“I knew it,” Dylan said proudly, raising himself higher in his booster seat to get a better view as Leigh turned slowly onto the long drive leading onto the family farm.
“Are we going to get pumpkins?” Melissa asked.
“Can we have hot chocolate?” Michael asked.
Leigh smiled at them in the rearview mirror. “Yes and yes,” she said, parking the van in the large open field where a few other vehicles and two school buses were parked. People from all over the region visited every fall for their pumpkins and later in the year for their Christmas trees. Shutting off the engine, she unlocked her seat belt and turned to face the eager expressions. “First, rules—let’s hear ’em.”
“Everyone stays together.”
“Find a friend and hold hands.”
“No straying from designated areas.”
“No running or climbing on anything but the hay bales.”
Leigh nodded at the chorus of replies. “Great, and last one for this outing—only pick a pumpkin you can carry back to the van yourself because I won’t be able to carry more than one myself. Everyone got it?”
A series of eager nods responded.
“Good, hats and gloves on.” She scanned the row of kids. “Okay, let’s go.”
The Myers twins. She hadn’t considered how they might feel being here. Brad, the youngest and only boy in the Monroe family, had been driving the car their dad was in when he died. While their father’s former best friend and bandmate had left Brookhollow for good the day of the funeral, she wasn’t clear how the Myers felt about the Monroes. All she knew was that Patrick Myers’ parents refused to speak to the family after losing their only son.
She was relieved to see that the boys had partnered up with the two smallest children in the group to head toward the trail. Clearly, they weren’t bothered by this surprise trip. Kids were resilient that way. It never ceased to amaze Leigh how life persevered in the face of such tragedy.
She swallowed a lump in her throat.
Ultimately, the boys would be affected by being raised by a solitary parent, wouldn’t they? The absence of a father had to have some effect?
The baby she would adopt would be faced with a similar upbringing.... “Are you coming, Miss Leigh?” Josh Myers asked.
“Yes.” She forced a smile, pushing the unsettling thought from her mind. These boys were two of the sweetest, mild-mannered, obedient boys she had the pleasure of minding. Clearly, their single-parent home wasn’t having any ill effects on their personalities. “Let’s go.”
* * *
GROWING UP IN countless foster homes and later living on the street had prepared Logan for anything life could throw at him, or so he thought. Now, standing in front of a classroom of seventeen-year-olds, he wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t sure what unnerved him more, the few eager kids in the front row perched on the edge of their desk chair, a blank piece of paper in front of them, pen clasped tightly in hand, or the uninterested cool kids in the back row who were clearly taking the class for extra credit. Disappointing the first and boring the second was another source of tension to add to his overgrowing pile.
“Everyone, this is Logan Walters, a New York Times bestselling author of the...” Standing next to him at the front of the creative-writing class, Principal Carter turned to him. “Sorry, I can’t remember the name of your series.”
“The Van Gardener Series!” a kid in the front row supplied.
“That’s right,” Logan said with a nod to the boy. At least one of the students had read his work. Though he wasn’t sure if that was entirely a good thing or not. If they followed the series, they also knew about the six-year gap between books four and five. He wasn’t sure what kind of credibility that gave him as a writer.
“Well, you have one fan in the room already,” Randi said, tapping his shoulder as she moved past him. “I’ll leave it up to you, then.” She made her way to the back of the classroom and took an empty seat, motioning for the boy sitting next to her to remove his feet from the desk.
“Hi, everyone.” Logan cleared his throat as he moved closer to the desk in front of the high-school students. In his room that morning he’d considered calling in sick, but word would’ve gotten back to the bed-and-breakfast owners and he’d have felt compelled to fake it the rest of the day.
What was he doing here?
When he looked out at these kids, all he could think about was his daughter and how much he missed her. He shouldn’t be here. He should be writing. He should be back in New York presenting his lawyer with some more brilliant reasons why Amelia needed him.
He was beginning to suspect that maybe she didn’t need him. Maybe nobody did....
The kid who read his books looked back over his shoulder at the teacher, who was staring at Logan, clearly concerned.
He searched his brain for something to say, convinced he was wasting their time as much as his. “For those of you taking this class because you actually enjoy writing, what do you enjoy about it?”
He used to know his answer to that, but over the years with deadlines and promotion and public events, he wasn’t sure anymore. He couldn’t remember the last time he sat down to write because he had the urge to create something.
When he’d written book five after the long dry spell, it had come from a place of desperation, of not knowing what else to do. As it had when he was a teenager, writing had once again saved him from despair as he’d poured his emotions into that penultimate installment in the series.
But this final book was just a burden.
A young girl in the second row raised a hand.
“Yes...your name?”
“Kelly.”
“Okay, Kelly. What do you love about writing?” he asked, leaning on the edge of the teacher’s desk.
“I love that I get to live different lives through my characters. Small-town life is okay, I guess, but through my stories I get to explore other possibilities,” she said.
Good answer, and one his teenage self could have related to. “What kind of characters do you normally write?”
Her cheeks flushed and she lowered her eyes as her classmates started to laugh. “Superheroes.”
“Awesome,” Logan said, silencing the kids who were clearly used to giving this girl grief. He could relate to her uphill battle to be taken seriously. He’d been there himself. “Superheroes are very popular in today’s market. If you can create something unique, exciting, something we haven’t seen before, you could do real well with that. Anyone else care to comment on why they write?”
A young man with short, gelled hair in the middle row nearest the window spoke up. “I’m Kent. I like writing because it’s freeing.”
He nodded. Freeing. At one time he would have agreed, but he hadn’t thought about writing that way for a very long time. “What do you do when you find that you can’t write?”
“You mean like writer’s block?” A girl with red curls hanging past her shoulders asked.
“Yeah.” He could feel the teacher studying him intently and it took all his strength not to look her way. No doubt she was wondering why Principal Carter had asked him to come today.
“I go for a walk, get away from it for a while.”
“I pick up another project.”
The suggestions rang out, all good, but nothing he hadn’t already tried.
“Maybe you’re going in the wrong direction,” a guy said from the back of the room.
Logan perked up, pointing to the kid in the far corner. In his New York Giants football jersey and torn jeans, Logan would have pegged him as part of the extra-credit crowd. “What do you write?”
The boy scoffed. “I don’t write. I play football,” he said, a little too quickly.
Meaning he didn’t want anyone to know he wrote.
“Okay, well, can you explain what you mean for the benefit of those of us who do write?”
“Not that I know anything about it...but if characters dictate where the plot goes—”
“Happens all the time, yes,” Logan agreed.
“Then maybe writer’s block is trying to force the characters in a direction they don’t want to go.”
Smart kid. Logan ran his good hand through his hair. “So, what do you suggest if, say, a writer was to come up against a block like this... Sorry, what’s your name?”
“Brody.”
“What should I...I mean anyone suffering from writer’s block do when their characters resist them?”
All eyes turned on the boy, and in that moment his demeanor visibly changed to complete disinterest. “I don’t know, man. I told you, I’m not a writer.”
“Of course not.” Damn, so close. Maybe he should hire this kid to help him with his book after school. He could probably type, too. “Thanks, Brody.”
“Whatever,” the boy mumbled.
* * *
“LEIGH...” ANGELA CONWAY STRUGGLED to catch her breath as she caught up to the group in the parking lot of the pumpkin patch.
Leigh cringed before slowly turning to face the woman. “Hi, Angela.”
“I’ve been chasing you...for about ten...minutes,” she said, placing her hands around her six-month bulge in the front of her fall coat.
Across the parking lot, Leigh could see Neil Conway fastening the seat belt of their two-year-old, Mason, in the back of their SUV. He glanced their way and offered a shrug and what-can-you-do smile before climbing inside the driver side.
“Sorry, I didn’t notice,” Leigh mumbled, opening the side door to the van. “Kids, lay your pumpkins on the ground and climb in. I’ll put them all in the back.”
“What if you get them mixed up?” Isabel asked.
“I’m sure you guys will know your own pumpkins,” she said, helping the little girl into her booster seat.
“So, Leigh, you never did get back to me regarding space in the New Year,” Angela said.
“Well, I never actually know until a month before and, honestly, the day care is running at full capacity right now.” It wasn’t a lie.
“But Ashley said she was hoping to stay on full-time.”
“Yeah, that’s not definite yet.” The idea of minding her ex-husband’s kids was tough to swallow. Mason and Jonas were adorable, but they represented everything she hadn’t been able to give Neil. They would be a constant reminder that the inability to have the family they’d wanted had been all her fault.
“Oh. Well, once you know...” Angela’s disappointment was too much. After all, it wasn’t her fault that things hadn’t worked out for Leigh and Neil.
“You will be the first to know.” Leigh regretted the words as soon as they escaped her lips. She’d never rush to let Angela know about available space.
“Thanks, Leigh.” She turned to leave, then paused. “You’re just so wonderful with them, you know?” She looked as though she wanted to say more, but shook her head. “Anyway, let me know.”
Leigh watched the woman waddle across the gravel lot to where Neil waited. Mom, dad, two and a half kids—the American family. Everything she’d wanted for herself.
“You okay, Miss Leigh?” David asked, picking up several pumpkins and carrying them to the back of the van.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, picking up two more and struggling to open the back door to put them inside.
“You’re going to say yes eventually, you know,” the eight-year-old shocked her by saying. Clearly gossip about her divorce and Neil’s second marriage circulated the Myers home.
“Why do you say that?” she asked, setting the remaining pumpkins inside and shutting the door.
“Because you love kids.”
CHAPTER FOUR
LEAVING THE HIGH SCHOOL, Logan continued down Main Street. The silence was almost unnerving that time of day. No one was around except several workers replacing a streetlight bulb a few feet away. A rickety pickup truck drove past at a leisurely pace, and the old driver inside waved. Logan nodded. Brookhollow was the kind of place he would love to have lived in as a child. A place where neighbors looked out for one another. No one had ever looked out for him. He’d learned early that trusting people would only lead to heartache.
Then he’d let his guard down with Kendra, and she’d only proven that his distrust had been bang on.
To his right, he noticed Dog Eared Books. Bright yellow sale signs were pasted to the inside of the store windows, and several tables out front displayed fifty-cent secondhand books. He couldn’t help wondering how many of these sale tables his books had found their way to over the years.
Crossing the street, he scanned the tables before going inside. Nope, none of his.
As he was looking through the storefront, a rolltop desk caught his attention immediately and he opened the door to go inside. Except he couldn’t get past a stack of boxes in the entrance to reach the desk.
He peered around the side to see a middle-aged woman on a ladder toward the back of the shop. Great, another ladder. For the rest of this trip, his feet would remain on the ground.
“Hello,” he called out.
The woman turned. “Oh, hi. Come on in,” she said, climbing down from the ladder, several books in her arms. She tossed them into an open box on the floor labeled Donate.
“I would but I can’t get around these boxes.”
“Sorry.... Here, let me move these.” She reached for the top box, setting it aside.
“I’d help, but...” He held up his cast.
“No problem. I’ve been moving boxes around all day,” she mumbled, shoving the last box aside to give him room.
The two-story space was a book lover’s dream with its floor-to-ceiling shelves and a spiraling staircase leading to the second floor and antique furniture was scattered throughout. “Is that a Cutler?”
Pushing her hair back from her face, the woman followed to where he was looking at the desk. “From the early nineteenth century,” she confirmed. “Like it?”
“Like it? Are you kidding? The closest one to this condition I found was an 1878 replica in Great Britain, but I’d have to donate a kidney to afford the shipping cost.”
Maybe his appreciation for the artisan workmanship of this beautiful antique came from his lack of connection to family—he had no idea. Maybe his need to own one of these beauties derived from the fact that they were usually family heirlooms, handed down generation to generation, rarely leaving a single family’s hands. That kind of...heritage and family story line...was something he could only read about. Or write about. But since receiving his first advance check ten years before, he’d been looking for a Cutler rolltop oak writing desk.
He ran his good hand along the extended brass escutcheon, admiring the authenticating Cutler embossing.
“Well, unfortunately this one would cost even more. It’s a family heirloom brought over from Great Britain in the late 1800s by my very great ancestors.”
Of course it was, he thought, stepping back from it.
“It’s survived moves across the country, being stored in attics and basements for decades, only to make its way here with my great-grandmother almost a hundred years ago.” She polished the oak-stained wood finish where he’d left his fingerprints, then turned to study him.
“Danielle O’Connor,” she said. “Was there something in particular you were hoping to find today? A lot of things are packed away, but believe it or not, it’s an organized mess, so I might be able to find it.”
“Logan Walters.”
She did a double take. “Logan—”
“Walters,” he finished for her. “Just...saw the desk. That’s all.”
“Well, Mr. W-Walters,” she began to stutter, “feel free to browse. Just be careful of all the boxes.”
He scanned a selection of new releases along the far wall. “When’s the store closing?” he asked.
“December thirty-first. I don’t see the point in staying open into the new year.”
“Not enough business?”
Danielle gave a small laugh. “We didn’t have enough business when we first opened this store eighty-eight years ago. Now keeping the store open is costing too much,” she said sadly.
“Eighty-eight years?” A landmark in the community.
“Yes. My great-grandmother opened it with the money she made off the sale of the one and only book she ever wanted to write.”
“What was it called?”
“The Way Home. It was a wonderful story about a woman’s—”
“Struggle for equality in the late 1950s, I’ve read it.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “You read a feminist title written by a lesser-known author?”
“In university I took a women’s literature course. Required reading, but a great story.”
“Wow, Great-grandma would be impressed.”
“So, if the store’s been open that long, this building must be rather old.” He could tell upgrades had been made to the space, as the wood finishing on the floor was darker in certain spots on the original hardwood floor—obviously certain planks had been replaced, and the moldings along the base of the shop walls were new, though they were designed to look like the original handcrafted decorative adornments bordering the walls.
“A hundred and forty-three years old. It used to be a law office. That’s where the rest of this older furniture came from. When it closed, they left everything behind.”
“So this is a heritage landmark building.”
She nodded.
“Have you looked into the funding available for businesses operating in buildings like this?”
“Yes. Unfortunately we didn’t qualify.”
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