by Ava Miles
“And where do you think that might be?” he asked, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it. “The world is our oyster.”
A mischievous glint entered her eyes, and he tilted his head to the side in response. This was going to be good.
“I have the perfect place for us. Small-town life with really great restaurants and fun shops. Miles away from some of the best ski slopes around. Good housing prices. Excellent schools. Wonderful people from all accounts, including my brother J.T. and his wife. GreenSolutions is based there, and so are your newest business partners.”
He was already eager to be there. “Sounds awesome. Where is this mecca of paradise?”
“It’s this magical place called Dare Valley.”
Chapter 31
Clara had a new nickname for herself.
She’d decided on it this very afternoon, looking at Boyd and Michaela beaming in the middle of the Merriam celebration of their engagement.
She pulled Arthur over to the portico to gloat. The view would allow them to catch all the action. “Arthur, my dear, you might be the Matchmaking Jedi, but you will kindly refer to me going forward as the Matchmaking Closer.” She wouldn’t mention she’d run it by Hargreaves earlier. “I’m having cards made. Would you like some? Gold-embossed, excellent linen stock, and such?”
He barked out a laugh. “Clara, I’m happy to help this next generation of Merriams find love since my work is done with the Hales, but if you think I’m going to offer my services outside of our respective families, then you’ve got a screw loose.”
Her mind was perfectly sound and he well knew it. “I deserve extra points for Boyd and Michaela announcing their imminent relocation to Dare Valley.” Oh, she was tickled pink. First, J.T. and Caroline and now their new business partners with the flower. Who knew what other Merriams might be lured back to Dare Valley? Caitlyn and Beau still hadn’t settled on a home base. She’d have to get right on that and use her new allies to seal the deal.
“Here, you get an extra red hot. Not that you made that happen. From what Michaela said, moving to Dare Valley was her idea.”
Being a Merriam woman, Clara understood her niece’s need for independence. In Michaela’s shoes, she wouldn’t have admitted Clara had planted the idea either.
“You’re still beaming from the news at home,” Clara said, feeling aglow from it herself. “More babies on the way.”
“You’ve gotta love Jill,” Arthur said, shaking his head in a way that drew her attention to its need for a trim. “From the moment they put my granddaughter in my arms, I knew she was a talker. She just couldn’t keep a lid on her pregnancy. Then she had to spill the beans about Lucy and Andy being pregnant too.”
Clara was delighted for both couples. “Who needs newspaper reporters when you have Jill?”
“She could source information for our entire Local section.” He sipped his single malt. “I used her a time or two as a source before I retired. After checking with another source for confirmation, of course.”
“Of course.” He was a thorough man, something he proved to her every day in their marital bed, bless him.
“Aunt!” Quinn called, striding away from the bar with a whiskey in his hand. “I talked to Boyd and Michaela, and we’d appreciate it if you’d meet with us tomorrow morning to help prepare our proposal for Evan Michaels. We’re getting right on it. J.T. can’t be involved since he’s a board member, but Dad volunteered to provide an extra set of eyes. He was the king of mergers back in his day.”
Quinn might have been a hard case when she’d first entered his new office, but he’d more than come around.
“Your father made the best merger of his life with your mother,” she said, waving when her brother looked over. “I’d love to join you all. Thank you for including me, Quinn.”
He nodded crisply. “Thank you for the idea. We Merriams owe you.” Something flashed in his eyes, and he added, “I’ve never seen Michaela so happy, and Boyd and I had a good talk earlier. I wanted him to know I hold no bad feelings about the trip or what happened afterward. The petition didn’t seem enough.”
His face darkened then, and Clara put her hand on his arm. “Any word from Connor?”
Shaking his head, he said, “No, and he’s making it difficult for Flynn to find him. Trevor’s come up empty as well. We’re all worried.”
The poor man had cleaned out his office and hadn’t gone back home. In fact, he seemed to have skipped town altogether. “Hopefully this time away will help…” She broke off and shared a look with Arthur. Time didn’t always help people in need and they both knew it. It very much depended on how he spent it.
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Can I get you another gin and tonic, Aunt? Uncle Arthur, how about another whiskey?”
“Why the heck not?” Arthur finished his drink and thrust out his highball. “This is a celebration, after all.”
“Thank you, Quinn,” she said, giving him her glass as well. “Hargreaves can make mine. I know you have a lot on your plate. You don’t need to be our bartender.”
“I never mind tending bar,” he said, smiling more easily now. “There’s something relaxing about it. But I’ll talk to Hargreaves. J.T. and Caroline told me no one makes a better gin and tonic.”
“It’s because Hargreaves was around when the first gin and tonic was made,” Arthur quipped, earning him a gentle nudge in the ribs from his wife. “He’s ancient, you know.”
“The gin and tonic was invented in India by British officers in the 1800s, Arthur. For a newspaperman, you sometimes get your facts wrong. You’d better not do that in your articles on the flower and our Maasai friends.”
Quinn laughed. “Perhaps you should grab that pith helmet Aunt Clara had you take on safari, Uncle. It might help set the mood.”
Arthur was blustering as Quinn walked away. “I’ll never live down that infernal pith helmet. Next time we go to Kenya, I’m bringing my own hat and packing my own things. You and Hargreaves take way too many liberties, my dear.”
They would be going to Kenya again, and she couldn’t wait. For a woman who’d spent so many years alone, she now had connections across the world. She felt like she finally had the makings of a legacy, much like the man next to her. But she wasn’t through yet…
Not by a long shot.
She linked their arms together, gazing into his blue eyes. “Tell me truly,” she said, hoping to rile him. “Are you sore I was the one who fixed things up between Boyd and Michaela?”
“I came up with the damn petition, didn’t I?”
“It’s not in the same class as a merger, my dear.”
He arched a brow like he knew what she was about. “Very well. I need to up my game. But Hargreaves might have us both beat. I mean, the baby elephant was genius. Even I wouldn’t have thought that up, least of all finding a way to rent one.”
“He’s ever resourceful.” And he loved this family as much as she did, she thought, watching him instruct Quinn on how to make the perfect gin and tonic, stirring it slowly but thoroughly with unmatched proficiency.
“Of course, I’m not sure I’ll be up to matchmaking next,” Arthur said, making her pull her gaze away from the bartending lesson.
“Whatever do you mean?” she asked, eager to hear about their next adventure.
“I might be putting on my old investigative journalist hat if Connor doesn’t surface soon,” Arthur said heavily. “He’s a troubled man, Clara, and he needs his family now more than ever.”
She felt the same way, but if a man didn’t want to be found… “You think you can find him when Flynn and Trevor can’t? They’re more tech savvy than you are, I’m afraid to say.”
“My dear,” he said, caressing her cheek. “Clearly, you’ve never seen the legendary Arthur Hale at work. Tech savvy. My God, woman, what do you think we did before technology? We relied on our guts. We researched leads. We talked to people. Narrowed down possibilities. Dammit, we got shit done. Excuse my French.”
He clearly was on a roll, and she wasn’t going to be a naysayer. Connor was a serious subject, after all, and if Arthur thought he could find him, all the better. “I look forward to seeing you in action, my love.”
Of course, she was going to do her part to help him, especially after their last trip. Part of her still felt responsible for what had befallen her nephew. “Got any ideas on where to start looking?”
He rubbed his jaw and took his time answering. “If I know anything about human nature, I’d say a grieving man who thinks he’s lost everything goes to visit the person he lost.”
Her mouth parted. Oh, he was good. It’s no wonder he’d won numerous Pulitzers. Not that he needed a bigger ego. “Chicago.”
“Exactly, my dear.”
* * *
He was lost.
Staring at the shiny new gravestone marking the final remains of his best friend, cousin, and college roommate, Connor couldn’t ignore the truth.
Nothing was working anymore, and he couldn’t see a way out.
He studied the grave dotted with fresh white lilies, likely from Olivia. The only details on the plain marker were his best friend’s birth and death. Corey Weatherby, age forty—the same age as Connor. No mention of him being a terrific father of two or the longtime husband to sweet Olivia, whom he’d married a year after college. Back then, Connor had done things like decorate their honeymoon car with the requisite shaving cream or crank call them on their anniversary, pretending to be a sex therapist asking them to join a couples’ study.
That playful side of him was as gone as his friend.
God, he wanted to kick the marker down and howl at fate. Life was so fucking unfair. He’d completely lost his faith in his ability to make it conform to his wishes.
Michaela’s near death on that damn safari trek had driven the final nail in the coffin. He knew his family wanted to talk to him, but he couldn’t take it right now. He also didn’t have a clue what to say. They wanted him to go to counseling or some other bullshit. No way. He might be lost, but he wasn’t crazy.
Part of him hated to worry them, but the other part—the one filled with white-hot rage—thought they rather deserved it for betraying him. Of course, he couldn’t blame them for what they’d done when it came down to it. They’d almost lost Michaela, and that was on him.
Corey’s death was his fault too.
In the end, that’s why he’d demanded they remove him as CEO. He couldn’t be trusted anymore. He knew it. They knew it.
“I’m sorry, Corey,” he whispered aloud, words he hadn’t been able to say out loud after the funeral four months ago. “I let you down. It’s my fault you’re not here, dammit! I can’t change that, but I will make good on the promise I made you on the day you married Olivia. Remember? We were waiting for the priest to give us a signal and suddenly you up and asked me while I was fixing my cummerbund.”
He’d been horsing around, and Corey had grabbed his arm.
“Con, I want you to promise me something.”
“Anything, man.”
“Maybe I’m being weird, but it’s like I can see my whole life before me. Someday, I might not be here anymore. We work in the oil and gas industry and some pretty dicey places. I’m not tempting fate. I’m only being smart. You’re my best friend and there’s no one I trust more. I want you to promise to look out for Olivia and any kids we have. God, kids! I can’t wait for that.”
Connor had given his word without a thought. Corey was young. He was just being emotional on his wedding day. The moment passed, and neither of them talked about it again, but when Max was born, Corey made Connor his godfather. Then again when they had Joseph. Both boys looked so much like Corey that Connor had often teased Olivia by asking if she really had any part in making them, earning him a soft punch in the gut.
Then the unimaginable had happened, and she’d wept uncontrollably in his arms at the gravesite on that horrible sunny day. Oh, the fates had seemed to be jeering even then. A tragedy like Corey’s death deserved bleak, stormy weather, not the kind that had everyone in Chicagoland out in droves with smiles he couldn’t take seeing on their faces.
He’d called Olivia a couple times when his mother had gone to help her with the boys, something she’d done for him, he knew, as much as the family. Their brief conversations had been so painful he’d been drenched with sweat afterward.
But it was time to face her and the kids and help them in whatever way he could.
He was a man who kept his promises.
* * *
Connor’s story is up next in SUNFLOWER ALLEY… Treat yourself to this fabulous heart-tugging redemption story and meet Louisa, the woman who’s strong enough to capture his heart.
Like Arthur said: most breakups and divorces are caused due to money issues. Interested in overcoming your own issues and learning tools to discuss money constructively with your partner? Check out GODDESSES DESERVE THE Gs in my self-help Goddess Guides series.
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Dear Reader,
I hope you loved my homage to a witty romantic adventure like Romancing the Stone. Please give it a review for Arthur and me!
You know it’s funny: my first few weeks in my new home of New York, I met Michael Douglas at a local watering hole while working on one of my book releases. Suddenly he was asking me what I was working on and what I did, and I had this odd compulsion to say I was like Joan Wilder, that movie’s writer heroine, but without the heaving bosoms. I thought better of that answer, and we had a nice chat—the first actually since I’ve run into him since. Anyway, that’s all to say I’m hoping I’ll run into Harrison Ford as well and say, “Have you ever thought about Dr. Jones going after a magical healing flower?”
You’ll be happy to know I’m already working on the next few Merriam books. I’ve shared on social media how I’m deep into aromatherapy research—Ibrahim opened up the world of essential oils to me—and I’m so excited about this heroine. Everyone is loving the new concoctions I’m coming up with as I test things out, and I anticipate a companion book with wonderful recipes to go along with the fiction novel, much like I’ve done in the past with Country Heaven and its cookbook. I’m also sharing some initial #livewell tips on social media, so I hope you come check them out if we aren’t already connected to my public front porch, so to speak.
Connor’s story is up next, and it’s a doozy. As you might expect, he’s turning into my most difficult hero, perhaps since Clayton Chandler in Fireflies and Magnolias. Is his heroine going to be tough enough to match him? You bet she is, and with a heart of gold too. SUNFLOWER ALLEY will be a special journey for everyone, the Merriams included.
Thanks again for continuing to embrace this beautiful family and for supporting me as I write and share the treasures of my heart.
Wishing you every joy and happiness,
Ava
About the Author
International Bestselling Author Ava Miles joined the ranks of beloved storytellers with her powerful messages of healing, mystery, and magic. Millions of readers have discovered her fiction and nonfiction books, praised by USA TODAY and Publisher’s Weekly. Women’s World Magazine has selected a few of her novels for their book clubs while Southwest Airlines featured the #1 National Bestseller NORA ROBERTS LAND (the name used with Ms. Roberts’ blessing) in its in-flight entertainment. Ava’s books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year and Top Editor’s Picks and are translated into multiple languages.
Ava calls herself a divine rockstar, something she believes everyone is deep down. She’s a unique
expression of love and joy in the world with her own special gifts: writing stories with uplifting messages, being an intuitive healer, inspiring others to uncover their authentic selves and their highest path in the world; and creating artistic masterpieces like pottery and sculptures. And then there’s the cooking… She used to be a chef and rocks food big time.
A global awakener at the core, Ava has dedicated her life to uplifting everyone on the planet. In her former career rebuilding war zones, she worked in places like Lebanon, Colombia, Pakistan, West Bank/Gaza, and Congo to foster peaceful communities. Now she’s sharing her stories of love, forgiveness, and empowerment around the world—pretty much still changing lives.
If you’d like to connect with Ava or hear more about her upcoming books, check out the links below:
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Copyright September 2019, Ava Miles.
ISBN: 978-1-949092-10-3
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally.