Introduction

Less than an hour before her wedding, Lindsey Briggs calls off the ceremony, leaving her family home in Maine to pursue her dream of being a singer-songwriter in Nashville. There she meets country music legend Ben McBride. Through that chance meeting, she discovers the depth of Ben's relationship with her family as well as secrets from her past. A remarkable family tale is revealed for Lindsey, who learns the imprtance of pursuing her heart and about the power and endurance of love. 

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Excerpt

Lilly Frost did hear that last part, and she could have swatted 
that brother of hers. But at the same time, she found herself smil- 
ing to herself at his comment. 
She looked toward the house and saw Ben McBride caught in 
the pink and gray light of the sunset, walking jauntily through the 
tall grass and flowers—toward her. She really did feel her heart 
beating. Why was this? There were plenty of men around to give 
her attention, and certainly men more suited to her taste than this 
city man who wore cowboy boots and sang honky-tonk songs even 
though he could play Schumann by memory. 
And now he had put on that brown felt cowboy hat again. 
She chided herself for feeling like a giddy schoolgirl over a man 
Tad had said was a modern troubadour, a country-western-music 
vagabond. 
Just then a ruby-throated hummingbird darted to a nearby 
clump of bee balm. And she remembered that once Tad had lik- 
ened Ben to a hummingbird—whose wings were constantly mov-
ing even when it stayed in one place to sip the nectar from a flower. 
Was the hummingbird a warning? 
She kept her attention on the vetch and cornflowers and dai- 
sies and Queen Anne’s lace she was picking, pretending not to see 
Ben until she was in his shadow. She looked up as if she were sud- 
denly aware of him. He pushed his hat to the back of his head and 
said, “Ma’am, I cannot leave without apologizing for my bad road 
manners and for any other bad manners I have exhibited. Your 
brother means a lot to me, and I surely don’t want any ill will with 
his sister.” 
Lilly straightened up, flowers in one hand, but she did not 
look at him. “One would think,” she said, looking around her as 
if she were searching for just the right flower to add to the bou- 
quet, “that with all of your experience on the road, you’d be a better 
driver.” Then she looked him straight on, and this time her smile 
appeared and stayed there long enough for Ben to know it was a 
peace offering. 
“And,” Lilly said, looking off into the distance this time, “I know 
that you and Tad went through things in the war that he does not 
talk about. I don’t take that lightly.” 
Ben didn’t answer that. He wasn’t expected to. Instead, he fol- 
lowed her gaze out over the valley and the long narrow lake below 
toward the ridge across the valley. The view that Tad had described 
time and time again. Then he looked west toward the pond, and 
his breath caught. “My Lord, what a sunset,” he said. 
Lilly nodded and quoted dreamily, 
She sweeps with many-colored Brooms— 
And leaves the Shreds behind— 
Oh Housewife in the Evening West— 
Come back, and dust the Pond.

“I should’ve known you’d be a member of the Emily Dickinson 
fan club,” Ben said. “Recognize that one from high school. Now I 
know what it means.” He turned slowly in a circle to take it all in. 
The lavender and orange afterglow of day threaded the western 
sky, shimmering on the tin roofs of the barn and sheds, turning 
the bed of zinnias in the side yard into fiery balls of red, yellow, 
and pink. 
Again, there was silence between them, but for the first time 
it was a tranquil silence. The frogs at the nearby pond took the 
fading light as their cue to begin their nightly chorus, a mourning 
dove called from within the woods, the chickadees sang their clos- 
ing song of the day. There was the sound of a cardinal. 
“Just listen to all the birds,” he said finally. “Of course, we’ve got 
one bird in Tennessee that can make every one of those sounds,” 
he added boastfully. Then he noticed Lilly was obviously in a deep 
place in her heart at this moment, and he wished he hadn’t been 
so glib. 
“We have the rare mockingbird up here too,” she said, coming 
back to the present, her eyes meeting his again. He thought she 
was going to say something more, but she was distracted by yet 
another birdsong. “Hear that?” Lilly asked, her eyes brightening. 
Then she spotted it. “There. A scarlet tanager.” 
Ben looked where Lilly pointed—at a lilac tree he had noticed 
from the house. Sitting on a crooked limb crooning his song was a 
tiny bird, red as a cardinal, but with black wings and tail. He sang 
in a low chip-burr. 
“He’s got a different voice, that’s for sure,” Ben said. 
“My father always said he sounded like a robin with a sore 
throat, but he’s so beautiful no one minds.” For a minute Lilly 
seemed again to be someplace back in time. Then she said, “It was 
our father who taught Tad and me to identify birds by their mark- 
ings and their calls.”
Ben watched as a dull, greenish yellow bird with a yellow under- 
side and dark, brownish wings, joined the scarlet tanager. “That’s 
the female tanager,” Lilly said. “She’s not nearly so flashy, of course. 
Lady birds never are. Still, she has her own beauty.” 
Like you, Ben almost said. Lilly’s high cheekbones and clear, 
sun-warmed skin glowed in the fading light. You sure have your 
own beauty, Lady, he wanted to say. He had found it easy to say 
flattering words to women all his life, but he knew this time it was 
different. This time he meant it so deeply that he could not say it. 
Instead he reached for one of those pretty white lacy flowers, 
broke the stem, and handed it to Lilly. “Why thank you, suh,” she 
said, and he laughed at her attempt at a Southern accent. 
They turned and began a slow walk back to the house. Grass- 
hoppers jumped out of their path, and barn swallows darted in 
front of them. Ben looked to the right and saw, at the edge of the 
field, the small, fenced cemetery nestled under a row of lilacs. 
There was an uneven line of tin markers and marble and gran- 
ite tombstones. Ben thought about Tad’s elderly parents, who had 
died of the flu only weeks apart while he and Tad were in a muddy 
field in France. 
“We tried to get Tad to come home when . . .” He didn’t have to 
say when your folks died; they both knew what he meant. “He could 
have gotten a hardship discharge, but he wouldn’t. Said that you 
could take charge of things here. I know what he meant now.” 
“Tad was right to stay over there in France,” Lilly said, fixing 
him with a blue gaze. “And after all, our parents were gone. They 
wouldn’t have known he was here.” 
“I wonder about that,” Ben said. “An old man I once knew—the 
one who taught me to play the guitar—told me that when you 
die, your spirit turns into a bird. Maybe these birds were once all 
people.” Ben’s words were half in jest, but half in earnest.
Lilly stopped suddenly and looked toward the cemetery. Ben 
had obviously touched a memory that took her out of the present. 
“I came here after we buried my mother and father, and the most 
peculiar thing happened. Hardly anyone ever sees a saw-whet owl, 
since they’re nocturnal. But that evening a saw-whet owl, not even 
as big as a robin, sat on their tombstone. Just sat there. Didn’t even 
move when it saw me. I had only seen them in pictures in my fa- 
ther’s books. But there the owl was, perched on that tombstone. 
Never saw him again, but still . . . it was such a strange thing.” 
“Or maybe it wasn’t,” Ben said. 
Ben and Lilly had both just had the thought that they could 
stay in this field talking a long time when a new black Oldsmobile 
that had probably been shiny before it made its way up the dusty 
ridge pulled up into the big gravel circle. Lilly looked at her watch. 
“Oh, my goodness, I had no idea of the time.” 
She turned to Ben and said almost as if in apology, “I really do 
have to rush.” And before Ben could find his way of saying, Don’t 
go. Stay here and sit on the porch with me, Lilly took off almost at 
a run. Then she stopped quickly, turned, and walked back to Ben, 
who still stood knee deep in grass and flowers. She stopped and 
held out her hand. “Goodbye, Ben McBride.” 
He wasn’t accustomed to a woman with such a firm, confident 
handshake, and he certainly wasn’t prepared for the feeling that 
went through him when she put her hand in his. “Be careful as you 
head on down the road.” This time he detected only pure earnest- 
ness in her tone. 
“Goodbye, Lilly Frost,” he said, memorizing her face. That was 
the first time he had called her anything but Ma’am. 
He watched her, trying again to name the color of her eyes, as 
she ran through the tall grass in strong strides. She stopped as she 
got to the car and seemed to fiddle with the flowers. A tall man in 
a suit walked back from the doorway, where he had said hello to 
Sarah. He nodded at Lilly, opened the door for her, and just as she 
started to get in, it came to Ben. 
“Cobalt,” he hollered above the noise of the engine. 
Turning to look at him, she called back, “What?” 
He noticed she had tucked the cornflower into the top but- 
tonhole of her blouse. 
“Your eyes are cobalt blue.” 
A smile crossed her face and stayed there. Then she turned and 
eased her long legs inside the car. 
 
The Oldsmobile sped down the road, churning dust in its wake. 
Lilly Frost’s date talked on and on about the program they were 
going to hear that night. But she wasn’t thinking about the string 
quartet. Instead, she was thinking about the feel of Ben McBride’s 
hand, warm and strong, clasping hers. 
Ben watched as the dust settled behind the trail of the car. He 
felt a sudden emptiness that he was not at all accustomed to. He 
walked toward the barn to join his friend. Later Ben would get his 
guitar, and Tad and Sarah would sit on the porch holding hands 
while the plaintive sound of Ben’s voice singing an old blues song 
Tater had taught him floated through the last light of day. 
 
“So,” Lindsey said, amused—even somewhat delighted—at 
the story her grandmother had just finished telling her, “Ben and 
Aunt Lilly were slightly attracted even if they didn’t hit it off ex- 
actly.” She finished her Moxie and put the empty bottle beside her 
on the steps.

“You might say that,” Sarah said, looking down at her hands in 
her lap, looking at the pink nail polish. The color she had worn the 
first night she met Tad—a story she had told Lindsey time and 
time again. 
“I can certainly picture Aunt Lilly giving Ben a piece of her 
mind about country music,” Lindsey said. And then she laughed 
at a memory that came to mind. “Remember the time she told 
the football coach off good and proper for ‘letting’ her star cellist 
sprain his thumb the night before a concert?” 
“Ayuh,” Sarah said and chucked softly. 
“Just recently,” Lindsey said, “Ben said he’d heard Aunt Lilly 
play Chopin and what a touch she had. And,” Lindsey added as she 
suddenly remembered, “he also mentioned her blue eyes. I guess 
she did make quite the impression that one time he saw her.” 
“He didn’t see her just that once,” Sarah Frost said. 
“What do you mean?” Lindsey asked. 
“That’s what I’m about to tell you.”
... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

This book is a love story, but it is a love story on many different levels. Discuss the variety of love stories you have found. (Some examples include: love of place, love of music, love of family, romantic love interests, love of the dream)

Is it true that if you really love someone there could be a time when saying goodbye—and really meaning it-- is the best demonstration of that love?

It’s been said that many people have doubts right before a wedding. Is walking out on a wedding cowardice or courage? 

Some readers have said that food is a minor character in this novel. Discuss the meaning of and use of food in the story.

Music is a major character in this story. Discuss the meaning of and use of music in the story.

One way to think about a novel is to let the language of the story speak for itself. Select one passage (short paragraph) that touched you the most or was the most poignant.

One way to think about a novel is to let the language of the story speak for itself. Select one sentence that made you laugh.

One way to think about a novel is to let the language of the story speak for itself. Select two sentences that best revealed a character. 

Of Ben, Lily, Sarah, or Lindsey, which character could be called the bravest character? What does he/she risk? 

Now that you have read the book, have fun with this question and cast the movie. Who should play the major and minor roles? Email us your suggestions at [email protected].

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