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

And maybe, just maybe, she’d catch a glimpse of the mysterious men—one hazel-eyed Good Samaritan in particular—who had chosen to make the place their new home.

It was important to keep her expectations realistic, however. A lot had happened since she’d last been there. She’d been in high school then, the summer before a horrific fire claimed the lives of the entire Winston family—except for Matt, who’d been serving in the military at the time.

Her stomach tightened at the thought of it. The tragedy had gutted their small, tight-knit community. Like the Obermachers, the Winstons were an old, established family, and in the blink of an eye, they were no more.

For a long time afterward, Tina had had nightmares about the same thing happening to her family. Of coming home to find everyone she loved just ... gone.

Thankfully, that hadn’t happened, but the last decade hadn’t been without loss. Tina’s grandfather was the first to go. Then, her father had a sudden and massive heart attack while harvesting feed corn one day. Not long after, her mother took an accidental overdose—at least, that was the official story—and was gone too. That had left just the Obermacher matriarch—Tina’s grandmother—and her siblings to carry on.

The family business had been divided evenly between Tina and her brothers. Gunther, who didn’t like getting his hands dirty, handled the business end of things. Kiefer took over the vegetable crops, Rick handled grains, and Tina did fruits.

They didn’t always agree. Rick and Gunther could be pigheaded and often shared the same mind. Kiefer could be reasonable at times, but he was more likely to go along with whatever Rick and Gunther wanted.

There was no doubt in her mind that they would be opposed to her decision to go to Sanctuary alone, which was exactly why she hadn’t told anyone about her plans.

She’d heard the same rumors everyone else had, of course. If Rick and some of his drinking buddies were to be believed, Matt Winston was turning his family legacy into a veritable fortress, amassing guns and weapons and building a small army of mentally unstable former servicepeople.

Tina didn’t believe that for a minute. For one thing, she knew Matt Winston—or at least, the man he used to be. Sure, serving in the military could change a lot of things about a person but not who they were at their core, and Matt Winston was good people.

Nor did she believe that Matt’s purpose in restoring the old place was a dark one. Both he and his family had always been very community-minded. Why people tended to forget that was beyond her. Either they had short memories or they were allowing Daryl Freed and his ilk to rewrite local history.

Dressed in layers, Tina locked up the small caretaker’s cottage she called home and set off. The Winston place wasn’t far as the crow flies, but there was no road that led directly there from where she was, which meant she had to go down toward the town to get to the road that led back up.

Thirty minutes later, she reached her destination. The long driveway with its overarching branches brought back pleasant memories. Soon, those trees and the abundant mountain laurel behind them would be loaded with blossoms, filling the mountain air with the scents of yet another spring.

She pulled into a parking spot just off the circular drive and gazed approvingly at the half-wall and steps. Both had recently been redone by the look of things, and they’d done a really good job, using the same local stone that had been used in the original manor house and the subsequent additions they’d put on when the place became a resort.

That, too, had been skillfully redone. It bore no resemblance to the charred, blackened ruins that had been splashed across the front page of the Sumneyville Times for weeks.

Nor did it look remotely close to a military bunker.

“Tina Obermacher. It’s good to see you.”

Tina turned around to find Matt Winston offering a friendly, familiar smile. He’d filled out since she’d last seen him, but there was no mistaking that angled, masculine face and those soulful golden-brown eyes. He, like her, was dressed in layers, which did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that he was in great physical condition.

In high school, Matt had been gorgeous. As a man, he was devastating. It was no wonder some women sighed when his name came up, even as their tongues were wagging with the latest hearsay.

“Matt Winston. Good to see you, too. It’s been a long minute, huh?”

“That it has. Welcome to Sanctuary. Do you want to come in and have some coffee before we head out to the orchard?”

Since they were both dressed for outdoor exploration, it made sense to get business out of the way. “How about we see what you’ve got first?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They walked down to the orchard. The grove was small, taking up less than ten acres, so they were able to cover it all in under an hour. There was a nice mix of apple, cherry, pear, and—her personal favorite—peach trees. Unfortunately, the years of neglect had left their mark.

Even in the starkness of almost-spring, it was obvious that nothing had been done in years. Invasive weeds and poison ivy had been allowed to grow unchecked. There’d been no pruning, no pest control, no proper fertilization, and deer had done quite a bit of damage to the trunks with their antlers.

“So, what do you think?” he asked as they were making their way back to the main building.

“I hate to say it, Matt, but I think most of it’s too far gone to salvage. You can try, of course, but if it were me, I’d start fresh.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “That’s what I thought. Wanted to check with an expert first though. What would we have to do to rebuild?”

“Well, the site is ideal. Eastern-facing, rolling land, and a mild slope are exactly what you want, so I don’t