No Ordinary Day

by Polly Becks

  No Ordinary Day

  The stunning story that introduces the brilliant new series of romantic suspense, intrigue, and humor, Extraordinary Days, by novelist Polly Becks, making her debut in women’s fiction.

  Set in 1991, No Ordinary Day tells the tale of an epic tragedy that changes life forever in a small town in the wild, mystic Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, especially for eight special women, and the mystery that surrounds it.

  Kindergarten teacher Lucy Sullivan has an Irish temper, a love for her students, and a growing fondness for fellow teacher Glen Daniels—until plain-spoken soldier Alex “Ace” Evans comes into her life, quite literally saving it. As they struggle to rescue five little girls caught in a flooding school, will these two opposites find the love missing in both their lives—or even survive?

  Publication Date: January 5, 2015

  Each book in the Extraordinary Days series makes a direct cash donation to a different charity or non-profit organization. Your free download of No Ordinary Day benefits The American Red Cross.

  The Extraordinary Days series [set in present day]:

  Monday’s Child/ FAIR OF FACE

  Where has supermodel Briony, the one-named wonder of the fashion world, disappeared to? That’s what style magazine maven Katherine Bruce desperately wants to know—and she’s manipulated Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and war correspondent Erik Bryson into chasing that story down. A serious writer, he’s resentful about being stuck with the fluffy task—and utterly unprepared for what he discovers.

  Publication Date: Monday, February 2, 2015

  Tuesday’s Child/ FULL OF GRACE

  Grace Fuller, the youth pastor in her father’s church, is guarding several painful secrets that threaten her future. Will she find a happily-ever-after with Steve, the confident, handsome assistant pastor with whom she’s vying for her dream job, or will the mysterious bad-boy biker who has just come to town, darkly guarding his own painful past, steal her from her chosen path?

  Publication Date: Tuesday, March 3, 2015

  Wednesday’s Child/FULL OF WOE

  Life in the fast lane has never been an easy place for twitchy high-society event planner Sloane Wallace, a woman born to privilege and pristine family lineage. But when a freak snowstorm and auto mishap leaves her stranded in the freezing mountains in her designer heels, a burly mountain man, unimpressed with her pedigree, shows up in time to save her couture-covered backside—and completely mess up her world.

  Publication Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2015

  Your purchase of Monday’s Child: Fair of Face benefits The American Cancer Society.

  Your purchase of Tuesday’s Child: Full of Grace benefits Tuesday’s Children, a non-profit organization founded to promote long-term healing in all those directly impacted by the events of September 11, 2001.

  Your purchase of Wednesday’s Child: Full of Woe benefits Wednesday’s Child: Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, Finding Forever Families for Children in Foster Care

  Four more books will follow, beginning in fall of 2015:

  Thursday’s Child: Far to Go

  Friday’s Child: Loving and Giving

  Saturday’s Child: Works Hard for a Living

  Sunday’s Child: Born on the Sabbath Day

  No Ordinary Day

  Polly Becks

  Book 1 in the EXTRAORDINARY DAYS series

  Copyright © 2015 by Polly Becks

  ISBN: 978-0-9908840-0-2

  Smashwords Edition

  Published by GMLTJoseph, Inc., LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale, or established organizations is entirely coincidental.

  An original work by Polly Becks

  No Ordinary Day, © 2015 by Polly Becks

  Cover Art by Patricia A. Downes, Dutch Hill Design

  For more information, go to www.pollybecks.com.

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/PollyBecks

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Series

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Prelude

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  About the Author

  Other books in the Extraordinary Days series

  Excerpt from Fair of Face

  FLOWER IMAGERY

  The flower featured on the cover is an American Beauty Rose,

  long a symbol of romantic love, deep and true

  Your free download of this e-book provides a direct cash donation to

  THE AMERICAN RED CROSS

  dedicated to helping people in need throughout the United States and, in association with other Red Cross networks, throughout the world since May 21st, 1881

  For more information about The American Red Cross, go to:

  www.redcross.org

  Monday’s child is fair of face,

  Tuesday’s child is full of grace,

  Wednesday’s child is full of woe,

  Thursday’s child has far to go,

  Friday’s child is loving and giving,

  Saturday’s child works hard for a living,

  But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day

  Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

  This rhyme was first recorded in A. E. Bray’s Traditions of Devonshire

  (Volume II, pp. 287–288) in 1838

  To

  Bill and Greg

  with love

  Prelude

  ‡

  APRIL 27, 1991

  Obergrande, New York, at the heart of the Adirondack Park

  THE STREETS AT the center of the small city in the mountain wilderness were swollen with seemingly endless rain that spring, gushing in torrents every now and then, or sometimes running in thin rivulets through the gutters.

  Making it difficult for people to meet on street corners.

  Particularly when it was critical that they not be seen meeting together in public.

  So on this night, the three people who met did so under the enormous tree atop a hill in the center of town, the towering, centuries-old tree for which the town was named.

  Obergrande.

  The rain had paused for a few moments, which should have made umbrellas unnecessary. The stoppage should also have been helpful to the meeting participants remaining unnoticed. The enormous tree’s branches and leaves, sheeting water with every passing breeze, however, repeatedly baptized the three with unpleasantly cold precipitation, soaking their raincoats and clothes.

  As if
it were trying to tell them something urgent.

  All the secrecy barely mattered; no one else was out in the dark and the heavy fog anyway.

  As the three reached the summit of the hill, and the base of the tree, the first person looked around, then back at the second.

  “You found someone to do it? You’re certain?”

  The second person nodded reluctantly.

  “And it’s done? Is it done already?”

  Another nod.

  The first and the third exhaled simultaneously, then exchanged a nod as well.

  “All right, then,” said the first. “Get home safe. Get and stay dry if you can—it’ll be your last chance to for a while.”

  Like drops of mercury beading, then skittering away from a broken thermometer, the three walked quickly down the hillside in separate directions and disappeared into the thickening fog.

  None of them having any idea of what they had unleashed.

  Chapter 1

  ‡

  A FEW WEEKS LATER

  A primitive riverside campsite, between Newcomb and Obergrande, New York, in the Adirondack Park

  IT HAD BEEN a difficult week, Bram thought.

  He had just come back inside the tent, soaked to the skin from the relentless rain, after one more failed attempt to get a fire going under the tarp. He shook the water from his hair gently so as not to assault anyone else with it.

  The baby had been screaming for most of her waking hours, sending his wife, Anjolie, over the edge and repeatedly into tears, as she struggled to calm their child amid the pouring rain that only let up for a few moments at a time before it returned, full force. Whenever she had gotten the almost-one-year-old to sleep, a rolling clap of thunder would echo through the surrounding mountains, violently shaking their tent and the ground beneath it.

  Waking the baby, who immediately returned to wailing.

  He had to admit that the female members of the family were not the only ones in their small tent that the weather was frightening.

  Bram was a young Dutchman, tall, lean, and strong, an experienced hiker and camper. He was visiting the United States for the first time with his wife and infant daughter with the intention of looking for employment there, though at the moment he was merely on vacation with a visitor’s visa.

  The school at which he taught in Eindhoven, Holland, had let out for the summer the previous week, and Anjolie, his childhood sweetheart and spouse of almost three years, had a generous vacation policy at her otherwise-low-paying job as a ceramic engineer, so they had undertaken their first trip to the United States with their relatively new daughter in tow, as they had all her young life in Europe.

  They had flown into Montreal in the sunlight, taking a bus into Lake Placid, New York, from which they planned to hike their way down to the heart of the Adirondack Park, camping all along the way. Rain had greeted them shortly after leaving Lake Placid, and had not let up entirely since then.

  While Bram was under no misconception about his own value in the American job market, he had been advised that Anjolie’s prospects were much better in the U.S. than in Holland. But, in addition to the better salary a job for her with an American firm would provide, Bram had a potential financial windfall of his own in the works as well.

  An odd inheritance from his recently deceased and long-beloved grandmother, known to him all his life as Mutti.

  Once he and his little family had made it to a small town called Obergrande, he would have a better idea if that inheritance had any value at all.

  He looked over in the dim light of the oil lantern at Anjolie, who was on the verge of tears again, and hurried to her side.

  “Here,” he said quietly in the tongue of their homeland, “let me take her for a while. I think the thunderstorm is passing; lie down and try to rest.”

  His wife, too exhausted to argue, handed him the baby and slid gratefully into the zipped-together sleeping bags.

  “There, there, little one,” Bram said, putting the infant up on his shoulder. He rubbed her back and spoke in a low, melodic voice. “The weather is nasty, and I know the thunder frightens you. But we are here all together, you, your mama, and I. Together, God willing, we will make a lovely life in this beautiful place of mountains for you to climb, lakes for you to swim in, and bright stars to light the darkness for you—once the rain finally stops.”

  After a slew of hiccups, the baby settled down and rested her head against his neck. He caressed that tiny head, covered with waves of the finest, softest auburn hair, its color just like that of her mother.

  Bram began to sing to her, a low, wordless tune from the back of his throat and sinuses, the lullabye that always caused her to fall asleep sooner or later.

  Thankfully, this time it was sooner.

  Once he was certain she was sleeping soundly, he laid her down on her little sleeping bag surrounded by their backpacks, covered her with the blanket, dimmed the oil lantern even more, then turned back to where his wife lay, her large eyes open, gazing glassily at him.

  “She hates me,” she murmured as he removed his wet shirt and jeans and lay down beside her.

  “She adores you,” Bram said, smiling. He pulled himself into the sleeping bag and took Anjolie into his arms. “She hates that her baby food is cold because her idiot father can’t get a simple campfire going.”

  “Satan himself couldn’t get a fire going in all that rain.”

  “Don’t speak such names in a thunderstorm,” Bram said, kissing her neck up to her ear. His fingers caressed, then unbuttoned, the fastenings on her pajama top.

  “What in the world are you doing?” Anjolie said crossly as he slid the top carefully off her shoulder within the confines of the sleeping bag.

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” Bram teased, running his fingertip around the rosy nipple he had exposed, then following his finger with his lips.

  Anjolie squirmed away as far as the bag would allow.

  “No. I’m wondering if you are in your right mind. The baby’s been howling most of the day, it’s been raining since we got here a week ago and shows no signs of letting up. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in almost two weeks. I’m exhausted. My hair is always wet. And I look like a hag.”

  “You have never looked anything but beautiful in your whole life,” Bram said quietly as he kissed the hollow of her throat. “Exhausted as you are, sodden as our tent is with rain and mud, you are still the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen—not to mention my soulmate and the mother of our beautiful little girl, who is finally asleep.”

  “And I see no need to risk waking her,” Anjolie said, but her tone had softened.

  “We’ll be quiet.”

  “Bram—”

  “Shhh,” he said as he fumbled with the drawstring of her pajama bottoms, then caressed her gently, ardently as he found his way inside them. He continued until he saw the look in her eyes change from annoyance to the beginnings of passion, and brought his lips back up to her ear again.

  “I know this has been a miserable week, not the best introduction to the place that soon might be our new home,” he said quietly, interlacing the fingers of his other hand through her smaller ones, causing their wedding rings to click metallically. “But we cannot allow something as meaningless as this bad weather to dampen our happiness.”

  “Dampen—ha. Funny.”

  He kissed her mouth warmly, taking his time.

  “We came to America to find a better life here, leaving very little behind,” he whispered after their lips parted. “Treasure hunts are always full of misdirection and obstacles. We have to keep going if we want to win the prize.”

  Anjolie rolled her eyes, but heat was rising to her face and chest as desire was building inside her.

  “Why do we need to hunt? I thought Mutti had already given you the prize—the treasure,” she said huskily, taking him in hand and mirroring his caresses, causing him to shiver violently.

  Bram glanced over his shoulder at the bab
y, who was still sleeping soundly, then returned his attention to his wife.

  “No,” he said, pulling her closer and smiling at her in the dim glow of the lantern. “Mutti’s gift may or may not bring us fortune in the place our ancestors found it. But make no mistake, Anjolie; I am well aware that our treasure sleeps a few feet away, and that mine will sleep in my arms tonight. And those are the only treasures that really matter to me.”

  Her eyes took on the glow of the lantern-light as she smiled in return.

  As the storm blasted through again, they were soon lost in each other, making love in time with the falling rain, surging and dancing passionately but quietly within the warmth of the sleeping bag as the wind howled around their tent, rattling the trees.

  Chapter 2

  ‡

  In an old cabin, south of the town of Obergrande

  SAM HATED BEING left alone in the cabin, especially on rainy nights.

  It had been bad enough when Jeremy had first brought her here, babbling about the joys of fishing and scuba diving and outdoor sex beneath tall trees and starry skies. He was proud to have saved enough to rent this hell-hole cabin far from the lake’s actual shore, a run-down shack that looked nothing like what the photocopy ad had shown when they saw it on a diner wall in Johnstown. It had no electricity, and therefore, no TV, so it was even harder to pass the endless, often rain-filled days.

  But for the last week or so, having him with her was much harder than being alone.

  Something had happened on one of the many occasions Jeremy had left her during the day, going to ‘work,’ whatever that was. He had never held anything but day jobs that she knew of in the past, though she believed him to be a hard worker and, while not exactly smart, he wasn’t stupid either, and could follow directions most of the time.

  Whatever had happened had put an end to most of that.

  Now each day he would sleep late, though not well, unlike the days when he had been working, would rise numbly and wander off without any explanation of where he was going or what he was doing. Occasionally he would give her money if she asked for it to buy something to eat from the small store more than two miles down the road, but he wasn’t willing to ride her there on his motorcycle as he had always been before.