Page 5 of Lovewell Lane (Honeyfield Dreamers #1)

Calliope saved us from the awkward interaction. “So, Margo, I heard you’re a Dreamer. That’s exciting,” she said.

Margo nodded and let out a deep breath. She must have been thankful everyone in my family wasn’t as unpleasant as me. “Yeah, I’ll be opening a diner here in the next couple of months.”

With Jack off managing some bar in Atlanta and Calli starting university, Weston family dinners with everyone in attendance were rare. Which meant there were a lot of outlandish, exaggerated stories to share. Mostly from Slick.

Calliope and Sam did their best to make Margo feel welcome despite my father’s tendencies to overshare and our inability to have one conversation at the table at once.

Tessa, despite usually acting shy around strangers, laughed freely with potatoes still shoved in her mouth, while I did my best to hide my smile at one of Slick’s stupid jokes.

“I’m thinking about going vegan,” Calli announced over the ruckus to me. My baby sister always went out of her way to include me when I was quiet for too long.

My eyebrow raised at her declaration, but before I could reply, my father on the opposite end of the hardwood table interjected himself. “You’re thinking of going out with old man Keegan? We need to sit down and have a talk about better decision-making now that you’re an adult.”

She scoffed, as she did any time our hard-hearing father managed to retell the most ridiculous version of what he heard. “No, Slick, I’m just thinking about not eating cheese anymore.”

His worried face turned into one of confusion. “My point still stands.”

I could make out his grumbling about cheese all the way from my seat.

Tessa put her hand on my shoulder and loudly whispered in my ear. “I like cheese. I still want to eat it.”

I shot Calliope a look. “Don’t worry, Tess. You’ll get to eat Cal’s serving until she’s graduated college and wants to join us back in the real world.”

My sister glared at me with a hint of playfulness. “Dairy is one of the biggest consumptions of water, which is water that could instead be used for crops. That’s something we as farmers should probably care about.”

“Send me your study and I’ll look it over,” I grumbled. This was a regular back-and-forth thing since Calli went off to school. I had no idea when she got her scholarship that I would in turn be forced to learn about social and environmental issues right there with her.

Jack and Sam went to business school, so they never brought any of these issues to the dinner table.

Since our dad hurt his knee right after I graduated high school, and our mom died years before, I never had the chance to go to college.

Supporting our family business and keeping it afloat enough to let my other siblings further their education was my biggest pride.

However, I was secretly very interested in hearing about the things Calli learned in her agricultural science classes. I am a farmer, after all.

Slick tapped his fork to his glass a few times to catch everyone’s attention.

Usually, toasts were made before our plates were almost empty, but my father always did things his own way.

I smoothed down Tess’s hair with one hand while I took a long drink from my own glass.

The mischievous look on the old man’s face told me I wouldn’t like this one bit.

“What a time to be alive. Now that we have all of the Westons in one household, we need to discuss this year’s Festival,” he said with as much excitement as he could muster. “Margo, you’ll have to excuse this impromptu family meeting.”

I couldn’t help the short laugh from coming out of my mouth. Jack whipped his head around to me. “What is there to talk about? You're not seriously considering pulling out.”

“It’s a complete time suck for an entire month of the year, and only loses us money,” I affirmed.

“But it’s great for the town. A lot of other people make Christmas money and extra cash from selling their crafts,” my sister argued.

I slumped down into my chair, sometimes silence was the best way to go. Actually, I found it was always the best method for diffusing my family. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Margo doing the same.

Instead of pretending to be neutral, my father put the final nail in the coffin.

“The mayor made it clear that if our farm pulls out, the entire festival will have to be canceled,” he said over the lip of his beer bottle.

My three siblings made various sounds and declarations of outrage in a symphony of disapproval. Tessa looked up at me through her lashes and rested her hand on my forearm with a slight pout to her bottom lip.

“Daddy, we have to have the Honey Festival,” she said quietly with a wobbly voice. “What about face painting? And strawberry lemonade?”

I wasn’t born yesterday. My daughter was absolutely using her best puppy dog face to intentionally pull at my heartstrings. My resolve lasted about ten seconds.

“Sam and I will go over the numbers again tomorrow, but I don’t see a way for us to continue sinking money into the Festival when the town is only getting worse.”

I looked over at Margo, who was visibly confused. “The Honey Festival is the biggest event of the year in this town, but every year fewer and fewer people buy tickets and spend money.”

She nodded and took a big gulp of wine, seemingly resolved to stay quiet.

Honeyfield and small towns around it were suffering because of the company town near us that sprung up a few decades ago.

At first, people had hesitation in shopping at the Wally World’s and Farm Supplies, but over time, people switched to driving twenty miles each week for their groceries.

That left local businesses to suffer. Unable to compete with rock-bottom prices and extensive selections, small businesses all around us lost their customer base to corporate enterprises.

Shellville, or Hellville, as bitter teenage me used to call it, had single-handedly destroyed our community with its concrete buildings and never-ending supply chains.

We went from a flourishing town with a tourist season in the summer and a bustling downtown filled with locals year-round, to complete isolation.

The last restaurant that stuck it out for the long haul closed last fall.

So now, Honeyfield was left with nothing but basic necessities.

A car shop. Our farm store. One drug store that only opened four days a week.

As one of the last pillars of hope in this town, our family did our best to support the locals. We only hired Honeyfield residents to work our fields, put on events to bring in tourists, and always shopped locally when possible. Nothing we did was ever enough to make an impact.

Our ability to sell to farmer’s markets and grocery stores outside of Honeyfield was what made our farm continue to prosper while our neighbors struggled. It kept me up at night seeing the town I loved so much fall into such desolation. Though, my number one priority would always be my family.

Calli interrupted the heavy silence at the dinner table. “Mr. Gables said the Dreamers Program is going to bring a lot of new people this year. Margo might be in good company.”

I huffed out a laugh before shoving more of Slick’s famous mashed potatoes into my mouth. Jack spoke my inner thoughts aloud, “The program isn’t working. That family of doctors didn’t even last through May last spring.”

I watched Calli stomp on Jack’s foot as hard as possible. He jumped out of his seat a little and looked over to Margo. “Sorry, I’m sure your diner will do well.” His tone wasn’t even trying to be convincing.

Margo grimaced and pushed around potatoes on her plate. “Thank you,” she acknowledged.

“The Lakeside Inn is doing well,” Sam argued. He was right, the only successful applicant of the ‘Dreamers’ Initiative our mayor started had officially lasted over a year now. It was the only Inn within hours of here, so I doubted it was proof of anything.

“We’ll see how this summer goes,” I said to placate my family from going into another verbal sparring match. “I’ll see what I can do about the festival.”