First Chapter

The Trouble With Green
Chapter One
Twelve Years Later
Backhorn, Virginia

“Her hair looks like it exploded,” Emma whispered, slipping up close and half-hiding behind the embroidered jacket of her mother’s navy business suit.
“Shh…,” Josie whispered, smoothing Emma’s long auburn hair with a shaky hand, imagining The Great Mountain Top Inn imploding as the stout woman in brown tweed trousers and an unseasonable mustard overcoat crossed the threshold with that spiky red hair. “Here she comes.”
Frannie Jane Monroe crossed the carefully laid gray stone pavers, carrying a hard-shelled tangerine suitcase up the half-circle fieldstone ramp on the right that, when coupled with the matching ramp on the left, provided parenthesis to the three stone stairs that led to the Great Mountain Top Inn’s wide, welcoming front porch.
Herb gardens in full late-August bloom added varying shades of green and blue to the beds on either side of the ramps. On the right, where Frannie Jane was, basil filled the air with its fresh, earthy scent. Guests who chose the fieldstone ramp on the left were greeted by wafts of blue-green rosemary.
As creatures of habit, most guests smelled basil as they arrived and rosemary as they departed the Great Mountain Top Inn. 
Frannie Jane paused when she was half-way up the ramp, sizing up the dark, wood-framed solar shades that angled over the white-washed planks of the porch to form what Josie thought was a most interesting roof. Appearing satisfied, Frannie Jane adjusted the camouflage messenger bag she'd slung across the left shoulder of her overcoat, then yanked the front door open hard.
Josie pulled Emma back as Frannie Jane dropped the bright suitcase onto the hardwood floor and shoved it in first with a swift kick of a booted foot, just missing Josie’s shins. Then she hauled herself through the wide wooden door.
Josie glanced over Frannie Jane’s shoulder in time to see Jeff sprinting up the center stairs, barely catching the door before it padded shut. He shot Josie a puzzled look, and then reached a well-tanned arm for the visitor’s suitcase.
“Let me help you with that,” he offered, catching his breath as he towered over Frannie Jane. Josie thought he looked abnormally preppy this morning in a pair of tan khakis and a white Great Mountain Top Inn polo shirt. He paused, swallowed a scowl, and said in his country deep voice, “Please.”
“As I mentioned outside, I can carry my own luggage,” Frannie Jane said without turning to acknowledge him.
She waited a beat to let that sink in, and then stopped her forward trajectory long enough to lurch around and look Jeff square in his dark brown eyes. “I can park my own car, too, but you looked like you needed something to do.”
Josie bit the inside of her bottom lip to check the nervous giggle that was bubbling up. Frannie Jane didn’t strike her as a reporter who’d put a positive spin on a childish giggle. Instead, Josie took a deep breath, smiled, and extended her freshly manicured hand.
“Ms. Monroe, I’m Josie Loyshner. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“No ‘Ms.’ No ‘Monroe.’ Just Frannie Jane. Got rid of the last name a long time ago. Don’t really need it with a name like Frannie Jane.”
She engulfed Josie’s hand for an efficient shake, and then slung the messenger bag forward to her chest, using the same stubby hand to reach into the bag, rummage around and pull out a dog-eared sheet of baby blue paper.
“I’d like the key to my room, please,” she said, handing the paper to Josie.  She pointed to a list of bullet points as Josie skimmed over it, trying to hide her surprise.
“This is my S.O.P. – standard operating procedure,” Frannie Jane instructed. “I’ll spend the first three hours of my visit touring the facility on my own. I do not need a guide, and I do not want any tips or interruptions. Following my tour, I’ll find you to conduct the official interview. It will take anywhere from one to three hours, depending on what I discover on the tour.”
“Certainly,” Josie said, putting in check any remaining desire to schmooze the woman who could make or break Great Mountain Top Inn and the other fine, independently owned establishments that Josie welcomed into her franchise of luxury properties, which she referred to as the Great Green Inns. “Please let us know if you have any questions.”
“I’ll ask them during the interview. The key, please?”
Josie pulled the room card from the pocket of her suit coat and handed it to Frannie Jane. She was glad it was in her left pocket because Emma was still plastered to her right side. “Your room is …”
Frannie Jane held up a hand to stop her. “No directions. I’ll find it.”
Jeff moved closer to Josie and Emma, curling his arm around Josie so his hand landed on Emma’s soft hair.  They watched Frannie Jane head across the sun-washed lobby, looking left, then right, nodding at the elevator, and taking the broad staircase to the second floor landing.
“Mommy, she’s scary,” Emma whispered, looking up at her mother and father, her chestnut eyes wide.
“I know,” Jeff whispered back, leaving Josie’s side to swoop down and scoop their only child up into his thick arms. “She scared me, too. It’s because she’s from New York City.”
Josie let the giggle escape in a gasp of air, realizing she’d been holding her breath. “Oh dear Lord, please let her find what she’s looking for,” she said, glancing wistfully at the wooden beams that crossed the vaulted ceiling before shooting her husband a skeptical look.
“Nothing we can do now but wait and see,” he replied, his deep voice tinted with a slight country drawl that only occasionally slipped into his speech anymore. He gave Emma one last squeeze before he put her down on the hardwood floor of the lobby. “I’m headed out to the barn.”
“Can I come?” Josie asked, smoothing her suit coat as she feigned hopefulness.
“Nope,” he said, surprising Josie with a grin she hadn’t seen in quite a while. It momentarily softened the hard angles of his handsome face. “Got work to do. Something tells me I better look busy when Ms. Wall Street Journal comes wandering around out there.”
Jeff leaned in and pecked Emma’s forehead, then turned and headed back out the wide front door.
Well, hell, Josie thought as she watched Jeff bound down the front steps into the warm morning air. She glanced down at Emma, who had reattached herself to her leg.
That was damned anti-climactic. All the prep work she and Stella had done to get the place ready and determine the best way to show the Great Mountain Top Inn off to Frannie Jane had been a total waste of time. At least she was confident that the place was clean, no matter where Frannie Jane poked her pudgy nose.
“Mommy, why doesn’t she like us?” Emma asked, breaking Josie’s train of thought.
Josie paused a moment, then laughed, giving Emma a little squeeze.
 “Frannie Jane likes us just fine, Emma, don’t you worry about it,” she said, hoping it was true. “She just has a different way of doing things, that’s all. I think she’s going to explore the Inn as a kind of scavenger hunt, and doesn’t want us to give her any clues on how to find things.”
“But how will she know what to look for?” Emma asked, searching her mother’s face as if all of the answers of the great world would be revealed there. “We didn’t make her a map.”
Josie glanced at the staircase Frannie Jane had ascended a few minutes before. “I suppose she’s been on a lot of scavenger hunts in her day.” Josie brightened and smiled at Emma. “Let’s go tell Stella.”
“I already heard.”
Stella Stevenson stepped out from a well-concealed side door behind the expansive registration desk. 
The lobby was shaped like a fat wedge of snub-nosed apple pie, with the front porch along the long curve – the crust - out front. The elevator and grand staircase were in the narrow end of the pie, with the long registration desk and hidden kitchen doorway along the left wall and a welcoming bar and lounge area along the right.
The lobby made the most of its wooden floor and accents, complimenting the dark stains with champagnes and burgundies. The effect was calming, as was the mingling scent of baking fruit and new wood that smelled better than any air-freshener or candle ever could. Many guests would spend hours in the lobby playing on one of the checker or chess boards Josie placed throughout the well-appointed room. 
The lobby, along with the rest of Great Mountain Top Inn, was the result of Jeff’s painstaking attention to every architectural detail as he drew on all of his experience designing everything from vacation homes for wealthy executives to schools for overly-frugal districts.
Beyond his normal insistence on good design with good materials, this project had personal significance for him – the run-down estate that was deconstructed to make way for the Inn had been in the Loyshner family for more than 250 years.
His family needed to sell the land to pay back taxes after his grandmother passed away, but he and Josie had been able to step in and buy it from the estate before it went on the open market. It had been a life-changing move for both of them, and a huge financial risk, but it was slowly paying off.
“What do you think?” Josie asked Stella.
The older woman huffed and continued drying her weathered hands on her apron.
“Y’all don’t pay me to think, just to cook,” she said, fingering a swatch of mid-length silver hair that had come loose and tucking it neatly away behind her right ear. “The thinking is your job, thank the Lord. But, I do think that should Miss Frannie Jane want to have something good to eat today she will find it waiting for her in my kitchen.”
Josie smiled at the petite woman standing behind the long desk. Stella had been working for Jeff’s family since before he was born, and her presence at the Inn gave Josie a comforting sense of family and history unlike any she’d ever known.
“Thanks, Stella,” she said.
“Ah, y’all have nothing to worry about, sweetie,” Stella reassured her. “Just remember – you’re doing good things here at Mountain Top. She’ll see it.” She turned to Emma. “You want to help me make the lunch, little one?”
Emma disengaged herself from Josie’s leg and shot off toward Stella. “You bet!” she said.
“I’ll take care of this little one then,” Stella said, nodding at Josie. “You just worry about the business today, sugar.”


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