Love Letters from Ladybug Farm Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dearly Beloved

  Chapter 1 - A Day to Remember

  To Love and to Cherish

  Chapter 2 - What a Difference a Year Makes

  Chapter 3 - Opportunity Knocks

  Chapter 4 - Dreams Coming True

  Chapter 5 - The Wonders of Modern Technology

  Chapter 6 - A Few Complications

  Chapter 7 - Love Stories

  Chapter 8 - Rising to the Occasion

  For Better or For Worse

  Chapter 9 - Good in a Crisis

  Chapter 10 - The Trouble with Men

  Chapter 11 - A Small Affair

  Chapter 12 - Homecoming

  Chapter 13 - Problems of Their Own

  Chapter 14 - Love Letters

  From This Day Forward

  Chapter 15 - On Tending Gardens and Taking Chances

  Chapter 16 - Life Is Not a Rehearsal

  Chapter 17 - Here Comes the Bride

  We/come Home

  At the corner of the driveway to the house, there was a sign, hand-painted by Lindsay and decorated with ladybugs and a garden scene, that said, Welcome to Ladybug Farm. It never failed to make them smile. As they made the turn and started down the gravel drive, lined with tall oaks, the anticipation of some grand destination always made the heart beat a little faster. And then, coming out of the shadows and rounding the curve where the full, emerald lawn with its purple hydrangeas and brilliant pink peonies and carefully cultivated beds of hollyhocks and impatiens and showy, old-fashioned dahlias spread out like a ruffled quilt designed to show off all the colors of nature, there was always a catch of breath. In the background, the majestic blue mountains spilled their shadows onto a bright green meadow dotted with sheep. And in the foreground the big old house with its faded brick, painted columns, and tall, high windows seemed to reach out to them, and welcome them home. Bridget and Lindsay shared a glance as they pulled up in front of the wide front steps, each of them understanding what the other was thinking: I can’t believe we live here.

  Berkley Books by Donna Ball

  A YEAR ON LADYBUG FARM

  AT HOME ON LADYBUG FARM

  LOVE LETTERS FROM LADYBUG FARM

  A BERKLEY BOOK

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of the Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2010 by Donna Ball

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ball, Donna.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-46443-4

  2. Farmhouses—Conservation and restoration—Fiction. 3. Weddings—Fiction. 4. Shenandoah River Valley (Va. and W. Va.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3552.A4545L68 2010

  813’.54—dc22 2010022328

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The recipes in this book are included for entertainment purposes only and have not been tested. In fact, I would be very much surprised if any of them are at all edible!

  Dearly Beloved

  1

  A Day to Remember

  There was a magical quality to the hours just before twilight at Ladybug Farm. The June air was balmy and scented with roses, and the golden light filtered across the lavender-shadowed lawn like something imagined by the brush strokes of a Renaissance master. Hummingbirds darted back and forth between mounds of ruffled pink peonies. A bluebird family chirped chattily over its evening meal, and a barn swallow dipped and soared in graceful, silhouetted arcs against the pale violet sky.

  A wayward breeze stirred a set of wind chimes hung from the low branch of an apple tree and scattered a froth of white chicken feathers across the lawn. An apricot chiffon ribbon, limp and tattered now, tugged away from the porch column it decorated and floated across the grass. A bedraggled-looking border collie, dragging a length of mud-spattered lace that was caught on his back paw, pricked his ears forward as though he might give chase, then decided against it and plopped down onto the grass with an exhausted sigh.

  Strands of wilted ivy were twined around the porch railings, each two-foot interval accented by a bouquet of drooping Apricot Delight roses and ribbon-wired bows in Hint of Spring green. Potted ferns, now slightly askew in identical white stands, flanked each of the windows and the door along the deep front porch, and baskets of what once had been freshly arranged Apricot Delight roses, augmented generously with live oak, poplar, and maple leaves, hung by ribbons from the rafters.

  The floor was littered with apricot petals and paper cock tail napkins, monogrammed in Apricot Delight and Hint of Spring green. A banner of ivory silk hung drunkenly over the front door, and when Cici pushed open the screen door, it ripped. She did not even glance up.

  She was a tall, slender woman with an athletic build, abundantly freckled skin, and sun-sparked blue eyes. She liked to describe herself as being in her midfifties, going on forty, but the truth was that she was closer to the end of that decade than the beginning. Today despite her elegant suit, carefully coiffed hair, and perfectly applied makeup, she felt every year of her age, and then some.

  Nudging aside an overturned champagne glass with the toe of her ivory brocade pump, she made her way across the debris-strewn porch to a rocking chair, and sank down heavily. Her honey-colored hair was beginning to come loose from its upsweep, and she had lost an earring. Her lipstick was long since gone. She undid the pearl button on the jacket of her ivory satin pantsuit, kicked off her shoes, and leaned her head back, pressing a pack of frozen peas to the side of her face.

  The screen door gave another tentative squeak, the silk banner ripped further, and Lindsay came out, approaching Cici cautiously. “Did the aspirin help?” she asked.

  Cici did not open her eyes. “A little.”

  Lindsay was four inches shorter and f
ive years younger than Cici, and on a good day could easily pass for forty if she bleached the faint brownish splotch on her right hand. But today was not a good day. She was still wearing her apricot lace sheath with its flirty sweetheart neckline, but she was barefoot and bare-legged. She had complained all week that the dress was too young for her and that it clashed with her auburn hair, but she was too tired now to change into something else. As for the stockings—Nearly Nude Shimmer & Silk and specifically mandated by the bride—they had been the first to go.

  She picked her way through the litter of spilled birdseed, scraps of apricot netting and spring green ribbons, torn napkins and white-and-silver wrapping paper, then removed an empty wine bottle from the chair next to Cici’s and sat down. “Well,” she said after a moment, “the good news is that everyone had a swell time.”

  Cici opened her one good eye and stared at her.

  “I mean,” Lindsay tried to explain, “not that everyone wasn’t worried about you, but you saved the cake, and after the first little excitement, everyone forgot about it and moved on, and, if you think about it, at least you gave everyone a good story to tell. And no one was mad. Not really.”

  Cici looked at her for another moment, then closed her eyes again. Her tone was flat. “I’m so glad.”

  The screen door opened again, and the silk banner pulled away from the wall and sagged down on Bridget as she came through the door. She wrestled with it for a moment, her petite stature and frothy chiffon dress making her look like an Easter egg doing battle with a marshmallow. Finally she simply jerked the fabric away from the remaining staples that held it to the wall and let it cascade to the floor like a fallen flag. She kicked it aside unceremoniously.

  Bridget was the oldest of the three, with a sweet round face, a bouncy platinum bob, and an earnest innocence that made her lookyounger than either of her two friends. She was wearing Hint of Spring green in a delicate peau de soie with an empire waist and matching two-inch heels. The Nearly Nude Shimmer & Silk stockings actually did make her legs look longer, as promised by the manufacturer.

  “Feeling any better?” she ventured hopefully to Cici.

  Bridget winced as Cici removed the package of peas from her face to reveal the ugly red and purple bruise that had half closed her left eye and was beginning to discolor her cheek.

  “Oh, yes,” Cici said without expression. “I’m just fine. Thank you for asking.”

  Bridget hurried over to her. “It was an accident, you know. She’s really sorry.”

  Cici returned the peas to her eye. “What did I say about goats?” she demanded simply.

  Bridget wisely declined to answer that. “I found your earring,” she said instead and offered up a mud-encrusted seed-pearl drop pendant.

  Cici just stared at her for a moment, clearly debating whether maintaining her pique was worth the effort. Then a corner of her lips turned down ruefully, and she held out her hand. “Thanks.”

  Bridget smiled, dropped the earring into her hand, and took a chair, and the three of them sat in exhausted silence for a while, watching the birds and the changing patterns of muted light. In comparison to the chaos that had reigned only hours before, the muffled sounds of activity from the house sounded like a benediction.

  “You know,” Bridget observed after a time, “all things considered, it really was a lot of fun.”

  Cici tried to lift her head to look at her, winced in pain, and settled back again. “You did not just say that to me.”

  “Well, I mean, except for the storm.”

  “Tornado,” corrected Lindsay.

  “That hasn’t been confirmed yet,” Bridget objected.

  “And the dog,” Cici said without opening her eyes.

  “And the groom’s mother.”

  “And the groom.”

  “And the explosion.”

  “And the goat.”

  “Like I said,” Bridget said uncomfortably. “All things considered.”

  No one spoke for a measure of time. No one had the energy.

  “You know what the problem was, don’t you?” Bridget said after a moment.

  “Personally,” replied Lindsay, a rather tired smile twitching at her lips, “I blame Michelle Obama.”

  Bridget smothered a giggle, and even Cici, without opening her eyes, managed a lopsided smile.

  “Okay,” Cici said, “Tell me what the problem was.”

  “Sex.”

  Cici opened her eyes and lifted her head to look at her two best friends. The three women thought about that for a while. Then Cici gave a slow, reflective nod of her head. “Do you know, Bridget,” she said, “this time I think you’ve got it exactly right.”

  Lindsay agreed regretfully, “Sad but true.”

  “But it was a beautiful ceremony” Bridget said.

  Cici glanced at one of the half-empty champagne glasses on the small table beside her chair. She had no idea to whom it belonged. She picked it up dubiously sniffed the contents, gave the rim a cursory examination for lip marks, and drank it down.

  “Yeah,” she said, and smiled just a little. “It was.”

  To Love and to Cherish

  2

  What a Difference a Year Makes

  Three weeks Previously

  Excerpt from Virginians at Home magazine

  Cecile Burke, Bridget Tyndale, and Lindsay Weight are like the Three Musketeers—if the Three Musketeers wielded hammers and saws instead of swords, if they fought dry rot instead of highwaymen, and if they were ... well, girls.

  The “girls” in question, just enough past middle age to consider it a compliment, each gave a considering tilt of her head, purse of her lips, or waggle of her eyebrows.

  They were gathered around the oiled hickory table in the kitchen, a vase of fresh-picked daffodils between them. The raised fireplace at their backs smelled of last night’s fire, and the breeze that came through the open back door tasted of snow not long melted, clean and clear, with the cool base notes of the winter that had barely passed. The ancient bricks that paved the floor beneath their feet and the walls around them gleamed in the sun that flooded through the freshly washed windows. The last of the asparagus and spring onions were on the cutting board, a chicken, aromatic with sage, rosemary and garlic, was roasting in the oven, and a package of last year’s peaches was thawing in the sink, waiting to be made into a pie. A ladybug landed on the magazine page, and Cici absently flicked it off as she read aloud.

  The three ladies are part of a growing trend of young retirees who, having completed successful careers, seek a different kind of a success in the second half of their lives. Burke, an attractive blonde ...

  Cici lifted an eyebrow. “Attractive,” she repeated, preening a little.

  The other two ladies gave her an impatient wave. “Go on.”

  She started the sentence over.

  Burke, an attractive blonde who knows her way around a power saw, owned her own real estate company in Baltimore. Tyndale spent most of her life as a homemaker and Wright is a retired school teacher. They were best friends and neighbors in the same suburban cul-de-sac for over twenty years.

  When the three of them came across an abandoned old mansion during a vacation trip through the Shenandoah Valley, it was love at first sight. Within the year, they sold their Maryland homes, combined their resources, and took on the challenge of their lives.

  “Our dreams were a lot bigger than our abilities,” confesses Burke, who likes to be called “Cici” by her friends. “We knew that none of us could have taken on a project this big alone. But together, we can do anything.”

  Bridget said, “Well, just about anything, anyway. I guess you didn’t mention the chicken coop.”

  “What about it?” Cici challenged.

  “It was a disaster!”

  “We got it built, didn’t we?”

  “Will you go on?” Lindsay said. “Read.”

  Cici returned her attention to the magazine.

  Blackwell Farms E
state—now called Ladybug Farm—was rich in history and even richer in challenges. The sprawling, hundred-year-old mansion came complete with an orchard, vineyard, barns, and livestock. Ida Mae Simpson, who has been keeping house at Blackwell Farms since the 1950s, recalls the heyday of the Blackwell Farms winery, and tells stories of the famous Blackwell Farms cheeses having been aged in the same caves that the Confederate army used to store munitions during the Civil War.

  Cici smiled. “That was nice of them to mention Ida Mae. She’ll get a kick out of it.”

  “If she doesn’t sue the magazine for misquoting her,” Bridget said.

  “She has been crankier than usual lately...”

  “Read?” prompted Lindsay.

  But when the ladies took possession of the estate two years ago, the roofs were collapsing, the vineyard was so overgrown as to be practically unrecognizable, and the house was completely overrun by ladybugs—thus the name.

  “The first few months were a little daunting,” admits Bridget. “Well, okay, the whole first year. I don’t think any of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into.”

  With determination and elbow grease, the ladies restored the beauty of the heart pine floors, the mahogany banisters, and the stained glass window overlooking the staircase landing. They uncovered two hand-painted murals flanking the fireplace in the first-floor sitting room, and reclaimed the six large, sun-flooded bedrooms on the second floor.