Some say I'm eccentric. Others call me that old crazy cat lady. Then there's those that just think of me as that poor old maid! Well there all full of batshit! In someway they are right, but they don't know the real me! The one that is full of life and loves to live it! My nickname is Sassy but it fits me in more ways than shortening my name. I can be the life of the party, then the one to make your world come crashing down if the situation calls for it. I protect what is mine! I speak my mind even if it will hurt your feelings. I feel it's better to be honest than lie about something! I know more than most as well as my sister of what is going on here in Big Sky. I am not a gossip though so if I do discuss it it's only with my sister Sera. Not off whispering it into the other old biddies in town. I can be pleasant and have a good conversation with the next person. Just don't push my buttons. I will put you in your place!

The Bell Family migrated here not long after the town was founded. My great something grandfather built the building Storybook Bookstore. He loved what he did and it shows in the workmanship in the building and what he sold in his store. It has passed down generation to generation in the Bell Family keeping alive what he started all those years ago.

I was the first born to Stanton and Sapphire Bell. The eldest of three daughters. Sometimes I wonder how my father felt not having a boy to carry on the Bell name. If it bothered him he never let on, and he loved us three girls and our mother more than anything. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't tell us that we were the joy of his life, and that he loved us. He did come from a large family, and the Bell name is carried on. Just wasn't by him in his lifetime. My mother nicknamed me Sassy Mae shortly after I was born as she said even as a baby I was more than Sassy! Which just got worse the older I got.

My childhood was a loving and happy one. Sure there was as few ups and downs, but no real heartache until we grew older. Our parents loved and sheltered us. Our grandparents passed and we learned some as we came into our teenage years. Though we were still sheltered from the real heartache. Real heartache didn't come till later in our life. Which we were totally unprepared for, but that's a story for later.

My first beau was Alistair Larson. He was two years younger than I was, but I fell deeply in love with his suave ways. Only for him to go off to England when he was sixteen on a school trip and fall in love with someone else. I had graduated by that time and was eagerly awaiting for him to come home to me. When he got back he didn't even come to see me. When I finally saw him he was so lovesick over having to leave the hussy whoever she was back in England!

That was my first broken heart. His brother Brock who was a year younger than him caught all my wrath. With only the love for my baby sister Sapphira protecting him. I screamed and railed at him till Sapphira had enough and I had broken down. He ran like a dog with his tail between his legs. I became a scorned woman after that. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' means that nothing in the world – or even beyond the world, such as in the depths of hell – is as furious and capable of great anger as a woman who has been 'scorned' was the old saying. I tried to get even with Alistair, but nothing I did even phased him.

Life went on and of course there were other boys or men as they had become after that, but no one was like Alistair had been. Not till the day I met him. Tall, dark, and handsome. He made me weak in the knees, and butterflies swirl in my stomach like no other. He was an enigma. No one knew anything about him or where he had came from. That really sparked my interest. One that I noticed was returned from him. The night of the annual Big Sky All Hollow's Eve Ball was the best and worst night of my life. I was already twenty-five years old now. Considered to be an old maid in some societies, but I still had my looks. I spent the night with him under a blanket of stars. When I awoke the next morning he was gone. Like he had never been there. I realized I had never even gotten his name, and that really didn't bother me. I was more pissed cause he was gone.

All that was forgotten when I got home to a full house with my sister's sobbing. Others were, and they were crying as well. There had been a carriage accident the night before after the ball. Somehow my father had lost control of the horse pulling the buggy. It had overturned and they had died from the result of their injuries. It felt like the life had been sucked out of me. I had fainted, and woke in my bed hours later. When the devastation hit me I sobbed like a baby. My sisters heard me and came joining me, and we curled together on my bed sobbing. The days that followed were a blur. Ones that I never wanted to remember either. I had looked for my star-crossed lover days later too, but I was told he had left town. I was heartbroken that he had just left me like that. It was getting harder to trust any man.

A few months later I realized I was pregnant much to my shock. There was too much turmoil going on in my life right now. Still mourning my parents. I had to get away. I packed my bags and told my family I was going on a trip to clear my head. That trip turned into almost a year. Sure I kept in touch with my family. My sisters were more than capable of running our family bookstore without me. I found a tiny little village on the coast of Oregon, and started a life there while I was pregnant. I lied for the only time in my life and told them my husband had died. That I was a widower so I was accepted. I was too far along by now to continue traveling anywhere. Just a couple of months I told myself.

Well that two months was horrible with being so big. I felt like a beached whale every time I tried to get up out of a chair. I had to have help. I was living in a boarding house run by a young couple who weren't able to have children. I went into labor a couple of weeks early. To my shock and the midwives I had twin boys. Two beautiful baby boys. One had dark black hair while the other had my auburn color of hair. Otherwise they were identical. A few weeks went by and they had yet to be named. I loved those baby boys, but I couldn't have a life with them. I couldn't take them back to Big Sky. In my heart I knew they already had a home. A home here with Matilda and Samuel. They already loved my boys and were pushing me to name them.

In the end I told them my true story. I gave my boys to them to raise. As long as I could still somewhat be a part of their lives as Aunt Sassy. That they would be their parents and raise them. In the end they promised to love my precious baby boys and make sure I was known to them the way that I wanted. They gave them names that I loved. They were about four months old when I received word that my sister Seraphina was sick. So I went home to help take care of her. She recovered just fine though. I kept in touch with Matilda and Samuel and they sent me pictures of my babies that I hid from my sisters.

Years ago Sapphira had married her beau Brock Larson. They had three beautiful daughters together, and Seraphina and I spoiled them rotten. When the girls were in grade school Sapphira and Brock decided to go on a cruise. We kept the girls while they were gone on the cruise. The girls loved it since Sera and I lived up above the bookstore where we had grown up. Neither of us had married, and our children were our cats that kept multiplying. Hank Morgan the sheriff showed up one day. The day Sapphira and Brock were supposed to be getting back from their trip.

When they had gotten off the cruise and were hailing a cab for the airport someone hijacked the cab. Shooting the driver as well as Sapphira and Brock. We were devastated as was Brock's family. How were we supposed to tell the girl we wondered. That their mommy and daddy wouldn't be coming back home. It was one of the hardest things Sera and I had ever done. We had three heartbroken girls on our hands along with our own heartache. The days that followed were hard to say the least. We sheltered the girls as much as we could from what was going on, but we always wondered if it was enough.

When the will was read a week later Sera and I had been given custody of the girls. Their Larson grandparents weren't happy about it, but the will would uphold in a court of law we were all told. We worked it out though that the girls spent their time with the Larsons, and we were their guardians. We moved into Brock and Sapphira's home so as not to uproot the girls totally. The cats stayed at our home above the bookstore, and we took care of them during the day when were were at the store. The years flew by, and the girls grew up. The older to went away to university, and fell in love there never coming back. Our baby girl Drea though went to school to become a doctor. She married her high school beau Tyler James, and he was definitely dreamy. She chose to stay here in Big Sky where her roots lay creating a life with Tyler, and giving us great nephews and nieces to spoil.

Sera and I did our best to keep our baby sister alive in her children's eyes, but it was so hard to do. We missed our baby sister deeply. We made daily trips to her grave to put her favorite flower Red Tulips on her grave. As the girls grew I found it hard to get to Oregon to see the twins. I sent them presents on their birthday and at Christmas. Matilda was still keeping me updated on them. Somedays I ponder what it would have been like to keep my babies and raise them. A part of me yearns to have done that, but I know they are happy and loved where they are. Not that they wouldn't have been here, but there they have a father. Albeit an adopted one, but one all the same. Would my parents have loved them too if they were alive? Boys that could have carried the Bell name on since I had no idea what their father's name was. Instead they had an adopted last name now.

The years went on and yes I have aged. I am now sixty years old. My baby boys would be thirty-five now. I've met them a couple of times as adults as I visited their parents over the years when I could get away. They had grown into wonderful men. I couldn't be prouder of them. Though to them as a Aunt that sends them gifts. That's what makes my heart ache. To be a mother and not to claim being one or for my children to ever know is heartbreaking.