The Complete Novels of the Lear Sister Trilogy

by Julia London

  “Mom!” Rebecca cried.

  “I’m sorry, Bonnie, it was my idea,” Aaron said at the door as he pulled Grandma in behind him, while the pastor pushed her from behind.

  “Dad, I know you wanted a scenic spot,” Rebecca said. “But it’s freezing.”

  “Well, good night, honey, your daddy knows it’s freezing! Look at his lips!” Grandma exclaimed as she maneuvered through the hall into the great room and the fire roaring at the hearth.

  “I thought the weather was sort of appropriate,” Aaron said. “There was a time your mother said she’d come back to me when hell froze over.”

  Bonnie laughed, put her arm through his. “I never said that, Aaron Lear. And I never agreed to renew our wedding vows in an ice-cold wind storm.”

  “The good pastor here is going to perform the ceremony in our great room,” Aaron said. “Why don’t y’all go on in and find a place to sit?”

  “Wait!” Rebecca cried as Grandpa headed in that direction to join Grandma. “At least let me set up something to work as an altar! Come on, Robbie, help me.”

  “Me? What about Rachel?”

  “I’m coming, too, Robin,” Rachel said with a roll of her eyes.

  Behind them, Jake and Matt and Flynn looked at one another. “I don’t know about you guys,” Matt said, “but when Rebecca gets thrown a curve, it’s best to stay out of her way.”

  “Maybe for you,” Jake said with a laugh, clapping Matt on the shoulder. “But if I’m not in there, Robbie’s likely to hurt someone.”

  “What say we send the new guy?” Matt said, and he and Jake both looked at Flynn.

  “Bloody hell,” Flynn said, and with his hands on his waist, he leaned to one side and peeked in at the flurry of activity within. “Might I inquire,” he asked stoically, “how long a bloke’s got to put in before he’s no longer considered the new guy?”

  “Thirty years,” Jake said, and gave him a friendly shove as the three men walked into the great room to help get it ready for the ceremony reuniting Aaron and Bonnie Lear.

  Bonnie put her arm around Aaron’s waist.

  “I’m glad we’re all at Blue Cross,” he said, smiling down at her. “Just look at those beautiful girls we managed to make. Best thing we ever did.”

  “That’s right,” Bonnie said. “And look at the men who love them. Good, solid men, who will protect and care for them all their days.”

  Aaron smiled, squeezed Bonnie’s shoulders. “That’s all I ever really wanted, you know, for those girls to be happy. And once I had that, I thought I could just go ahead and die. But apparently, God wants me to stick around a little longer.” He looked down at her. “Whoever would have guessed after that surgery I’d still be around a couple of years later?”

  Bonnie laughed, rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him “And for the foreseeable future. Cancer free, Aaron. It’s a miracle.” She slipped out from his arm. “I’m going to go lend a hand.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Aaron said after her, and watched her walk into the great room.

  Cancer free. Thank you, God.

  Bonnie didn’t know it, but Aaron had made a deal with the guy upstairs. If He let Aaron stick around, Aaron promised to do things right. He was going to be a positive presence in his daughters’ lives, not an oppressive one. He was going to be a better husband to Bonnie, too, and had actually graduated Daniel the Jerk’s counseling sessions with praise.

  He was going to be a better dad. It was too late for his girls, but he had all those grandkids. Even his baby Rachel had a bun in the oven (which, she had gleefully announced, meant that she’d have to take a sabbatical from her endowed chair in the Art and Architecture Department at Brown University). Yeah, he was going to be a better man, all right, and he was not going to squander a single moment of the days he had left, however many there were. He’d spend the rest of his life making up for the first sixty years of his life.

  He heard the girls laugh at something, their laughter rising up like angels around him, and felt tears well in his eyes. Damn, he was getting sentimental these days. He blinked back those silly tears, and with a smile, he walked into the room filled with his loved ones.

  He was, he recognized, one lucky sonovabitch.

  ---------

  Julia London is the New York Times and USA Today best selling author of several contemporary women's fiction novels with strong romantic elements, including Summer of Two Wishes, One Season of Sunshine, and Light at Winter's End. She is also the author or the bestselling Desperate Debutante and Scandalous historical romance series, as well as The Year of Living Scandalously, the first novel in the Secrets of Hadley Green series.

  Julia is the recipient of the RT Bookclub Award for Best Historical Romance and a four-time finalist for the prestigious RITA award for excellence in romantic fiction. She lives in Austin, Texas. To keep up with all the Julia London news and excerpts, please visit http://www.julialondon.com.

  You may also enjoy my other contemporary setting books. The Thrillseekers Anonymous series (including Wedding Survivor, Extreme Bachelor, and American Diva coming soon in ebook) are contemporary romance novels about four men who operate a members-only adventure service that caters to the rich and famous: A-list movie stars, heads of state, and ridiculously rich patrons. They have a reputation for staging some of the greatest sports thrills in the world for guys who like that sort of thing . . . but then the collective world of the Thrillseekers is turned on its head when women begin to want their help in staging unusual weddings and parties.

  The Cedar Springs series (including Summer of Two Wishes, One Season of Sunshine, and A Light at Winter’s End) is women’s fiction with heavy romantic elements. The books are set in the fictional town of Cedar Springs, Texas (near Austin) and tackle such heart-wrenching topics as adoption, drug abuse, and the heartache of prolonged war. These books are available in print and as ebooks.

  A sneak peek at the Thrillseekers Trilogy, to be reissued as ebooks in the very near future: This excerpt is taken from Wedding Survivor:

  MARNIE was fully aware of the bad habit she had of talking to fill the space around her, especially when she was nervous. But she really didn’t know how to stop, especially not when she was this nervous. She was beginning to think that maybe she’d jumped a little too hastily into what was really a whack job.

  That wasn’t so far-fetched, seeing as how she’d found out about the job to begin with by eavesdropping on a hushed conversation at a wedding trade show. While Marnie was not in the habit of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations (well . . . unless it was something really juicy), she’d been a little desperate. She needed this job in a bad way—if she had to live with Mom and Dad another month, she’d hurl herself into the ocean and let herself be washed out to sea. And besides, a certified wedding planner without an actual solo wedding under her belt couldn’t afford to be too choosy.

  Oh, who was she kidding?

  The very thought of doing Vincent Vittorio and Olivia Dagwood’s wedding sent chills up her spine. They were the two biggest stars in the universe and Marnie couldn’t wait to meet them—she could imagine her and Olivia becoming best friends as they planned everything, and then, when Marnie had pulled off the wedding of the century without a hitch, Olivia would hook her up with some of her A-list stud friends and refer tons of fabulous clients to her so that Marnie could become the wedding planner to the stars.

  Hey, a girl could dream, couldn’t she? And that dream alone prompted her to put on the red hat and purchase the fruit, per the bizarre instructions of Thrillseekers Anonymous.

  Then the Lincoln had appeared.

  When she’d seen Eli leaning against the Lincoln in a black Astros hat, with dark glasses resting on a straight nose, and a sexy shadow of a beard dusting a strong chin and some killer lips, not to mention the long, lean look of him in general, Marnie had been pleasantly surprised. Bonus! The job had a really good-looking guy involved.

  Unfortunately, good-looking did not m
ean particularly friendly. He reminded her of a cowboy in one of the old westerns, the strong silent type. A Clint Eastwood with steely eyes—well, she presumed there were steely eyes behind those shades.

  And what was all that about an audition?

  The Lincoln turned, and Marnie caught a glimpse of towering iron fences through the front window that could only be surrounding huge monolithic houses, and she felt a tingle of excitement. Wedding planner to the stars, here she was!

  Actually, telling Clint Eastwood that she’d wanted to pursue a career in wedding planning was a big fat lie. When the dot-com she’d been working for went belly up, she’d tried to get another job in the tech industry, along with everyone else and all their mothers—it felt like hundreds were competing for the same few openings.

  Weeks went by without a nibble, and her unemployment status at last led to her greatest humiliation yet—having to move home with Mom and Dad. But she hadn’t had a choice—she couldn’t pay her rent and she couldn’t pay her credit card bills, which were, she was embarrassed to note, pretty damn high. Honestly, she’d not realized how large she’d been living on her humongous dot-com salary before the company tanked.

  So after about three weeks with Mom and Dad, when Marnie was contemplating living under a bridge on the Santa Monica Freeway, she’d seen the ad for the wedding planner certification class.

  Wedding planner. The term had sort of circled around and tickled her thoughts for a while. It actually sounded fun. Who didn’t like a wedding?

  So she’d taken the class. At the very least, it got her out of the house and away from the TV, and Mom and Dad, and Mom’s book club. And though she’d never really envisioned herself a wedding planner, once she got into it, she was sucked in by all the beautiful white dresses and lovely cakes and flowers and fancy china—not to mention all the fabulous high-heeled shoes.

  And she suppressed a shudder of delight just thinking about the sparkly wedding shoes Olivia Dagwood would wear on her third walk down the aisle. Or was it her fourth? She’d have to check E! Online.

  For your enticement, a sample from the Cedar Spring Series, available now in print and in ebook format. This sample is taken from Summer of Two Wishes:

  The first time two U.S. Army Casualty Notification Officers came looking for Macy, it was to tell her that her husband Finn had died in Afghanistan.

  Suicide bomber, the taller officer said. Nothing left but a half-burned dog tag.

  Macy didn’t remember much after that, except that she was getting groceries out of the car when they’d arrived, and the taller officer’s eyes were the exact shade of the head of iceberg lettuce that had rolled away when she’d dropped the bag.

  Three years later, when the third Casualty Notification Officer came to see Macy, she would remember Finn’s black lab, Milo, racing in between the tables they’d set up on the lawn, pausing to shake the river water from his coat and spraying the pristine white linen table cloths. She’d remember thinking don’t panic, don’t panic, over and over again as she stared at those dirty brown spots on the tablecloths.

  Everything else would be a blur.

  The officer found Macy at her Aunt Laru’s limestone ranch house just outside of Cedar Springs, in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin. It was a beautiful spread, forty acres of rolling hills covered in live oaks, cedar, and blooming cactus on the banks of the Pedernales River.

  Laru Friedenberg had married and divorced three times before the age of forty-five. The marriages had left her a little bit jaded and a little bit wealthy, and when Laru learned Macy was hosting a luncheon, she’d insisted that Macy host it at her house. The luncheon was a fundraiser to benefit a non-profit organization, Project Lifeline. Macy and a friend had founded the charity to help families of soldiers who’d been wounded or killed with financial aid or services. The organization was a success thus far, and Laru was eager to help.

  “I didn’t put up with Randy King for six years to sit and look at this view by myself,” Laru had said with a flip of her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder. “Have the luncheon here, Macy. A pretty setting and plenty of liquor will open up those wallets faster than the devil in a white suit.”

  As it was June and not yet miserably hot, Macy had decided to have it on the grassy riverbank and had set up three large round tables beneath the twisted limbs of the live oaks. She’d dressed the tables in linen, littered them with rose petals and rose centerpieces, and set them with fine china from Laru’s second marriage. She’d enlisted Laru to make batches of her signature white and red sangria, and had food catered from Three Sisters, which specialized in “discriminating palettes.”

  “If by discriminating they refer to gals who won’t pass over a single morsel that isn’t nailed down, then I think we’ve got the right caterer,” Laru quipped.

  The day was overcast and a slight breeze was coming up off the river. An hour before the guests were due to arrive, Laru insisted on tightening the halter of the pink sundress Macy had found on sale for the occasion. “You look so cute!” she said at last, her hands on her waist. “Very hostessy. Has Wyatt seen you in that?”

  “Not yet,” Macy said as she donned the pearl earrings and necklace he’d given her. He was always giving her gifts: Pearls. An iPhone. A boat.

  “Best make sure he doesn’t see you until after the luncheon. He’s likely to tear it right off your body.”

  “Laru!” Macy said with a laugh.

  “What?” Laru asked innocently. “It’s no secret that every time that man looks at you his eyes get as shiny as new pennies.”

  “Well, he’s not invited. It’s ladies only. Rich ladies, and as we both know, that’s not his type,” Macy said, pointing at herself, and making Laru laugh. “Besides, he’s in San Antonio for a couple of days.”

  Satisfied with her appearance, Macy walked outside to check on everything once more. Ernesto, Laru’s handyman, was out front, sweeping the flagstone porch. “If you see a bunch of women in fancy hats, send them on around, will you?” she asked, indicating the walkway around the side of the house. “Gracias!”

  Macy followed the path around the corner of the house. Laru was right—the setting was truly lovely, and her tables looked perfect. But as Macy stood there admiring her work, Milo shot past.

  “Hey,” Macy muttered. Milo was not the sort of dog to run. Generally, he was much happier lying around in the shade. But when he emerged from between the tables, she saw that he had a grungy rope toy in his mouth. Out from beneath another table shot a beagle in hot pursuit.

  “Hey!” Macy shouted as Milo headed for the river. “Milo, no!” she cried. But Milo dove heedlessly into the river, paddled around, then climbed up on the bank, taunted the beagle with his toy, and dashed up to the tables, where he paused to shake the water off his coat.

  “No!” Macy cried.

  The beagle barked, and Milo was off again.

  “Macy Clark?”

  Startled by the sound of a male voice, Macy whirled around and came face to face with an army officer in full dress uniform. Her heart skipped a beat. What was he doing here? Finn was dead. Dead for three miserable, long years. Three years in which Macy woke up every morning to face the heartache of him being gone all over again, missing her sun and moon, realizing that it wasn’t a bad dream, that he wasn’t going to come through the door with his tanned arms and his straw hat pulled low over his eyes, grinning like he wanted her with syrup for breakfast.

  “Beg your pardon, ma’am—I am Lt. Colonel Dan Freeman with the United States Army,” he said. The bags under his eyes made him look like a sad old hound dog. “I need to speak with you, please.”

  “Me?” she said as Milo and the beagle dashed in between them. “Is it the fundraiser?” she said, thinking wildly that perhaps the Army didn’t approve. “It’s the fundraiser, isn’t it?”

  “The fundraiser?”

  “The Lifeline Project,” she said. “My friend Samantha and I—we wanted to help the families of fallen soldier
s because they really need more than just the death gratuity. Not that the gratuity isn’t generous. It is! But there is all this…this emotional stuff that money can’t fix. So we started the Lifeline Project. That’s okay, isn’t it? Surely that’s okay.”

  What was she saying? She didn’t need the army’s permission! Macy was rambling, which wasn’t like her at all, but there was something about the officer’s demeanor, his blank look, that made her anxious. “You’ve never heard of us, have you?”

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

  Macy swallowed down a very bad feeling.

  A barking dog, a sound of a car’s wheels crunching on the gravel drive in front filtered into her consciousness. Someone shouted, “Bad dog!”

  “What is it?” Macy asked softly. “What has happened?”

  “Would you like to sit down?” he asked.

  Now Macy’s belly swooned. “Sir…I am about to host a fundraiser.”

  “It can’t wait, ma’am,” he said, and smiled. “Maybe we can sit at one of those tables.”

  “How did you find me?” she asked, ignoring his gesture toward her tables.

  “Your neighbor told me you were here and was kind enough to give me directions.”

  “Okay,” she said resolutely, despite the rubbery feeling in her legs. “Okay, Lt. Colonel Freeman, you can’t tell me anything worse than what the Army has already told me, right? So please, whatever it is, just say it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lt. Colonel Freeman said. He kept his hound dog eyes steady on her as he reached into his coat pocket, took out an envelope and held it out to her.