Heartsong Cottage (33 page)

He paused, then drew back just a little bit. “Sweetheart, I'm so sorry. This happened because of my job—”

“No.” She lifted her hand and placed her index finger against his lips. “You know better. It's all on him. You saved us, Daniel. I'm safe. Your baby is safe.”

He swallowed hard against a stewpot of emotion. Residual fear, relief, joy, anger—and one he'd never expected to experience—
redemption.

Her finger slid from his lip down to the angel's wings pendant hanging around his neck. “I have something to tell you. It's going to sound weird, but it's important that you hear it.”

“Okay.”

“While we were waiting for you to come and save us, I could tell that he was about to act. I didn't know what to do. I knew I needed to do something, but I was so afraid that my mind was frozen. Then suddenly, just as clearly as the bells of St. Stephen's on Sunday morning, I heard a voice whisper through my mind. It was a child's voice.”

She repeated the words she'd heard and Daniel went still for a full ten seconds. He cleared his throat. “Say that again?”

“‘Talk to him. Ask him about his family. Give Daddy time to get here to save Sister.'”

Oh, God.

Shannon's eyes filled with tears. “Celeste says that our guardian angels are always with us if we only will open our hearts to hear them.”

“I didn't think I had a guardian angel. But maybe he's been with me for … well … for the past decade.”

“I'm a believer. Especially after today.”

Daniel's arms wrapped around her once again for another fierce hug. “You know what this means, don't you?”

“What's that?”

“We're going to have a girl.”

Daniel was a believer, too.

*   *   *

The wedding itself went off without a hitch. Not one of the many babies present cried during the ceremony, and the numerous adults who teared up managed to do so silently. Daniel's brother didn't drop the ring on the best man–to-groom handover. And when Shannon felt the flutter of their baby as Daniel tipped her chin to kiss her for the first time as her husband, she silently declared the moment totally perfect.

The reception was deemed the party of the season. Brick Callahan had a grand time showing off his new stitches and everyone wondered why Chase Timberlake was there without his fiancée. Rumor had it that Sarah Murphy was nosy enough to ask Ali Timberlake if there was trouble in Paradise, and Ali had replied, “Not exactly.” Shannon looked forward to learning the scoop about that—at a later date.

Now the time had arrived for the bride and groom to take their leave from the Eternity Springs community center. As arranged, a car waited for them, but when it turned onto Pinion Street and their destination came into view, Shannon squeezed his hand. “Let's walk from here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. It's snowing. Big, fat, beautiful snowflakes. I want to walk in the snow.”

Daniel directed their driver to pull over. “You're not going to want to do snow angels in the front yard or anything, are you?” he asked as he helped her from the car.

She laughed, a joyous sound that rose through the winter night like a song.

Daniel grinned and held her hand as they walked toward the little white house with red trim where a curl of smoke rose from the chimney and warm yellow lights glowed in the windows. He told himself that the moisture stinging his eyes was the result of the chill in the air—though he knew better.

He opened the front gate for Shannon, then placed his hand at the small of her back, and together they approached the front door.

And Daniel began to sing to the tune of Etta James's “At Last.”

My heart,

was broken and alone.

I had given up all hope,

but then Shannon came along.

My love,

led me back into the light.

She has filled my life with song.

And brought me home

to Heartsong Cottage.

 

Read on for a preview of the next book in the Eternity Springs series

Reunion Pass

BY
E
MILY
M
ARCH

Coming April 2016

 

ETERNITY SPRINGS, COLORADO

Lori Murphy sat in a pedicure chair at Angel's Rest Healing Center and Spa and sank her aching feet into the heated, lavender-scented water. “Oh, that feels good. My feet are killing me.”

Seated in the chair next to her, Caitlin Timberlake looked up from her magazine. “Busy day sticking your hand up a horse's rump?”

Lori smirked. “No veterinary work for me today. I did something worse. I helped Mom at the bakery. She had so many orders to fill she even dragged Dad into work. I cannot believe that after a month of holiday eating, so many people want her cinnamon rolls to serve at the breakfast buffets of their New Year's Eve parties.”

“It's one final sin before starting your diet. And your mom's cinnamon rolls are as sinful as it gets.” Caitlin pulled a tabloid newspaper from a stack on a small table between the two chairs. “Speaking of sin, get a load of this.”

Lori noted the magazine's early December date, then read the front page headline aloud. “‘Man's head explodes in barber chair'?”

“Page four.”

Lori flipped to page four and scanned the photographs.
Chase. I should have known.

Honestly, Lori would have preferred photos of the exploding head.

She took a moment to reinforce her emotional walls, then spoke in a casual tone. “Monte Carlo. Saint-Tropez. The Amalfi Coast. Glitz and glamour galore. I gotta admit, I'm shocked they're getting married in little old provincial Eternity Springs.”

“The wedding is still six weeks away,” Caitlin said. “A miracle could still happen. Maybe you could talk to him, Lori.”

“I will talk to him. I'll wish him much happiness in his marriage.”

“That's not what I meant.” Caitlin's expression went glum as her gaze fastened on the photograph of her brother. Dressed in a tuxedo, Chase rolled dice at a craps table, a beautiful blonde resting her hand possessively on his shoulder. “I guess she's nice enough. She does make an effort with the family, and she seems to genuinely like Chase. But that doesn't make her the right woman for him. She is
so wrong
for my brother! Don't you see it, Lori?”

Lori wouldn't touch that one with the proverbial ten-foot pole.

“I bet you a hundred dollars that she gets Botox for her wrinkles. Stephen's wife says she's already had a facelift. And of course, everyone knows she's had a boob job because that was obvious in those old
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit photos. Which, by the way, is something else I don't get. Chase was always all about nature. What's natural about boobs that lie like little Murphy Mountains on top of a chest? What is it about boobs that make men so stupid, anyway?”

Lori's mouth twisted. “Well, she is an on-air personality so her appearance is important.”

Caitlin sniffed with disdain. “You'd think her wedding would be important to her. She hasn't bought a dress yet. Can you believe that? And she's turned almost all of the arrangements over to Mom.”

Lori had already heard that bit of gossip from her own mother. “I'm sure it will be lovely. Your mother does everything with class.”

“True.” Caitlin sighed down at the casino photograph once more. “That's another reason why it's hard to believe that Chase is going to marry her. I thought men married women like their mothers. Lana Wilkerson is nothing at all like Mom.”

Lori idly flipped the newsprint to another page and the photograph of a bare-chested Chase rubbing sunscreen on his fiancée's back. A memory flashed in her mind, accompanied by a twinge of regret she didn't want to recognize.

Once upon a time, Chase had rubbed sunscreen onto her back, his touch gentle and thrilling. However, the apartment pool deck in College Station, Texas, was a very, very long way from the French Riviera.

“Your mom is the prototype traditional mom. Chase was never one to be happy with traditional.”

“If that's true, then more the fool he. Although…” Caitlin cut a sharp gaze toward Lori. “I don't know that I agree with that. He would have been happy with you.”

“Let it go, Caitlin. That ship sailed long ago.”

Just then the door swept open and Chase's bride-to-be blew inside. Porcelain skin gone rosy with the cold stretched over high cheekbones that spoke to her Slavic ancestry. She wore her thick blonde hair piled carelessly high upon her head and diamond studs sparkled in the lobes of her ears. Long dark lashes framed her eyes. Atlantic Ocean blue eyes, Lori had heard them called. It was an apt description.

Lana Wilkerson was a force of nature, and as Lori buried the tabloid beneath a stack of hairstyle magazines, she felt herself shrinking and shriveling like a pansy in the heat of a brilliant sun.

“Hello, ladies,” Lana said. “What a glorious day, is it not? Caitlin, I'm so sorry I'm late for our spa date. Chase took me skiing today, and we made one too many runs. Fabulous skiing conditions. Simply fabulous.”

She launched into a tale about Chase's wild and reckless ways speeding down a Black Diamond hill that had Lori cringing while Lana's gorgeous eyes sparkled with excitement. Lori darted Caitlin a sidelong glance, looking to see if Chase's sister recognized how well her brother and this woman suited. If Lori had been the woman skiing with him, she'd have done so with her heart in her throat and visions of falls, broken bones, and traumatic head injuries running through her brain. Upon reaching the end of the run, she'd have lit into him like a firecracker rather than hug him with joy.

Neither one of them would be happy.

Liar,
her inner voice proclaimed. His sense of adventure and daring had been one of the things that appealed most to her about Chase.

Her mother still joked that instead of giving Lori the middle name of Elizabeth, she should have gone with “Responsible.” That aspect of Lori's personality was the result of having grown up with a single mother who worked her fingers to the bone to make ends meet—and to atone to her parents for her Big Mistake: getting pregnant by the town bad boy before he got sent off to jail.

Then when Lori was sixteen, Chase Timberlake had walked into her grandparents' grocery store and, over the next few years, taught Lori all about temptation.

Lana snickered at something the nail technician said, and Lori realized that the older woman's laugh was as lovely as her face. Lori watched her win over the customers in the salon one by one. No wonder Chase had fallen for her. The real question was, why had the Timberlake women not?

She pondered the problem while the nail tech finished her pedicure. Family dynamics were a weird animal. Lori knew that firsthand. Wasn't her own situation fraught with tension from time to time?

She'd wanted nothing to do with her father when he returned to Eternity Springs with an adoptive son in tow after years in Australia. She'd been jealous that Devin had a relationship with Cam Murphy when she had not. Then when her parents reconciled, she'd been forced to adjust to sharing a mother whom she'd had to herself for her entire life.

Baby Michael's arrival had thrown another complication wrench into the mix. Lori loved her little brother desperately, but she still experienced instances where sibling rivalry made her feel more like a six-year-old child than an adult of twenty-six. As Lori Reese, she'd known exactly where she fit in the family of two. Sometimes in Lori Murphy's expanded family, she didn't know her role.

Lori's gaze drifted toward Chase's sister and she thought about his mother. She'd admired Ali Timberlake ever since she met her. The woman was all class, and according to local gossip, never said a word against her son's choice of bride. But anyone who knew her could see she struggled with the idea of being mother-in-law to Lana Wilkerson. The age difference between Lana and Caitlin certainly didn't make a “sisters” relationship any easier, either. Lori realized she actually felt a little bit sorry for Lana. Emphasis on the “little.” Navigating Timberlake family dynamics would be a Black Diamond challenge for Chase's wife.

With her nails now painted a subtle rose pink, Lori moved to the drying table. A few moments later, Caitlin took the seat on her right. The two friends chatted about their New Year's plans and Lori was almost dry and ready to leave when Lana took the seat opposite her. She slipped nails painted a tangerine orange beneath the ultraviolet light and beamed a friendly smile toward Lori. “I need to apologize. Your face is familiar so I'm sure we must have met on one of my previous visits to Eternity Springs, but I don't remember. May we start over? I'm Lana Wilkerson, soon-to-be Timberlake.”

They had been introduced more than once, but Lori wasn't going to let the lack of recognition bother her. Celebrities met so many people. “I'm Lori Murphy.”

“Oh. Of course.” The older woman winced prettily. “We
have
met before. You're Chase's Lori. His ‘one that got away.'”

 

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