The river burbled beneath their feet, the steady flow of water reminding Garret of the flow of their lives as he clung to her hand. He and Larissa had been through a lot to get here and he wasn’t letting her go.
He reached up and stroked a strand of hair away from her face. “I missed you,” he said quietly.
“Where did you go?”
“I had some important business to take care of.” He took a chance and brushed a kiss over her forehead. Then she leaned against him, wrapping her arms around him.
“I heard what you said to my father.”
“About the inn?” he said, deliberately misunderstanding her.
“That and the rest,” she said with a gentle smile.
Garret let his fingers drift over her beloved face, his eyes following the path of his hand, noting the changes that had happened during the intervening years. “I do love you, you know. I always have,” he said, as he traced the curve of her lips, the line of her jaw.
She caught his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm, holding his gaze, her own steadfast. “I’ve always loved you too. I never stopped thinking about you, wishing things had gone differently—”
He touched a finger to her lips to stop whatever else she might say. “Whatever happened, happened for a reason. I sincerely believe God had better things in mind for us. Maybe we both needed to learn some hard lessons. I know I did.”
“What lessons did you need to learn?” she asked, her tone puzzled.
He was quiet a moment, still uncertain how much she would understand. But if they were going to move ahead, he knew he had to be honest with her. “I needed to learn what really matters. That money doesn’t give you freedom or power in spite of what I had seen. I needed to learn that money is a gift from God and that we are entrusted with it. And I needed to learn that when you went against your father’s wishes, I knew that I could trust you completely.”
Larissa stood up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. He returned it and for a few blissful moments all was forgotten. The only people who existed in this world were the two of them, here in this place that had created a sense of home and belonging.
Then Larissa let her hand rest on his shoulder, her expression suddenly serious.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, twisting a strand of her hair around his finger.
Larissa pulled back, giving him a plaintive smile. “I left after you did to stay at a bed-and-breakfast that a friend of my mother runs. They were very close. For the last four years of my mother’s life they would go together to Mexico. For a break, my mother always said.” She stopped there, pressing her lips together as she shook her head.
“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.
She drew in a slow breath. “I always thought it was a holiday. But while I was staying at Lydia’s B&B I saw some photo albums from one of their trips. Lydia had been looking at it before I came and had forgotten about it. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to see it. In the album I saw a picture of my mother sitting on what looked like a hospital bed. I asked Lydia what that was about and very reluctantly she told me the truth about the trips she and my mother made to Mexico. It was for alternative treatments for my mother’s cancer. Treatments that were very experimental and very expensive.”
She stopped and Garret felt as if pieces of a puzzle were slowly falling into place.
“Did she ever tell you about them?”
She shook her head. “Apparently not even my father knew. Lydia said he would have talked her out of doing them. So I called Orest and asked him if he knew. After much sighing and hemming and hawing he told me that the treatments had been so expensive my mother had taken out a loan she didn’t want my father knowing about.” Larissa’s voice broke and she stopped there, lowering her hand as if retreating. “That’s why the inn couldn’t make any money. Orest was juggling accounts trying to pay the loan without making it look like he was paying it.”
“So he wasn’t taking money.” Garret felt a moment of shame that he had practically accused the older man of stealing, but what else could he have thought?
“No. But he was covering for my mother’s mistakes.”
Sensing her shame and the echoes of older pain and loss, Garret drew her close. “It doesn’t matter. Not now.”
“Yes, it does,” Larissa mumbled against his chest. “Why didn’t she tell me about the treatments? Or my father? How could she be so selfish and not think we should be involved?”
“I don’t think she was being selfish,” Garret said. He swallowed down his own flicker of sorrow. “I remember how much my mother cried when she thought she wouldn’t see me and Tanner grow up. I’m sure your mother felt the same way. I’m sure she hoped that what she did was an investment in the future. A future with you and your father.”
Larissa was quiet a moment, then she looked up at him, her eyes shimmering with the remnants of her tears. “Thank you for that,” she whispered.
Garret kissed her again. “You’re welcome.” He smiled down at her, then reached into his pocket, wanting to move the conversation to a happier topic. “And speaking of investments...”
He pulled out the necklace and let it dangle from his finger.
She frowned when she saw the gold nugget at the end of the chain catching the sunlight, throwing it back at her.
“Is that one of the necklaces your grandmother had made out of the nuggets?”
Garret nodded. “Hailey, Shannon, and Naomi all wear theirs. But Tanner gave his to Sabine.” Then he carefully slipped the necklace over Larissa’s head. “And I’m giving mine to you. It’s my way of saying that I want you in my life. That I choose you just like August chose Nukinu. That I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep us together.”
Larissa fingered the gold nugget, a lone tear trickling down her cheek as she did. “I...I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything. Just nod. Or, if you don’t accept, you can just turn and walk away.”
Larissa turned her face up to his, “Of course I accept. You’ve always been the only one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
Garret smiled, gave her another kiss and slipped his arm around her shoulder. “With or without the inn?”
“With or without the inn,” she agreed. “I know the inn was too important to me. Too much a legacy from my mother. I put it in the wrong place in my life. I learned that in the past few days. So if you think you should sell your share to my father, or if you want to sell it to someone else, then that’s fine.”
“I thought you said you heard everything I said to your father.”
“I know, but it isn’t necessary.”
“But it is. Because this inn was a place of healing for me,” he said quietly, his fingers caressing her shoulder. “It’s a place where I realized the importance of legacy and community. And now that I know about the loan, I’m even more determined to make a go of this place.” He paused, in spite of his brave words, still feeling the remnants of faint panic clawing at him. “I’ve cashed in my investments. I’m using that money to buy out your father and now that I know why the inn hasn’t been making money, I’m sure we’ll be able to make a profit.”
Larissa gave him a wistful smile. “Paying out that loan won’t be as hard as you think. Apparently my mother had also used my grandparent’s legacy to pay for some of the treatments. Money that was supposed to come to me. To protect her secret, Orest paid me from the income of the inn, even though the inheritance was all used up by my mother.”
“Your father told me about that money,” Garret said, lowering his arm. “He said that you were able to supplement the income you got from the inn with that.”
Larissa’s laughter was a surprise to him. “I didn’t supplement my income at all. Every penny I got from that inheritance was put into a savings account. I was hoping to use it to eventually buy out my father. It wasn’t enough for that, but it is enough to do some of the renovations I wanted to do in the first place.”
Garret was surprised at the relief he felt at her declaration. “So all along, you’ve been getting by on what you’ve been drawing from the inn?”
“Of course,” she said, sounding surprised. “More than getting by.” Then she gave him a mischievous grin, as if she knew what he was thinking. “And you know exactly how much that amount is. I’m not the spoiled high-maintenance girl you seem to think I am.”
“Never spoiled and never high-maintenance,” he said, with a touch of shame.
“But you did think that at one time.”
“I was an idiot at one time,” he returned. “But I know you better now and I know myself better now. I’d like to think we’ve both grown up. I know I’ve had to learn where to store up my treasure.”
Larissa smiled at him. “I have, too. And I am praying that together we can help each other trust in God as well as each other.”
“I’m praying the same thing,” he said with a gentle smile. He pressed a kiss to her lips, then brushed her hair away from her face and slipped his arm around her, and looked out over the property. “This is a good place,” he said. “I think we’ll do well here.”
“I know we will,” she said, tucking herself against his side. “Mostly because we’ll be working on it together.”
“I like the sound of that,” he said, pulling her close.
She sighed a little, then drew back to hold his gaze. “So you won’t regret not buying the mill? You have as much of a chance to get it as my father, right?”
Garret heard the uncertainty in her voice and shook his head. “No. I won’t regret it at all.” He looked past her at the trees sheltering the creek and the grass rolling away toward the inn, so settled into the landscape. “The mill can never give me what this inn can.”
“And what is that?”
“All the cake and pie I can eat and a place for my cousins to have their weddings,” he joked.
They laughed, but then he grew serious as his fingers drifted over her beloved features. “The mill is a business, but this place is a way of life. A vocation if you will. Something that we can do together. Which means more to me than any income the mill could generate.”
Larissa’s smile shone brighter than the sun overhead. He kissed her again and caught her by the arm. “We should be getting back before your father leaves,” he said. “I have something I need to talk to him about.”
Larissa tilted her head to one side. “And what would that be?”
“We need to resolve some of the business stuff. About me taking over the inn.”
Her hopeful expression faded a little but then she rallied with a quick smile. “Of course.”
“And I need to take care of a little detail about my plans for his daughter’s future,” he added.
Larissa grinned up at him. “I see,” was all she said.
He held out his arm to her and she tucked hers into it.
“Shall we do this together?” he asked.
“I think that’s a great idea.”
He took her arm in his and this time they walked back to the inn, their footsteps reverberating on the wooden bridge, a faint echo from their past life.
He paused at the end of the bridge, then looked around at the grounds of the inn. “You know, you always had the right idea.”
“What do you mean?”
He turned to her and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “I think this inn is the perfect place for a wedding.”
Larissa’s only response was to step up on her tiptoes and give him a gentle kiss.
Garret held her close, feeling as if his life had come full circle to this amazing, wonderful place. As if all the struggles they had both gone through, the choices they made were now vindicated.
Then he took her hand, gave it a light squeeze and a gentle smile, and he thanked God that they were now, finally, reunited again.
* * *
Remember Naomi? Shannon and Hailey’s sister who was in Halifax? Well, she came home and here’s a teaser of her story:
FINDING HOME
It wasn’t supposed to happen this soon. She wasn’t supposed to see him yet. She wasn’t ready.
Naomi ran her suddenly damp palms over her apron. She grabbed the tray of fresh-baked brownies and slipped them into the display case of Mug Shots, the café she worked at part-time. Then she straightened and looked directly into the eyes of Jess Schroder and the part of her past she spent years trying to keep buried.
Good-looking as ever, she thought, her heart doing the same silly flip it always did whenever she saw him all those years ago. Time had filled out his broad shoulders, narrowed his waist, lent interesting shadows and hollows to his handsome features. He still wore his hair a little long and it still waved over his forehead and into his eyes, but it had darkened from the blond it used to be to a light brown. His square jaw was shadowed by stubble, narrow nose, chiseled features and dark eyes that seemed to drill into her very soul.
“What can I get you?” she asked, pleased that her voice could sound so casual.
He shot her a frown, as if surprised that she didn’t swoon at his feet. Like she almost did every day that summer she tutored him.
That summer they dated.
“Hey, Naomi,” he said quietly, slipping his hand in the back pocket of his blue jeans. “I heard you were back in town.”
His deep voice tugged at memories she thought had been lost in the onslaught of what had happened since that summer they spent together ten years ago.
Please, Lord, help me through this. Help me to stay focused on You.
Her prayer was a cry from a wounded heart still struggling after her fiancé’s death. From the move back from a place she had lived for the past ten years. Moving from Halifax had been difficult but after Billy’s death, she needed to come back to her family. Especially now that all her cousins were settled back in Rockyview.
Nursing Billy the past few months of his life had been wrenching, difficult but she never once regretted the time she had spent with him.
She knew when she came back to Rockyview she would be seeing Jess again. She thought she had prepared herself for it.
But from the way her heart hammered in her chest, guess not.
She drew in another long breath, then another and thankfully, she felt her equilibrium return.
“I got back a few weeks ago,” she said, thankful that her feelings didn’t seep into her voice.
Jess’s expression grew suddenly serious. “I heard about Billy. I was sorry to hear about his death.”
Before she could acknowledge his sympathy, the door of the café opened again and an unfamiliar young girl, obviously pregnant, came inside and waddled over to Jess’s side. “So, Jess, you buying me lunch?” she asked. The girl eased out a sigh as she pushed her black hair away from her face.
Naomi glanced from Jess to the girl who didn’t look a day over sixteen and then at her protruding stomach. Her emotions spun again as she tried to reconcile the girl’s age with the man standing in front of her.
The man who had once held her heart.
* * *
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Other Series
FAMILY BONDS
#1 SEEKING HOME
A rancher who suffered a tragic loss. A single mother on the edge. Can these two find the courage to face a romantic new beginni
ng?
#2 CHOOSING HOME
If you like emergency room drama, second chances, and quaint small-town settings, then you’ll adore this romance.
#3 COMING HOME
He thought she chose a hotel over him. She thought he loved money more than her. Years later, can they fill the emptiness in their hearts?
#4 FINDING HOME
She’s hiding a terrible truth. He’s trying to overcome his scandalous history. Together, forgiveness might give them a second chance.
FAMILY TIES
Four siblings trying to finding their way back to family and faith
A COWBOY’S REUNION
He’s still reeling from the breakup. She’s ashamed of what she did. Can a chance reunion mend the fence, or are some hearts forever broken? If you like second chance stories, buried passions, and big country settings, then you’ll love this emotional novel.
“I enjoyed this book and had trouble putting it down and had to finish it. If the rest of this series is this great, I look forward to reading more books by Carolyne Aarsen.” Karen Semones - Amazon Review
THE COWBOY’S FAMILY
She's desperate. He's loyal. Will a dark lie hold them back from finding love on the ranch? If you like determined heroines, charming cowboys, and family dramas, then you’ll love this heartfelt novel.
“What a wonderful series! The first book is Cowboy's Reunion. Tricia's story begins in that book. Emotional stories with wonderful characters. Looking forward to the rest of the books in this series.” Jutzie - Amazon reviewer
TAMING THE COWBOY
A saddle bronc trying to prove himself worthy to a father who never loved him. A wedding planner whose ex-fiancee was too busy chasing his own dreams to think of hers. Two people, completely wrong for each other who yet need each other in ways they never realized. Can they let go of their own plans to find a way to heal together?
Coming Home: Family Bonds Four Page 18