Once Upon A Kiss (Bliss Garden Girls #1)

Prologue

Louise

THREE YEARS AGO

“Lou? Are you out here?”

I turn my head toward my sister’s voice as it drifts through the garden.

Dusk settled around me a long time ago; the crickets are now chirping and bullfrogs have started singing in the late August evening.

I tip my head back and watch as the last pink and blue remnants of the cotton candy sunset fade over the tree line.

This has always been my favorite time of year at the farm. It’s so peaceful, right before the craziness of fall hits. The farm and its gardens still belong to us for just a little longer.

“Lou, please don’t make me walk all the way out there if you’re not even there,” my sister Sienna calls again, her tone laced with annoyance.

I can’t help rolling my eyes. My long, golden blonde hair falls over my shoulder and I sweep it back with one hand.

I’m due for a trim, the long golden strands are nearly touching the top curve of my butt nowadays.

“I’m here, you big baby,” I call out, and it’s not long before I hear my sister’s footsteps as she traipses through the rows and rows of florals and landscaping trees.

She rounds the corner and slaps her hands against her thighs as she walks toward me where I’ve been swinging idly on the old-fashioned wooden A-frame swing in the center of our family’s garden. Like I’d be anywhere else.

Sienna catches the edge of the swing as I pendulum toward her, stopping it long enough to plop into it, the old wood squeaking as she kicks off with her toe to get us moving again.

I sit cross-legged on the seat, plastic juice glass of Riesling between my hands in my lap.

Everyone knows better than to give me a delicate wine glass.

I’ve already broken three this summer. Whoops.

Sienna sighs next to me, rolling her head back on her shoulders to stare up at the sky, where stars have begun to appear in the darkening sky above us.

“Do the others know where we are?” I ask, turning my head to look at her. She shakes her head.

“I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they find us anyway.”

“We won’t all fit on the swing anymore,” I point out, which brings Sienna’s head around to fix me with that heated glare she’s perfected as the second oldest. I cringe, taking a gulp of my wine.

“I swear to god if you make any more comments about your weight, I’ m going to murder you and bury you under the petunias.”

“No, anywhere but the petunias!” I whine dramatically, which makes Sienna laugh with a shake of her head. I shrug. “I just meant that we’re not four little kids anymore. This old swing won’t hold all of us.”

It’s hard being the baby of the family sometimes.

Our parents had taken longer breaks between all of us than was conventional, three, four, and five years spanning between each of our births.

I’m freshly turned twenty-one as of last week.

My sister Tessa is turning twenty-four next month.

She’s quirky and nerdy and marches to the beat of her own drums. I envy that about her.

Actually, I envy a lot about all three of my sisters.

Tessa is about to open up a bookstore and café with her best friend in the heart of downtown Petoskey.

Who actually accomplishes that kind of thing at the age of twenty-three?

And then Sienna, the drop dead gorgeous, legs for days, always perfectly put together woman has her own photography business.

She’d started taking senior class photos several years ago and has since branched out into doing wedding photos, which are stunning.

She has an eye for it. She just celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday and recently started dating a man she’d met while shooting a wedding.

Connor is classically handsome and obnoxiously perfect. Almost too perfect.

Then there’s Darci, our oldest sister. She’d gotten married young to Nolan Brantley, her prince charming and a volunteer firefighter.

They have two absolutely adorable kids together, my niece and nephew, and she’d taken on being a step-mom to his daughter Evie like a pro.

She’s thirty-three and runs the family garden with our parents.

She’s perfect in everything she does, like annoyingly perfect.

She’s the perfect soccer mom, the perfect wife, the perfect businesswoman.

Me? Three years ago, I went off to college downstate at Ferris and then dropped out after a semester and a half and moved back home. Why? Well, A. because I was pathetically homesick, and B. because Dad died, and Mom and Darci needed help with Bliss Garden.

See, our family owns and operates one of the biggest nurseries in northern Michigan. We offer seasonal florals and landscaping bushes and trees, but my parents had started it as an orchard and pumpkin patch back thirty years ago. Nowadays, you name it, we probably have it.

In the fall, our farm turns into an autumn lovers wet dream.

Hay rides, apple picking, a pumpkin patch, corn mazes, hot and cold homemade apple cider…

pumpkin spice everything. Yes, I am that basic girl.

We also have a small bar fully stocked with nothing but local wines, liquors, and craft beers.

My dad was always big on supporting local.

Dad had spent one spring building a massive patio by the barn with several tabletop fireplaces and had sprinkled around dozens of heavy wooden Adirondack chairs for guests to sit in.

Bliss Garden is the place to be, especially in the fall, when the color change turns the trees into a watercolor of reds, oranges, and yellows.

So, each year, all of us girls are called back home for the fall to help out as much as possible.

Especially with Dad gone. That familiar pang of heartache at the thought of Dad makes my chest feel like it’s caving in on itself.

The grief doesn’t hit as often as it used to, but it’s not any less painful when it does.

Dad had always hoped that each of his girls would find their happy ever after’s and get married here on the farm, just like he and Mom had. By the time we lost him, only Darci had managed to make his dream come true. She was the only one that would get to have him walk her down the aisle.

I take another large gulp of my wine and blink rapidly to whisk away the tears that burn my nose and make my vision blurry. “How’s Connor?”

Sienna shrugs, fiddling with the hem of her white sweatshirt before smoothing it back down. “He’s fine, you know how he gets. Just super busy, all the time.”

“I uh, I saw Nash the other day.”

Sienna goes perfectly still. “Oh yeah?” she asks casually—too casually—and I know her mind is going a million miles a second, though she’ll never admit to it.

I nod, taking another drink of my wine. “He asked about you.”

I watch as she swallows hard, then straightens her shoulders, her chin lifting just the slightest. “He doesn’t have any right to ask about me anymore. I hope you didn’t tell him anything.”

“I know, and no, I didn’t,” I whisper, then sigh heavily. “Don’t you think—"

“Hey, we know you’re both out there!”

I look over at Sienna and groan. “I think they found us.”

“Bring more wine!” Sienna shouts into the darkness, the trail of fairy lights strung up on tall posts along the rows of flowers flickering like magic. “And three glasses!”

“Seriously?” we hear Tessa grumble on a shout, and we grin at each other.

A few minutes later, Tessa comes into view, her short, wavy blonde hair visible in the darkness, followed closely by Darci.

Tessa reaches up and pushes her red-rimmed glasses back into place on her nose, a blanket in her other arm.

Darci carries a bottle of wine and the glasses, her dark hair pulled into a perfectly messy topknot on her head.

“Scoot over,” Tessa orders, catching the edge of the swing to stop it.

“There’s no way we can all sit on this!” I argue, but do as I’m told.

Sienna shifts closer to me, making room for Tessa and Darci.

They squeeze in and the old wooden swing groans ominously beneath the weight of all four of us.

I laugh nervously. “Mom is going to kill us if we break this swing,” I complain, shifting in the seat, my left hip being gouged by a rough wooden plank. “Ow!”

Tessa tosses the blanket across our laps as Sienna and Darci pour wine into the glasses. Darci refills my glass, and then sets the bottle down on the ground next to her. I can still hear the swing creaking and groaning.

“We’re fine!” Tessa insists, wiggling between Sienna and Darci, who both complain loudly.

“Ow, damn your hip is bony!” Darci grumbles.

“This is fine. Totally fine,” I mutter under my breath, hunching my right shoulder in to give Sienna a little more room. “We’re fine.”

“Stop wiggling,” Sienna laughs, and finally the four of us seem to be in a halfway comfortable spot. Sienna pushes off with her toe on the ground, rocking us back and forth gently. “See, this is nice—”

The old wood groans ominously, shifting under us as the swing makes its forward arch, and then several shrieks of terror ring out as the entire swing gives out, the wooden beam above us splintering in the middle.

We all go careening backward onto the ground.

Wine spills everywhere, arms and legs flying, and then we finally come to a stop with the backrest of the swing lying flat on the ground.

Flat on our backs, legs straight up in the air, none of us dare to move or even make a sound.

And then, shocked peals of laughter break through the twilight.

Sienna reaches out her hands and clasps one of mine with her left and waits for Tess and Darci to grab hold of her right hand as we all laugh. I’m crying, tears rolling down my temples into my hair from laughing so hard. I can’t breathe.

“Ohmygod, I’m going to pee my pants!” Darci laughs shrilly, crossing her legs tightly. Tessa laughs all the harder, wearing most of her wine down the front of her shirt. Thank God the glasses Darci had brought out were plastic—probably Mom’s doing. She knows us too well.

Sienna rolls the back of her head along the ground to glance first at the other two, then brings her gaze back to mine and says, “Let’s never get too old, too busy, too whatever, for this.

Promise me we will always come back in the fall.

And that someday we will all find our happy ever after, right here in the gardens, just like Mom and Dad did, and just like Darci did.

Promise me that no matter how much time passes, or what happens in our lives, we will always be here for each other. ”

Tears prick my eyes again and I nod. She turns her head toward the other two and they nod, too. I squeeze her hand tight in my own and whisper, “Always.”