The first time she saw him he was taking the saddle off of his horse outside the weathered barn. She was only sixteen, but she knew instantly that August would be the one she married or she would never marry. He was perfect. August, unaware that he had been appraised that Saturday afternoon, had taken off his worn cotton shirt and tossed it over the fence rail. It might have been autumn in South Georgia, but no one had told the summer sun. He had gone riding that day to think about a conversation he had overheard the day before. Riding the ranch was the best therapy August could get for clearing his head and thinking things through. By the time he had returned to the barn that day, August thought he had everything figured out. As he methodically went through the steps of unharnessing Jared and wiping him down, a beautiful young girl was watching his every move as though some unseen force compelled her to watch without allowing her any control of her own body. August was nine inches over five feet tall. He was muscled from hard work on the ranch. The sun had lightened streaks of his blond hair until they were white. She determined that the angel, Michael, would look like August if Michael took on human form. Such rugged beauty she had never seen before.
“Do you like old-fashioned fudge, sweety?” Mrs. Witherspoon asked Brianna. She forced herself to turn away from the window.
“Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Witherspoon.” Brianna took the large square of chocolate from the gray-haired lady. The Witherspoons were old friends of her parents. They ran a dairy years ago from which her parents bought raw milk. Brianna was six when her family moved to the city. She didn’t remember the Witherspoons from that time in her life. She was extremely thankful they had moved back to the country and back into the Witherspoon’s lives.
“Call me Nana, please. I know you don’t remember, but that’s what you called me when you were small.”
“Nana it is then.” Brianna tasted the still warm fudge. How delicious it was, made the old-fashioned way with cocoa and cream. Bree listened as her mother and Nana talked about the old days and brought each other up to par on the happenings between then and now. Her father was walking the property with Mr. Witherspoon. Bree was half listening and half daydreaming about the most handsome man she had ever seen.
“I’ll see you this weekend then.” Nana had walked with Bree and her mother out to their Ford truck loaded down with the last of their things. Bree’s parents had bought the seven acres that shared a border with the Witherspoons. Bree, having graduated from high school, accepted a job picking up pecans and walnuts for Nana. Although Bree had a four year scholarship for college, she would need to work and save money for gas and incidentals. Marie Witherspoon paid generously to have her nuts gathered, shelled, and ready for market or storage in the Witherspoon cellar.
Brianna had seven months to earn what ladies of long ago would call, “pin money.” She had worked hard, believing as her parents taught her that honest wages deserved an honest day’s work. Even so, Brianna found no difficulty fantasizing about becoming Mrs. August Witherspoon. She had no delusions that August was remotely interested in her. She would find out later just how much interest the half Cherokee man had in the girl with the flowing waves of auburn hair; Bree’s hair was such a deep auburn red that some people thought her hair to be black when seen from a distance.
“I’m running so behind, dear. I just have time to make it to the Baptist Women’s group. Would you take August’s lunch to him? He is working on his house over behind the old barn on the back forty. I normally do, but I really need to be on time with the Shower cakes for Missy Walker. Do you know Missy?” As Nana talked, she was gathering things together. She would no doubt be early as she always was, but it was a compulsion for Marie to be among the first at any gathering.
