Sappy Go Lucky (Planted and Plowed #4)

Chapter 1

Eva

I inherited a maple grove.

A man named Lionel, the only lawyer in this entire town, sits across a massive wooden desk, blinking at me from behind coke-bottle glasses. I, Eva Storm, am the only beneficiary of a dilapidated maple syrup operation deep in the Catskills.

“We have been trying to reach you for some time,” he says, frowning at the paperwork.

I perch on my seat, worried it will collapse and dump me into a stack of yellowed files on the frayed carpet.

I’ve been trying to ignore the certified mail that keeps showing up at my sister’s house back in Pittsburgh.

I thought it was something to do with my mother, and I really didn’t want to get involved.

Turns out the father I never met has died after decades of ignoring the property he inherited from other long-lost relatives.

Lionel blinks some more, owlish against his dark brown skin. “Are you ready to sign the documents?”

I reach into the purse on my lap and pull out a gel pen with purple, sparkly ink.

“I guess I might as well.” I twist the pen lid a few times, taking it all in.

One signature and I become responsible for a massive old house set on a dozen acres of land.

My mind whirs, wondering how long it will take me to organize a real estate sale.

Lionel coughs. “Legal documents require blue ink.” He slides a chewed-up ballpoint pen across the desk, and I take a minute to wonder who gnawed on it.

I sign with a flourish, and Lionel nods. “Very good, Ms. Storm. Welcome to Fork Lick.”

My boots crunch on the gravel in the parking lot outside as I make my way to my sister’s car.

I was supposed to buy it from her, but that’s on hold until I figure out my finances among all this maple sap.

I pull out my phone to text the Storm Sisters Group Chat, knowing they are probably dying for information.

That’s an exaggeration. They’re all at work.

I own a farm. Orchard? Is it a factory?

I stare at the screen, watching in frustration as the message slowly sends.

The service here is spotty. I unlock the car and toss the paperwork onto the passenger seat while I wait for one of them to reply.

We have different absentee fathers, and Mom gave us all her last name, which is about the only thing she gave us.

My sperm donor kicked the bucket and left me to clean up the mess.

Eila

Have you seen it yet?

Eden

Are there bees?

Esther

Did you find a realtor who can sell it for you?

Of course, Esther is already pushing me to sell. I chuck my phone onto the heap of paperwork, turn on the engine, and slowly navigate to the former home of Walter and June Pierce.

I’m part of the Pierce family. It feels strange to have relatives I never knew. They had entire lives—ran a business and died while I was in Pittsburgh, mooching a bedroom from my big sister.

It’s… unsettling.

I turn onto the lane—this place has lanes! How fun is that?—and drive past a cute farm, then a tidy yard with an actual mailbox on a wooden post that reads Thorne. It has rose bushes underneath, dormant in the February chill.

Then I get to my driveway. It’s more like a group of potholes strung together with crumbling asphalt. Esther’s car creaks and groans as the tires jut in and out of the dips. I give up about halfway to the house and cut the engine, pulling the emergency brake before hiking the rest of the journey.

Lionel gave me the keys, but the front door is ajar when I arrive.

If this were the city, I’d worry the house was full of drug users, but something tells me raccoons are more likely to be the squatters.

I freeze in the entryway, where a framed photo of a couple hangs crookedly on a wall with faded floral wallpaper.

In the sun-bleached photo, a middle-aged man rocking a bushy mustache kisses the cheek of a middle-aged woman whose smile lights up the entire frame.

This must be Walter and June, beautiful and happy in this moment amidst the ruins.

I trace my fingers along my own jaw, trying to decide if I have either of their noses.

I guess only Walter is related to me by blood.

I’m struck by an overwhelming sadness at all this absence in my life.

And at the fact that the father who abandoned my pregnant mother also abandoned his responsibilities to Pierce Acres.

My hands shake as I pull out my phone to call Esther, who thankfully answers right away.

“Hey, kiddo. You all right?” The reception is terrible, but the warmth of Esther’s familiar voice settles my nerves.

“I’m at the house,” I say, my voice coming out smaller than I intended. “Esther, it’s… it’s a lot.”

“Tell me what you see.”

I wander deeper into the house, phone pressed to my ear. “There’s this photo of Walter and June where they look so happy.” My throat tightens. “I never even knew they existed, and now they’re gone, and I’m supposed to just… what? Sell their whole life?”

“You don’t have to decide anything today,” Esther says gently. “Just look around. See what you’re working with.” Esther usually doesn’t have time for kindness, which tells me this is as big a deal as it feels like.

I move through rooms frozen in time—a kitchen with avocado-green appliances, a living room with a couch still wearing its plastic cover, dust motes dancing in the afternoon light streaming through grimy windows.

Everything is dated but not destroyed. I mean, there’s a layer of grime everywhere, and I know enough to recognize heaps of mouse poop.

But otherwise, it’s like they just… left one day and never came back.

“The house is actually kind of solid,” I tell Esther, running my hand along the banister of a wooden staircase.

“Needs a deep clean and some updates, but the bones are good.” My influencer brain is already cataloging the original hardwood floors, the farmhouse sink, and the built-in shelving that could look amazing with the right styling.

“I wonder if Nate would come take a look,” I say. My brother-in-law is a carpenter, but he and my sister Eden are up to their ears with custom beehive supplies and beeswax beauty products. I know this because I manage their marketing.

Esther grunts, and the metallic clang I hear above the static tells me she’s probably changing out a keg at the bar she owns. “What about the actual syrup-making stuff?”

“Haven’t looked yet. Let me go outside.”

I step onto the sagging back porch and immediately understand the word dilapidated.

The wood is seriously past its prime. The railing is cracked and leaning, the steps crooked and warped.

Beyond the house, a cluster of weathered huts sags at various levels of decay.

But behind them, spreading across the hillside, is a forest of maple trees.

“Oh,” I breathe.

“What?”

“Esther, there are so many trees.” I walk forward without thinking, phone still at my ear, drawn toward the grove. “They’re huge. Old. Some of them have, like, taps hanging out of the trunks. All rusty and forgotten…”

The maple grove is dense and wild, sunlight filtering through the branches in golden shafts. It’s beautiful in that Instagram-perfect way, except nobody’s been here to photograph it. Nobody’s been here to care for it at all.

“This could be really something,” I hear myself say. “I mean, it would take a ton of work… Esther, this place could be stunning.”

“Are you thinking about keeping it?”

“What? No. No, I’m just noticing things.” I’m absolutely thinking about keeping it, which is insane. I have a life in Pittsburgh. I have work. I have my sisters. I can’t stay here in the middle of nowhere because some trees are pretty.

Can I?

“Eva, you’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where you get all dreamy and start planning before you think it through.”

“I am not—” I stop walking abruptly. Through the trees ahead, I can see the neighbor’s house—the one with the Thorne mailbox. It’s much closer than I expected. Close enough that I can almost see through the windows.

“There’s someone over there,” I tell Esther.

“Well, yeah. People live in Fork Lick. Also, I can barely hear you.”

“Let me try to video call.” I switch to video, holding out the phone and fluffing my hair as I wait for Esther to accept. “Can you see it?”

I gesture around, give her a little twirl to show her the amazing trees and could-be-amazing house.

“I can’t see you, but I can hear you. How isolated are you there? Should I worry?”

“Hm, I don’t think so. Everyone I've met so far has been really nice.” Everyone is basically Lionel and the equally ancient man working the desk at the motel where I booked a room for the night.

“Can you see any of the grove I own?” I drift closer to the property line, moving my phone camera through the trees.

The Thorne house is tidy and well-maintained, clearly inhabited by someone who knows how to take care of a yard.

Solar panels glint on the roof; theirs is a well-kept driveway, and the lawn has beautifully mown grass.

“I should probably introduce myself at some point,” I mutter. “You know, be neighborly. Let them know someone’s finally dealing with this place.”

“See how you’re mentally committing to this?” Esther huffs. “This screams responsibility, Eva. Do not insert yourself among the locals.”

I’m about to respond when a shape moves past one of the windows. A very large shape. “Esther, I think there’s a—”

The shape appears in the yard, arms moving, approaching me. For a split second, I can make out broad shoulders, what might be a beard, and… Oh god, is he looking at me?

I back toward my house because he seems not to want me at his. Is he shooing me like I’m a raccoon? He keeps waving his arms until the irrational part of my city-girl brain freaks out. Huge. Mountain man. Lumberjack. Possible yeti.

In my haste to get into the Pierce house, I stumble. My phone flies from my hand, tumbling into the undergrowth somewhere behind me. I can hear Esther’s voice calling my name, crackly and distant and increasingly panicked.

“EVA? EVA? WHAT’S HAPPENING?”

I scramble after the phone, heart hammering, face burning with embarrassment even though nobody—I think—actually witnessed my freak-out. My fingers close around the case, and I yank it up, clods of dirt falling from the screen.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” I gasp into the phone. “I just—there was a person. A really big person. Like a yeti or a lumberjack or—”

“I’m calling the police!”

“No! Don’t! I’m fine, seriously. I just scared myself being creepy and spying on the neighbors—”

A sound cuts through the air. A crash, maybe? Or a yell? It’s hard to tell over my own heavy breathing and Esther’s continued nagging.

I freeze, staring through the trees at the neighbor’s house. Did something just happen over there?

“Eva, where are you right now?” Esther sounds calmer, at least.

“I’m… I’m by the porch. Near the house I now own.” I back away slowly, clutching my phone with both hands. The screen has a crack running diagonally across it. Perfect. “I think I’ll head back to the car.”

“That sounds like an excellent plan.”

I walk around the other side of the house, noticing the foundation seems fine. There’s not even moss growing on it like there is at Eliza’s house. I can see the Thorne house from the front of mine. Nothing seems to be moving or amiss. Maybe I imagined the sound. Maybe I’m jumpy.

“I’m almost at the car,” I tell Esther, my voice steadier now. “I’ll figure out the next steps from the motel.”

“Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?”

“No, I’m okay. Really. I’m just… I’m going to go now.”

“Call me when you get to your hotel. I mean it, Eva.”

“I will. Love you.”

I end the call and shove the phone into my pocket, breaking into a jog.

When I reach the battered sedan, I practically throw myself inside and lock all the doors.

My hands are shaking as I grip the steering wheel, staring through the windshield at the house—my house—silhouetted against the fading light.

What the hell am I doing here?

I came to sign papers and sell. To be responsible and adult and deal with this inheritance the practical way. And I walked into a house alone, with unlocked doors and spotty cell reception.

I jab my finger at the car’s ignition button, and it hums to life, headlights snapping on in the fading light.

And that’s when I see the man crawling toward me, arm outstretched, dark-bearded face contorted.