The Outer Edge of Heaven

by Hawkes, Jaclyn M.

  What readers are saying about Jaclyn’s books

  “Jaclyn Hawkes’ book has a touch of humor that will appeal to many readers.” — Jennie Hansen, Meridian Magazine

  “Hard to put down.” — Squeaky Clean Reads.

  “A romantic romp. Exactly the type of book to read in a bubble bath.” — Marsha Ward

  “I recommend her book to anyone who roots for the good guy, cries for the injured, and wants to see love conquer all.” — Cheryl Christensen, A Good Day to Read

  “The romantic tension between her characters was riveting.” — Rebecca Blevins

  “Enjoyable and uplifting.” — Janet Kay Jensen, Fiction for the Thinking Woman

  Be sure to read Jaclyn’s first published book Journey of Honor A love story An entertaining historical romance set in 1848 in the American West.

  Print Copyright

  The Outer Edge of Heaven

  By Jaclyn M. Hawkes

  Copyright © July 2011 Jaclyn M. Hawkes

  All rights reserved.

  Published and distributed by Spirit Dance Books. 855-648-5559

  Spiritdancebooks.com

  Cover design by Thomas Gasu

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief passages for gushing reviews and for use in a classroom as an example of outstanding literature, where the title, author, and ISBN accompany such use. All opinions expressed herein are that of the author only. This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to reality is coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher.

  First Printing July 2011

  ISBN: 0615517773

  ISBN-13: 978-0615517773

  DIGITAL COPYRIGHT

  A Spirit Dance eBook

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  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my good husband, who knows exactly when to let me run and when to kindly rein me in. He is gentle yet strong, incredibly patient, and has been known to kiss in the pantry. I love him dearly.

  Table of Contents

  What Readers Are Saying

  Print Copyright

  Digital Copyright

  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

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Charlie Evans made it all the way from an appointment in downtown Salt Lake City to the eighth north exit in Orem before her silver 1994 Honda Civic hatchback started making the noise. Knowing that she only had a few minutes before the ancient car she'd affectionately named the Taco Rocket would stall, she took the next exit, opting to be stranded on a surface street instead of the freeway.

  She actually made it to within three blocks of her apartment complex near the stadium before the fickle import finally quit and she coasted to the curb. It was almost a mile further than she'd expected and she gave the car a half hearted pat as she dragged her backpack off the passenger seat and set off at a brisk walk in the early May sunshine.

  Inside her apartment, she dropped her books, glanced at her e-mail in box and grabbed a bag of baby carrots out of the fridge. On second thought, she snagged half a package of Oreos off her shelf in the pantry. She might have to resort to bribery this afternoon.

  "I'm at Fo's." Calling down the hall to whoever might be home, she headed back out the door and across the parking lot.

  Half way there, she heard a familiar voice and looked up at a third story window. "Bring milk. I'm out." She laughed as his neat blonde head disappeared back inside the window and she retraced her steps to procure the requested milk. They'd been friends since the third grade and could all but read each other's minds by now. Four minutes later, she blew a stray curl out of her eyes and knocked before she automatically opened the door to his apartment and let herself in.

  Forest Eldridge sat on the floor in front of the TV with his laptop beside him and a clutter of textbooks and papers spread out nearby. Charlie turned off the TV as she went past and sprawled into the overstuffed chair beside him. "How goes the battle?" She dug into the bag of carrots on her lap and crunched into one.

  Glancing up at her loud munching, he grumbled. "Don't tell me that you only brought healthy stuff. C'mon, Chuck. This is a chemistry final. I gotta have a Twinkie or something!"

  He reached for the grocery bag beside her, but she moved it. "I brought Oreos, but they're for a reward." She held the bag out of his reach. "Unuh, chemistry first."

  Letting out a sigh, he said, "You're brutal. How was the drive?"

  Standing up, she put a leg underneath her and plopped back down. "Good. The Taco Rocket made it all the way with only one stall, and I only had to walk three blocks."

  He laughed. "That probably means it won't run all day tomorrow. You had better plan to take the bus to classes. It'd be a shame to flunk out of college the last week because of car trouble."

  "Not a chance! That car has carried me safely through and wouldn't dare let me down now."

  He looked up at her and rolled his eyes. "Charlie, we’ve had to do something to that car an average of five times a week for what, six years now? It's time for a proper burial. Hey, we could grind off the VIN number and fly it off Guardsman's pass!"

  She put a hand to her chest in mock hurt. "That is so rude! Okay, so I'll plan to ride the bus to finals. Did you finish your project?"

  He groaned. "Done and turned in. Why do you think I need Twinkies?"

  "Really? Dang, Fo! You're good! You'd better have an Oreo." She tossed him a cookie and automatically got up to go and bring cups for milk.

  With the whole cookie in his mouth, he asked her a question that was wholly unintelligible and she laughed and said, "One more time."

  Pausing to chew, he tried again. "Did you call your parents?"

  "Heck no!" With a sigh, she returned to the living room and continued. "I love them Fo. I do. I swear it. But I just can't face them for the whole three months. They’ve gotten positively militant about law school all the sudden. They’ve always been pretty high pressure, but at least I’ve typically felt loved. Lately I feel like I’m in the German army or something. I thought I could handle going home for the summer, but now that it's here, I think I'm getting an ulcer."

  "I've been trying to tell you. Just come with me to Montana, Charlie. You can work for my uncle on the ranch or come find something at the hospital with me. I'm telling you, the ranch is a huge place. They have like twenty employees. You might not make much, but it'd be a great summer and law school next fall is paid for anyway. You might even meet some handsome, debonair Montanan and decide to put a stop to this law school asininity."

  "Can you
just imagine my mother if I try to tell her I’m going to Montana to work on a ranch for the summer? She'll have a coronary! She thinks Ohio is the outer edge of civilization."

  "Better her with a coronary than you with an ulcer." He nudged her with his shoulder. "Make a decision, Chuck. You've got three more days of class, and then I'm out of here." He picked up his cell phone. "Say the word and I'll call my uncle. Montana is actually the outer edge of heaven. You have nothing to lose. If you don't like it, you can go home to Connecticut and play the power game."

  "That’s actually why I came over. Now that it’s here, I can’t face Connecticut. But what will I do in Montana? I'm not exactly ranch hand material."

  "It is a huge ranch, but they also have an orchard and an herb farm, and they have household help and office help. If none of that sounds good, you could come into Kalispell with me and apply at the hospital or somewhere else. Kalispell is a real town, you know."

  "There's a real town in Montana? I had no idea."

  "Brat. Do you want me to call? Or are you going home to Elroy and the all-powerfuls?"

  She groaned again and picked up her own phone. "Give me the number. I'll call for myself. His name is Christopher Elroy by the way. Not just Elroy. I'm surprised he doesn't go by Christopher. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but who marries a divorce lawyer? Who does that? The whole idea is bizarre."

  "Who names their child Elroy? And who lets their mother try to talk them into who they should marry?" He scrolled down for the number. "I take that back. Your mother is the toughest bird I know. I'd probably be just as worried as you. My Uncle's name is Richard Langston. He, on the other hand, is the nicest guy in the world. Too nice actually. Here's the number."

  After punching it in, she turned back to him. "You just called my mother a tough bird." Someone must have picked up on the other end. "No, excuse me. I was speaking to someone else. Is Richard Langston available please? Thank you." She put her hand over the phone and whispered to Fo, "They heard me say that."

  He laughed at her. "Nice job interview intro, Chuck. Sorry about your mother."

  Still whispering, she asked, "Sorry you said that or sorry that she's a tough bird?"

  He took one of her carrots and bit into it. "Take it any way you want. Just come to Montana. I need someone to keep me on task."

  Thirty minutes later, she had arranged to work in Montana and they had made plans for him to leave on Thursday, towing her worthless car behind his SUV. She would fly to Kalispell after she walked to get her diploma that weekend.

  Knowing it had to be done sometime, she placed the call to Connecticut to notify her parents. Mercifully, she reached their answering machine and simply said that she had received a job offer from a large corporation in Montana for the summer, and had opted to go there to be near Fo. She didn't offer the fact that the large corporation was a ranch and hoped later they wouldn't ask.

  ****>

  At six o'clock Sunday evening, when she finally made it through security at the Salt Lake International Airport, she wished she had booked her flight for immediately after receiving her diploma as Fo had suggested. It would have been so much simpler than trying to visit with her parents for a couple of days, but she had thought it was too disrespectful. After all, they had come clear to Utah to see her graduate and be with her. They loved her dearly and she knew that. They just expected such different things from her than she truly wanted.

  Because she didn’t want to fight with her parents, she had gone ahead and gotten the bachelors degree in business administration they'd expected so that she could attend law school and become a powerful force in the world like the rest of her family. It had only been a few extra classes and hadn’t hurt anything, and had saved her a lot of being lectured. But she had also gotten a teaching certificate in elementary education, which was what she truly wanted. She hadn't realized it would be printed right on her diploma and her mother had been horrified. A rather interesting conversation had ensued, and Charlie had been the object of no less than three lengthy discussions about choosing respectable careers that would make the right impression on society in her future.

  By the time she kissed her parents goodbye, she had been sweetly, but very firmly reminded that even though she was their baby, they expected her to follow her siblings into career fields such as medicine and engineering and law. Her father was the patriarch of the bunch as an orthopedic surgeon, and her mother was the queen as a CPA who owned her own large and prestigious firm.

  Their pressure lately made her want to do anything but capitulate, if she was honest. It brought out a rebel spirit in her that she struggled to quell because she knew it would only make her want to act immaturely.

  Quite frankly, by the time she got on her plane, she was tired and more than a tad discouraged. The fact that she'd just graduated from BYU with top academic honors didn't even seem to register with her parents. What was it with them, anyway? At least she wouldn’t need to deal with them too terribly much for the next three months while she was working in Montana.

  After sleeping on the plane, she ran her fingers through the curls that hung past her shoulders, pulled them up into a loose knot at the back of her head and stuck a pencil through it to hold it. She picked up her carry on and walked off the plane, glad that Fo didn't demand anything more than an honest opinion and that she play coed softball without throwing like a girl.

  He met her in the terminal with a smile and she put her mortar board cap on to wear out to his SUV, knowing he'd acknowledge that she had just graduated from college and give her that little pat on the back that she could admit she wanted. Their friendship was unconditional, and if she'd have dropped out, he'd have still supported her, but he knew her well enough to know that, occasionally, after being around her family she needed a bit of an emotional lift.

  As they walked down the concourse, they had to walk around a couple that was wrapped in an ardent kiss. They were all over each other and Charlie commented on their rather public display of far too much affection.

  Fo shrugged and said, "Uh, well. You'll come to find out there are worse things than where you display that kind of affection, I'm afraid."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I'd actually rather give you a little time to adjust to Montana, but you'll find out sooner or later. That woman is my uncle's wife."

  Charlie's eyes grew wide. "Are you telling me that man was not your uncle?"

  Matter-of-factly he admitted, "That man was not my uncle. His wife is a flight attendant who doesn't have a great deal of scruples concerning fidelity." He looked apologetic, but tried to laugh and said, "Welcome to Montana."

  She felt a bit shell-shocked. "Is the whole family like that?"

  "Oh heavens no! They're wonderful. You'll love them. Well, you'll love most of them."

  "Would you care to enlarge on that last?"

  "Nope, that would ruin all your fun."

  From the airport they drove for twenty minutes through beautiful mountains and lush green valleys. Finally, Fo pulled through a huge log gateway and down a gravel road between two rows of log buck rail fence that seemed to go for miles. After a few more minutes, they rumbled across a river bridge and into a ranch yard that consisted of a number of barns and outbuildings, sprawled around a large ranch house that sat on a hill and backed up to a grove of dark pine trees.

  It reminded Charlie of an old western television series she had seen a couple of times on cable. The buildings were of squared off logs with real chinking, and except for the slew of pickups and farm machinery, the whole setting could have come right out of a western movie. She qualified that thought when she realized there was a tennis court and swimming pool between the house and a large indoor arena. Cowboy movies didn't usually include those.

  Fo pulled up in front of the house and, leaving her bags in his SUV, they went inside and he began to introduce her to his uncle's family who was at that moment sitting down to Sunday dinner. His forty-five-ish year old uncle Richard indeed seeme
d to be a nice man and was sharper than she expected given what she had just seen of his wife. Dark haired, he had a little boy in his arms who looked liked his miniature.

  Smiling, Richard said, "Ah, Charlie. It's good to meet you in person. Let me introduce you to my family. This is Jamie. He's two." He nodded at the boy he held. "And these two lovely, dark haired, young ladies on either side of me are Evie and Elsa. They're four and five." He nodded next at a blonde teen with hair just a touch out of control and a cheerful smile. "That's Tuckett. Our resident court jester at fourteen and our wonderful housekeeper, Madge, there on the end. We'd die without her." Charlie took in a woman who reminded her distinctly of the housekeeper on the old Doris Day movie, With Six You Get Egg Roll. Madge smiled sweetly and waved.

  "And that one grinning there at the other side of the table is Chase. He's my oldest son." She followed down the table to notice that Chase appeared to be in his mid twenties and incredibly full of himself. He had light brown hair and wore a golf shirt that was tightly stretched over his body builder's torso. He looked up at Charlie with a supremely confident smile.

  Richard went on, "And somewhere I have another son, Luke. He's a year younger than Chase here. He didn't show up for dinner, but I imagine he's around. And my wife, Angela, is just due home from work. She's a flight attendant and should be here shortly. And that's the family. There are any number of hands around here who you'll meet eventually. It's good to have you with us. Welcome to Montana. Are you hungry? Pull up a chair."

  She smiled and shook her head as Chase asked Fo, "Charlie is a girl? All these years, your friend Charlie is a girl? Why didn't you tell us she was a girl?"

  Fo laughed and put an arm around Charlie's shoulders. "You're a girl?" He looked at Chase and shrugged. "I had no idea she was a girl. She plays a great game of baseball, and she kicks at Guitar Hero. She can't be a girl."