Grace's eyes shot open as the sound of a branch breaking pulled her from a relaxing nap in her hammock. She craned her neck to see a short, chubby old woman approaching through the trees.
"She must be one of the neighbours" Grace thought to herself, still startled at the sounds of dried leaves crunching and branches breaking.
"Oh sorry to bother you dear," the woman shouted, "I'm just trying to clear a path here."
Grace got up from her spot on the hammock and walked over to the edge of the yard where the old lady had already cleared quite a path into the brush.
"Not a problem miss. I'm Grace Marquis. This is my parents' cabin and I'm not sure how they'd feel about a new path here..." Grace trailed off as the lady broke more branches and threw them aside into the brush.
"Oh I'm Loretta sweetie. You must be John and Meryl's daughter. Yes, yes, they mentioned you were back to visit." The old lady, Loretta, beamed.
"Am I missing something here?" Grace said, very confused.
"Well, I have the cabin next door and your mom and I are in the cabin owner's council together. We like to have tea together somedays ad we'd discussed making a clearer path between our cabins." Loretta continued her work and Grace nodded. Without hesitation, Grace picked up branches and leaves and helped the old lady with her odd job. They chit-chatted and Grace decided she enjoyed Lorretta's company so she invited her to come to her cabin for a drink once their work was finished.
Loretta slid onto a stool by the kitchen island in the Marquis' cabin. She glanced around the space and watched as Grace took two glasses from the cupboard and a pitcher of lemonade from the fridge. She was a quiet lady but Grace could practically see the wheels turning in Loretta's head as the old woman took her first sip of lemonade.
"Oof, too much sugar!" Loretta huffed and crinkled her nose as she set her glass down.
"Oh, sorry! I didn't realize..." Grace began but was interrupted by Loretta.
"Hasn't your mother taught you how to make real lemonade?" Loretta questioned and Grace shook her head answering,
"Nope! She doesn't know how to do it herself," Grace laughed, "This was definitely a drink mix she got at the store."
"Well, a good woman needs to make good lemonade so you two should come over this evening and I'll show you how it's done." Loretta beamed, feeling very impressed with herself.
After Loretta returned to her own cabin, Grace went back to the table under the awning to get her phone and see if there were any texts. She secretly hoped there was a text from a certain farmer and was satisfied when she saw the message pop up on her screen.
Hey! It was really nice to meet you last night. What are you up to tonight? The message from Hudson sent Grace's stomach into flutters as she moved to reply.
Hey thanks! It was good to meet you too. I'm actually going to my neighbour's cabin tonight. She wanted to add a 'why?' at the end but backspaced and decided that was too much, just in case he was just wondering in a general sort of conversation making way. She realized she was overthinking and decided not to sit by her phone and wait for another message to come through so, she took her phone back inside and started to pull out the ingredients to make a barbeque dinner for her parents.
Not long after Grace had started barbequing the steaks, she watched as her Mother's SUV pulled onto the grass in front of the cabin. The sun was hanging low and the light that came threw the trees was orange. She closed the lid of the barbeque and placed the tongs on the side before walking over to greet her parents.
