Organically Yours: Sanctuary, Book Five by Abbie Zanders (love letters to the dead txt) 📕

in identifying and marking off cave-ins and blockages as well. But since the coal-rich mountains were chock-full of mines, both documented and undocumented, it could take years to explore them all.

Doc finished one particularly complex section and looked up to the screen, his eyes immediately searching for their guest. He’d been doing so on and off for the last two hours, each time taking comfort in the fact that Tina seemed to be having a good visit with Kate, Sam, Sandy, and Bree. But this time, she wasn’t there. The table where they’d been sitting was now unoccupied.

He pushed to his feet, out the door before he realized what he was doing. Tina couldn’t have left already. He hadn’t even had a chance to talk to her.

He nearly collided with Sandy in the hallway.

“Whoa. Where’s the fire?” she asked.

“Sorry, Sandy. Did Tina leave?”

Her brows pulled together. “No. Kate said she had to do something with dinner, so Mad Dog’s giving her a tour of the greenhouses.”

“Ah.” Doc’s relief turned to slight embarrassment when Sandy’s lips quirked.

“Relax. You didn’t miss her. She’s staying for dinner.”

“Oh. Good to know.”

Sandy’s quirk turned into a knowing grin. “You like her, huh?”

“What? No. I mean, yeah, she seems nice enough.”

Her grin grew. “She is.”

“Right. Well ... I promised Justin I’d help him with the dogs. I should get to it.”

“Uh-huh. See you at dinner?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Definitely.

Chapter Eleven

Tina

The greenhouses were incredible. Kate’s husband, Chris—who had come up with the design—said he had started with a prototype and was expanding from there.

“I’m really impressed,” she told him honestly, breathing deep to inhale the heady scents of soil and water and fresh growth. It was like spring but inside.

The massive hexagonal structure was cutting edge with hinged sections on the sloped ceiling that opened with the touch of a button. Sliding Plexiglas panels worked similarly along outer and inner walls, partitioning the massive space into smaller sections, allowing each to have its own ideal growing environment.

What really impressed her, however, was the advanced hydroponic system. Not only did it collect rain and snow melt, but it also brought in water from the nutrient-rich stock pond and recycled it back through a complex gravity-based drainage network. Even better, everything was powered using solar panels and small-scale wind turbines.

“About twenty percent of our fresh produce comes from here,” Chris told her proudly as they walked past the raised beds holding an assortment of fruit and vegetable plants. “We’re still figuring things out.”

Tina had been dreaming of doing something like this for years, but each time she brought up the idea of bringing their greenhouses into the twenty-first century, her brothers would shoot it down, citing the cost as too prohibitive to be feasible. While disappointing, she understood where they were coming from. Obermacher Farms could never produce crops on their current scale using such methods, but Sanctuary could. They needed only to sustain themselves, and that was more than doable.

“I think you’ve done a phenomenal job,” Tina told him honestly. “How did you come up with all this?”

He grinned. “It’s amazing what you can find on the internet when you know what to look for. The state university has a great agriculture program with plenty of information on sustainability and renewable resources.”

Tina knew they did because that was where she’d earned her degree. In fact, she’d written quite a few articles for the site herself. “I might be able to help. Maybe offer some suggestions. I have some practical experience with sustainable farming.”

“You do?”

Tina nodded. “I did work-study programs through my undergrad and grad years.”

Those programs had put her in her family’s bad graces more than once, but the experience and knowledge gained had been invaluable. “Each year, a team of us would go into a region, usually a poor one with unsuitable natural resources for farming, and build systems that would work for them. In one particularly dry climate, we created a completely soil-free growing environment using suspension and a recycling hydroponic system similar to the one you have here.”

“Now, I’m the one impressed.”

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks and looked away. The praise was unexpected but welcome all the same.

“We can talk with Church about it over dinner, see what he thinks,” Kate’s husband said.

“Church?”

“Sorry, Matt,” he clarified. “I’m so used to calling him Church that I forget not everyone does.”

“It’s a call name, I take it?” Like Doc.

He nodded.

“What’s yours?”

For a moment, she didn’t think he’d answer and wondered if maybe she’d made some kind of faux pas by asking. Doc hadn’t seemed to mind, but maybe others did.

“Mad Dog,” he said finally.

Tina eyed him skeptically. He was a large, muscular guy but clearly soft-spoken and intelligent. Not once had the image of a rabid canine crossed her mind over the course of the afternoon.

“Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.”

“Fair enough.”

They stepped outside and walked down a path to the stock pond, which was actually an offshoot of the small lake on the property. Chris explained that a depression beneath the surface had created a natural aquarium-like environment. However, it didn’t look deep enough to withstand winter temperatures and still function.

“How do you keep it from freezing?” Tina asked, fascinated.

“Filtered pumps and continuous recirculation of warmer water from the greenhouses with pipes below the frostline. We’ve had some hiccups, but we’re making progress.”

A sharp whistle had them both looking to the side, where a massive pit bull was running their way. The dog was big and beefy and completely bypassed Chris, making a beeline straight for her.

Tina remained perfectly still as the dog reached her and began to circle her slowly.

“It’s okay,” Chris told her. “He’s one of ours.”

Tina breathed a sigh of relief and let the dog sniff the back of her hand.

“Duke!” a sharp voice commanded, and instantly, the dog turned and retreated to the man who joined them.

Doc. He was looking as good as always, his flannel shirt flapping open to hint at the form-fitting thermal beneath it.

The pit bull instantly sat