phone back into her handbag. “Ethan and Sam stayed home, but Mom, Dad, and Dani should get here anytime now.”
Aunt Dahlia set her hands on her hips, looking cute in her silver-studded flare jeans and matching long-sleeved shirt, and glanced around the deserted grounds. She cocked her head toward a bench facing a wooded area bordered with lilacs in full bloom. “Well, I guess we’re gonna wait.”
As Ariel followed her aunt to the bench, the fresh, fragrant air brought back early memories of flower-picking excursions all over the island with four-years-older Dani. Town would smell even better, with hundreds of purple bushes blooming and perfuming the harborside streets.
The scent of lilacs still wafted through her dreams when least expected, a memorial to her earliest years, their fragrance strong and powerful to evoke a sense of home that had begun to drift away when she first moved to Nashville at age ten.
The details of life on the little pumpkin farm of her childhood had also faded.
Her few trips back to the island since hadn’t strengthened those memories.
It seemed her time at home on the farm always flew by in a rush, and she hadn’t come home during the years her parents lived with Ethan and Sam off island.
If only she could reenact those quiet evenings at home around the big farm table with her parents, her brother, Ethan, and her sister, Charlotte.
Especially Sam, Ethan’s eight-year-old son with Down syndrome.
Maybe this time, things would turn out different.
The big wagon drew nearer, the only vehicle on the narrow road, two dark Percherons pulling and a tawny-haired youth driving.
The man sitting next to him held a corncob pipe between his teeth and wore a gray vintage workingman’s costume that matched the boy’s.
Stroking his long, white beard, he kept his eye on both the driver and the road.
The boy stopped the wagon a few feet from Ariel and Aunt Dahlia, looking about thirteen and quite cheeky, and jumped down from his perch.
With a broad grin and mischief in his eyes, he handed Ariel an old Miss Dahlia for President, Ariel for VP T-shirt and a Sharpie.
“Me and my grandpa will take your stuff to the hotel. But would you autograph this before I give you the bad news? You too, Miss Dahlia. Because you won’t stay after you hear. ”
“Bad news?” Ariel bent over and scrawled her name on the shirt the best she could while draping it over her knee.
When she’d finished, Aunt Dahlia reached for the shirt. “Now, what could be so bad that we’d up and go home no sooner than we got here? And what’s your name, child?”
“Harry Campbell. That’s my grandpa, Finley Campbell, in the wagon. But would you please give me my tip first too?”
Ariel slipped over to the wagon, drew a twenty from her bag, and dropped the bill into the can marked Tips.
Aunt Dahlia gave him a theatrical wink, then scribbled his name and hers on the shirt. “You’re smart enough to make it in show biz, Harry. Now give me the news.”
“The Grand Hotel sprang a leak. There’s water everywhere, even in your suite.
They’re sending the guests to Island House Inn.
But a lot of them went in, looked around, walked right back out, and called us for a ride to the ferry.
” He puffed out his chest. “I got a tip for bringing them in and another tip for taking them away.”
“I remember Island House as homey and comfortable.” Years ago, of course. Surely they’d refreshed it since then.
“The inn looks like it always does—not quite ready to fall down. And they didn’t have enough rooms ready.”
Aunt Dahlia sighed, casting a glance at Ariel, then back at Harry. “How do you know so much about the hotels?”
He gave her a squinty look. “Haven’t you ever lived in a small town?”
“Well, yes, and I guess that explains it,” her aunt said. “Since you know everything that goes on around here, Harry, tell us about the other hotels or bed-and-breakfasts.”
“There’s the Grand, and there’s Island House Inn, and that’s it. Or you could take the ferry to the mainland.”
He sounded earnest enough, but should they take travel advice from a precocious boy? She glanced at the older man, who’d eased himself down from the wagon and now carried the rest of their luggage to the dray.
“My grandson’s telling the truth,” the man called in the same distinctive, somewhat Nordic island accent her dad had. “The Grand Hotel redirected all their guests to Island House Inn.”
Then it hit her.
She’d soon land at Island House. Not the Grand—the atmosphere she’d counted on to stoke her creativity. Help her find her path.
Save her pride.
“Do you want to go to the ferry?” Harry asked.
“No, we want to help the local economy.” Aunt Dahlia made up her mind in a flash as usual. “Besides, we gave our word that we’d stay on this island and help with publicity for the music festival.”
This could be a bad idea, but…“We could go to my family’s pumpkin farm.”
“Honey, that little bit of a house could never hold us, your family, the writers, and the band.”
Yes, compared to Aunt Dahlia and Ariel’s Nashville-area home, the two-story farmhouse would seem small.
Suddenly, a long-ago memory crossed her mind—one of kindness, warmth, generosity she’d once experienced at the centuries-old inn. “Then let’s go to Island House and rough it. We don’t need a five-star hotel every time.”
“Let’s consult our junior travel agent.” Aunt Dahlia gave her that look that said Ariel should go along with whatever she said. “Harry, would we like Island House?”
He nodded. “At first, I didn’t think so. But now I know you will.”
“Give us your number, Harry, and you can be our driver during our stay.” Her aunt eyed the wagon. “If your fleet of horse-drawn vehicles includes carriages and not just wagons.”
“Me and Grandpa work for the Quinn livery, and they have two dozen new white carriages. We can come back and pick you up in one.”
Ariel couldn’t help grinning at the junior businessman. “Thanks, but our family is coming for us.”