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Table of Contents
Northern Sass
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Élianne Adams
More Awesome Books
Northern Sass
By
Élianne Adams
One
“I know, Grandma.” Maple Hudson rolled her eyes as she twirled the telephone cord around her finger, watching as the tip turned pink, then purple before releasing it again. Cell reception didn’t reach this far out, and she was kind of glad. If it weren’t for the fact that she wanted the retirement home to be able to contact her in case of emergency, she wouldn’t have bothered getting the phone connected at all.
“Are you listening to me, baby?”
A grin cut across her face. At thirty-two, Maple was hardly a baby, but her grandmother had yet to realize she wasn’t a child anymore.
“There are sweeter things in life than candy, and a hell of a lot more satisfying than working in that glass coffin you go to every day. You can’t keep pushing yourself like you do, it’s criminal. I would like to hold some great grandbabies before I keel over. I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
A pang of guilt tightened in her chest. It wasn’t that she didn’t want a man in her life, or even children, for that matter, but she had to work. The beautiful senior community her grandmother had moved into a couple of years ago wasn’t cheap. She loved it there. She’d made great friends and even had a social life. There was no way Maple was going to ask the woman who’d raised her to move to a cheaper place, even if her uncle had reneged on his promise to pay half. She had to figure out how the hell she was going to do it on her own.
“I know, Grandma,” she said and grinned wider as her grandmother huffed at the other end of the line.
“Fine, I’ll stop harping. When are you coming to see me? We haven’t visited in weeks.”
Maple peered out the window toward the lake. “I’m not sure. Things have been crazy at the office.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly. She’d been putting in a lot of overtime and taking on extra work to make ends meet over the past few months. She held her breath. The woman could sniff out a lie, even one of omission, a mile away. Maybe if she didn’t say too much, she wouldn’t catch on for once.
“You’re never too busy to come for dinner. What’s wrong, Maple?” she finally asked after a long pause, worry making her voice tight on the other end of the line.
Crap. “Everything is fine. I just…” she sighed, giving up on keeping her whereabouts a secret before she got into more trouble. “I decided to get out of the city for—”
“Out of the city? And you didn’t think to tell me about this? Where the hell are you? How long have you been gone? When are you coming back?” The questions came out in rapid fire.
“It was a last-minute decision, Grandma. I needed to get away. I hadn’t made up my mind until late last night, and didn’t want to wake you with my phone call, which is why I’m on the phone with you this morning. I had no intention of keeping it a secret.” She so had been, but she wasn’t going to admit that.
The fact was, she’d been sitting in her office—exhausted from the long hours she’d been putting in—when the idea had struck her a few days earlier. Unable to focus on work, she’d been staring out the window at the beautiful downtown skyline, but the joy it once held was gone. As gorgeous as the view was, it was nothing like the land where she’d grown up. She’d closed her eyes and let her mind drift to a time when life had been simpler—happier. She didn’t know how long she’d been lost in her memories, but when she finally snapped out of it, she’d made some calls. The phone service and electric had been connected to the old property the next day. Too bad this would probably be the last time she’d set foot on her old stomping grounds. She shoved the depressing thought aside to deal with later.
“Are you okay, baby? Where are you? I’ll come see you.”
A chuckle slipped past her lips. She could see it now. Bertha Hudson, swooping in on her electric wheelchair to save the day like a superhero. Her special power? Hugs and kisses. “I’m okay, Grandma. I just missed home.”
“Home?” she asked after a long, pregnant pause. “You’re at the cabin?”
Maple swallowed hard. Her grandmother loved this land as much as she did, but she’d warned her against going back since they’d moved to the city after her grandfather had died. “I…yes. I’m at the cabin.”
She held her breath again, waiting for the scolding to come through the line. Her grandmother might not be as strong as she once had been, but her mind was as sharp as a tack, and she wasn’t afraid to let her tongue loose.
“Okay. Good. Do you have a rifle with you for protection?”
Okay? What? That wasn’t what she was expecting. At all. “Yes, I have grandpa’s gun. And ammunition.”
“And you remember how to use it? Maybe you should get those targets out of the shed and practice a few rounds like your grandpa taught you. Just to be sure.”
Who the hell was this woman, and what had she done with her grandmother? Maple had begged to go back to the cabin so often in the years after they had left, and had been shot down so abruptly every time, that she didn’t think her grandmother would ever approve.
“I remember. And if it’ll
