Sweetwater Gap

by Denise Hunter

Josephine Mitchell is a woman with a secret—and it’s killing her. But she shoves all that down when her pregnant-with-twins sister needs her back at the family orchard. It’s a decision with life-changing consequences.

Josie hasn’t been back to the orchard for years, not even for her father’s funeral, so it’s inevitable that some things would have changed. However, she didn’t count on one of those changes being the ruggedly handsome orchard manager, Grady. Since Josie came to help with the harvest, she has no choice but to work with Grady—but she can ignore the growing attraction between them. At least, she thinks she can.

That secret is still there, though. It comes between Josie and Grady. It comes between Josie and her family. It comes between Josie and God. Will she bring it out into the open before it’s too late? What will happen, there in the orchards of Sweetwater Gap?

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Excerpt

Chapter One

When Josephine Mitchell’s phone rang on her way out the door, she knew something was wrong. It wasn’t the way the phone rang, or the fact that it had already rung six times as she straddled her apartment doorway, undecided, but the fact that it was ringing at all at seven fifty-two on a Saturday morning.

Answering would make her late for work and she was sure Mr. Morton would be less than understanding this time. Regardless, Josie re-entered her apartment, picked up the extension, and checked her caller ID. A frown pulled her brows. Her sister hadn’t called since she’d gotten the big news. Josie hoped she was okay.

With a helpless glance at her watch, she answered. “Hi, Laurel.”

There was a pause at the other end. “Josie? It’s Nate. Your brother-in-law.” As if Josie didn’t know his voice. He’d only dated her sister four years before finally proposing.

But Nate had never called Josie, and the fact that he was now only confirmed her previous suspicion. “Is everything okay? Laurel and the baby…”

“They’re fine.”

Thank God. Laurel had been excited about the pregnancy. She and Nate had been trying so long.

“I’m calling about the orchard.” Nate’s tone was short and clipped. “I think it’s high time you hauled your city-slicker fanny back here to help your sister.”

She almost thought he was joking—Nate was as easy-going as they came, and she’d never heard him sound so adamant or abrupt. But there was no laughter on the other end of the line.

Words stuck in Josie’s throat. She swallowed hard. “I don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t. Responsibility is a foreign word to you. I get that. But there comes a time when a person has to step up to the plate and—“

“Wait a minute!”

“—Help when they’re needed. And Laurel needs your help. We can’t afford to hire anyone else, you know.”

This didn’t sound like Nate. True, she hadn’t talked to him in ages, but he’d always been the picture of Southern hospitality. And he’d been nothing but wonderful to Laurel as far as she knew.

Josie checked the clock on the wall. Another six minutes and she’d be pounding the pavement for another job. Maybe she could call Nate back later. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m due at work in—”

His choked laugh sounded anything but amused. “I don’t know why I thought you’d care.” He muttered. She could barely hear his words over the whir of the dishwasher. “You didn’t bother coming for the wedding or funeral, why would you care about this?”

“What this? Would you tell me what’s going on?”

His breaths were like a caged animal, as if he expected a fight, though she had no idea why.

“Laurel is expecting twins. She found out yesterday at the ultrasound.”

Twins. The word brought back a cluster of memories, none of them good.

But Laurel was undoubtedly thrilled. Josie was surprised she hadn’t called, but then again, they hadn’t spoken much since the funeral. “Well, that’s great news.”

“The doctor wants her to take it easy.”

There wasn’t much easy about working an apple orchard this time of year, with harvest just around the bend. The phone call was making sense now. All except Nate’s antagonism. But then he’d always been protective of Laurel.

“She really wants these babies, Josephine. We both do.” His voice wobbled just a bit on the last word, pinching something inside her.

“Of course you do.” It was all sinking in now. She knew why he’d called and she also knew she wouldn’t say no because, despite the distance between them, she loved her sister.

“She needs help, that’s the bottom line. I don’t need to tell you how much work is involved this time of year, and she can’t do it. We can hardly afford to hire more help.”

“No, she can’t work the harvest,” Josie agreed. His words from a moment ago replayed in her head like a delayed tape. “You said you can’t hire someone.” Laurel hadn’t mentioned financial troubles. She talked about their manager like he was God’s gift to apples.

“Not after last year’s failure.”

“Failure?” Her sister hadn’t said anything of the kind. True, they didn’t speak often, but when the topic of the orchard did come up, Laurel said everything was fine. At least, Josie thought she had.

“Laurel didn’t tell you? There was an Easter frost. We lost the apples.”

“Frost?” An orchard could lose a whole crop to frost, though this was the first time it had happened at Blue Ridge. Why hadn’t Laurel said something?

He sighed. “I’m sorry. I thought she told you.”

What else had her sister omitted? Laurel was always trying to protect her. Josie should’ve inquired more directly. “How bad is it?”

She heard a door closing, and he lowered his voice. “The place is a money pit. We don’t have anything else to put into it.”

She couldn’t believe the orchard was doing so poorly.

This changes everything, Josie, do you realize that?

The selfish thought materialized before she could stop it. Her plans…how could she follow through now? When Laurel was overburdened with a failing orchard and pregnant with twins?

Nate was speaking again. “Grady insists he can turn the place around, but I’m wondering if we shouldn’t sell it.”

She and Laurel were the third generation to own the orchard, and as far as Josie knew, not one of the Mitchells had thought those words, much less said them. And she’d thought Laurel would be the last one to do so.

“Laurel’s considering that?” Their father’s death had left Josie with shares that tied her to that place. Even six hundred miles away, she dragged it behind her wherever she went, and it weighed her down like an anchor. But if Laurel was considering a sale…

Now that she’d slipped the thought on for size, it was starting to feel more comfortable, like her favorite pair of Levis.

“I haven’t exactly broached the topic,” Nate said.

“How does this year’s crop look?”

“Promising. She was hoping this year would put us in the black. But a strong crop means extra work and plenty of hands on deck. And I can’t afford time off.

Nate ran Shelbyville’s one and only insurance agency. Good thing they’d had his income to fall back on.

“So can you come back and help us through harvest?” he asked.

Josie’s eyes flittered over the room, past the clutter of her life, toward the window facing downtown Louisville. She closed her eyes and was, in an instant, back at Blue Ridge Orchard. She could almost smell the apples ripening on the trees. Hear the snap of the branch as an apple twisted free. See the ripples of Sweetwater Creek running alongside the property.

And with that thought, the other memories came. The ones that chased her from Shelbyville six years ago. The ones that still chased her every day. The ones that caused a dread, deep and thick in her belly, at the mention of going home.

“Josie, you there?”

She opened her eyes, swallowing hard. “I’m here.”

“I know you’ve got your job and your plans and your life.”

She breathed a wry laugh. Ironically, none of that mattered. The one plan that did matter could still play out, same tune, different venue.

What mattered most now was seeing that Laurel’s life was settled. And Laurel’s life wouldn’t be settled until she was out from under the orchard. Josie saw that clearly now. And it wouldn’t happen, she knew, without a lot of coaxing. She only hoped there was enough time.

“I wouldn’t have called if we weren’t desperate.”

Josie shoved the dread down and forced the words. “I’ll come.”

Excerpted from Sweetwater Gap © 2009 by Denise Hunter. Published in Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Interview

WOF:
You and your husband have three boys, is that right? Is writing romance novels your method of escaping all the testosterone in your house?

DENISE:
Nobody’s ever asked me that, that’s a good question. It’s true that I have attended more than my share of athletic events and a little romantic outlet is a nice thing. I’ve always been an avid romance reader. I started reading it, especially in the nineties, and there just wasn’t much available as far as Christian romance goes. Initially, I wanted to supply other readers like me with good, clean Christian romance.

WOF:
Is that why you decided to become a novelist? Is it something you always wanted to do or did you just wake up one day and decide to write a book?

DENISE:
When I was about nineteen or twenty, I started thinking about maybe writing a book. It was a dream that I think God laid on my heart. I put it off because I got married at twenty, then I was in college, then I started having babies and my life was kind of busy. It wasn’t until my grandfather passed away when I was 26…I was standing in the hospital room with him, watching him just lay there and struggle to breathe. We knew he was going to be passing away any day. That dream came to my mind and I knew how much my grandfather had accomplished, in his life, for the Lord, and I knew, too, that someday I would be there, lying on a bed, the end drawing near—and if I didn’t do something about my dream it was going to be one of those things that I wished I had done. It really hit me on that day, that if I don’t do it, I’m going to find myself at the end of my life wondering what God had in store for me that I didn’t fulfill. Within the next week or two I started my first manuscript.

WOF:
Of all the genres to choose from, why romance novels?

DENISE:
Because it’s what I love to read. I like to read all kinds of genres, but I want some kind of romantic thread in there. I always tell writers, “Don’t write the genre that’s hot right now, it’s not going to be hot in five years. Write what you love to read. You’re going to be passionate about it and your passion’s going to shine through in your writing.”

WOF:
Do you look on your books as evangelistic? You write romances from a Christian perspective; do you think they could play a part in bringing someone to know the Lord?

DENISE:
I certainly hope so. As a Christian, I think my writing comes from a Christian world view. Some of my books—my Nantucket series, for instance—the first two books don’t actually even mention God. However, they’re allegories; the whole story, the way the hero loves the heroine, is much the same way that God loves us. That was really fun for me to write because it really made me look at the way God loves us and how I can show that through the hero loving the heroine. I have gotten a lot of really neat letters from people who have really seen they way God loves them in a fresh new way. That was the whole reason that I started the series.

WOF:
In Sweetwater Gap there’s a scene towards the end where Josie gives her life over to God. It wasn’t preachy, but it gets the point across.

DENISE:
I try to be careful about that because I know when I’m reading a book and it feels like there’s a five-page sermon dumped into the middle of it—I don’t like that. Embarrassingly, I tend to skip that, because I’m reading for the story. I want to know what happens to the characters; I think a lot of readers do. When I’m writing, I try to keep that in mind. The reader is reading it for a story. A lot of times you can show things through the actual story and not have to dump a sermon into the middle of the book.

WOF:
How do you begin a novel? Is it plot, character, setting, a point you want to get across…?

DENISE:
You know, everybody has a different method; I’m a fan of doing whatever works for you. What works for me is to come up with a pretty detailed synopsis. That’s really hard work for me; it takes me at least a month to come up with a good, fleshed-out synopsis. It’s usually, like, ten pages single-spaced; it’s pretty detailed. It leaves me some wiggle room for my characters to change their minds mid-course, but I really like to know, when I sit down to write, that I have a plan. It’s a workable plan and I’m not going to get to page 250 and go, “Uh-oh. I’m at a dead end and there’s nowhere to go.” I like to have a pretty thorough idea going into it. I also let my editor approve the synopsis, so that she doesn’t get [the book] at the end and go, “Oh…this isn’t at all what I had in mind.” We’re on the same page.

WOF:
The setting of Sweetwater Gap is as much of a character as the people in the book. What made you decide to place this story in an apple orchard?

DENISE:
I kind of like when a story has layers. To me, in an apple orchard—because you have the fruit, the growth, the harvest—there’s so many neat layers of symbolism you can draw from. Also, I think an apple orchard is just kind of romantic in itself. You’re right, it is like a little world of its own, even though they were in the town of Shelbyville, that apple orchard was the story world.

I visited one here locally; it was an Indiana orchard. I just sat down with owner—because, really, what do I know about apple orchards? Nothing! So I sat down with the owner for an afternoon; she took me through all the processes and let me ask all the questions I wanted to. That was really how I got all my information on apple orchards. My husband and I and our kids went down to North Carolina and spent several days in the area where I set the fictional town.

WOF:
How did you decide where to set your imaginary town? Did you look at a map or something?

DENISE:
Yes, that’s where I start. My first thought when I’m trying to come up with a setting is where does the reader want to go and spend a few days? Because really, when they’re reading a book, they’re spending a few days there. I try to pick someplace that I think the readers would want to go and immerse themselves for a while to get away from wherever they are. I think the Blue Ridge Mountains…I love mountains. I live in flat northern Indiana, so to me, mountains are majestic and beautiful and wonderful and to set the apple orchard, which I think is a neat setting all on its own, in a mountainous area…I don’t know, it called me.

WOF:
Josie has a secret—actually, two secrets—and the way she’s dealing with both is killing her. Literally. Do you feel that all secrets are destructive?

DENISE:
I am one of those “need to know” people; I hate secrets. I really do. Just tell me—whatever it is, just tell me. I don’t want anything kept from me. I do think that secrets can be very destructive.

The way I arrived at this plot, it was the whole “survivor guilt” thing. My editor asked me if I wanted to write a Women of Faith story; there was a slot open. I was like, “OF COURSE I want to write a Women of Faith novel, that’s awesome!” But then I got off the phone…see, I was in the middle of a Nantucket book at the time and she said, “You’re going to have to drop that and you’re going to have to start a new story.” Well, I told you how long it takes me…so I was like, “Oh no! I just agreed to this and I have no idea what to write.” I was immersed in my Nantucket story and wasn’t even thinking about another story.

So my editor sent me a newspaper clipping about this soldier who was in a home in Iraq and a grenade was thrown into the building. His fellow soldier jumped on top of the grenade; of course the grenade took his life and it saved this other soldier. The article was about how the survivor came home and was just reckless and self-destructive. He couldn’t deal with the sacrifice. Trying to live in such a way that was worthy of that sacrifice was too much for him to grasp, so he kind of went off the deep end a little bit. I started thinking about how much that’s like what God did for us, how He sacrificed His life for us, and the story started weaving itself around that whole concept.

WOF:
It’s nice to read a story where the characters do ordinary things, like rent movies and go to the grocery store. Do you think we miss the ‘romance’ in everyday activities because we’re waiting something more…exciting?

DENISE:
That is really a good question and yes, I do think that’s true! Not just romance, but I think sometimes we miss life that way, waiting for the next big thing. Meanwhile, life is happening and we’re looking ahead to something else. That’s even true with kids. Absolutely.

WOF:
Thanks for that apple pie recipe—after reading about all those apples, we were craving a great slice of pie! Did you create that yourself?

DENISE:
I wish! I wrote the whole pie thing into the story and it wasn’t until I was probably three-quarters of the way through that I thought, ooh, wouldn’t the readers love to have that apple pie recipe? Then I thought, I know just who to ask! We have a lady in our small group who used to be a caterer. Of course, since she’s in our small group we get to taste all her wonderful food that she makes. I knew that she had a wonderful apple pie recipe, so I hit her up for it and she was glad to help.

WOF:
Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?

DENISE:
I have attended Women of Faith and I just believe in them. It was such a neat experience for me. So many women gathered all in one place, and the speakers are so encouraging. I would just like to encourage women to attend one.

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