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Return to Emmett’s Mill
Kimberly Van Meter
MILLS & BOON
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Copyright
An avid reader since before she can remember, Kimberly Van Meter started her writing career at the age of sixteen when she finished her first novel, typing late nights and early mornings, on her mother’s old portable typewriter. Although that first novel was nothing short of literary mud, with each successive piece of work her writing improved to the point of reaching that coveted published status.
A journalist (who during college swore she’d never write news), Kimberly has worked for both daily and weekly newspapers, covering multiple beats including education, health and crime, but she always dreamed of writing novels and someday saying goodbye to her nonfiction roots.
Born and raised in scenic Mariposa, California, Kimberly knows a thing or two about small towns – preferring the quiet, rural atmosphere to the hustle and bustle of a busy city any day – but she and her husband make their home in Oakdale, which represents a compromise between the two worlds. Kimberly and her husband, John, met and fell in love while filming a college production. He was the camera operator and she the lead actress. Her husband often jokes that he fell in love with his wife through the lens of a camera. A year later they were married and have been together ever since.
To Krystina Morgainne for your gift of hope.
To Wynette Kimball for your expertise and wisdom
during a time of great emotional upheaval.
To my children, Sebastian, Jaidyn and Eryleigh, for
understanding when Mum was glued to her laptop.
To my husband, John,
for his determination to continue growing, learning
and loving together even when it’s hard.
And finally, this book is dedicated to anyone who’s
ever had to face something painful in their past in
order to embrace the future. Your courage is your
strength and a gift to yourself and others.
You deserve good things. Never let anyone
convince you otherwise.
CHAPTER ONE
THE DRIZZLE FALLING FROM the gray skies blended with the steady drone of Father McDonald’s voice until Tasha Simmons lost the ability to tell them apart.
The dull gleam of her mother’s casket mirrored the gloom of the skies. Tears welled and receded until Tasha’s eyes and throat ached.
Flanked by her sisters, Nora and Natalie, and Natalie’s husband, Evan, she blocked out the pain that came with the knowledge her father was only one sister over, and she locked her knees to keep from sinking to the ground.
Suddenly, the short holiday visits over the years weren’t enough. Not nearly enough to get her through something like this. She’d give anything to have one more day with her mother. Just one day.
Fingers tightening around the black plastic umbrella handle, Tasha blocked out faces she’d known her entire life until they were as anonymous as the raindrops pelting the small group. It seemed a lifetime ago that she’d ever been the girl they remembered.
The priest ended his reading from the scripture meant to offer some measure of solace to the ones left behind, and everyone murmured “Amen.” He gestured to her father who, with Natalie’s help, approached the casket with slow, stiff steps, a rose clutched in his hand. Tasha averted her eyes, not wanting to watch as her father disintegrated into harsh, shuddering sobs. Staring at the wet ground, the rain creating muddy rivulets down the side of the hill her mother would be buried in, she suddenly hated her sisters’ decision not to cremate. Tasha didn’t want her mother lowered into the cold ground, surrounded by worms, ants and other disgusting insect life. The grief she was holding back rose in her throat and she struggled to get a grip.
Her mother wasn’t supposed to die so young. She wanted to scream it to the heavens until her voice was hoarse or until it disappeared entirely.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
Father McDonald indicated it was their turn and the three of them placed their snow-white roses beside that of their father’s. Bitterness filled her mouth and tainted her thoughts. What significance did placing flowers on a casket have on anything? Her mother could not enjoy their beauty or smell their sweet scent.
Tasha passed Nora as she returned to her place and startled at the red-rimmed stare she received. There was more than grief in her sister’s slate eyes and there was no doubt in Tasha’s mind that it was directed toward her.
An apology was useless; she wouldn’t even try. Their mother was dead. Would it have mattered if she’d come home any sooner?
Father McDonald gave his final words, ending the short service. She dragged a deep breath into her lungs, then a shudder followed as the cold went straight to her bones. Tasha murmured to Natalie that she was leaving but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder.
“Tasha?”
“Hello…” She racked her brain for the woman’s identity, but even as the woman drew closer, a sad smile on her plump face, Tasha’s mind blanked.
“I’m so sorry about your mom. She was such an amazing woman.”
Tasha nodded and dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief clutched in her hand. The woman kept talking, and a spark of recognition flared in her mind, but Tasha couldn’t remember her name.
“Goodness, what’s it been? Fifteen years or so since you left home to go to Stanford? What were you studying?” The woman shook her finger at Tasha in thought. “No, don’t tell me…anthropology! That’s right. You were getting a degree in anthropology. How’d that work out for you?”
“Ah…well, I’ve been working for the Peace Corps,” she offered, struggling to fan the spark into something less frustrating than just the fleeting image of a long-ago friendship.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Tasha hesitated. She didn’t want to hurt the woman’s feelings when she’d clearly cared enough about Tasha’s mom to attend the funeral, but there was no help for it. She shook her head regretfully, but the woman graciously waved away her consternation.
“Don’t sweat it. I don’t exactly look the same as I did in high school. Not many of us do, well, except you, of course. You don’t look as if you’ve aged a day. Plop a tiara on your head and you’d be the spitting image of you at seventeen when you were prom queen.”
A frightening thought. Tasha stiffened and searched out her sisters. Natalie caught her beseeching stare and hurried over as quickly as the cemetery mud and her shoes would allow.
“Hannah, how are you?” Natalie asked, a pleasant smile fixed to her face despite her obvious fatigue. “Things good down at the hardware store?”
Hannah Donner. Tasha slapped a mental hand to her forehead for blanking on someone who’d once been a close friend. It seemed unfathomable that she’d forget Hannah’s name, but weariness and grief had robbed her of higher mental ability. Always the forgiving sort, Hannah seemed to move right past Tasha’s momentary memory lapse and nodded in answer to Natalie’s question, but her expression dimmed appropriately in light of the reasons they were gathered. She reached out a hand and Tasha reluctantly accepted. “I’ll always remember your mom like she was when we were in high school—the cheer squad’s very own personal team mom. Nobody made better brownies.”
“Thank you,” Tasha choked out as a wave of unwanted nostalgia clogged her throat. Memories of sleepovers, girl-talk, childish dreams and blissful sighs over cute guys rushed her brain as she struggled against the sensation that she couldn’t breathe. She was relieved when Nora trudged up to them, her expression hard.
“Are you coming to the wake?”
Tasha averted her eyes, inwardly flinching at the anger in her youngest sister’s unforgiving stare. “Uh, no, I’ll probably just head back to the hotel for some rest,” she answered, catching Hannah’s nod of understanding and Nora’s darkening frown. “I’m pretty tired—”
“I should’ve known.” Nora cut her off and continued toward her vehicle with short, angry steps.
Tasha watched as Nora climbed into her truck and held her breath in alarm as her sister drove too fast out of the cemetery parking lot.
“She’s taking this pretty hard, isn’t she?” Hannah asked, though the question was rhetorical. Missy’s death had taken a toll on the entire Simmons clan. Only Nora covered her grief with the anger she held against Tasha.
Natalie pressed her lips together as if to apologize for their youngest sister, but Tasha read understanding in her middle sister’s eyes and felt outnumbered.
They were ganging up on her. And, the reason chafed.
A letter, written in Natalie’s flowery script, appeared in her memory and she bit down on her bottom lip. She hadn’t known. Couldn’t have known. The original letter had somehow been eaten by the postal service, and by the time the second letter arrived a month later the cancer had moved with deadly accuracy throughout their mother’s body before she could board a plane. Yet, her sisters blamed her.
“Tasha?”
Natalie’s voice penetrated her thoughts and she realized both women were staring.
“Are you all right?” Hannah asked, taking in Tasha’s rigid state.
Tasha slowly unclenched her fists and offered a small smile. “I’m tired,” she answered, and Hannah nodded her understanding.
“Of course you are,” she said. “After everything, I’m sure you’re exhausted. “Well, uh, call me while you’re still in town and we’ll go to lunch. Catch up on old times.”
Tasha nodded with false promise but shuddered privately. No, thank you. The past was a place she rarely visited.
And for good reason.
JOSH HALVORSEN WENDED his way through the departing crowd following the service, sadness at a vibrant life cut short dogging his steps. He hated the saying that God only took the good ones, because somehow it seemed a penalty for being a decent human being. Growing up, Missy Simmons had been like another mother to him, though at times, he certainly felt one had been enough. Ahead, he saw Tasha talking with Hannah Donner and his breath hitched in his chest as he saw her in the flesh after all these years.
He slowed his pace and people flowed around him. At one time they’d been inseparable, crazy in love until it had ended badly and he’d limped away nursing a broken heart and bruised ego.
The last time they spoke was the day they broke up during her first year at Stanford. They learned quickly long-distance relationships were hard to maintain—even when the love was strong. In the end, fear of losing her coupled with irrational jealousy eventually drove a wedge between them even their love couldn’t withstand. The echo of their last words ghosted his mind and regret followed.
He’d thought time had dulled those feelings, but the moment his eyes alighted on her willowy figure, wrapped in an austere black woolen overcoat, he’d known by the startling zing that sent his heart racing that he was wrong.
An invisible connection flowed between them, tethering him to the spot despite his desire to blend into the crowd. He’d paid his respects, nothing more was required of him. Perhaps…but he couldn’t bring himself to walk away as if he’d never been there. Good manners dictated he offer his condolences to Gerald Simmons…and to Tasha.
“Tasha…” Her name felt foreign on his lips, almost forgotten, but he knew that was impossible.
“Josh.”
His name came out in an astonished husky murmur that reminded him of other times, and for a split second he wondered how things might’ve turned out if different choices had been made. He glanced away, shoving his near-frozen hands deep into his jacket pockets, until he could look at her without distraction.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” he offered, his gut twisting at the pain he read in her red-rimmed green eyes before she concealed them behind dark glasses. “She was a good woman who didn’t deserve to die so young.”
“Yes, she was.” Tasha nodded. “She thought the world of you,” she said, drawing a deep breath. “And she would’ve been happy to know you came.”
“I’d heard she was sick. I was hoping for a recovery,” he said, noting the subtle differences in Tasha, none being uncomplimentary. She was still beautiful. Maturity had treated her well, accentuating her natural grace and refining her soft, cultured voice.
“Thank you,” she said, bringing her umbrella down closer to block out the wind that was wreaking havoc on her fine hair that hung loose to her shoulders, the moisture in the air bringing out the stubborn curl she used to hate. He remembered playing with the soft strands, twining them around his finger on lazy summer days spent down at the Merced River.
“You haven’t changed a bit.” The observation drifted out of his mouth and her startled yet instantly guarded reaction made him wish he’d kept it to himself. She gave him a brief smile that hovered too closely to patronizing to be taken at face value, and he sensed more had changed than he realized. “Take care, Tasha,” he said, and quickly moved on.
He was nearly to his truck when he heard his name called. Turning, he was surprised to see Natalie hurrying toward him.
“The wake is atmy parents’house. Please come,” she said, once she caught her breath. “Mom loved you like a son. You are always welcome in our home.” She hesitated, as if weighing her decision to continue, then added resolutely, “Tasha would like it, too.”
Somehow he doubted that. “It’s nice of you to offer, but—”
“But nothing. You were once friends. And, right now, we all need our friends. You know?” She finished with a smile that begged even though her words had not. Like Tasha, Natalie’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, her nose pink from both the frigid weather and her tears. “Please?”
Against his better judgment, he nodded slowly and she exhaled as if in relief, her breath creating a gray plume of mist before them. “Then it’s settled. You’ll come. It’ll be nice. For everyone.”
With that she turned and joined Tasha, who was waiting in the new Honda sedan he assumed belonged to Natalie.
He knew the smart thing was not to go, but a part of him wanted to see her again. And that desire worried him. She was part of his past, not his future. That much he knew. But, as he climbed into his truck, his thoughts returned to the very place he didn’t want to go.
She’d been the cutest girl on the cheer squad and he’d fallen hard. He missed those halcyon days when his biggest concern was passing Algebra II and beating the rival football team at Homecoming. Theirs had been a clichéd romance. The jock and the princess. But it’d been great while it lasted. Too bad he’d been too dumb to see what a good thing he’d had. He shook his head, annoyed at the maudlin direction his thoughts had taken, reminding himself that life was what he’d made of it.
A heavy sigh felt trapped in his chest. What the hell was he going to say to Tasha at the wake when it was obvious they’d said all they needed to say to each other years ago? He should’ve been firm, but he’d never been the kind of man to turn a woman down when tears—or even the hint of tears—were involved.
Besides, it was the least he could do for the family he’d once considered as his own.
CHAPTER TWO
TASHA SHIVERED DESPITE the warmth caused by too many bodies crammed into the small house of her childhood. Slipping out on the pretense of needing to help Natalie in the kitchen, she removed herself from the crush of people and wandered away from the family room.
If things had turned out differently, would she have stayed? Raised a family like Natalie? Started a business like Nora? Trailing her fingers along the wainscoting, she detoured to what used to be her room. The plan had been to turn it into a sewing room, but it still looked exactly as she’d left it. Sinking to the single bed, she inhaled the unique smell of a closed-off room and her gaze roamed the corkboard where dozens of postcards were pinned. A painful smile formed as Tasha envisioned her mom pinning a new one to the board after she’d read it.
“I thought you said you weren’t coming.”
Her sister’s voice at her back made her wipe at the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes before she turned and answered. “I wasn’t. Natalie persuaded me to change my mind,” she admitted, watching warily as her sister came into the room. “It’s good to see you, Nora,” she added truthfully.
Nora softened a little. “You’ve been missed. It’s been too long since you’ve been home.”
Four years. The longest she’d ever been without making a short stop in Emmett’s Mill.
“I know. I was stationed at a medical clinic in Punta Gorda and there just never seemed to be a good time to leave. They’re always needing volunteers. I didn’t want to leave them shorthanded.” She avoided Nora’s gathering frown, turning away with her arms wrapped around herself. “It isn’t like I can just call up a replacement, Nora. There isn’t even phone service in some areas. My job isn’t like that of most people. I can’t just leave. People need me.”
“Your family needs you, too,” Nora retorted, the anger returning to her voice. “Mom needed you.”
She turned, tears pricking her eyes. “I know,” she said, accepting the harsh look Nora sent her, knowing her anger came from a place of pain and grief. She tried reaching out, but the burn coming from Nora’s bloodshot eyes stopped her. Dropping her hand, she shrugged helplessly. “Nora, my being here wouldn’t have stopped the cancer. She was going to die whether I was here or not.”
“You’re right. But maybe if you’d been here, the last name on her breath wouldn’t have been yours.” Tasha startled at the revelation and Nora stepped forward, her voice beginning to tremble with the force of her anger. “Maybe if you’d been here, she wouldn’t have suffered through a broken heart, as well as the pain of the cancer as it ate her from the inside.”
“Stop.” Tasha closed her eyes, blocking out the tears coursing down her sister’s cheeks. What could she say? Nothing would erase the fact that she had been thousands of miles away while their mother suffered through pancreatic cancer. She slowly opened her eyes again as the silence lengthened. Nothing she could say would convey how sorry she felt, so she remained silent.
Nora wiped at her tears and then pinned Tasha with a look ripe with bitterness and sorrow. “What can I say, Tasha? You simply should’ve been here.”
“I know,” she answered quietly, though there was an edge to her tone. She accepted Nora’s condemnation…to a point. And that point had been reached. “You’ve said your piece, now let it go, Nora. You’re not the only one grieving, you know. I lost my mother, too.”
Nora’s jaw hardened and Tasha wearily prepared for another stinging backlash from her youngest sister, but to her surprise it didn’t come. Instead, Nora swallowed hard as if choking down whatever she’d been tempted to say next and gave Tasha a short nod. “I didn’t mean to start a fight. But, the last few months have been hard. Really hard. And it would’ve been nice to have our eldest sister here with us. That’s all.” Tasha gave an almost imperceptible nod and Nora continued softly. “We needed more than postcards, Tasha. Paper is no substitute for flesh and blood.”
Let it go, for pity’s sake! Frustration swept through her as she stiffened against Nora’s attempt at burying her under a mountain of guilt. Mission accomplished, little sister. A snap retort danced on her tongue, but she didn’t want to spend the brief time she had before returning to Belize fighting. She began to offer a truce, but Natalie, who appeared in the doorway, looking fatigued and exasperated, cut her off.
“There you two are,” Natalie broke in, peering into the room with annoyance. “Nora, I could use your help with the hors d’oeuvres trays, and, Tasha, could you help me with the guests who just arrived?”
Suddenly sensing the tension in the room, her gaze darted from one sister to the other. “What’s going on? Are you two fighting already?” She didn’t give either a chance to answer. “No, I don’t want to hear it. I need your help. Whatever squabbles you guys are having can just wait. Besides—” she sent a dark look to them both “—I’m sure you two can agree this is not the time or the place to be airing your dirty laundry.”
Chastised, Nora left the room without an argument.
“At least she seems to listen to you,” Tasha said with a weary sigh. “All she wants to do with me is argue.”
Natalie considered this, then said, “Tasha…she doesn’t really know you. You left when she was sixteen. All she knows is that you weren’t here when you were needed. Her memory of you is shaped by the image she created when you weren’t around.”
“And now I’m here and the reality of who I am is a disappointment?”
Natalie rubbed at her eyes, the tiredness there pulling at Tasha’s conscience. What was she doing? Natalie was right. Now was not the time. “Forget it. I understand. Just point me in the direction you need me to go. We’ll table this for later.” And by later she meant never. She really didn’t want to delve any deeper into Nora’s apparent disillusionment. There was enough grief in this house to fill a well. No sense in overflowing the damn thing.
Natalie accepted her offer and pointed down the hallway. “I need someone to help with the guests. More have arrived and I’m stuck in the kitchen. And—” she paused, rubbing her arms together with a brief glance around the room “—make sure you close this door behind you. There’s a terrible draft coming in from somewhere.”
“Sure,” she said. The last thing she wanted to do was usher in more people who no doubt wanted to ask about her long absence, but Natalie was in drill-sergeant mode and trying to back out would only cause her to draw the big guns. Besides, Natalie had pretty much single-handedly put together all the arrangements for the day and the least she could do was point people toward the food and accept a few condolences.
Drawing a deep breath, she followed Natalie and reentered the family room, where people she recognized and some she didn’t milled around or huddled in clusters. Skirting the larger groups, she fielded a few questions, but for the most part, she was left alone. The guests were respectfully brief in their innocent questioning, and Tasha was soon relaxed enough to consider grabbing a bite from the buffet table. Plate in hand, she noted with a start she was standing right beside Josh. Seeing him at the cemetery had been shocking enough, but being in such close proximity that she could smell the crisp scent of his aftershave and see the subtle touch of time in his face caused an irrational longing to lay her head on his shoulder. She knew it was Natalie who invited him, but she hadn’t expected him to accept.
Moving quietly, she tried leaving the buffet table, but Josh caught her movement out of the corner of his eye and turned.
They stared, each wondering what to say to each other, until Tasha realized what they were doing was childish. They were adults; time to act like it. She braved a small smile.
“You look good,” she admitted in a grudging tone.
He inclined his head, accepting her compliment, and murmured, “I could say the same to you. It seems the jungle agrees with you.”
“Thanks,” she returned, waiting as he put slices of roast beef and potatoes on his plate and added a slice of buttered bread, then moved away. After loading her own plate, she hesitated and he turned, as if reading her indecision or feeling her reluctance to take a seat beside him. Once they’d been more than friends; now they weren’t even acquaintances. He jerked his head in invitation but she knew it was out of courtesy. “Are you sure?”
“It’s fine,” he assured her, this time with more conviction.
He led her into the rarely used sitting room, as if instinctively knowing that she craved some quiet after the emotional events of the day.
They sat at opposite ends of the loveseat her mother had bought at an estate sale and had considered a steal, and she idly wondered when Josh started liking Mrs. Holt’s roast, if only to focus on something other than the feel of her heart beating painfully.
He’d always complained it was tougher than an old shoe. He turned and the question must’ve flashed in her eyes, for he bent toward her and whispered an answer out of the corner of his mouth.
“She knows where I live.”
Tasha laughed. She’d seen Mrs. Holt watching the buffet line like a hawk, noting who had bypassed her contribution and who had dutifully taken some. A foreign feeling created a warm glow inside her and she had to pop a stuffed mushroom into her mouth before she embarrassed herself.
“Besides, I’ve realized…it’s not that bad,” he added in a tone that was entirely too high-pitched for honesty or natural for a man of Josh’s considerable size.
“That’s not what you used to say.”
“Things change,” he said, sticking a forkful in his mouth with fake relish. “See? Delicious.”
Tasha chuckled when his act faltered as he swallowed, and for the barest of seconds, it felt natural to sit beside him enjoying a meal. Until she glanced down and caught the pale white line encircling his ring finger, reminding her sharply that they had taken different roads without each other. The absence of the ring made her wonder. “I heard you married Carrie Porter,” she ventured, surprised at how after so many years the knowledge still managed to burn. But she didn’t blame him for moving on. Not now, anyway. She popped another mushroom, chewing until a morbid sense of curiosity took hold of her tongue. “Why no ring?”
His mouth formed a grim line and he shrugged. “Didn’t figure I should wear the ring anymore when the divorce was final months ago.”
Oh. “What happened?”
He shot her a quick look and she got the distinct impression she was trespassing. Heat flooded her cheeks. “Forget it. It’s none of my business. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Chalk it up to jet lag, grief, pressure from my sisters…take your pick.”
He nodded and returned to his plate, leaving her to wonder if she shouldn’t just make an exit now before she ended up wandering into dangerous territory for them both.
Time had added lines around his blue eyes, and slivers of gray threaded the hair that had once been solid brown, but his shoulders were wider than she remembered and thick with muscle that hadn’t been there when they were kids. As far as she could tell, there was nothing boylike about the man next to her. The knowledge gave her a dark thrill that immediately put her on guard. She wasn’t supposed to feel those kinds of things for Josh anymore. But when he was sitting within arm’s length, it was hard to ignore the spark.
He surprised her when he started talking about his life with Carrie.
“It was good for a while, but I guess we grew apart. You know how that happens.” He paused, but he didn’t really expect an answer. “Anyway, she still lives in Stockton. I needed a fresh start and figured I could find that from home. So, here I am.”
She nodded, surprised at the modicum of sympathy that she felt for Carrie. “I’m sorry,” she offered, hoping Josh knew she was sincere. He accepted her condolences in the same fashion she’d accepted his—politely—and crumpled his soiled napkin before dropping it to his empty plate. As she watched him, a flood of memories came back and Tasha spoke before her brain could catch up and tell her to stop. “You know, when I heard you and Carrie had married…I have to admit, it threw me a little.” More than a little, but that fact made little difference now. When he looked at her sharply, she shrugged. “I mean, I guess I never would’ve put the two of you together because you weren’t exactly friends in high school.”
“I know.” He shrugged again, but the blue of his eyes had gone bleak and she sensed the pain that he was trying to hide. That she could see it so easily jarred her, and she struggled to recover without letting on how it had affected her. It wasn’t right that she could still read him so well. Time should’ve blunted that ability, but it hadn’t. He drew himself up, his plate resting in one hand, and briefly met her wide-eyed gaze. “What are you gonna do?” he asked rhetorically, the sarcasm in his tone at odds with what she knew of his personality. “Marriages end every day. I should’ve known better in the first place.”
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