Cherrywood Inn, page 1
Cherrywood Inn
A Legacy
Tanela Hicks
CHERRYWOOD INN
a legacy
TANELA HICKS
Copyright © 2024 by Tanela Hicks
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Publisher’s note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Kristen Corrects, Inc.
Cover art design by Tamarr's Creative
First edition published 2024
Dedication
∞∞∞
To Grandma. I love you and miss you more every day.
Thank you for giving me a legacy.
Chapter 1
Natera didn’t want to get out of the car. Her feet just would not move. She was stuck in a daze of plastic cushions, big-box TVs, and a constant owl hooting in the distance. She could not see her grandmother’s house in its current state because it was and would always be the home of comfort and family.
As she looked at the green shutters falling from the windows, she wondered if grief affected physical items the same way it affected people. The porch was crumbling, only held together by large overgrown vines and creepy jenny plants. The fence on the left side of the property had totally vanished. Evidence of country squatters was present in the way of cardboard boxes on the front porch. Grandma Mae would have never allowed such a display on her front stoop. The sight was enough to make Natera jump out of her Toyota and begin the hardest job of her life.
Mae Ann Caldwell was Cherry, North Carolina’s first Black business owner. For fifty-four years she ran the Cherrywood Inn. The bed and breakfast property was given to her at a young age by the original property owners, the Beauforts, once they discovered that the true caretakers of the property had been Mae Ann’s ancestors at the height of slavery. Ever since they handed her the keys, Mae forged a hard path, and she had become a well-respected member of the community. This was a helpful fact during the probate hearings Natera was forced to endure along with her family.
Mae Ann Caldwell passed two years ago. Natera had been the family member who lived closest, so she spent a lot of time with her leading up to her death. Even before that, once her health began to decline, it was Natera who managed the booking request and hired help to run the inn. She knew Cherrywood like the back of her hand. Natera could not bring herself to come back to the inn after Grandma laid her head back for the last time.
It had been two years, and after all the drama, fussing, and denials, everyone—including the judge—agreed Cherrywood belonged to her. Now that meant Natera would have to go in and replace, restore, and renew the heart of the inn. Doing it without her heart, Mae Ann, would be her biggest challenge…and her best chance for healing.
Chapter 2
As Natera walked onto the porch, she immediately saw the severity of the foundation issues the county auditor had mentioned. He had billed her for the assessment visit despite being unable to actually review the property in full. He stated that it was moments away from being marked a condemned property, and if it wasn’t for the kindness of Grandma Mae, he would have gone straight to the township office to file the paperwork. However, Grandma Mae safely delivered his second child during Hurricane Hugo, and that earned a little discretion from Mr. Lewis. He stressed that Natera must get the foundation issues addressed immediately to avoid condemnation.
Natera decided to go through the side door, given that the back and front porches were not safe to step on. She stood on the old tree stump to access the door set about three feet off the ground. As she gave it a hard pull, the screen door flew back, almost knocking her off. Natera regained her stance and pushed on the heavy wood door.
The doors of the inn were rarely locked. Everyone knew Grandma Mae often kept an open-door policy. After a half-century of business, there were never any issues.
Just as Natera expected, the door shoved open. She had to hop into the opening, and once safely in the space, she carefully stepped to close the door. The old Victorian house featured a side door that once led to a small bedroom area where the help would sleep. Grandma Mae turned it into a pantry soon after acquiring Cherrywood. The pantry had recently been emptied by her uncles, but it still smelled like cinnamon and pine.
As she walked into the back of the kitchen, all the memories hit her at once.
Over the last two years, Natera had developed a good tactic to deal with her varying and very unpredictable emotions regarding her grandma. She simply started singing old-school hip-hop songs and went on to immediately start another task. So just as the emotions began to overtake her eyes, she rushed through, past the stove, to the opening where the refrigerator and window used to be.
Leaving the memories of cabbage and fried chicken behind, she crossed the large dining area to enter the “no-touch living room.” When Natera was a child, this room, decorated with elephants and images of Black royalty, was strictly off-limits. She was still almost tempted to remove her shoes. The only time she saw her grandmother use the couch was when the pastor or other official people came for a visit. The main conservatory was an open sitting and relaxing area for guests.
Currently, it looked like the attic exploded all over it. The furniture was still present but pushed to one corner. Boxes and random items were thrown everywhere. Grandma’s ceiling fan sagged low. All the clutter made the space look inhabitable, but it was just stuff. The glass doors on the opposite end were still intact, although one pane was broken. Natera had been worried that Cherrywood would not be salvageable, but looking at the once warm and welcoming place, she still felt Grandma’s love.
The feeling soon vanished when she crossed the conservatory and came to a hole in the floor just before the foyer. It seemed like the foundation of the porch stretched under the foyer, and since the porch collapsed, so did the foyer area. That is a major issue, she thought.
She made her way to the stairs and finished her evaluation of the house. All nine bedrooms were in decent shape and surprisingly uncluttered. Natera didn’t have the strength to go into her grandmother’s suite—she left that door closed. She went into the bathrooms long enough to determine there was no plumbing. It wasn’t just that the water was turned off, the tubs in some of the washrooms had been removed. Pipes hung on the outside of the walls. She would have to ask Uncle Will about how that was possible. The home should have been off-limits for the last two years during the court procedures. So, who removes not one, but three claw foot tubs? The mystery would have to wait until another day.
Chapter 3
The first priority would be to reestablish the foundation and begin maintenance on the home’s exterior. Natera thought if she could make the inn look like Cherrywood Inn again, then the town would do what it does, and talk. The talk could represent free and easy marketing for her and ultimately help drum up new business for the bed and breakfast. With the popularity of home rental websites like Airbnb and the nearby major tourist traps like Charlotte, Natera knew she had a feasible comeback lane, but she still needed great word-of-mouth to generate revenue.
She also needed an able-bodied handyman. She knew most of the help available in town because she had grown up just north of Cherry.
A week after Grandma Mae passed, she packed her bags and went to England for two years, only coming home to attend mandatory in-person court sessions. Natera worked as a travel blogger, where she was often not stationary and could make a home anywhere. As liberating as this was, it often made her an outsider in her own community. And since her mother semi-retired early with her third husband and moved to Prague years ago, the community would soon forget the Caldwells.
Stepping outside the side door on the stump and then onto the ground, she dialed her favorite uncle who still lived close by.
“Uncle Will,” Natera said into the phone as she walked around to the back and inventoried the garden.
“Hey Nati, what’s going on? How’s Momma’s house?”
Everyone in her family called her Nati. It was only a select few outside of her family that used the nickname, and they were basically family by proximity. Uncle Will was the only uncle Natera talked to regularly.
Mae Ann Caldwell had three sons and one daughter with her grandfather Randall Sr. aka Pop Pop who died in Vietnam. Natera never had the chance to meet him. Her overprotective uncle became constant in her life and ultimately blocked every chance of a romantic life in Cherry. She was close to him and his wife because she lived with them during her difficult high school years.
“Hey, Uncle Will. The house is… Well…”
“It’s a mess, right? I know it is because when I drive by on my supply runs to Draper, I see the shingles falling off from the bypass.”
“It definitely needs some work,” Natera stated dryly as she looked over the garden. Somehow the sunflower and mustard greens plants seemed to be thriving.
“Well, we knew that it would need some work,” he said slowly.
“I’m not calling you for the work, Unc.” Natera knew that while Unc Will had the skills to help with the remodeling process, he was at capacity. His freight and lumber business began taking off about three years ago and with his wife Sabrina pregnant and due in the fall, he was under stric
“Hmm. This is true, especially since his stroke, he’s looking at early retirement.”
“See, I don’t know who to call or where to begin. Any suggestions?”
“Let me look into some things and give you a call tomorrow. I might know someone.”
“All right, thanks, Unc.”
“Now where are you staying during this remodel?”
Natera took a deep breath. “I planned to stay at the inn, but I’m seeing that may not be feasible. Did you rent my room out yet?”
Chuckling, her Uncle Will said what he always would say. “My door is always open. Sabrina washed the bedding and already put your towels out for you. Come on home Nati.”
∞∞∞
After getting settled at Uncle Will’s house and having some of the best chicken pot pie in town, Natera fell asleep hard and fast. By the time she woke again, it was well after 9 in the morning. Uncle Will and Sabrina were early risers and had left before she woke. They were kind enough to leave breakfast, but she knew that was just a first-day welcome. Uncle Will’s had been her home for the last two years of high school, so she was far from a guest. The welcoming gesture did, however, get her brain thinking.
Natera wanted to run Cherrywood Inn in the same way her grandmother had but with some new touches. For example, Grandma always had breakfast, lunch, and dinner call times. Nowadays people on vacation or retreat wanted to feel free to eat breakfast whenever they felt like it. Natera’s job was to figure out a balance between the two approaches that were cost-effective and still bed-and-breakfast-style. She also wanted to change the layout of the rooms. None of the rooms were really suited for families. On the face of things, that wasn’t bad. However, thinking about Uncle Will, who married late in life and was expecting his first child at the age of forty-three… Couples would likely want to visit or travel to Cherrywood and bring a baby. Where would the baby sleep? A double suite at Cherrywood Inn could attract a whole different demographic. And since there was so much work to do, why not look into restructuring the home?
All of these were just ideas, though. She had no idea where to even find an architect to materialize the ideas she had in her head. The only thing she knew how to do definitively was clear out the garden. Natera decided to tackle that project first while she thought through some of the other issues. Gardening was always the best time to plot and plan, and it would get her back in touch with the property. Plus, she still had to wait on Uncle Will to find a contractor or construction company to fix the home’s exterior. And that might take a while, but there was no reason she couldn’t get moving.
Chapter 4
Pulling up to Cherrywood Inn at the height of the summer sun had Natera second-guessing refreshing the garden. What started out as an inspiring early summer morning had turned into a balmy North Carolina summer day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun was just hot enough to call it summer, but not sweltering enough to procrastinate the task on her list. Taking off her T-shirt and opting to do the job in her barely appropriate camisole, Natera popped the trunk of her car. She got out and began unloading gardening tools and products onto the ground. She knew that there was a wagon in the shed and tried to pull everything around the back at once.
Walking to the shed, Natera stopped just short of pulling the door all the way open when she heard rustling coming from the shed. Natera was a country girl at heart, so she wasn’t afraid of animals, in theory. Understanding that it could be anything from a rabbit to a rogue wild turkey—and since she preferred not to be attacked—Natera decided to stand to the left of the large shed door, swing it open, and let the thing run out. As she steadied herself on the handle, she was confused about how it got trapped in there in the first place. When she was here yesterday, she didn’t notice if the door was open or closed, but she definitely didn’t hear any animal sounds coming from the shed. And this sounded larger than a rabbit for sure.
“I would wait on that if I were you,” a man said from behind her.
Natera turned around with her hand still on the handle. Looking toward the inn, she saw a man walking from the back of the house. He was at least fifty feet away, but his voice was so deep and assertive that he sounded as if he was right in her ear. When she turned fully to see the stranger, she realized that her description of a man was strongly underestimated. His strides were long and smooth. Almost as if he were walking with a slick suit on and gator-tipped shoes. Instead, Natera saw a man with precisely cut jeans and a navy T-shirt that was almost two sizes too small. Or maybe his muscles were two sizes too big for his 6’5” frame. Typically, extremely tall men had the height card with the slim card. This man had the height and muscle card. His barely bronzed creamy white skin seemed to sparkle in the sun. Natera thought white men only sparkled in vampire movies.
As he came within natural speaking distance, Natera was just beginning her gawking fest, and speaking like a normal person seemed like an impossible task. Beautiful hazel-green eyes stared back at her. They were framed by a tight jawline and a slight sexy smile. The man looked like he just jumped from a suit catalog photo shoot to a horse riding instructor. He was carrying something in his left hand and used his right hand to push his too-long dirty blond hair out of his eyes.
“I think the dog in there is harmless but is definitely hangry. I grabbed my lunch from the truck as a bribe. I think we should give that to him first before trying to interact with him.” This man was stunning, and she wanted to find words to respond that matched his confident energy.
“What truck?” Natera internally slapped herself. She had several confusing thoughts and many questions. One main question was who man was and the second was why was he on her property. But somehow all she could get out was inquiring about an invisible truck.
“Hmm. My truck,” he said with an easy smile, then nodded to the barn.
Sure enough, there was a big red truck that looked older than the home itself.
“Oh, okay.”
Natera moved to the side and let the man do what he seemed so confident in achieving. She wasn’t looking forward to getting bitten by some stray dog today. She was comfortable with just about any living creature, but dogs had never been her thing. Dogs were never Grandma Mae’s cup of tea, so the question of how a dog got trapped on her grandma’s property would be added to the growing list of mysteries at Cherrywood Inn.
Chapter 5
Caleb was anxious as he tried to stay focused on the task at hand and not awkwardly stare at the pretty girl. He felt like a middle school kid who just had a single interaction with the prettiest girl in school. The only difference is, he was a grown man. He hadn’t even properly introduced himself. He just started talking about dangerous animals without any context.
Caleb casually opened the shed door, and just as predicted, the dog he had trapped in there twenty minutes ago was drooling and barking, but he didn’t look extremely dangerous. He looked mangey and skinny, which probably meant he was neglected. Caleb slowly reached out with the lunch pail. He initially left it closed but sat on the ground to show the dog he could be trusted.
He whispered to the woman, “Bend down a bit, he will be less scared if you are closer to his level.”
Thankfully she did exactly that. The dog inched closer so Caleb opened the pail where there was a healthy portion of meatloaf and potatoes with two fruit cups. He quickly removed the fruit cups. While dogs can eat about anything, sugary fruit and sweets were a template for worms.
When Caleb reached behind him to hand off the fruit cups to the girl, he was surprised at her quick grab. She tucked them into her bag quickly. Caleb didn’t miss the slight graze of her hand and the warm feeling it gave to his stomach. The dog came closer, grabbed the pail with his teeth, and dragged it back to the corner. As he began to devour the contents, Caleb did a slow turn to look at the girl.
