Home on Apple Blossom Road (Life in Icicle Falls) Read Online Free

neighbor’s tree overhanging your fence. There’s the advantage of living in the country like we do. No fences!
    Mother’s Day is right around the corner and I’m looking forward to coming out and spending it with you.
    Love,
    Justine

Chapter Two
    “A re you sure I need to be at the reading of the will?” Mia asked Aunt Beth as they sat at the vintage red Formica table in Beth’s sunny kitchen, enjoying coffee and blackberry scones with homemade boysenberry jam for breakfast.
    It was probably the hundredth time she’d asked, but Beth nodded patiently and said, “Yes, you really do.”
    “I can’t imagine what Grandma Justine would leave me that you couldn’t have sent me in the mail.” This was going to be awkward.
    “Trust me when I say you need to be here, not just because of what’s in the will but because you’re family.”
    Mia felt the same way. The Wrights were the only family she had. Unless she counted an aunt and uncle and some cousins in Mexico whom she’d never met and a father who wasn’t a father.
    “I hope you know how much you all mean to me,” she said. “Taking me in after Mama died, raising me like your own.”
    “Honey, you make it sound as if that was a hard thing to do. You were already part of the family. You’ve always been like a daughter to me.”
    Mia studied Beth over her coffee mug. She was in her early sixties now, but she’d aged well, with laugh lines around her eyes and a few threads of gray mixed in among the blond hairs. She’d put on some weight but not much, and to Mia, she looked the same as she had when Mia was a child. She’d been a great second mom, and Grandma Justine had been a perfect grandma.
    “You’re not about to start crying on me, are you?” Beth demanded. “I just put my contacts in, and if I start crying again they’re going to get glued to my eyeballs.”
    Mia wiped at the corners of her eyes and smiled. “Not me.”
    “We’re all going to miss her, but she wouldn’t want us being unhappy.”
    “It’s hard not to be. Without you and Grandma, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
    “Oh, you’d have managed,” Beth said with a knowing nod. “Grandma was very proud of your success. We all are.”
    Career success—the merit badge she’d worked so hard for. Once upon a time, it had been a means to an end. Now it was important, because it had become her identity. The only identity she had these days.
    She took the last bite of her scone, savoring the combination of flavors and textures. “These are so good.”
    Aunt Beth beamed at the compliment. “My latest creation.”
    Aunt Beth truly was a domestic goddess.
    Spending time in the kitchen with her and Grandma Justine had always been an experience that combined culinary artistry and female bonding. The Wright women took what happened in the kitchen seriously. “We’re not simply feeding the body when we make a meal,” Grandma Justine liked to say, “we’re feeding the soul, as well. So many important conversations take place around the dinner table. So much love is shared.”
    A lot of love had been shared teaching Mia how to cook. She remembered a particular Saturday afternoon when her mom was still alive. The three women had gathered in Grandma Justine’s kitchen and were making apple pies to put in the freezer. She’d been five, but Grandma Justine had given her the rolling pin and leftover pie dough to roll out. She’d been wearing the apron Aunt Beth had made especially for her—red fabric with a teacup print. It was both her Wright family uniform and her magic cape that turned her into a grown-up, doing grown-up things.
    “Never overwork your pie crust,” Grandma Justine had told her. “That makes it tough. Roll from the middle out.” She’d put her hands over Mia’s and helped her get a feel for it, wrinkled hands with veins that stood up like miniature blue mountain ridges covering small, smooth hands. Practiced hands guiding a beginner into a new world of