Lost and Found [Harvest Moon: A New Beginning]

Opening

After everyone agreed to go along with Tina's proposed meeting time and place, Rio gave Neil a quick kiss, grinning at his grumbling protests, and swung back up into her saddle. "Come on, Vaughn," she called as she turned her horse towards the woods behind the plaza. "There's three paths out of the village, and this is one of them. Follow me," and she urged her mare ahead and vanished into the deep shade of the forest.

Vaughn started after her, but Neil grabbed hold of Flash's reins as he started to trot past. "Remember," he growled, scowling up at him, "Hands off."

Looking down at him with one eyebrow raised, Vaughn drawled, "Son, if you were more 'hands on,' you wouldn't have to worry about what anyone else's hands were up to." Then he jerked the reins free and headed towards the forest at a canter, ignoring Neil's black scowl boring into his back.

The trail was wide enough along that stretch for two to ride abreast, so he pulled up alongside Rio and slowed to match her mare's gait. She glanced over at him, saying, "I have a couple of people I need to see on the west side of the village. This trail is kind of a back road through the woods between the two ends of the village. The path splits, and you can either go on up the mountain or head back into the village—that's the second way in or out of town." As she spoke, they reached the fork, and she turned her mare south.

A few minutes later, the woods thinned, and they stepped out of the shadows into the dazzling brilliance of the summer afternoon. Vaughn soon recognized the back of the inn up ahead, and he recognized a few houses that he'd halfway noticed yesterday. Rio turned her horse towards one of these, a pretty cottage surrounded by flowers and nestled into a little recess in the surrounding wilderness. She dismounted at the gate, then turned and looked up at him, waiting, so he slid to the ground and walked over.

"This is Olivia's house. She runs the teashop on weekends. I need to talk to her for a few minutes, so come on in and meet her. She's a lovely person—inside and out. But she's taken," she added with a grin.

Vaughn snorted. "As if I cared, anyway."

She laughed as she pushed open the gate. "Well, wait 'til you meet her. Everyone falls in love with her, at least a little bit—women as well as men."

"Did you?" Vaughn asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"Madly," Rio said, laughing again, "but just in a schoolgirl-crushy kind of way. She really is a delightful person, though." Then she pushed the door open and stepped in.

"Liv! Are you home?" she called, looking around.

A voice floated in from the back of the house—a sweet, lilting voice, as smooth as silk and as soft as a lullaby, calling "Yes, I'm here! I'm in the back yard, so just come on through!"

Rio led him through a neat, pretty sitting room, decorated with flowers and houseplants everywhere, and on through a door at the back of the house. He stepped out into the sunshine and found himself in a small but luxuriant garden—an exotic paradise in miniature. And most exotic of all was the lady rising from her seat in a bower of jasmine and eglantine. Tall and willowy, with long waves of snowy white hair touched with the faintest tinge of lilac rippling over her shoulders and down her back, her skin bronzed nearly as deeply as Rio's, and dressed in layer upon layer of loose, flowing fabric in shades of purple and gold. She looked like a princess or perhaps even a goddess, and Vaughn wondered how it was that such a being came to rest in this isolated mountain village.

"Vaughn, you're staring," Rio whispered to him as she elbowed him in the ribs, her eyes dancing with suppressed laughter. He shook himself as if waking and frowned down at her, but she'd already turned towards their hostess as she stepped gracefully around pots of hothouse flowers towards them, her hands outstretched as she welcomed her guests.