July Skies (A Year in Paradise Book 7) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Keep Up With Hildred

  July Skies

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  July Skies

  A Year In Paradise #7

  Hildred Billings

  BARACHOU PRESS

  July Skies

  Copyright: Hildred Billings

  Published: July 10th, 2019

  Publisher: Barachou Press

  This is a work of fiction. Any and all similarities to any characters, settings, or situations are purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  Keep up with Hildred’s latest releases by joining her mailing list! Behind the scenes, first looks, and even some free snippets!

  July Skies

  Chapter 1

  KAREN

  “Achoo!”

  Every member of the city council leaped in their seats. Tom Deacon almost lost the reading glasses off his face. Sissy Clarence slapped her hand over her heart. The only person who didn’t express extreme startlement was Wanda Roy, the park commissioner. She continued to munch on her granola bar and write down the figures from the Power Point shining behind Mayor Karen Rath.

  “Excuse me.” Karen dove for the box of tissues on the end of the table. “Allergies are ripe right now.”

  She didn’t know why she was suddenly so afflicted. For most of the spring, she watched her fellow townsfolk fall beneath the haze of sneezing, coughing, and itchy throats, but she remained relatively unperturbed. Pop a pill a day and be on my way. She attended every outdoor event without incident and had the energy to throw her daughter a seventeenth birthday party down at the river, where half the girls from her class died from the pollen.

  It was the wedding, wasn’t it? Two days ago, Karen officiated the wedding of her good friend Dr. Brandelyn Meyer and local B&B owner Sunny Croker. The ceremony was held at the Waterlily House outside of town, a place known for its beautiful floral gardens. Didn’t help that local florist Meadow went all out with the orchids the brides loved so much.

  Those flowers must have finally triggered Karen’s allergies. Since the day before, she had struggled to breathe. The left nostril was Niagara Falls, and the right was already crusty from excessive blowing and wiping. The rings around her eyes could only be described as raccoonish. When Karen wasn’t knocking back more Zyrtec, she was rolling in her bed and praying that no grass seed had made it into her sheets.

  Too bad she had to be in the city hall first thing Monday morning. There was so much going on that week. Fourth of July, for one. The weekend-long festivities started that Thursday with a parade and pancake breakfast at the American Legion Hall. The firehouse sponsored the pancakes, but Karen was expected to make an appearance to eat strawberry pancakes and serve scrambled eggs to the families paying admittance. Then her ass was at the front of the parade line. Her afternoon would be spent hobnobbing around town, from the quilt show at the library, to the flower and vegetable blue-ribbon contests at the elementary school.

  That was before she acknowledged the entourage she invited to tag along.

  Wasn’t that the whole point of this first-thing-in-the-morning meeting? There was plenty of time to go over her schedule for Thursday and what everyone else on the city council would be up to once the festivities were underway. First, they needed to come to a consensus about Paradise Valley’s new guests, due to arrive that day.

  “Hibiscus Films have graciously forwarded us their proposed filming itinerary.” Karen sniffed up a glob of snot as she passed around the copies her assistant made earlier that morning. “Dahlia Granger is our primary contact. She has assured me that they won’t go filming anywhere with restricted access without our consent.”

  “Is she still complaining that I haven’t given it to her?” Wanda scoffed at the itinerary in front of her. “She was blowing up my phone last week for the permit to film in the off-access road at Wolf’s Hill. Told her she had to wait until I got the all clear from the forest service, but you’d think they were filming a movie for Hollywood instead of whatever it is they’re doing.”

  “A documentary. About Paradise Valley.” Karen could still hardly believed it. She had been minding her own business that past May when a random call from someone named “Dahlia” at Hibiscus Films came through the line. Apparently, Ms. Granger had heard all about Paradise Valley after it was featured in the April national news. A celebrity had started dating a local, after all, and the whole country wanted to know about this supposed town full of “lesbians,” as they were always called. Karen had been polite when she gently corrected Ms. Granger that they were not, in fact, a town full of lesbians. There were many bisexual women and gay men as well. They proudly represented the full LGBTIQA+ spectrum. Just because the place was founded as a lesbian commune decades ago didn’t mean…

  Right. Dahlia hadn’t cared about that. She cared about filming a mini documentary about the history of Paradise Valley and the people who lived there. What this accomplished didn’t matter as much as raking in the profits from the boosted tourism. Paradise Valley was a vacation hotspot year-round, especially when it came to lesbian and bi women from around the country. Those who wanted a slice of small town Americana and some outdoorsy fun often gravitated toward Paradise Valley for the perceived “safe space.” Businesses were not likely to turn them away, nor did they fear canoodling with their partners down at the bar or in the second-run movie theater that played during the summer. A popular Texan hiking group often booked rooms in August to make a vacation out of it for their members. July was stacked with events, from Fourth of July to Paradise Pride at the end of the month. The annual Paradise Days festival ended the season over Labor Day weekend. Sure, there was family-friendly Halloween and the Winter Solstice/Christmas spectacle, but nothing else compared to July.

  If you were mayor, that meant extra work, though. For Karen, that was both a boon and a curse. She liked being busy. She cared about the town, and like a self-employed entrepreneur who feared slowing down meant losing money, Karen feared that taking days off meant parts of her town lacked in what it desperately needed. It wasn’t only about her. It was about the small business owners affording their rents and staying open. It was about the farmers’ market attracting enough patrons. The school summer lunch program helped the kids whose parents desperately needed the aid. Potholes needed filling. Sidewalks cracked. Trees overhung on Main Street. Ordinances must be passed. Corporations – both utility and retail – knocked on her door to gain admittance to the sleepy mountain town. Taking a break, let alone at this time of year, was verboten.

  It also meant she had little time for herself and her family. Her two kids were grown enough to take care of themselves, but what was the point of her son coming home from college if she wasn’t around to fawn over him and cook his favorite meals? Her daughter was such a lovely young woman now. She was about to become a senior at Clark High School. She needed her mother’s guidance more than ever right now. Such a bright, pretty girl could
end up making some bad choices if her worldly mother didn’t intervene. God knew her ex-husband wasn’t helping much around there.

  Right. Fourth of July. Hibiscus Films. The film crew was coming in that day and settling in at Waterlily House. They had a meeting here at city hall on Tuesday. After that, Karen would be in full Fourth of July mode. I almost forgot the dog contest I have to judge on Friday. God! How could I forget… Probably because her friend Brandelyn wasn’t in town that year to enter her Pomeranian like she usually did – and never shut the hell up about. Brandy was off on her honeymoon that week. Thank God.

  “As far as I know, there are no complaints,” Karen asserted. “They’ll be by the office tomorrow to say hello and to conduct their introductory interviews. So, we better be all on our best behavior! I have no idea if they’ll be filming.”

  Tom shuddered. His tall, wiry frame only made his reading glasses and salt and pepper hair stand out more. In another life, he was the kind of man Karen was attracted to, not that she ever fancied having another man in her life. My son is plenty now. He reminded her so much of his father, it was almost uncanny. Well, there are reasons I dated his father. I must like some things about him… Never mind the only reason Karen married her ex was because their son cooked in the oven.

  “If it’s all the same to you,” Tom said, “I’d rather not be filmed. I think I’d have to sign a release, anyway.”

  “Yes, you have the right to not be filmed.” Karen blew her nose again. Everyone politely looked away as a glob of snot made its way into the trash and Karen grabbed a wet wipe from her purse. “We had agreed to at least do the written interviews. They’ll use the information to conduct more research so they can depict an accurate picture of our town. I think that’s fair.”

  Tom looked at her as if she were nuts. We get it, Tom, you’re shy. The man had enough troubles when people showed up to the city council meetings. While Karen could understand him not wanting to show up on camera, she didn’t see what the big deal was regarding a simple interview. The man was in charge of city finances. He could buck up.

  “This whole thing is going to be trouble,” Sissy said with a shake of her head and a removal of her wire-frame glasses. “You ask me, outsiders coming into town, wanting to sniff around, ask our poor folks a bunch of questions… they’ve got some kind of agenda. Maybe they ain’t conservative shills looking to portray us as Godless American heathens, but they’re up to something.”

  “Dahlia has assured us that their intentions are to only portray us as we are. You go in front of camera and start bitching about your ex-wife, Sissy, you can bet they’re gonna use it to portray you a certain way.” Karen continued to sniff.

  “What about you? Gonna moan about your ex-husband while you’re showing them around the library?”

  “At least yours pays child support,” Karen muttered.

  “Ladies,” Wanda interrupted, “let’s get back on track, huh? We’ve got plenty to do without going at each other’s throats. Again.” She nodded to Karen. “As you were saying about the plans for filming?”

  Karen didn’t know how she got through the meeting. Between her brain fog and the stress of everything there was to do, she was liable to fall over at her desk and take a hearty nap. Sissy would absolutely love that, I bet. Sissy could go suck her toes for all Karen cared.

  She instead smacked into her office chair, put her head in her hands, and sighed. The allergy medication finally kicked in, or that could have been the excellent air filter pumping away in the corner of her office. That’s right. Suck up every allergen. I don’t have time for them right now. Karen barely had time for the message flashing on her phone. The only reason she picked it up was because her assistant informed her it was from her son.

  “Heeeey, Mom.” Xander’s drawl sounded just like his father’s. It played into Karen’s paranoia that said her son was seeing his father behind her back. Granted, he was twenty-one. He could see his father all he wanted, and Karen couldn’t say a single word about it. Yet it worried her that the impressionable young man might pick up the wrong behaviors from the guy who left them in the middle of the night. Okay, so he came back the next day. Then we agreed to get a divorce. Karen had to put her foot down, anyway. If that man thought he could leave when it was inconvenient and come back to resounding applause? He could get the hell over himself. “Do you know anything about the ground beef in the freezer? Thinking about grilling something up tonight. You know, so you can have a Fourth of July cookout before you’re too busy with the actual event.”

  Karen couldn’t help but smile. All right. Maybe Xander was a fine young man after all. The boy had been helping out around the house while working a part-time online gig. He abused the heck out of their internet doing it, but the only person to suffer was his sister Christina, who often complained the moment Karen stepped through the door of their Victorian home on Florida Street. She liked to blame the old wiring of the house. Christina would always remind her that those houses were built in the ‘80s and had “perfectly fine wiring!”

  Karen texted her son that he was more than welcome to use the ground beef for his cookout. In fact, she looked forward to it.

  Chapter 2

  DAHLIA

  The woman awaiting them on the front porch looked nothing like her description. While Dahlia knew the proprietor of the estate was off on her honeymoon, she didn’t know what she expected from the part-time help that would drop by about once a day to check in on the film crew taking up residence at Waterlily House.

  Such a quaint name, wasn’t it? When Air BnB failed them, thanks to the deluge of tourists filing in for the holiday and taking up the short term rentals around town, Dahlia was ecstatic to find Waterlily House. The reviews were superb and the photographs lovely. The proprietress, a cheerful woman named Sunny, originally told them that the place would be closed while she was off on her honeymoon. Yet Dahlia had buttered her up and convinced her to rent out a few rooms to them and no one else. Her small crew at Hibiscus Films were self-sufficient and respectful of the places they inhabited. She assured Sunny that they could cook for and clean up after themselves. Although they would certainly enjoy seeing her when she returned from her honeymoon two weeks into the month.

  Yet the woman standing on the porch was a far cry from the one Dahlia had spoken to for the past week. Her tall stature made her summery cotton skirt swish with her steps as she extended veiny hands toward Dahlia. Dark brown hair shimmered in the bright sunlight. The healthy complexion insinuated that she was well-rested. Either a stay-at-home type or a schoolteacher on break.

  “Evening!” The woman, Anita Tichenor, was all smiles as she brought the crew inside and showed them around. Their rooms were small but cozy. Fresh linens awaited them should they desire it, and the fridge was already stocked with local farm eggs and other such sundries. Of course, Hibiscus Films were more than welcome to bring in their own groceries to use. They had paid a deposit to use the kitchen, after all.

  When asked if everything was satisfactory, Dahlia turned toward the stand-in proprietress and said, “Can you tell us a good place to grab a bite to eat tonight?”

  Her reasons for going into town for supper were two-fold. One, they were too tired from their overnight drive up from California to properly cook themselves dinner, and two, Dahlia was determined to get a feel for the town before they started formal production. They were due to meet the mayor the following morning. Whatever Mayor Rath deigned to show them would be heavily filtered through a positive lens. Dahlia wanted to see the real town. Before they began to put on any show for the film crew’s benefit.

  They were directed to a dive bar that supposedly served the freshest cod in town, not that it impressed Dahlia. Cod? Really? She came from a fishing community around the bay area. Nobody could impress her with cod, the very stuff her father sometimes brought home because he couldn’t sell it. While it tasted perfectly fine, she supposed, she would be more impressed with decent home fries.

 
Wolf’s Hill Dive welcomed them with passing interest. In true small town fashion, the locals looked them up and down before going back to their drinks and dinners. Although a rainbow flag hung outside, the place was filled with men. Straight men, supposedly, since this was a lesbian commune first and foremost. Some of them were there with wives or female coworkers. Others flew solo as they watched baseball on TV. The guys on Dahlia’s crew ordered their burgers and wings. Dahlia was a bit more observant, probably because she was more aware of dirty looks than others. Oregonian towns always served up the best dirty looks.

  They had left their camera equipment at Waterlily House, of course, but locals knew who was from out of town and had a bit of business there. Even in a place known for its high tourism… well, they didn’t look like tourists. Dahlia was the only woman in the group, and she knew what it looked like when she told the three men on her crew what to do and how to do it. She had been called many things during her film career. Tyrant. Dictator. Ice Queen. Others went straight to the point and called her bitch. The guys she worked with hadn’t made it to Hibiscus without proving themselves as not only capable at what they did, but easy to get along with, too. They had good synergy. Not so fantastic that Dahlia didn’t have to jump in at least once a day and crack the whip, but good. She trusted them. They listened to her. She was the boss, after all, not that it stopped many men from challenging her authority. I wish more women would apply to my openings. There was a dearth of qualified women in her local field. The only ones she personally knew were Pink Dew Films. The owner, Rachel Gibson, had applied to join Dahlia’s crew that month. That was no surprise. Pink Dew focused on “lesbian” interests, and Rachel’s overenthusiasm put Dahlia off enough that she considered it a bad idea to mix too much business with pleasure. She only needed a couple of professionals with her, anyway, and she already knew the right ones for the job.