Lavender & Mistletoe by Donna Kauffman

Author:Donna Kauffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zebra Books
Published: 2019-06-24T14:57:38+00:00

Chapter 7

“I’m all popcorned out.”

Ben glanced over and watched Avery as she sank down onto the overstuffed cushions of the gold brocade couch. Or davenport, as Vivi had called it. A favorite piece that Vivi explained had been in her family for several generations. It was worn, a bit lumpy, and yet quite grand in scale and design. Ben liked the faded glory of the piece, and that they’d let it age gracefully rather than giving it a modern face-lift. The whole house had that feel to it. He liked being there. He liked it a lot. He could say the same about Blue Hollow Falls in general. He had been enjoying his stay out at Doc’s farm, as well.

Doc’s farmhouse was a bit drafty, and not particularly homey, but Ben loved the big old barn. Doc had built the clinic area on to the existing structure, but in the barn proper, he’d renovated and restructured the building so that it was like one big animal rehab center, with recovery rooms roomy enough to house his largest patients, areas set aside for physical therapy for anything with four legs, from dogs to horses.

Doc had a home office on the ground floor of the farmhouse, which looked often-used and quite lived-in. There was a smaller one in the clinic, where all the patient files were managed, but Ben liked the space Doc had created inside the barn itself. It didn’t look like it got a lot of use, but Ben had gravitated to it right away. Partly because he’d wanted a space that felt like his own, so he wasn’t encroaching on Doc’s organized systems and routines, but mostly because he honestly just felt more at home there. There was even a small studio just behind it, for bunking in when there was a need to stay close to a particular patient. Ben had found himself staying out there as often as not even though there weren’t any patients in residence at the moment.

He knew Avery lived in the addition that had been built on to the back of the manor house during an upgrade in the previous century. It was its own small apartment, with two bedrooms, an office, and her self-built lab. He’d yet to see it personally, but while they’d been putting up the tree that evening after a wonderful dinner of Vivi’s amazing lasagna, Chey had teased Avery about her mad scientist laboratory slowly taking over her whole living space.

Ben liked—a lot—how the women were with each other. He was glad Avery had told him a bit of their origin story. He knew they were a family made, not born, but there was so much love among them, along with the teasing, and the laughter. He had yet to meet Hannah, but the three he had met were as close as any family he’d been around. He thought they were exceedingly fortunate to have found one another and forged such a tight bond. Each of the four

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.