Williams Whispers of Hope

Finding Love and Legacy in the Heartland
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 979-8-99629110-6
Verlag: Dreamway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 367 Seiten

Reihe: Whispers of Appalachia

She came to escape her past. She stayed to claim her future.

Twenty-five-year-old Kaezia Gilbert thought Jason Landon was her future-until she discovered his wife and children. Shattered by betrayal, she seeks answers. She begins finding them as she inherits her great-grandfather's farm in Harrison Valley, West Virginia, a place where she spent childhood summers before her mother's death. The farm is a disaster: rotting foundations, collapsing barns, and fields choked with weeds. Yet something about this broken land calls to her broken heart. As Kaezia learns to drive tractors and navigate small-town dynamics, she catches the attention of Dr. Aiden Graham, a shy military veteran whose kindness contradicts his mother Vera's grasping jealousy and vicious gossip. Kaezia's great-aunt Artemissa becomes her guide, revealing that Grampy left her not just his beloved Westfall Farm but a nest-egg and a legacy of faith. When Vera forces her way between them as their relationship grows, one question haunts her: If she opens her heart to this reserved doctor, will she finally find genuine love, or is she destined to repeat her painful mistakes? More importantly, can her blossoming faith survive yet another blow?

Whispers of Hope is the first installment in Misty Williams and Richard Williams' moving Contemporary Romance series. If you love stories of personal transformation, family legacy, and tender romance set against Appalachian beauty, then you'll adore this deeply emotional journey.

Start your escape to Harrison Valley today!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Williams, Misty

Williams, Richard

Leseproben

2

Aunty –I settled on Aunty as easier than Aunt Arty or Aunt Artemissa—had arranged for the other folks to meet us here. Aunty gave me a ring of keys with different color silicone rings on the heads of each one. Blue for the house, red for the barn and so on. I took them from her, repeating to myself “I chose this. I chose this,” in my mind, determined to take responsibility for my own actions. The rotting-wood porch door wasn’t locked but stuck and it dropped from the casing as I yanked to pull it open. Apparently, there was enough damage to the door casing that the screws that held the hinges in had “wallered” out. Alex and the scruffy, tall-ish, broad-ish man took the door that was now leaning on me, and set it inside the porch. I walked in, took a deep breath and unlocked the inner door. 

By this time, I was really worried about what would greet me on the other side of this door. But the room I walked into was a welcome, almost heady relief. The house was not bad on the inside. The window frames and casings, like the ones in the front sun-porch, were wooden and some appeared to be warped. Others showed very minor signs of rot. The house didn’t smell bad. I had expected it to have an odor. I’m not sure if I thought it would be trash or animal droppings, but there was no foreign or at least unpleasant smell. The scent in the house was old wood, some sort of real pine, a hint of lemon and… To my surprise, clean. I don’t know why I thought it would have looked like some of the old abandoned houses one sees in Detroit, but this house was clean, and aside from the obvious age and need of repairs, it appeared more than fit for a person to move right in. And of course, it was I realized. No matter Grampy’s state of mind in the last months of his life, Aunty would have made sure his home was clean and orderly. I looked at her and she smiled

“Oh, I did a spic-n-span in it after Father passed, but he kept it up himself.” She glanced around the front room and smiled a little. “Looking back, I knew his time was nearing as his area of influence got smaller; from the fields to the yard and barn, then just the house and garage, and finally just the house. But he kept the house neat as a pin until the day he died.”

I took a moment to walk through. We stood in a comfortable sitting room. The furnishings were old and showed definite signs of wear, but they were clean. I was instantly in love with the wooden side tables with their scroll work and dark-shiny finishes. None of them matched exactly, but that didn’t seem to matter. Was that a treadle sewing machine in the corner? Gorgeous. I love antiques. The room seemed small and cramped, and the ceiling felt low, but it was really ok. I went through the door into a dining room. The table and chairs were again, lovely antique pieces; the chairs were low, with worn tapestry seats and curvy harps framed in the backs. “Oh...” The red-haired woman breathed quietly, a note of awe in her voice. “Duncan Phyfe.” The chairs had curved lines, nothing seemed squared off about them. There was a slightly-yellowed lace table cloth covering the matching table. “My grandmother’s.” Aunty said as I touched the delicate cloth. “Yours too, now I think about it.” The room was tiny, but still had room for the table, eight chairs, a sideboard and a China cabinet. If one was willing to turn their body to shuffle sideways between them all, rather than walking forward.

I continued through the house, visiting the tiny room that I had always slept in while visiting. I realized only now that it was a little back porch or mud room. The roll away bed that had been mine was folded up against the wall. The bathroom was also very small, with archaic fixtures —one of which was a long, deep, claw-footed tub. OK, that could stay, but the toilet and sink had to go. They looked like they had been installed during Coolidge’s presidency and with an eye toward that man’s financial policies. What I supposed would be considered the “master” bedroom was, like the rest of the house, small with what felt like a lowered ceiling. There was a wall closet in this room, which I was grateful for. The bed here was… barely a full-sized bed, but it was covered by a lovely patchwork quilt. The wall closet contained a collection of quilts like the one on the bed in varying colors. I didn’t take time to check, but I would bet they were hand made to the last stitch. There were a number of pillows and the way they were fluffed together had me wondering if they were all real feather.

Finally, we entered the kitchen. This was easily the largest room in the house. The front room and dining room combined could have tucked up in here with a little room left over. There was a very black stove in the corner with a small pile of wood beside it—a wood cookstove? I had no idea how to cook on a wood burning kitchen range, but I supposed I would have to figure it out. Also had no clue what to make of the ringer washer in the corner. I knew it was a ringer washer, but I didn’t know how one used such a thing. There was a table here big enough to seat six, big, round and covered by a more modern plastic table cloth. It wasn’t until Mayor Jones flipped a switch and lights came on that I realized I was half expecting to need to use candles and oil lamps. I knew better than that. I knew the house had electricity from my previous visits, but the place had the feel of a house that would not be so modernly equipped.

 I went to the sink and turned the tap, and was pleased that clean water flowed out. After a few minutes of poking around in cupboards, I turned to Aunty and looked at her expectantly. So, the outside needed a lot of love, but the house was, so far as I could tell, quite livable. I was sure the inside would need some work too, but I felt like it might all be sort of manageable. “OK, what’s first?” Introductions were the answer.

The woman who had joined us here was Jenny. She was a combination architect and handy man, er… woman. Alex was here because his side gig was as a licensed contractor. He had people that worked for him year-round that could do work during the week; he handled licenses and the books, and got his hands dirty on holidays and weekends. At least until football season picked up. Alex kept standing next to me wherever I stood, and a couple of times he tried to put an arm around me. I was grateful for his help this morning, and I was glad to meet him, but not that glad. Maybe he was just trying to be nice, but…

Derek Cox had been Grampy’s right hand on the farm, and Aunty had the idea I might find him helpful. He also helped his Aunt Natalie, who brokered livestock. Oh, and by the way, my little flock of goats was boarding at Derek’s Aunt’s place. I had goats? This was news to me, but good news, I thought. I mean, having livestock for a farm was a good thing, right? Derek spent a lot of time examining the floor, talking to the floor when he was forced to talk, and scuffing the floor with his feet when he was mentioned.

Aunty hadn’t planned on the mayor, but I think she appreciated the larger-than-life hints he kept dropping about the history and importance of the farm. “Oh, I’m just a nosy old man, honey, don’t you fret,” he told me. “You’re the news of the day!” He announced chuckling. Nothing like feeling like the expectations of the community were resting on my shoulders as of my first day here. She hadn’t planned on the tallish auburn-haired man either. He was the mechanic-slash-blacksmith-slash-service station owner, Bill Barret.

Bill had come because of the rusting hulk in the driveway. My ’63 chevy pick-up had been preceded here on Westfall Farm by the beast covered by the ratty tarp. Bill had apparently tried several times to get Grampy to let him restore it, with the plan being for the two to split the profits once the restoration was complete and the truck sold. The truck in the driveway was a 1936 Chevy pickup. Grampy had refused Bill’s car-enthusiast advances, saying he would restore it himself and it was for me. I had no idea what a truck of that age could be worth. “Would there be profit? I mean is it really worth it?” Even Derek’s face popped up and one side of his mouth quirked into an almost-smile. The mayor coughed as though he had choked on his glass of water. “Uh…” Bill Barret started, “Yes, there would be profit in it. Plenty of profit.” Bill’s tone made it clear he thought I was a dunce, or at least that my question had been stupid.

“I can drive them, but I don’t speak car-and-driver. Cut me some slack.” I responded with humor and sarcasm for his tone, not his words.

Bill sort-of-smiled. “If you’re willing to go ahead, I’ll tow it out of here tomorrow and get started.”

“Do we need to sign a contract or anything?”

I got a roomful of incredulous stares. “We don’t really do things so formally here, Kaezia.” Aunty said after a few moments of silence. Welcome to Mayberry… I thought.

“OK. Well then, yes, Bill, that sounds good to me.”

He nodded, looked around at the others, nodded again, and left.

“Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” Jenny mumbled with a grin. There were quiet chuckles around the room. I sensed a like mind in Jenny, and thought we might need to get to know one another.

“Oh, you know he’s just like that.” Mayor Jones said. Looking at me, he added: “It must’ve been you; Bill was so friendly I hardly recognized him.” The others chuckled.

“Well,” I sighed, standing and looking out the big section of kitchen windows over around the table. “It needs a lot of work, and I...