Harvest Moon (Brook Haven Romance Book 1) Read Free

extensive
therapy before he was able to live on his own. By the time Mac was doing well
enough to spend more than a few hours a day in his own house, his mother and
father were both well into their thirties.
    Drake’s mother told him
once that his father had tried to discourage her desire for a baby then, but
she wasn’t having it. She’d just turned forty when she found out she was
expecting. As it turned out, his father was as happy, if not happier, than she
was when he found out about it.
    Drake was born on his
mother’s forty-first birthday, and his parents both doted on him. His father
taught him how to hunt and fish and work on cars. He was also the reason Drake
did what he did for a living - his father could build or fix anything, and
although he wasn’t technically a handyman, the neighbors all seemed to call him
when they needed something. His father never said no, and Drake loved following
him around and watching him work.
    His mother taught him
more than he could list, but mostly he had her to thank for his easygoing
attitude about life. She was an animal lover and a nature enthusiast, and she
instilled her love of those things into her son. She also had a big garden on
the farm where she grew fresh vegetables. Every Sunday morning, she’d pick
whatever was ripe and in season and then wash and package it all up in plastic
containers so that it was ready to eat. Then she’d load it all into the back of
the old pickup that Drake still drove today and take it into town to sell at
the market. Mostly, what she did was hand it out for free to those in need. She
had a regular spot out in front of the church, and she came to be known in town
simply as the vegetable lady .
    She didn’t just hand
out the vegetables. She also had a section of her garden where she grew herbs, which
she’d use to make salves and lotions. She would sit for hours and just talk to anyone
who seemed to need it at the time. She handed out advice when she was asked for
it, and she never judged.
    Drake still kept the
vegetable garden growing, and he still took the vegetables into town on Sundays
to the market. He also had his mother’s recipes for the herbal salves and
remedies, and he’d taken to making them too because he’d gotten so many
requests. Sometimes his Uncle Mac would go into town with him and sell statues
and carvings he made in his shop.
    Sundays were the only
days Drake refused work. To him, going to the market was a way to keep his
mother’s memory alive. To the people in the community, it was a service many of
them had come to depend on.
    When he made it to the
end of the road, he tried once again to get Hooter to hush. The dog gave him
another quick glance but kept one eye on whatever was in the grass underneath
the lilac bushes at the edge of the road. Drake saw the bush wiggle slightly
and he heard the rustle of the deep grass. Whatever Hooter had found was still
alive.
    Drake wished he’d
grabbed his rifle just in case. The last thing he’d shot was a timber
rattlesnake that had somehow found its way onto Uncle Mac’s back porch. Shooting
things, however, was contrary to his very nature, and he’d only done it when
the situation had demanded it.
    With a deep breath and
a small prayer that whatever it was wouldn’t snap off his arm or inject him
with venom, he reached down and moved the bush. Two sets of eyes glowed up at
him. Reluctantly, he lowered his flashlight so it illuminated the frightened
faces of two baby red foxes. One of them had what looked like a dog bite on his
hind quarters, and the other looked more than a little bit reluctant to leave
the injured one to fend for himself.
    “Well, look what you
found, Hooter. Hi guys. Where’s your mama?” As if Hooter understood, he once
again began to bark and wag his tail the way he did when he wanted Drake to
follow him. Drake let the bush fall back down gently to cover the babies and
followed the yellow Lab three or four feet up to the road. It was an