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“I’m Graham. And you are?”
“I’m Caleb Lowder.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Caleb.”
Mom joins them in the foyer.
“Graham, come in. I’d like you to meet my daughter,” Mom says.
He steps through the threshold, and I have to grab hold of the railing to keep myself from fleeing up the steps.
Graham Tuttle. What is he doing here?
“Taeli, this is Graham. He’s my friend Sara-Beth’s boy. He and his brothers help me around here from time to time. He brought the bed down for you,” Mom introduces us.
He smiles up at me.
“I know you,” I blurt out.
“You do?” he asks. His brow furrows as he tries to place me.
I gather my wits and walk the few steps down and extend my hand. “Sort of. I went to school with your brothers.”
He takes my offered hand into his. “Which ones?” he asks.
“Garrett and Corbin and Weston was a grade behind me. I knew all of them, except for you and Langford. I knew of you of course, but you guys were older,” I babble, as if he doesn’t know how old he is.
Every girl in the county carried a crush on one or more of the Tuttle brothers.
He grins, and his jade eyes dance with amusement.
Great.
Mom clears her throat.
“I was just about to serve dinner. Would you like to join us?” she asks.
He turns to her. My hand is still in his.
“I wish I could, but I have to get back to the office. I was just delivering the concrete pad for your new generator. The boys will be by in the morning to set it up and do all the wiring for you. You’re going to like this one. It has a remote, so all you have to do is push a button. No more going out to the breaker box in the middle of a storm.”
She claps her hands. “Oh, thank you, Jesus.” She looks at me. “Graham here is making me a modern woman. He even installed a tankless hot water heater and an irrigation system that works on a timer. I don’t have to go out with a hose and water the garden anymore.”
He turns his attention back to me. “The last big downpour we had, she slipped in the mud and sprained her ankle trying to get the generator started. She sat out there in the pouring rain for an hour before she was able to get up to the porch,” he informs me.
“What?”
“Oh, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds,” Mom insists.
“It could have been worse,” Graham points out.
“You’re just a worrywart,” Mom teases.
“And you’re a stubborn woman,” he tosses back at her.
She laughs.
Graham realizes he still has ahold of my hand, and he releases me.
“I’d best be going. It was nice to meet you, Taeli, and you too, Caleb. Leona, I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to check on the work and make sure everything is up and running for you,” he says.
He kisses my mother on her cheek, and then he walks out the door.
I watch as he makes his way to a black truck with the words Tuttle Contracting on the side panel.
Mom comes up beside me. “That boy is a godsend,” she mutters.
“Is he?” I ask.
“Oh, yes, he helps me a lot around here. He’s a handsome devil too. I just can’t understand why some woman hasn’t snatched him up yet,” she says and then turns to Caleb. “Who’s hungry?”
“Me!” Caleb exclaims.
“Come along, then. Let’s set the table.”
They trot off in the direction of the kitchen. I walk out on the porch and watch the truck disappear down the drive.
Graham Tuttle is one of the infamous sons of the Tuttle family dynasty. Okay, maybe that’s a little too dramatic, but the Tuttles are considered Balsam Ridge royalty. His parents, Hilton and Sara-Beth, inherited a lion’s share of property and businesses in town. His great-grandfather outright owned two of the surrounding mountains and the valley itself in the late 1800s long before it became the tourist destination it now is.
In the 1930s, sometime after the Great Depression, his great-grandfather and his grandfather formed Tuttle and Son Realty, and they began to section off and sell acreage on the mountain. My grandparents purchased twenty acres from them and started the farm that my mother still lives on today.
When Graham’s father, Hilton, came along, they started Tuttle Contracting, and that’s when the valley itself came to be.
The valley runs alongside the Coyote River bank, which made it the perfect place to start catering to visitors in the summer. Motels and inns popped up every quarter of a mile, as did several churches. Mom-and-pop restaurants and independent boutiques lined Market Square, along with ice cream shops, coffee shops, and watering holes. Then, the gem mines, campgrounds, mini-golf, arcades, souvenir shops, festival grounds, crafters, potters, woodworkers, furniture makers, and fishing supply shops came next. However, you’ll never find a franchise in the town limits. If you want a Big Mac, Starbucks latte, Walmart, or a mall, you’ll have to drive at least forty minutes toward Knoxville to find them.
By the time I started school, Hilton Tuttle had married Sara-Beth, and they had six boys of their own. He changed the name to Tuttle and Sons Realty, and together, he and his wife began to build cabins and cottages all along the river and up on the mountainside and opened Rocky Pass Vacation Rentals. They also contributed a substantial amount of money to open the Balsam Ridge Golf and Country Club.
Today, the valley thrives with tens of thousands of hikers, campers, tubers, fishermen, and other nature enthusiasts visiting every spring and summer. Fall vacationers come to see the autumn foliage when the mountains turn a vivid rainbow of yellow, orange, and red, and now, with the imminent opening of the Balsam Ridge Ski Area and Coyote Mountain Snow Tubing, the town is going to be a year-round place of adventure. All of which was made possible by the Tuttle family.
However, you’d never be able to pick them out of a crowd. With the exception of Garrett Tuttle, who is a talented musician who ran off to Nashville after he graduated, the family is as down-to-earth as any other resident of Balsam Ridge. They work with their hands, and they participate in the community. Sara-Beth was my Sunday school teacher, and Hilton coached my middle school volleyball team. They didn’t parade around in fancy cars, wearing fur coats and pearls, and wave to the townsfolk like we were their minions or the dirt beneath their feet. When we were children, we never would have guessed that Langford, Graham, Garrett, Corbin, Weston, or Morris was any better off than the rest of us. They were just those Tuttle boys.
Tuttle men now.
