In Other Words, Love

by Shirley Jump

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  About The Author

  When she’s not writing books, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shirley Jump competes in triathlons, mostly because all that training lets her justify mid-day naps and a second slice of chocolate cake. She’s published more than sixty books in twenty-four languages, although she’s too geographically challenged to find any of those countries on a map.

  You might also enjoy Wrapped Up in Christmas

  Chapter One

  After months of sweat, grit, and sheer determination to get to the picturesque Kentucky town he’d only recently heard of, Bodie Lewis had finally arrived in Pine Hill.

  He turned off his pickup’s engine, ruffled his dog Harry’s scruffy black and white fur, and let out a long breath. Put him on a dangerous overseas mission, and he was in his element. Searching out a little elderly lady in the civilian world to express his gratitude? Not so much.

  “We made it,” he told the dog who had been at his side nonstop for the past few months.

  A dog and a quilt.

  Not exactly things he’d expected to call his own, nor to have made such an impact on his life.

  If he added the just-purchased truck he was sitting in and a rarely touched bank account, he’d be listing all his worldly possessions. Until recently, he hadn’t been in one place long enough to justify his own transportation and had always driven government-issued vehicles when the need arose.

  He ran his hand over his dark hair. Although an average length by most standards, the strands felt out of place. He’d worn a crew cut most of his adult life—a cut he was no longer required to maintain, thanks to his honorable discharge.

  The “honorable” was enough to gut him.

  There had been nothing honorable about the demise of the rest of his unit.

  Pain shot across Bodie’s chest. Pain of grief and emotion so raw he longed to scream. His ever-present anger, threatening to boil over into rage, constantly simmered at the loss of his brothers-in-arms, and at the loss of his career.

  All he’d ever wanted was to be a soldier. To serve and protect his country.

  So much for dreams.

  He glanced around the town square. Mom-and-pop storefronts provided a fresh facelift for old brick buildings. That’s what he had to do—give his old dreams a fresh makeover. Surely his upcoming job with iSecure would fill that driving need inside him, wouldn’t it? His need to do more? To be more?

  He had been more, and now…

  His gaze shifted to a flag that whipped in the November wind atop a pole in front of the stately brick courthouse. The material stretched and stood at attention within the wind’s invisible fingers, saluting him.

  Bodie nodded his head in silent acknowledgement of that flag and all it represented.

  Of what he’d been willing to give to defend that flag.

  In acknowledgement of what many had given.

  Feeling the pain tighten his chest again, he sucked in a deep breath and stopped his mind from going where it went too often. Wasn’t that what the therapist the military had required he work with told him? To refocus when his mind wandered into dark places?

  Fine. He concentrated on the reason he was here in Pine Hill: to find the elderly woman who’d affected his life with her kindness.

  His task shouldn’t be too difficult for someone used to tracking down terrorists. Pine Hill, Kentucky, wasn’t exactly the mecca of booming civilization.

  Even though he’d never stepped foot in the town, he’d pictured it so clearly. Sarah’s description was burned in his mind, offering him a safe space to escape when memories overpowered him. So, seeing his safe haven come to life brought him an unexpected sense of belonging. Apple-pie America at its best.

  And a far cry from his childhood home in Houston, where he was headed after this slight detour.

  Not that there was much of a home in Texas. Just his mom, stepfather, and a couple of much-older stepsisters he’d never been close to.

  He wouldn’t be there long. The moment he got the go-ahead to start his new job, he’d provide top-notch protection to the rich and famous around the globe. Not the life he craved, but staying in the same place for very long made his feet itch. Always had.

  Which was why he’d turned down the Army’s offer of a desk job. A desk job? For him? Never.

  He glanced toward the quilt in the passenger seat. He’d be starting his next journey as soon as he’d had the chance to thank Sarah Smith for pulling him out of a dark, dark place.

  He’d never heard of Quilts of Valor prior to being presented with the special gift. But that red, white, and blue quilt had given him something to hang on to—literally and figuratively—while he was recuperating.

  Which was why he was in Pine Hill, to thank the quilt’s maker in person.

  He owed her more than a simple thank-you could convey, but that’s what he’d come to give.

  A thank-you, and then he’d be on his way.

  Humming along with the Christmas music playing over the church’s intercom system, Sarah Smith sewed white yarn through a cut piece of plastic canvas. The snowflakes she made each year with the pieces of canvas and yarn were some of her favorite homemade Christmas decorations.

  She glanced around the room at the mix of women, teens, and children busily making ornaments to be sold at Pine Hill’s annual On-the-Square Christmas Festival. Many of the twenty or so volunteers were the same smiling faces who had helped with Sarah’s past projects—people she adored.

  With her employment as Pine Hill Church’s administrative assistant and special projects planner, Sarah was always organizing something. Often, she believed their projects helped those participating as much as—and sometimes more than—they helped the recipients of their work. Giving truly was better than receiving, which was why Sarah loved Christmas so much.

  She enjoyed everything about Christmas. The decorations, the smells, the food, the kindness, and good cheer that prevailed. The get-togethers with family and friends that made everything sweeter. If it were up to her, she’d arrange for Christmas to come way more often than just once a year.

  “I couldn’t do this without you all,” she told the group of women working at her table. The Butterflies, as they referred to themselves, had an assembly line going to make the plastic canvas snowflake ornaments.

  Sarah’s projects would be nothing without the Butterflies to see her ideas to fruition. She could always count on them. The four women had been a part of Sarah’s life from the beginning, and she loved them dearly.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Maybelle Kirby’s old blue eyes didn’t lift from where she was hot-gluing sparkly white sequins to a finished snowflake. “Use it or lose it, I always say. And these old bones ain’t got much more to lose, so I gotta keep using.”

  Maybelle was Sarah’s favorite—possibly because she had been Aunt Jean’s best friend. The two women had bonded over being young military widows, neither of whom had remarried or had children. Although in her early seventies now, and the oldest of the group of volunteers, Maybelle was a firecracker and knew how to do just about anything Sarah took a fancy to learn. As the church’s previous special projects planner, Maybelle had been adopting do-gooders such as Sarah for years
and was a fount of knowledge and encouragement. Sometimes Sarah thought Maybelle missed her role as planner. That was why she made sure she kept the woman involved.

  “Besides, someone has to keep you in check,” Maybelle muttered, earning a few chuckles from the others at her table. “Don’t know how you think you’re ever going to meet a man if all you do is work, work, work.”

  Sometimes, Maybelle’s involvement wasn’t a good thing. Like when it came to Sarah’s love life—or lack thereof. Though to be honest, it wasn’t just Maybelle. All four women thought it their responsibility to marry Sarah off.

  “I happen to love my work,” Sarah reminded, smiling at Maybelle as she added, “Besides, who says I want to meet a man? The last man—and I use that term loosely—in my life sure wasn’t worth taking time away from work or you ladies.”

  Richard and his big-city dreams were, thankfully, long gone from her beloved Pine Hill. Although memories snuck in from time to time reminding of how her heart had broken when he’d left her, these days, mostly she just bid him good riddance.

  Any man who didn’t want a calm, normal, white picket fence, church-going, Christmas-loving life in Pine Hill wasn’t the right man for her. Plain and simple.

  Sarah added, “With trying to get the bed and breakfast open by Christmas, I don’t have time for a man.” Renovating the old Victorian ate up all her time and then some. “Fulfilling Aunt Jean’s dream of turning Hamilton House into a B & B is my number one priority outside of church and work.”

  Her aunt had belonged with these women—had grown up with them and been a part of everything in Pine Hill. Sarah’s mother had died giving birth to her, but her father’s older sister had stepped up to give her niece a woman’s guidance.

  “How’s that going?” Ruby asked. Sarah was especially glad that Ruby seemed to have accepted the subject shift away from Sarah’s love life. Ruby was happily married to the man of her dreams for going on fifty years and would gladly tell anyone who’d listen about her wonderful Charles. It made her a very determined matchmaker, since she wanted everyone to be as happy as she was. Ruby and Charles were a sweet couple, but the Butterflies often teased Ruby about her longtime love affair with her husband.

  “Yeah, about that.” Sarah’s shoulders sank. “I placed another handyman ad, if that tells you anything.”

  Four concerned faces winced in unison.

  “Did you fire another one?” Ruby asked.

  Maybelle’s eyes narrowed. “Or did this one quit, too?”

  Sarah shrugged. What did it matter? This time, the sloppy handyman had splattered paint on the hardwood floor. When she’d gotten upset, he’d only picked at his teeth with his dirty fingernail, saying it would clean. He hadn’t been the right handyman for Hamilton House, any more than Richard had been the right man for her.

  “Girl, your aunt didn’t mean for that house to take over your life,” Rosie Matthews reminded her as she attached ribbons and hooks to Maybelle’s decorated snowflakes. Rosie was a mover and shaker and sometimes made Sarah’s head spin with her crowded social life. Flaunting her energetic, youthful spirit with her bright blue hair, Rosie liked men and they liked her. No doubt the woman had broken more than a few hearts over her sixty-plus years. Although she’d been married three times and had gotten a few proposals since, she’d remained single after her last husband had passed a few years back.

  “I listened to Aunt Jean talk about restoring Hamilton House to its former glory those last few weeks before her death,” Sarah said. “She knew what I’d do when she left the house to me, that I’d find a way to bring it back to life even if I can only do so a few rooms at a time.”

  If she wanted to keep the sprawling Victorian home, it had to bring in enough income to pay for its upkeep. Not to mention paying back the hefty loan she’d finagled at the bank to make needed repairs and updates.

  With her background from old money and lots of it, Maybelle had offered to fund the restoration, but Sarah had refused. She needed to do this, and thankfully, the loan officer had approved the loan.

  Hopefully her determination would pay off and be the perfect legacy to her darling aunt whom she missed so much.

  “Jean should have told you to sell the place for every penny you could get and travel the world,” said Claudia while dusting a completed snowflake with snowy glitter. Though she’d stayed in Pine Hill all her life, she was known for wishing she’d spent her life dashing from one exotic locale to another, or at least gone on a vacation or two with her husband.

  Maybelle rolled her eyes. “As if you could pry our Sarah out of Pine Hill.”

  Sarah laughed. “Are y’all trying to get rid of me?”

  “Pine Hill would be lost without you,” Claudia assured her, the others nodding their agreement.

  “We’d be lost without you,” Ruby clarified. “My Charlie is always marveling at how much joy you add to our lives.”

  Smiling at the love she had for and received from these ladies, Sarah tied off a knot at the end of the plastic canvas piece she was working on. “Good thing you think so, because I’m not leaving. Pine Hill is home.”

  It had been for four generations of Sarah’s family. Even if she and her dad were the only ones left, the small Kentucky town was a part of who she was.

  “I can’t imagine living anywhere but here.”

  Clicking the completed piece of canvas into another she’d already done, she surveyed her work. It would be even better once decorated with the sparkly glitter, tiny pearls, and sequins. The snowflakes had been a big hit last year at their church booth at the Christmas festival. In fact, they’d sold out—which was why they planned to double how many they made this year. The proceeds helped fund backpacks filled with school supplies for needy kids each fall, goodie baskets for hospitalized patients’ family members, and so many other charitable projects that came up throughout the year.

  Sarah loved the warmth within this community and the care people showed for each other. She truly wouldn’t want to live anywhere other than where her parents met, fell in love, and had planned to grow old together.

  “Me, either,” Ruby sighed, a bit nostalgically. “Pine Hill is the perfect backdrop for my love story with Charlie.”

  A noise that was somewhere between a gag and a snort harrumphed from Rosie’s throat.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Claudia warned, cutting plastic canvas pieces to be used to make more snowflakes. “You sell that place and go see the world. London, Paris, Rome…the world is calling for you.”

  “That’s not the world calling for her,” Maybelle advised drily, gluing down a row of faux pearls. “That’s your hearing aid squeaking and squawking.”

  More good-natured laughter sounded around the table as their assembly line of snowflakes continued.

  “I’ll remind you, I don’t wear hearing aids. Even though I am the world’s greatest grandma, I’m still younger than you old biddies.” Chin held high, Claudia gave each of them a pert “so there” look, then tilted her head toward Sarah. “Except that one, and she seems destined to toss her life away fixing up Jean’s crumbling old mansion, rather than expanding her horizons.”

  “Aunt Jean’s house isn’t crumbling.” Not anymore, thanks to her loan and her having spent every spare moment over the past year working on restoring the outside and the downstairs to their former glory. She’d worry about the upstairs once she got the bed and breakfast up and going. “It just needed some TLC.”

  And a repair guy to stick around to finish up the job. She’d had a few good contractors for the bigger jobs, thank goodness. But none of them were currently available, and the independent handymen weren’t working out. Didn’t anyone take pride in their work? If so, she’d yet to find that elusive handyman who paid attention to details.

  Hopefully God would answer her prayers and the right person would reply to her help-wanted ad. Otherwise, she’
d have to delay her planned Grand Opening of Hamilton House.

  The thought of that made her heart hurt a little. She wanted to do this for Aunt Jean.

  Please, Lord, let them respond.

  The door to the community room opened, and all heads turned to see who’d shown up to join their ornament-making festivities.

  Sarah’s eyes widened at the unfamiliar six-foot-plus man wearing jeans and a sherpa-lined blue jean jacket. He rubbed his hands, warming his bare fingers from the chill outdoors as he surveyed the Christmas chaos Sarah adored.

  Ask and the Lord shall deliver.

  Literally.

  Okay, so she didn’t really believe the stranger was there to answer her prayers, but still, his timing was impeccable. Who was he?

  Apparently, she wasn’t the only one wondering. It wasn’t that one could hear a pin drop—not with the holiday music playing—but there was a collective curiosity pervading the now-muted room that had been loud with chatter prior to his arrival.

  “I’ve been extra-good this year and Santa’s delivering early,” Rosie whispered under her breath, elbowing Claudia. Her lively eyes sparkled with mischief. “That’s exactly what I asked for.”

  Giving the newcomer a once-over, Maybelle snorted. “You ain’t been that good your whole life.”

  Claudia snickered. “That’s the truth.”

  “That one there makes me wish I had been,” Rosie sighed, fanning her face. “He’s easy on these old eyes. A few years back, I’d have invited him over for some of my grandma’s cinnamon bread. That never fails to warm a man over to my way of thinking.”

  “Charles didn’t think much of your grandmother’s cinnamon bread,” Ruby reminded, a cheeky smile on her face as she happily sewed white yarn in and out of the plastic canvas piece she now held.

  “Only because that was my first attempt at making it,” Rosie defended, obviously annoyed at the reminder. “Be grateful I didn’t have the recipe down yet or your Charles would’ve been my Charles.”