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    Home Is Where the Heart Is: Adventures at Bell Buckle Inn 2
    Home Is Where the Heart Is: Adventures at Bell Buckle Inn 2
    Home Is Where the Heart Is: Adventures at Bell Buckle Inn 2
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    Home Is Where the Heart Is: Adventures at Bell Buckle Inn 2

    By Janice Alonso

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    About this ebook

    It’s autumn in Bell Buckle, and Winkie is learning more about her new surroundings as she’s making new friends, but in her heart Knoxville will always be home. She’s also discovered that Laurel, her five-month-old Labrador, is bringing high energy into her life, as well as chaos and adventure. On a midnight outing for Laurel to do her “business,” Winkie notices a mysterious light floating in the upstairs bedroom window in the empty house next door. According to some local people, this is Robert Thatcher’s ghost. On Halloween night in 1883, Robert Thatcher went to his blacksmith shop at the back of his property to get a birthday present he’d made for his wife Claire . . . he never returned and was never seen again.

    Did Winkie actually see the light or is it just her imagination playing tricks on her and trying to get her into trouble? She tells her friend Lynn Ann about her secret, and once more, in Book 2 of Adventures at Bell Buckle Inn, the girls use their detective skills to get to the heart of the mystery. Through solving the mystery and her daily prayers about missing Knoxville, God teaches Winkie the true meaning of home.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJanice Alonso
    Release dateAug 4, 2015
    ISBN9781311510068
    Home Is Where the Heart Is: Adventures at Bell Buckle Inn 2
    Author

    Janice Alonso

    Janice Alonso's work appears regularly in Christian, mystery, and children's publications.

    Read more from Janice Alonso

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      Book preview

      Home Is Where the Heart Is - Janice Alonso

      Home Is Where the Heart Is

      Adventures at Bell Buckle Inn

      Book 2

      by

      Janice Alonso

      Copyright © 2017 Janice Alonso

      All rights reserved.

      Distributed by Smashwords

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

      Table of Contents

      First Things First

      Just the Imagination?

      Do You Believe in Ghosts?

      Fall Frolics

      The Scavenger Hunt

      Ready for Business

      How Strange!

      A Terrible Storm

      Everyone Can Use a Helping Hand

      The First Guest

      What a Sense of Smell!

      Not a Great Idea

      Mum’s the Word

      It’s Best to Tell the Truth

      Excitement in the Air

      Facing the Music

      The Ghost Returns

      The Big Day Arrives

      Time to Take a Second Look

      The Confession

      Home Is Where the Heart Is

      First Things First

      Laurel yipped and pawed at the back door, her needlelike nails clawing wildly against the wooden doorjamb.

      Aunt Susan looked up from her crossword puzzle, removed her glasses, and stared at her niece.

      Sighing, she said, Squirt, I mean, Laurel needs to go out. Sometimes Aunt Susan forgot that Winkie had renamed the puppy when Mrs. Lamb had given her to her niece.

      I know, whined Winkie, not taking her eyes off the words in the Nancy Drew mystery book she was reading. Let me finish this chapter first. I only have one more page to go.

      "But Laurel needs to go out now, dear," Aunt Susan insisted.

      Winkie rolled her eyes and closed the book. I can’t believe a few more minutes would make a difference, she complained.

      Her aunt frowned.

      I’m sorry, apologized Winkie. "It’s just that I’m getting to the really good part and—"

      Laurel is only five months old, and she’s being so good to let you know when she needs to go outside. Her aunt smiled. When she’s older, she’ll be able to wait. She’s just a baby now and doesn’t understand ‘later.’ She put her glasses back on and returned to her puzzle. "But you do. With a firm voice, she continued, You’ll have to finish your book later. First things first."

      Boy, had Winkie learned the meaning of first things first since she’d gotten Laurel. She and her daddy had moved from Knoxville to Bell Buckle three months ago, eight months after her mama had died in an automobile accident. Aunt Susan was her daddy’s only living relative. As a matter of fact, she was the only relative they had on either side of the family. Winkie had gotten Laurel after she’d cared for a litter of Labradors while their owners, Mr. and Mrs. Lamb, were away taking care of newborn twin grandsons.

      Winkie walked through the kitchen to the back door. She removed Laurel’s leash from the hook and then looked down at the puppy. Laurel’s large brown eyes gazed up at Winkie and her tail wagged with such enthusiasm that her entire backside gyrated like a hula dancer. Winkie smiled. Laurel was a good puppy, well, most of the time.

      Winkie fastened the leash to the collar. C’mon, girl, she said and opened the door that led to the back porch.

      A damp chill hung in the mid October night air. Winkie looked up to the cloudy sky. There was not one star dotting the inky blackness. Even the moon was hidden. The leaves rustled as the wind rose stronger, promising a heavy downpour. Other than the bad weather, it was just another quiet Sunday evening.

      Hurry, Laurel. Make it snappy! You need to be finished before the rain comes, urged Winkie. And I want to finish my book, she thought.

      Laurel dragged Winkie toward an area that had once been a flower garden. Broken statues and scraggly bushes were all that remained. But now that winter was approaching, the backyard would have to wait until next spring to get any attention. This area was the last area that needed renovation on the outside of their house.

      Her dad, Joseph Hardy, and his sister, Susan, had bought this Victorian house built in the 1800’s and were turning it into a bed and breakfast: The Bell Buckle Inn. Since her daddy had been a handyman back in Knoxville, he was doing most of the repair work himself. Her aunt was taking care of the decorating, testing recipes, and creating a website for people to visit and learn about their home away from home, nestled in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains of North Georgia. As a matter of fact, they already had someone who wanted to be the first guest as soon as they opened their doors for business.

      Laurel buried her nose in the high weeds surrounding the boxwood hedges and came up with a pinecone clamped between her teeth. She hunkered down on all fours and began chewing, little bits of dirt clinging to her mouth and whiskers.

      Laurel! scolded Winkie.

      Laurel could sniff out anything. Her nose could pick up even the faintest of smells, and it often landed her in a mess of trouble, like the numerous trash cans she’d overturned when she was looking for extra food in Aunt Susan’s kitchen. Chewing had been another problem. While she was much better now, the first two months Winkie had Laurel, she’d destroyed countless pairs of shoes, dishtowels, and rubber toys. For the last month, however, she’d been very good.

      A drop of rain splashed on Winkie’s arm and interrupted her musings. We don’t have time to dawdle!

      Winkie leaned over and tugged the pinecone away from Laurel’s mouth. Then she led Laurel to a patch of particularly scraggly grass. As the puppy sniffed around for just the right spot, Winkie’s eyes settled on the house next door: The Old Thatcher Place, named after Mr. and Mrs. Robert Thatcher who had lived in the house during the late eighteen hundreds. While the house had sat vacant for the last twenty years, no one but family members had ever lived there. The Thatcher family had been the one and only owners. Winkie didn’t know any of the family, but she’d heard the many mysterious stories floating around about them and the house itself. Now a For Sale sign stood forlornly in the front yard of the falling down residence.

      Several people had looked at it according to Mrs. Nash, a real estate agent with an office on Main Street. Interested lookers felt the house had a lot of possibilities, but it would be expensive to fix up. Because of its age, some members of the Bell Buckle Historical Society were offering any buyer some help with fixing up the house. As much as the Historical Society board felt it was important to move forward in a direction in which the town of Bell Buckle could grow, they also felt that it was important to preserve the town’s past and build its future on it.

      Whatever help was offered, Aunt Susan lamented that for the new owners the renovation would have to be a labor of love, as it had been with their Victorian house. While money was important with the restoration, the house would require many hours of plain old sweat from hard labor for its new owners. Great expense and backbreaking work

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