if you are only willing to listen.”

~ Jimmy Buffett

One

Jade French stepped from the cab transfixed by the tangled mass of vines that nearly obliterated the hotel’s wide front porch. The web seemed even more overgrown than when she was here two months ago. But it sent a heady aroma—not too sweet, not too herbal—into the mid-morning air and helped erase some of the uncertainty rolli...