Country Tails

By Elizabeth Pewitt

When opportunity presents itself, Caitlin Connelly jumps at it and moves her little family to central Washington, just outside the charming, small town of Icicle. Set in the dramatic backdrop of the Cascade Mountains, Cait's story follows a roller coaster of events that will populate her new life. A bear burglar, the annual Road Kill Roast, a cougar threat, a barn raising, a coyote attack, a record blizzard, the Tick Festival, and a skunking are just a few of the issues Cait and her family encounter along the way. All the while, she stalwartly attempts to maintain her independence, in light of her disastrous marriage. Yet, wildlife biologist, Henry Raskin, despite his own painful past, finds his way into her life. His gentle consideration and growing affection for Cait, and for her children, lead her to once again trust someone else with her heart. Through it all, Cait is forced to explore the limitless boundaries of her own resourcefulness, strength, and resiliency, especially at the dramatic conclusion when she discovers that dreams should indeed be shared.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667828763

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Country Tails

Elizabeth Pewitt

ISBN: 978-1-66782-876-3

© 2022. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

To my husband, Jim, who listened patiently to my ramblings and whose support made this dream possible. And to my sons, Colin and Devin, who learned early in life to believe in the beauty of their dreams and to follow them.

Contents

Chapter One Country Road, Take Me Home

Chapter Two The Other Side

Chapter Three Oh, To Be Home Again

Chapter Four Beware the Dream

Chapter Five Movin’ on Down the Road

Chapter Six The Stuff Dreams are Made Of

Chapter Seven Henry’s Turn

Chapter Eight Pepe LaPew has Nothing on You …

Chapter Nine Watch that Step!

Chapter Ten The Harder They Fall …

Chapter Eleven The Home Stretch

Chapter Twelve Bountiful Harvest

Chapter Thirteen Pleasures

Chapter Fourteen ‘Tis the Season

Chapter Fifteen Happy Holidays

Chapter Sixteen A New Year

Chapter Seventeen Mud Season

Chapter Eighteen Spring in the Mountains

Chapter Nineteen A New Life

Chapter Twenty Testing the Dream

Chapter One

Country Road, Take Me Home

There are moments in one’s memory so indelibly etched in the mind that no amount of time will erase them. For Caitlin Connelly, it was staring at the jacquard print of the booth at Andy’s Seafood Diner on Pier 70. It was the minute when her entire world exploded into fragments of lies, deceit, and fury.

Cait had met her friend, Jennifer, for lunch that January day, ostensibly to catch up on each other’s lives and relax. Jennifer had mentioned getting together at Caitlin’s husband’s annual Christmas party where she worked as a secretary. When she called to set the date, Cait keenly anticipated seeing her friend.

Once the waiter had brought their drinks and taken their lunch orders, Jennifer wasted no time in getting to her point.

Cait, as much I love seeing you, she began, this isn’t just lunch.

Cait joked, You’re pregnant?

No, of course not! Cait, I’m serious. It’s taken me months to screw up the courage to talk to you, Jennifer went on.

Sensing that Jennifer was in trouble and needed to talk, Cait reached across the table and put her hand over her friend’s, Jen, what is it?

I just can’t sit by and watch you get used anymore, Jennifer said.

Confused, Cait shook her head, What do you mean?

Jack’s cheating on you, Jennifer said bluntly. He’s been doing it for months and this isn’t the first time.

Cait felt her heart start pounding in her chest and there was a faraway ringing in her ears. She didn’t think she heard Jennifer correctly.

What?

He’s cheating on you, Jennifer repeated. The new office manager they hired is fresh out of college and he’s been her constant companion since she started.

It was then that Cait noticed the pattern on the banquet that Jennifer was sitting on. She focused on it in order to gain her bearings. She’d heard of wives who were the last ones to know. What she couldn’t believe was that she was stupid enough to be one of them.

Jennifer’s voice came through her fog, Cait? Cait?

Cait couldn’t answer. Unbidden thoughts were swirling in her brain like space invaders. This had happened before … it had been horrible, but Jack had sworn that it was a one-time thing and it would never happen again. He had promised. He had loved her. He still loved her. Jennifer had to be wrong.

Cait, I didn’t know what to do. I knew that Jack couldn’t continue doing this and even though it hurts now, you should know, Jennifer was saying.

She has been going with him on his out-of-town trips. When he’s at the office working late, she’s with him. It’s getting so the whole office knows, but you don’t, Jennifer continued.

Cait nodded slowly, taking it in, but not quite comprehending the enormity of the words.

She isn’t the first one either. We lost a client last year because he ended up having an affair with one of their saleswomen, Jennifer said. I’m ashamed to say he even approached me, though he knows you and I are friends. I told him that he had a wonderful wife and he needed to get his priorities straight.

Cait studied the print on the banquet with greater intensity. Maybe if she burned it into her brain, it would block out everything that Jennifer was telling her. But it didn’t work. She knew that her friend was telling her the truth.

She looked at Jennifer, It’s OK. You’re right to have told me.

Jennifer glanced down at her hands and then at Cait, I feel so awful, but not as bad as if I went on pretending and didn’t say anything.

There was a pause.

This isn’t the first time, Cait said slowly.

I know, I … Jennifer started.

No, I mean Jack had an affair right after we got married, Cait explained. He said it was a one-time thing and promised it would never happen again. I believed him.

Oh, Jennifer said quietly. I don’t know what to say.

Well, you could say something like I should have seen it coming, Cait said.

I could, Jennifer agreed, but he’s pretty smooth. He covered his tracks and had good excuses, I’ll bet.

Thinking back briefly, Cait realized that maybe his excuses were only good because she wanted to believe them. Not believing them meant that her life needed to change. Cait was terrified of change.

There was another pause in the conversation, longer this time.

So now that you know, what do you think you’ll do? Jennifer asked softly.

Well it’s pretty clear I have to do something if I have any self-esteem left at all, Cait answered. I just don’t know what it is right now.

If truth be told, Caitlin Connelly’s dream would have been to escape the pristinely manicured lawns and comfortably bland homes of the suburbs to find health and happiness in the mountains. Her reveries entailed many vivid, mental pictures ranging from raising goats and chickens to taking up weaving on her own loom. She entertained ideas of composting and letting the hair on her legs grow out. Short of building her own log home log by log, Cait visualized something along the line of post and beam construction decorated in perfect Mountain Home Living Magazine décor. She pictured herself hiking the hills, walking stick in hand, breathing in clean mountain air, growing healthier with each breath. In the winter she would snowshoe, cross-country ski, bake bread, and cozy up by an immense rock fireplace while she watched the snow fall in the valley below.

When the carpool, the neighborhood gossip, and the sounds of the gardeners’ leaf blowers got to be too much, she would escape into her familiar daydream adding new details with each foray into her fantasy. Maybe she would have a vegetable garden; perhaps she could learn fly fishing or river kayaking. Cait would consider each new pursuit with careful relish before including it in her future life plan or discarding it as being too far out or unrealistic. After all, what is a dream without a little practicality?

Jack had leaned more toward the side of reality. Living outside of a city had its advantages, he would contend, not the least of which was that both their incomes were dependent on the population density in our area.

Piffle! she would object after one of their many discussions on the subject. Where’s your sense of adventure? Life isn’t a dress rehearsal! How long are we going to settle for what we have, rather than make a move toward what we want? she would challenge.

He would nod as if he had heard, but having listened to his wife’s ramblings on countless occasions, Jack knew that it was better just to let the little woman blow off steam. He figured she’d get over it. While Cait believed her own words, she realized they were simply the verbal display of her dreams. It took more than dreams and words to make such a thing come true. There was courage and action, for instance, neither of which Cait personally possessed.

And so she drifted for years, attending community fund-raisers, ordering bark for the garden beds, getting the house repainted, sitting in on neighborhood association meetings, and introducing herself to their children’s new teachers. Ah, another significant stumbling block in her dream … their children. Aged 7 and 9, their boys had no interest in leaving all that they knew and becoming goat herders as her son, Brent, was want to call it. They loved their sports, their friends, their skateboards, their bicycles, and their video games. Guilt was perhaps the biggest roadblock Cait had in not making her dream a reality. Why would she have these beautiful lads, raise them in one environment only to rip them out of it to relocate on a whim? It was totally preposterous! How could she even think of being so selfish! So she would paste on my best smile, raise her coffee mug at her next teacher staff meeting, and muster on.

It wasn’t until that fateful lunch with Jennifer that Cait’s fear of change and her dreams got kick started into reality. Though she got the house, the kids, and the dog in the divorce settlement, when the dust cleared she acknowledged that their quality of life had taken a significant hit. Cait and the boys were the walking wounded, feeling angry, betrayed, and abandoned, she recognized that they needed to heal.

Having put her dreams on hold for most of her adult life, she began to have reveries again about making a life in the country. Granted the boys had gone through enough already. To rip them out of what was familiar would be ludicrous. Still, her heart, and reason, told Cait that trying to continue to raise children in an upscale community on a teacher’s salary with an inadequate, and often infrequent, infusion of child support would eventually take its toll.

So she began to insist on putting them in the back of the SUV on the odd week-end for an excursion into the mountains. At their protests, she contended that it would be good for them to experience another environment, to get away from the idiot box, to breathe really fresh air, and maybe go for a hike as a family. This was, of course, greeted by loud groans and protests.

Again? Brent would whine, Didn’t we just do that last week?

Actually, it was last year, she would counter, and its not like we don’t spend most of our week-ends doing what you boys want to do. Yesterday, I believe I attended 3, count them 3, back-to-back soccer games in a row.

But riding in the car is so boring, Seth would chime in.

You can bring your Nintendo DS if you want, Cait offered brightly, with little reaction.

Mine needs charging, Brent moaned.

OK, then we’ll charge it in the car. Bring your charger, she was feeling herself slipping into a familiar power struggle. Look, pretend its Mother’s Day and you’re doing this for me.

They looked at each other, puzzled, and then Seth countered, But it’s September and we had to go to brunch on Mother’s Day last May.

Cait remembered that this hadn’t been too much of a hardship for him, since he had been allowed to return to the dessert buffet countless times before mysteriously coming down with a stomachache. Nevertheless, she wasn’t budging on this one. She might be a woman of small stature, but she could be convincing when she wanted to be. She felt like she needed to get out of town or she would implode … Maria, from the Sound of Music, had nothing on her.

Right, no argument, get in, Cait said tightly, holding open the car’s rear passenger door.

Armed with their games, enough snacks for a drive to Boston (they lived in Seattle), and their family dog, Harriet, the boys spread out in the back seat for the arduous trip.

One of the beauties of living in Seattle, besides living near the Puget Sound and the pleasures of salt air, seagulls, ferries, cruise ships, and seafood, is its proximity to the mountains. Within a half an hour, they were beginning the climb toward the Cascades. Strip malls gave way to fields, housing developments became fewer and farther between until finally the landscape was entirely dense forests and sheer rock faces split with occasional waterfalls. The highway wound up the through the steep terrain, leveling out at certain points, only to round the bend to gain altitude again. Once at the top of the mountain, the reds, oranges, and golden tones of an early fall were flaunting themselves in the chillier mountain air.

In the Pacific Northwest, fall often comes in later September after what’s known as Indian Summer, a prolonged warm spell, reminiscent of summer, but at a time when school is back in session, so only the adults really get to enjoy it. In the mountains, however, autumn comes as the temperatures drop off sharply during the nights and the colors begin their annual shift much earlier than at sea level. This is perhaps the best time to head for the hills.

Once at the top, the boys pulled their heads away from their games to look up at the ski area that had small patches of snow in spots suggesting that winter wasn’t far away.

Are we going to do ski lessons again this year? Seth asked.

Of course, Cait answered, looking at them in the rearview mirror. I think I’m going to take up skiing again too. I used to be pretty good as a teenager.

That’s be cool, Mom, Brent said. But you won’t ever be as good as Dad.

Since Jack always took the boys skiing but seldom took her along, she wasn’t surprised that the boys would have little confidence in her abilities. Additionally, she thought back to last season and she shot Brent a withering look from the driver’s seat, Refresh my memory, didn’t I hear that Dad was the one on that rescue sled riding down the mountain at the end of last season? Cait asked pointedly, arching her eyebrow for emphasis.

Mom, Brent said, that was just because it was the end of the day and the light was bad.

Yeah, Mom, Seth chimed in, Dad wouldn’t have hit that snow bank if he hadn’t been skiing backwards!

This was certainly a new version of the old story. Backwards? she repeated.

You weren’t supposed to tell her that part, dummy, Brent admonished his little brother.

Sorry, Seth didn’t look particularly sorry at all. In fact, Cait detected the hint of a devilish grin behind his apology.

Backwards? she asked again.

It was Seth’s pleasure to spill the beans, He was the catcher, Mom.

Catcher? Cait was beginning to sound like a parrot with her one word responses.

This was all new news to her. As far as she had known, her ex’s torn meniscus was the result of an unseen snow berm at the edge of the trail.

Seth piped up again, Yeah, we were throwing the ball back and forth while we were skiing downhill and Dad was skiing backwards trying to catch the ball. He was turning around to throw it back to Brent when he fell.

Bringing the heel of her hand to her forehead in an exaggerated gesture indicating that she should have known, she said, Of course, that makes perfect sense.

He could have stayed up, but like I said, the light was getting flat, Brent offered, feeling, once again, the need to defend his father.

This sounds like shades of one of the Kennedys skiing in Colorado, Cait answered, shaking her head, Only he wasn’t so lucky.

The boys, by this time, had lost interest in the conversation because as they came down into a valley, they spotted a herd of elk grazing alongside the road.

Look! they both pointed, excitedly.

Cait slowed the car and pulled over to the side of the highway so they could all get a better look at the herd. Despite the cars whizzing by, the herd of twenty-five or more elk grazed undisturbed. Once in awhile, the bull elk would look up to keep an eye on the herd or watch the passing traffic. As the herd slowly moved away from the highway, they again started the car and pulled back onto the blacktop.

Before long, they entered the Teanaway Valley, a huge expanse of land surrounded by mountain peaks and speckled with horse farms. The boys once again abandoned their games to point out their favorite looking horses.

Could we get a horse, Mom? Seth asked.

Before she could answer, Brent responded, Where would we keep it … the backyard? Gawd Seth!

While Cait felt that Harriet was enough pet for their family, she did include a horse in her reveries of life in the country and so she wasn’t so quick to dismiss Seth’s fantasy.

A horse would be fun; maybe a couple of horses, Cait offered, ulterior motive deeply buried. But Brent’s right, we don’t have any place to keep a horse where we live now.

The road meandered through more rock wall faces and a couple of valleys before heading up and over a second pass. After about an hour, the car turned onto a steep dirt road that wound up a hill, crossed a canal, and made a couple of switchbacks before they finally pulled into the gravel driveway that led up to the small house Cait had rented for the week-end.

From the road the property didn’t look like much with the trees guarding the entrance. Once near the house, the foliage parted to reveal a neat, cedar shingled home with a wrap-around porch. It was surrounded by wildflowers, garden beds, and a huge expanse of grass that, while not putting green quality, was nevertheless a wonderful spot for throwing a football around (without skiing backwards) or for badminton as a net had been set up off to one side. Cait stopped the car and they all piled out excitedly. The boys immediately grabbed the Frisbee from the car and began tossing it around while she explored the property further. The front porch of the house promised mornings of sipping coffee while enjoying the garden. The house itself was small but quite serviceable. The entry opened onto a great room complete with vaulted ceilings, a stone fireplace, comfortable, overstuffed furniture, a table, and dining bar that rimmed the open kitchen area. There was a small study and a master bedroom also on the main floor. She was taken with the soaking tub housed in the corner of the master bath with a breathtaking view of the valley and immediately promised herself a bubble bath with a glass of wine before dinner.

She headed downstairs to check out the basement. Despite the low ceilings, there were two adequate bedrooms, a bath, and a ping-pong table downstairs. The whole area was done in knotty pine which harkened back to the 50s, but it did have a certain charm even if it didn’t possess the stylish characteristics of the obviously renovated upstairs.

The boys, Cait said aloud.

Going back upstairs, she heard her sons coming in from outside, thundering through house in exploration. Upon emerging from the downstairs and joining her in the kitchen, they announced, We claim the downstairs. No adults allowed!

Not even for a friendly, two against one Mom, ping-pong game after dinner? she asked.

Cait had been a pretty wicked player in college, though that was over 15 years ago, she still loved to play.

They looked at each other. Well, Brent said, slowly, I guess we could allow you down there to get your butt whipped!

You’re on, Cait laughed. For now, though, we all need to unload the car and get Harriet some water before we can do anything.

For the next hour they occupied themselves with unloading, unpacking, putting stuff away, marinating the dinner meat, putting a bottle of wine down to chill, and making the beds with the linens they were advised to bring. By the time they were finished, it was almost time for lunch. Cait carried the sausages, buns, potato salad, and watermelon out to the back deck and started the grill.

Taking a sip of cider, she checked around the corner to see the boys tossing the ball, before settling down to enjoy some peace and quiet. The covered porch was huge, comfortably housing a sofa, a couple of ladder-back rockers, a bookshelf, and a dining table and chairs. It was obviously the room of choice in the warmer months. Other than the boys’ shouts and Harriet’s occasional bark in her attempt to steal the ball, there was no other sound. It was so peaceful. She sat down, closed her eyes, and took a deep cleansing breath. Even the air was different here, clear and crisp, fragrantly perfumed with the lavender from the garden near the house. She felt the tension leave her body as she settled into the chair. Brent and Seth came onto the porch to join her.

You guys ready for lunch? she asked as they reached for drinks in the cooler and came to flop on the settee next to her.

Yeah, Brent said. Hey Mom, this place is way cool! he finished, enthusiastically.

Yeah, it’s awesome! Seth agreed. What’re we going to do after lunch?

Go for a hike? Cait suggested.

Naw, Brent said. It’s still warm enough. Can we go swimming?

I remember passing a small beach area down at the river on the way here, Cait said. We could go there.

Seth jumped up, I’m going to go get my inner tube.

He and Brent headed back to the garage to get their gear together while she finished cooking the sausage.

The country is getting to them, Cait thought. "But they would howl at leaving our Wisteria Lane community permanently.

Then again, nothing worth doing is without risk, she told herself. Perhaps while they were here, she would take a look at some of the properties available in the area, check out prices … it costs nothing to ask questions.

At that, the grill offered up a great plume of smoke, effectively ending her thought process in favor of serving lunch before it spontaneously combusted. But the seed had been planted and Cait had no idea the rollercoaster their lives were about to take.

Chapter Two

The Other Side

Henry put down the rake that he had been using to gather up the overabundance of leaves that had accumulated in his aunt’s front yard. He loved autumn, but this task he could do without. Still, he loved his aunt, he loved being outdoors, and he loved the smell of the burn piles he would start to dispose of the leaves. Raking the leaves up was just a necessary evil in the process. His back and neck ached from the effort. He’d been at it all morning and he was feeling it. His Aunt Edna had way too much property to maintain by herself, so jobs like this one fell to him.

Well, Henry thought to himself, I certainly have the time and Aunt Edna has the property.

As long as Edna had all the property, Henry had little free time. Not that Henry needed anymore free time. It would just be time to think, and remember, and that would not be good. So work was the way to avoid that and to help his aunt, which was good.

Henry Raskin