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  Praise for the Mossy Creek Hometown Series

  “Delightful.”

  —Marie Barnes, former First Lady of Georgia

  “Mitford meets Mayberry in the first book of this innovative and warmhearted new series from BelleBooks.”

  —Cleveland Daily Banner, Cleveland, Tennessee

  “MOSSY CREEK is as much fun as a cousin reunion; like sipping ice cold lemonade on a hot summer’s afternoon. Hire me a moving van, it’s the kind of town where everyone wishes they could live.”

  —Debbie Macomber, NYT bestselling author

  “A fast, funny, and folksy read. Enjoy!”

  —Lois Battle, acclaimed author of Storyville, Bed & Breakfast, and The Florabama Ladies’ Auxiliary & Sewing Circle

  “SUMMER IN MOSSY CREEK takes you to a land that time has not forgotten, but has embraced.”

  —Jackie K. Cooper, WMAC-AM, Macon, GA

  “Colorfully and cleverly portrayed. A wholesome story.”

  —Harriet Klausner, Amazon.com’s top reviewer

  “The characters and kinships of MOSSY CREEK are quirky, hilarious and all too human. This story reads like a delicious, meringue-covered slice of home. I couldn’t get enough.”

  —Pamela Morsi, USA Today bestselling author

  “[MOSSY CREEK] is a book you will not lend for fear you won’t get it back.”

  —Chloe LeMay, The Herald, Rock Hill, SC

  “These southern belle authors have done it again, even better this time.”

  —Bob Spear, Heartland Reviews

  “In the best tradition of women’s fiction, MOSSY CREEK points to a genuine spirit of love and community that is our best hope for the future.”

  —Betina Krahn, NYT bestselling author of The Last Bachelor

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to our dear friend and partner, Virginia “Gin” Ellis. We’ll say a toast in her honor at O’Day’s Pub. We’ll ask Jasmine Beleau for a bit of worldly wisdom. We’ll make sure young Linda Polk never forgets to believe in herself. We’ll always hear Gin’s kind voice and cherish her gentle strength in Mossy Creek.

  A Day in Mossy Creek

  by

  Deborah Smith

  Sandra Chastain

  Maureen Hardegree

  Virginia Ellis

  Dee Sterling

  Maureen Hardegree

  Carolyn McSparren

  Carolyn McSparren

  Carmen Green

  Susan Goggins

  Debra Dixon

  Sabrina Jeffries

  Wayne Dixon

  BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  BelleBooks

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-935661-19-1

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9768760-4-5

  Copyright © 2006 by BelleBooks, Inc.

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

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  Cover design: Martha Crockett

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Mossy Creek map: Dino Fritz

  Cover art credits: © J D Grant | Dreamstime.com

  :Edam:01:

  Map of Mossy Creek

  Odd Places & Beautiful Spaces

  A Guide to the Towns & Attractions of the South

  Mossy Creek, Georgia

  Don’t miss this quirky, historic Southern village on your drive through the Appalachian mountains! Located in a breathtaking valley two hours north of Atlanta, the town (1,700 residents, established 1839) is completely encircled by its lovely namesake creek. Picturesque bridges span the creek around the turn-of-the-century town square like charms on a bracelet. Be sure to arrive via the scenic route along South Bigelow Road, the main two-lane from Bigelow, Mossy Creek’s big-sister city, hometown of Georgia governor Ham Bigelow. (Don’t be surprised if you overhear “Creekites” in heated debate about Ham, who’s the nephew of longtime Mossy Creek mayor, Ida Walker.) You’ll know when you reach the Mossy Creek town limits—just look for the charming, whitewashed grain silo by the road at Mayor Walker’s farm. Painted with the town’s pioneer motto—Ain’t goin’ nowhere, and don’t want to—the silo makes a great photo opportunity. The motto perfectly sums up the stubborn (but not unfriendly) free spirits you’ll find everywhere in what the chamber of commerce calls “Greater Mossy Creek,” which includes the outlying mountain communities of Bailey Mill, Over, Yonder, and Chinaberry.

  Lodging, Dining, and Attractions: Shop and eat to your heart’s delight around the town’s shady square. Don’t miss Mama’s All You Can Eat Café, Beechum’s Bakery (be sure to say hello to Bob, the “flying” Chihuahua), The Naked Bean coffee shop, O’Day’s Pub, the Bubba Rice Diner, Hamilton’s Department Store (featuring the origami napkin work of local beauty queen Josie McClure), Hamilton House Inn, the I Probably Got It store, Moonheart’s Natural Living, and Mossy Creek Books and What-Nots. Drop by town hall for a look at the notorious Ten-Cent Gypsy (a carnival booth at the heart of a dramatic Creekite mystery). Stop by the town jail for an update on local shenanigans courtesy of Officer Sandy Crane, who calls herself “the gal in front of the man behind the badge,” Mossy Creek Police Chief Amos Royden (recently featured in Georgia Today Magazine as the sexiest bachelor police chief in the state). And don’t forget to pop into the newspaper offices of the Mossy Creek Gazette, where you can get the latest event news from Katie Bell, local gossip columnist extraordinaire.

  As Katie Bell likes to say, “In Mossy Creek, I can’t make up better stories than the truth.”

  A Who’s Who of Mossy Creek

  Ida Hamilton Walker—Mayor. Devoted to her town. Menopausal. Gorgeous. Trouble.

  Amos Royden—Ida’s much-younger police chief. Trying hard not to be irresistible.

  Katie Bell—Gossip columnist and town sleuth. Watch out!

  Sue Ora Salter Bigelow—Newspaper publisher. Fighting the Salter romance curse.

  Jasmine Beleau—Fashion consultant. Her secret past is a shocker.

  Josie McClure—Failed beauty queen. Budding interior designer. Talent: origami napkin folding.

  Harry Rutherford—Josie’s mountain man and fiancé. PhD and local version of Bigfoot.

  Hamilton Bigelow—Governor of Georgia. Ida’s nephew. A typical politician. ’Nuff said?

  Win Allen—aka Chef Bubba Rice—the Emeril of Mossy Creek.

  Ingrid Beechum—Baker. Doting surrogate grandma. Owns Bob, the famous “flying” Chihuahua.

  Hank and Casey Blackshear—Run the veterinary clinic. Most inspirational local love story.

  Sandy Crane—Amos’s scrappy dispatcher. If Dolly Parton and Barney Fife had a daughter.

  Ed Brady—Farmer. Santa. The toughest, sweetest old man in town.

  Rainey Cecil—Owns Goldilocks Hair, Nail and Tanning Salon. Bringing big hair to a whole new generation.

  Michael Conners—Sexy Chicago Yankee whose Irish pub lures d
art-tourney sharks.

  Tag Garner—Ex pro-footballer turned sculptor. Good natured when bitten by old ladies.

  Maggie Hart—Herbalist. Tag’s main squeeze. Daughter of old lady who bit him.

  Millicent Hart—See above. Town kleptomaniac. Sorry she bit Tag. Sort of.

  Del Jackson—Hunky retired lieutenant colonel. Owns Ida’s heart. For now. See Amos.

  Bert Lyman—The voice of Mossy Creek. Owner, manager, DJ of WMOS Radio.

  Opal Suggs—Retired teacher who adopts needy kids. Talks to her sisters’ ghosts who foretell NASCAR winners.

  Dwight Truman—Chamber president. Insurance tycoon. Ida’s nemesis, along with Ham Bigelow. Weasel.

  Swee Purla—Evil interior design maven. Makes even Martha Stewart look wimpy.

  The Mossy Creek Gazette

  215 Main Street • Mossy Creek, Georgia

  From the Desk of Katie Bell, Business Manager

  Lady Victoria Salter Stanhope

  The Cliffs, Seaward Road

  St. Ives, Cornwall TR37PJ

  United Kingdom

  Hey, Vick!

  Have you ever heard the saying, “Still waters run deep?”

  No? Well, maybe it’s an American “thang.” We say it a lot in Mossy Creek, though most of our waters aren’t still. Right now, considering it’s wintertime and cold enough to freeze an Eskimo, our waters—still or not—have a rim of ice. You know, Vick, it’s strange how we get ice and cold weather, but not much snow. Even here in the north Georgia mountains, we’re lucky to have one big snow day per winter—meaning enough white on the ground to grab a make-do sled and head for the nearest steep hill.

  So it’s cold and dry here, with bright blue skies and frost on the windows. Snuggling weather. Frisky weather. Bored-indoors-and-looking-for-excitement weather.

  You know what that means. In Mossy Creek, it means Trouble.

  I swear. One Saturday in mid-January the temperature went down, and the calls to the police went up.

  What a day!

  Your chilly gossip correspondent,

  Katie

  Chapter 1

  A New Year’s resolution is meant to be broken.

  Ida Gives as Good as She Gets

  IT SEEMED LIKE just another Saturday in Mossy Creek, but I knew different. Trouble whirled through the cold winter air. My Creekite intuition went on high alert.

  I had been punked.

  That’s how my granddaughter, Little Ida, put it. Last fall, Nana, you got punked at the Sitting Tree. Meaning I was had. This is what I deserve for buying Little Ida a rap-music version of Mother Goose’s fairy tales for her birthday. An eight-year-old who talks like Eminem.

  But it’s true. Last fall yours truly, the smart and wily Ida Hamilton Walker, got punked. Bamboozled. Conned. By my own police chief. Amos Royden threatened to take our relationship public, that is, to court me, to pursue me, to put some moves on me. To make our invisible romance a real one.

  As mayor of Mossy Creek I can stand my ground on any threat except being openly seduced by my own police chief. So last fall I turned tail and ran, to my shame. But I didn’t desert The Sitting Tree. Oh, no. I just went underground with my civil disobedience, on the tree’s behalf.

  I marshaled the Foo Club and the rest of my loyal troops, and discreetly directed their protests. We managed to stir up plenty of public outrage and get the TV news cameras turned on us, a tactic we’ve perfected several times since we kidnapped the new welcome sign a while back. As a bonus, we antagonized my pompous nephew, Governor Ham Bigelow, who, as it turned out, has a big-money family connection to the scheme to bulldoze the tree. As usual.

  Best of all, we got a temporary restraining order against Whoopee Arcades, Inc., the cheesy, underhanded, Bigelow-cronyism-connected amusement park developer who was planning to destroy the Sitting Tree and flatten the foothill ridges of Rose Top, the historic mountain where the tree stands in a lower meadow.

  Since then I’ve kept the restraining order alive while feverishly searching for evidence I need to save the tree and its mountain meadow permanently. I know I’ll win that battle, but it’ll be a tainted victory. I can’t forgive myself for my cowardice in the face of Amos’s oh-so-not-subtle romantic threat. No way. I’ve been kicking my own svelte behind for the past four months.

  “It must be menopause,” I told my cousin and best gal pal, Ingrid Beechum. “Amos gives me one indiscreet look and I lose the ability to think straight. How about you and I call a meeting of the garden club, including Eula Mae and every other wise old woman we can think of in Mossy Creek, drink some martinis, then perform one of those ‘Embrace Your Inner Crone’ rituals? Maybe then I’ll accept my middle-agedness and stop wishing for . . . stop wishing. I’m a grandmother, for godssake!”

  Ingrid snorted. “Menopause? You just had your hormones checked. If your estrogen level were any higher you’d qualify as a fertility goddess. Admit it, cousin. Damn the controversy. This is the twenty-first century. Fifty is the new thirty. Older women aren’t old. They run corporations, they wear thong underwear, they sleep with younger men. You want to be with Amos. Until you come to terms with that, your Inner Crone won’t be any match for your Outer Hottie.”

  Ingrid has spewed wisdom like that ever since she squelched her personal demons and became a surrogate grandmother to Jayne Reynold’s little boy. Ingrid not only embraces her Inner Crone, she’s put thong panties on it.

  All right, I admit it: I’m not a crone yet, and I don’t want to become one. Ever. I’m proud of my sexy body and proud of being the outrageously sexy mayor of Mossy Creek, the town my family helped create and I’m charged with protecting. If I can keep Mossy Creek safe and secure from the ravages of a world too eager to bulldoze everything sacred, I’ll grow old happily. Some day. But not right now.

  Right now I’ve got to decide what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Make hay while the sun shines. Get wild or get mild. Choose.

  Oh, god, but I don’t want to choose. In the past few years, retired Colonel Del Jackson has romanced my socks off—and other articles of clothing—and I’ve had a great time with him. How can I seriously think about Amos when I’ve got Del? Del’s a brindle-haired hunk of mature man, he’s confident, sexy, fun, romantic, and he’s my age. So why was there always this pestering little voice in my head, this Peggy Lee voice, softly caterwauling, Is that all there is?

  Peggy Lee? My mother listened to Peggy Lee, for godssake. My uptight older sister, Ardaleen, listens to Peggy Lee. But not me. I’m a free spirit, a child of the Sixties, I still have my tie-dyed peasant skirt from college. I’m a Stevie Nicks gal. I own every Fleetwood Mac album and every single song Stevie Nicks recorded after the group broke up. I also own the eight-tracks of those albums, and the cassettes, and the CDs, and when they come out with an electrode that allows me to plug an iPod into my head and pump the music straight to my brain, I’ll probably own that, too. I channel Stevie Nicks like a psychic channels a spirit. Not Peggy Lee.

  Is that all there is? What? All what is? What am I wishing for?

  Rescue. There’s that word, again, the horrible word. Rescue me. Rescue me. Rescue me. I’ve never asked to be rescued in my entire life. Even with Jeb, my husband, my soulmate, the father of my son—I never asked Jeb to rescue me. So why do I keep thinking this way?

  Rescue me from myself, Amos.

  This is why I’ve been having nightmares since last fall.

  It’s the same dream, over and over. I cling helplessly to a high branch of the Sitting Tree, and beneath me stands Amos, looking up at me with his quiet, intensely complex dark eyes.

  “Rescue me,” I call down, despite the fact that I should feel maternal or something, since he’s fifteen years younger than I. Despite the fact that I’m his boss, as mayor of Mossy Creek. Talk about a violation of ethics.
Talk about the potential for sexual harassment. Talk about an episode of Desperate Housewives. But in my dream I don’t care. I have no ethics. And no shame.

  “Rescue me,” I whisper.

  And he nods, and his face relaxes, and he holds up both strong, capable arms. Whenever I’m close to him, he smells like fresh cotton sheets dried in the summer sun. I’ve never told anyone that, before. Especially not him. But he seems to know my secrets. “Take a chance on me, Ida,” he says. “I’m clean. Let go. Jump.”

  I push myself off the high limb, and I fall happily toward his arms.

  And then I wake up. Terrified. No menopausal hot flash could possibly be worse than the flop sweat of my Amos dream. I can’t bear to find out whether Amos catches me. I can’t bear to find out if he lets me hit the ground, hard. I don’t want to dream about wanting Amos. I don’t want to remember our torrid conversation at the Sitting Tree last fall. That’s sacrilege. I kissed Jeb under that tree, when we were young.

  But after he died, I kissed Amos under that tree, too.

  I wince every time I think about that fact. Amos was sixteen, but serious and mature for his age, and I was 31, a grieving widow. It was just a kiss. For comfort, I told myself. And just once. But still. Twenty years have passed since our kiss, but the infamy of it, and the allure, have never faded. Neither Amos nor I mentioned it again. Never even hinted at it.

  Until he punked me at the tree, last fall.

  I have to get Amos out of my dreams, my memories, my mind. I have to get him out of the Sitting Tree.

  Let me rescue you, Ida.

  No, Amos. I’ve got to rescue myself.

  DAWN HAD JUST broken. I got up earlier than usual at Hamilton Farm, after another bad dream about Amos and the Tree. Plus I expected an early phone call from Hope Bailey Settles, my other favorite cousin and co-conspirator, who I’d sent on a mission that was probably a longshot. At the moment she and her husband, Marle, were up in Asheville, North Carolina, a good three hours’ drive from Mossy Creek. Hope had spent the past two days ripping old paneling off the attic walls of a historic house that had once belonged to our mutual great aunt, Belinda Hamilton Bailey. With any luck, she’d found the evidence we needed to save the Tree once and for all.