Beloved

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Stockenberg's books have been published in a dozen languages and are often set in quaint New England harbor towns, always with a dose of humor. She writes about complex family relationships and the fallout that old, unearthed secrets can have on them. Sometimes there's an old murder. Sometimes there's an old ghost. Sometimes once-lovers find one another after half a lifetime apart.

  Her work has been compared to writers as diverse as Barbara Freethy, Nora Roberts, LaVyrle Spencer and Mary Stewart by critics and authors alike, and her novels have appeared on bestseller lists in USA Today as well as the national bookstore chains. Her website features sample chapters, numerous reviews, many photos, and an enchanting Christmas section.

  Visit her website at antoinettestockenberg.com to read sample chapters of all of her books.

  If you enjoyed reading this novel, please "Like" Antoinette Stockenberg's Facebook author page!

  A Month at the Shore Sample Prologue

  Antoinette Stockenberg

  " An addictive, captivating story of love, family and trust."

  -- Romance Reviews Today

  Laura Shore has fled her humble past on Cape Cod and made a name for herself on the opposite coast. But when she returns and joins forces with her two siblings to try to save Shore Gardens, the failing family nursery, she finds that she hasn't left the past behind at all. Kendall Barclay, the town's rich son and her childhood knight in shining armor, lives there still, and his hold over Laura is as strong as ever. Like a true knight, he's attentive, courteous, and ready to help -- until a murder is uncovered that threatens the family, the nursery, and Laura's deepening relationship with him.

  Prologue

  The day after eighth-grade graduation was the best and worst of Kendall's life.

  He was minding his own business, which happened to be tracking down a snowy owl that had been sighted in a woods just outside of town, when he heard boys' voices farther up the trail.

  He was sorry to hear them. He didn't want to be caught with a pair of expensive binoculars around his neck and looking for birds, so he got back on his bike with every intention of leaving the way he had come: quietly. As he pedaled off, the voices got more shrill—whoops and yelps, the sounds of small-town kids on the warpath. He would be fair game for them, he knew from experience, so he picked up his pace.

  And then he heard the scream. It was a girl's cry, frightened and angry at the same time, and it sent chills up his back and arms. He slammed on the brakes so violently that his bike skidded on the soft path and went out from under him, falling on top of him and scraping across his pale, thin legs.

  He righted the bike, but his hands and legs were shaking as he mounted it again and set off in the direction of the scream. Part of him was hoping and praying that it was all just fooling around; but part of him knew better.

  He found them in a clearing next to the trail where he knew kids liked to hang out drinking and smoking—and, he had always assumed, having sex. Four boys had a girl cornered.

  She was standing in front of the campfire rocks. Ken couldn't see her very well because she was shielded by the four boys. They were practically shoulder to shoulder, but one pair of shoulders stood higher and broader than the rest: they belonged to Will Burton, the doctor's son, a bully who had squeezed more than one allowance out of Ken on a Friday afternoon. Will's younger, red-haired brother Dagger was there, too, and two other kids that Ken didn't recognize.

  "Hey!" he yelled at their backs, almost before he could think about it.

  They all turned around at the same time, surprised and therefore pissed. But Ken wasn't looking at them, he was looking at her. He was stunned to realize that she had breasts; how had he never noticed that? She was clutching her torn shirt to herself, but he could see her dark pink nipple. Instantly he looked away. When he looked back again immediately, he saw that her face was all flushed and her cheeks were wet, and he felt desperately ashamed.

  "Leave her alone," he said in a voice filled with fury.

  Will Burton just laughed. "Ooh, I'm scared. What're you gonna do? Run and tell your daddy?"

  The other boys snickered and approached him as he stood astride his bike.

  He could have taken off. He didn't, because he wanted her to make a break for it. But she stayed right where she was! He couldn't believe it. She wasn't moving. It was like she was hypnotized or paralyzed or something. She was looking straight at him and nobody else. He was ashamed in advance for what he knew was going to happen to him.

  He became aware of the crack of branches underfoot as one of the boys he didn't know took up a position behind him. Instinctively he glanced over his shoulder at him. At the same instant, Dagger Burton grabbed his binoculars out of his bike basket.

  Dagger turned away and aimed the binoculars straight at her breasts while Ken and the others remained in their standoff. Everything seemed to go on hold while Dagger did his thing.

  "Shit, I can't see anything," Dagger said after fiddling with the adjustments. "Everything's blurry. I must be too close."

  Stupidly, Dagger began backing away from her in an attempt to get in better focus.

  So that left three.

  "Leave her alone," Ken said, controlling the quaver that hovered at the back of his voice. "Get out now, and I won't tell anyone."

  Will Burton was only a year older than Ken but just then seemed twice his size, minimum. He snorted and said, "Who's gonna make me? You—Skinnykenny? What a dork."

  Ken tried to make his voice sound strong. "Leave her alone." But his voice broke and the last word came out like a hiccup, and everyone laughed, except her, of course.

  He didn't dare look at her; he was so totally mortified. For her, for him, for both of them. He was rich and she was poor, but at that moment both of them were equals.

  Hulking Will Burton waited until the snickers died down, and then in a voice that was way calmer and deeper than Ken's, he said: "Dork."

  It was true. Ken was a dork; he knew he was a dork. But there was something about being called one in front of her that made something inside of him snap. He threw down his bike and went wading into Will Burton: head down, arms flailing, landing punches half in the air. But he made contact, too—for the stolen allowances, for the snickers, and mostly for that exposed nipple, which he knew was now burned into his memory for life. He hated them all, hated them for their contempt for anyone who wasn't as cool as they were.

  They punched him and kicked him and he tasted his own blood, but still he kept flailing. His eyes were shut, so he couldn't tell if she was taking off or not. Before he could get the chance to look, he felt a hard whack on the back of his head—he was pretty sure, from his brand-new binoculars.

  A Month at the Shore, available for your Nook April 2012.

  Beyond Midnight Sample Chapter 1

  Antoinette Stockenberg

  "Full of charm and wit, Stockenberg's latest is truly enthralling."

  --Publishers Weekly

  In 1692, Salem, Massachusetts was the setting for the infamous persecution of innocents accused of witchcraft. Three centuries later, little has changed. Helen Evett, widowed mother of two and owner of a prestigious preschool in town, finds her family, her fortunes, and her life's work threatened —all because she feels driven to protect the sweet three-year-old daughter of a man who knows everything about finance but not so much about fathering.

  Chapter 1

  March.

  Helen Evett dropped a log into the jumpy flames of her cozy hearth, then went over to the sitting room window and closed the heavy drapes of faded rose, muting the sound of sleet that tapped against the panes.

  This March will be different.

  She poured herself a glass of sherry, settled into a deep-cushioned chair in front of the fire, and cracked open the cover of a brand-new biography of Freud that she'd been meaning to read since Christmas.

  It's been four years now. Long enough.

  Five minutes into the book, Helen looked up and began staring at t
he flames, unable, after all, to shake herself free of the mood. March in Massachusetts was long, cold, and cruel, full of false hope. March was a liar. March couldn't produce a damn thing except April first, the anniversary of her husband's death.

  For four years in a row, Helen Evett had tried to convince herself that spring would be less painful. She had planted hundreds of snowdrops and burned cords of wood, and yet here she was, facing April again with dread. The memories of that fateful day had burned deep and left scars: the somber troop commander standing at her front door, the slow-motion ride to the hospital in a state police car, the shocking sight of Hank's gray, lifeless face.

  She hadn't dared pull the sheet farther back than his face; part of his chest, she knew, had been blown away.

  Helen sighed heavily. Things would get better after April first. But tonight it was still March.

  "Mom! I'm home!"

  In the hall outside the sitting room, Helen heard the satisfying thunk of the heavy oak door falling into place. One child back, one to go.

  "How're the roads?" she called out. Becky had good instincts and a level head, but her driver's license was so new it still smelled of plastic.

  "No problem," the girl said in a voice that Helen knew was being deliberately upbeat. Becky was as aware of March as her mother was, but she had her own system for dealing with it: she shopped.

  "Look what I found at Filene's Basement." The girl strode into the room, still in her black hooded trench coat, and nudged the cat off the hassock with her shopping bag. "Cashmere. And dirt cheap."

  She flipped the hood of her coat off her head, revealing straight gold hair that took its glow from the fire, and beamed at her mother.

  Helen, still marveling at the whiteness and straightness of Becky's teeth despite the fact that her braces had been off for over a year, frowned and said, "Cashmere? Since when can you afford cashmere on a baby-sitter's wages?"

  "Well, it's not all cashmere. Just twenty percent."

  "I hope you put gas in the car."

  "Ten dollars worth," Becky said, wrinkling her nose. "I'll put in another ten when I get paid."

  "Becky, this won't do. You can't go spending money like there's no tomorr—" Instantly Helen regretted having said it. Who knew better than they did that sometimes there was no tomorrow? For Trooper Hank Evert, writing out a routine speeding ticket, there had ended up being no tomorrow.

  Becky was shrugging out of her rain-spattered coat; she let it fall where she stood on the worn Oriental carpet. When she faced her mother again the look in her green eyes was as calmly agreeable as the smile on her face. "You're right, Mom. This is the last thing I'll buy for a while."

  It's March, Helen reminded herself. Let her be.

  Rummaging through a wrap of tissue, Becky pulled out a smart turtleneck sweater for her mother's perusal.

  Helen smiled ironically. "Oh, good. More black. Just what you need."

  "It's not black. It's blackish charcoal."

  "It's charcoalish black."

  "It'll look terrific on you, too, Mom. With your black hair and gray eyes—"

  "I'd look like a lump of coal. Why all the black, anyway?" Helen added, unable to keep the protest out of her voice. The color of mourning held no allure for her.

  "It's just cool, Mom," said Becky with an edge in her own voice. "For no other reason."

  Helen had to leave it at that. She stood up, automatically retrieving her daughter's crumpled coat from the floor. On her way out to the hall clothes tree, she asked, "Did your brother say when Mrs. Fitch was picking them up?"

  She heard Becky mumble something about Mrs. Fitch's car being at the mechanic's.

  Surprised, Helen said, "So how are Russ and Scotty getting home?"

  She turned around in time to see Becky sprinting for the stairs. Without pausing, the girl said, "Russ told me a friend of Scotty Fitch was gonna meet them at the mall and drive them both home."

  "Rebecca!" Helen said, more angry with her daughter than with her son. "How could you leave him to come back on his own?"

  Becky was taking the stairs two at a time. "We live in Salem, Mom," she ventured over her shoulder. "Not Sarajevo."

  "You know what I mean! He's fourteen," Helen snapped. "All feet! No brains! I don't want him hanging around with kids who drive."

  Turning at the top of the stairs, Becky looked down at her mother and said quietly, "I don't see how you can stop him, Mom."

  "Oh, really?" Helen answered in a crisp, dry voice. "Wait till he gets home, then, and watch."

  "Oh-h ... don't take it out on Russell," Becky pleaded. "It was my fault. I'm the one who let him." In self-defense she added, "When I was fourteen you let me get chauffeured around by girls older than I was."

  "That was different. You were level-headed. I could trust your judgment—up until tonight, anyway," Helen said with a dark look. "And besides, times are—"

  "I know, I know: totally different," Becky said with a roll of her eyes. "Even though it's—what?—a year or two later?"

  "You don't know who's out there, honey," Helen said, ignoring the sarcasm. "There are nutcases ... madmen ... psychos ...."

  "Mom. Stop."

  The expression on the girl's face was wise and tender and weary all at once. She knew, and her mother knew, that the one madman who mattered most had rolled his car in a fiery, fatal end to a spectacular police chase on Route 95. He was out of the picture, out of their lives.

  But that didn't mean there weren't other madmen out there.

  "Hey," Becky said, more cheerfully. "I almost forgot. This is for Russ." She reached into her shopping bag and pulled out a Pearl Jam baseball cap. "It's wool. Ninety-nine cents. Can you believe it?"

  She tossed the cap down to her mother with a last, quick smile and beat a retreat to her bedroom at the end of the wallpapered hall.

  Helen sat the cap on the newel post and sighed. Becky was rolling through the tough teen years so painlessly that she'd almost managed to convince her mother that fathers weren't all that critical. It was Russ who was the reality check: The boy was angry, moody; sloughing off responsibility right and left.

  "Pretty typical," Helen's friends all said.

  But no one else could pin down, to the day, exactly when her son had begun the transformation from nice kid to beast in the jungle. Helen could. On the evening of his father's funeral, Russell Evett had withdrawn into his room, and when he came out three days later he wasn't Russell Evett anymore. It was as plain as that.

  Helen was roused from yet another replay of that time by the piercing ring of the hall phone. The voice that answered hers was fearful and tentative and had the effect of jangling her nerves still more.

  "Mrs. Evett? You don't know me—I'm sorry to call you at home—but I have an important request, more like a favor—no, wait, let me start over. I got your name from a friend who has a little girl in your preschool, Candy Greene. That's the mother's name, not the little girl's. The girl is called Astra? You remember? A little blond girl, very fluent?"

  "She's not in my Tuesday-Thursday class, but may I ask who this is?" said Helen, impatient with the meandering voice at the other end of the line. What if Russ were trying to call?

  The woman sucked in her breath in a broken gasp. "Oh! I'm sorry ... it's this vicious headache." She took a deep breath, obviously trying to organize herself.

  "My name ... is Linda Byrne," she said with new deliberation. "I've heard such good things about your school, and I want my daughter to go there. She's so bright. She gets along well with children and she's pretty good about sharing and taking directions. She doesn't bite." Hurried and edgy despite herself, she added, "Is there anything else you need to know?"

  "Well, yes," said Helen, surprised by the woman's naiveté. "We like to sit down with the parents and the child—"

  "Oh, but my husband couldn't possibly be available for that!" the woman said at once. "He's so busy!"

  "One parent would be fine. I'll tell you what, Mrs. Byrne. Why
don't you come visit the school tomorrow at about five o'clock with your little girl, and we—"

  "But I can't. Don't you see? That's why I'm calling. From my bed. That's the favor I'm asking. Couldn't you possibly come here instead?"

  Her voice betrayed rising panic. Helen, wishing to reassure her but mostly in a hurry to get off the phone, said, "There's no urgency, Mrs. Byrne. If you're not feeling well, we can certainly meet on another day. Registration has only just opened for the next term. You have plenty of time—"

  "I don't! Candy said you fill up overnight!"

  Helen laughed reassuringly and said, "Mrs. Greene was exaggerating. Really. Why don't we agree on a day next week—"

  "Please ... next week won't be any better," the woman said, suddenly weary. "I've been so ... I have to nail this down ... this one thing, at least. I can't go on like this ... drifting ... please, won't you come? We live on Chestnut Street, not all that far from your school. It wouldn't take long ... really ... I don't see why you can't ...." she argued, practically in tears.

  If Linda Byrne was trying to make a good impression, she wasn't succeeding. She had a top-drawer address, but she sounded like the kind of spoiled, idle woman who routinely takes to her bed when things don't go her way.

  On the other hand, something in her tone sent a shiver of sympathy through Helen. Whatever the reason for her headache, it was obvious that Linda Byrne was in real agony. No one could fake that kind of pain in her voice, not even a prima donna.

  "All right. I can make time tomorrow evening. Shall I come by before dinner? Say, five o'clock?"

  "Oh, yes, thank you," Mrs. Byrne said, her voice becoming suddenly faint. "Peaches will be so pleased."