In Elderberry Croft: January Breeze, the first episode in the Elderberry Croft series, a mysterious new tenant named Willow Goodhope moves into the charming Coach House at the end of The Coach House Trailer Park. With her baskets of herbs, her gentle smile, and her habit of showing up just when someone needs her most, Willow brings change to her neighbors in ways they never expected—and maybe finds healing of her own along the way.

Here’s a peek at Chapter One...

📖 Chapter One

A new neighbor.

Kathy expected her at any minute now. She coughed into her elbow as she peered through the narrow opening of her kitchen curtains at the empty cottage across the driveway. It wasn’t much more than a shack, really. The roof needed new shingles, the ancient wooden siding was chipped and peeling where the sun beat down mercilessly upon it, and the roots of a massive eucalyptus tree slowly churned up the river-rock patio. Screens were missing from a few of the windows, and the green front door hung at an angle to accommodate the frame that had been put in with a blatant disregard for plumb lines. Its one redeeming quality, a charming little creek that danced along the edge of the patio and on through The Coach House Trailer Park, seemed slightly incongruous with the rest of the ramshackle structure.

The inside, according to Myra, wasn’t in any better condition. She’d stopped by to visit the day before after doing a thorough cleaning of the place in preparation for the new tenant.

“Filthy, Kathy! Horrible! And the carpet! Aiee!” Myra often spoke in exclamation marks, bobbing her head for added emphasis, her dark, chin-length hair doing the cha-cha around her face. “It’s disgusting! When I told Eddie that it needed to be replaced, he said they won’t do it because it’s less than five years old. But that carpet looks more like fifty-five to me! And the shower!” She went on and on until Kathy interrupted her with a glass of her favorite boxed wine, kept chilled in the refrigerator for just such visits.

“Why are you so worked up? This new one will come and go just like all the others.”

Myra took a long sip. “I know, I know. But this one,” she shrugged her bony shoulders. “I want her to like it.” The sweet-tart drink puckered her lips. “I want her to like us.”

“So? What’s new? You want everyone to like us.”

Myra left a few minutes later, her basket of dirty rags and cleaning supplies hoisted on one scrawny hip. “Don’t let her catch you spying on her tomorrow, Kathy-la. I mean it!”

A few minutes before ten, a truck pulled in, one of those little Toyota pickups that simply refused to die, its once royal blue paint faded and oxidized by the California sunshine. The woman driving wore a pair of over-sized, blue tinted sunglasses, and her mahogany-red hair threatened to escape a clip at the crown of her head.

“Young,” Kathy quickly labeled her. “Probably between boyfriends. I give her six months, tops.”

Her eyebrows lifted with surprise as the woman maneuvered into the parking space in front of the ramshackle house, giving her a full view of the contents of the truck bed.

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Plants. No mattresses, no dressers or coffee tables, no boxes covered in packing tape and black marker. Plants in huge clay pots and delicate ceramic bowls, hanging baskets and galvanized steel buckets. Verdant bundles wrapped in twine and burlap to protect them from the brilliant January cold.

Kathy shot a guilty glance over her shoulder at the one scraggly philodendron on a plant stand in the corner of the room. Between her irregular watering schedule and the fact that the dogs couldn’t resist chewing on the few brave tendrils that managed to creep over the lip of the yellow pot, it was a miracle the plant was still alive. Kathy loved plants, but she spent too much of her time and limited resources in futile efforts to add them to her life.

She turned back to the window just as the woman threw open her driver’s side door and started talking, gesturing, and nodding effusively. It took a moment, but it finally dawned on Kathy that she was conversing with the plants themselves, making her way around the truck bed, cooing and smiling, fondling leaves and petals, cheering, and clapping her hands.

Kathy muttered to the old and rather obese Labrador that wandered out from under the table. “She’s talking to her plants. Like they understand her or something.” She twirled a finger around in circles at her temple and rolled her eyes. “I just don’t get some people, Heidi.” The dog responded by licking her hand and flopping its tail against her legs.

She turned away from the window and coughed deeply again. She hated the way her lungs felt, like they were being shaken around inside her chest like a baby’s rattle, but the cough was something she’d earned after forty years of smoking, and she’d learned to live with it. When she caught the seasonal cold, however, it always frightened her a little. Sometimes she’d cough so long and hard, she feared her insides would fly out of her mouth.

She made her way through the obstacle course of her kitchen to the sofa and dropped into one corner, strategically situating herself so she could monitor both her favorite morning soap opera and the activity outside the window. Heidi clambered up onto the cushion next to her. “That’s all we need, huh, little girl? Another crazy neighbor.” She sighed loudly and leaned her head back on the cushions. Heidi blinked once and sighed, too.

Kathy woke with a start, her open-mouth snoring loud inside her stuffed-up head, and she peered up at the clock again. She’d been asleep for over an hour! Heidi stood at the front door, scratching to get out, and fat little Trixie waddled out from the tiny bedroom to see what was going on, her stubby tail wiggling frantically. Bella Basset let out one deep woof from where she lounged on the end of Kathy’s bed. Kathy sat up, massaged a crick in her neck, then turned to check on her new neighbor.

She could hardly believe the transformation that had taken place outside her window while she napped. She forgot all semblance of subterfuge and pulled the sheer panel back to see more clearly. Squinting, her eyes bleary from sleep, she struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. She turned and snatched up the set of binoculars off the end table beside the sofa. They still technically belonged to her ex-husband, but he’d never been back to claim them, so she put them to good use keeping an eye on the comings and goings in the park. It was rather convenient that the park’s laundry station was practically outside her front door.

On the stoop of Space 12 sat a huge terracotta pot overflowing with fluttering yellow honeysuckle—in flower in January!—that stretched its tendrils up to the roof and along the low eaves. It formed a natural archway leading to the front entry of the house, and it looked like it’d been growing there for years.

Delicate clusters of pink and purple blossoms fire-worked out of a peat moss basket hanging from a decorative hook mounted on the wall below the porch light, softening the askew lines of the door frame. She thought they might be nemesia, or some kind of salvia, but she wasn’t certain.

On the patio, in huge pots, red, pink, and white petals hovering over dark foliage had to be cyclamen. Kathy recognized them because they grew right outside her own picket fence, but the only time she’d seen them look so healthy and bloom so enthusiastically was on the shelf at the home improvement center where the plants were all on steroids.

Troughs of bushy geraniums were just on the brink of flowering, a huge camellia was in full bloom, and were those yellow blossoms African daisies? In January? An old-fashioned hydrangea and a spike-leafed aloe vera odd-coupled in a pedestal urn that was dark with the patina of age and countless waterings. Begonias, blue forget-me-nots, and frilly ferns tucked themselves into shady spots all over the patio and nestled among the roots of a mulberry tree that spread its branches over the little creek.

In the flowerbed beneath the front window, thick-leaved jades—standard issue in most rentals in Southern California—showed off the last of their winter blooms. Some quick and aggressive weed excavation had uncovered the two rose bushes that had somehow survived over the years, and exposed a few saucy snapdragons and a blanket of alyssum the weeds hadn’t choked out completely. The roses had been hacked back to sticks, and Kathy wondered if the woman realized it was way late in the season for trimming roses.

Wind-chimes and friar bells hung in the rafters of the porch, their various tones creating harmonies in the breeze, while sun-catchers sent rainbows of light dancing across the tiny yard. She looked over at the clock on the wall for the third time, feeling a little like Rip Van Winkle waking up from his hundred-year snooze.

“How the hula did she do that?”

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