The second book in A Valley Ridge Wedding trilogy, April Showers, is out on Wednesday!!
Romantic Times gave it 4 1/2 stars and said, "Filled with interesting characters, this sweet enjoyable read is at its core a story of family and friendship."
Family...it's one of the themes I love to explore. April Showers explores a friendship between Hank, Sebastian's grandfather, and Lily Paul, a new kid in town. I've been been blessed to have a May/December friendship like that with Marge. She's a very special lady who started out as a friend and grew into family.
Thanks, everyone!! (Yeah, I know I already said that, but it deserves to be said more than once!)
Holly
Copyright 2013, Holly Jacobs
Sebastian
Bennington was home.
He
waited for a wave of nostalgic happiness to sweep over him as he turned off
I-90 and headed towards his hometown—towards Valley Ridge, New York.
The
wave never came.
No
warm glow telling him that all was right in the world again because he was
here. No feeling that he should never
have left. No feeling that it was good
that he was coming back.
No
feeling at all. Nothing. Nada.
That
pretty much summed up his emotions since he’d received his separation orders
from the Marines. Hearing that he was
unfit for service hurt, but after that, it was as if everything froze and
became a blank greyness.
He
reached over and turned up the volume of the car’s stereo, thinking maybe the
music would inspire some feeling. “93.9,
The Wolf,” a female DJ’s voice announced.
Sebastian flinched when his left hand tried to grip the wheel, as Lady
Antebellum’s plaintive song soon filled the car. Sebastian had always loved country music, and
this song seemed nice enough, but it was new and evoked no particular emotion
or memory.
Grey.
Sebastian
had planned on driving immediately to his grandfather’s diner once he arrived
in town. He’d talked to Hank often on
the phone, glossing over why he was delayed.
He didn’t share anything about the surgeries, or much at all about the
injury. He’d simply said that he hurt
his hand and was having trouble getting leave.
He’d explain the discharge in person.
But
instead of taking Park Street to the Valley Ridge Diner, where his grandfather
would be this time of day, Sebastian went north toward the lake. Without thinking about it, he found himself
standing at the edge of a rocky cliff, looking out over Lake Erie.
He
breathed deep and took comfort in the expanse of grey-blue water below.
When
they were young, Sebastian and his best friends, Finn and Colton, came here
often. There was a small path that led
to the spit of rocky beach sandwiched between the lake and the cliff wall. His grandfather had hollered when he’d found
out the boys had gone down there, but Sebastian only grinned as Hank lectured
him about the dangers of that stretch of shore.
Back then, he’d thought he was invincible. Back then, he’d thought that there was
nothing he couldn’t do if he tried.
There was no cliff he couldn’t scale, no situation he couldn’t get out
of.
Sebastian
Bennington knew better than that now.
He
knew that even if he wanted to climb down that cliff today he probably
couldn’t.
He
flexed his damned-near useless left hand and winced at the sharp stab of
pain. April in Western New York was
still chilly, especially at the lakeshore.
However, he wasn’t wearing a jacket because he was particularly
cold. He wore it because he was home and
he’d be seeing his grandfather and friends soon. His jacket’s pocket was a great place to
disguise how damaged his hand was.
You
should be thankful you’re right handed, a therapist had joked.
You
should be thankful you’re alive, his doctor had informed him.
Maybe
he should be thankful to be alive, to be right handed, to be back in Valley
Ridge, New York.
But
thankfulness was an emotion he couldn’t manage.
Sebastian
knew he should get back in his car and drive into town now. Instead, he continued to stand on the cliff’s
edge. He didn’t ponder anything
special. He didn’t think any great
thoughts. He just stared at the lake;
his thoughts and emotions as flat and monotone as the water.
“Sebastian
Bennington?” a woman asked, pulling him from his non-distinct mental
foray.
Sebastian
turned and saw a dark-haired woman, whom he couldn’t place. He searched her features, waiting for the
click of recognition, but still nothing.
Valley Ridge was filled with friends and acquaintances. It was a small enough town that even if he
didn’t know someone, they at least looked familiar. But the woman didn’t.
A
stranger.
She
had to be because she had the kind of look that a man would never forget. She had on some kind of flowy skirt, with a
blousy top and big, chunky jewelry around her neck and wrists. And she had on dangling earrings that brushed
her shoulders. But it was her hair that
got him. Dark brown on the border of
being black. It was long—way longer than
most women wore their hair—and hanging down her back in soft waves that hinted
at curls.
“Sebastian?”
she repeated, staring at him with very blue eyes. Those eyes were even more memorable than her
hair.
He
realized he’d been staring and nodded.
“Yes? Do we know each
other?”
“No,
not exactly, although I know you in a way I’ve known very few people.”
He
must have looked puzzled because she laughed.
The expression seemed at home on her face, as if that upturned curve of
her lips and the crinkling of her eyes were their default positions.
“Sorry,
how do you know me?”
She
struck a pose similar to that statue his grandfather liked. The Thinker. Her hand was under her chin and she was
serious for a split second, then smiled again, as if whatever thought she’d had
was a pleasant one. “Well, I know that
your grandfather served you brussels sprouts when you were young and you
dropped them on the floor in hopes your dog would eat them for you. Problem was, Chance didn’t like brussels
sprouts either. Of course, I’ve had
Hank’s brussels sprouts and there’s really nothing to recommend the vegetable
the way he prepares them. I mean, he’s a
good cook, but he’s never really had to perfect vegetables at the diner, has
he?” She punctuated each question with
more laughter and he was sure he was right...this was a woman who laughed a
lot.
“Who
are you?” Sebastian asked.
This
didn’t invoke any laughter, but her smile lingered. The crinkling around her very blue eyes
wasn’t quite as pronounced, though it was still there. Laugh lines.
He’d never understood why they were called that until this minute. They weren’t a sign of aging, as he’d always
imagined, at least, not on this woman.
On her, they were a sign of a happy disposition.
He
wished he could work his way up to feeling happy...to feeling something.
On
the back of that thought came the awareness that if he mentioned those laugh
lines the woman wouldn’t thank him for it.
Not that he would mention it. He
might not know a lot about the female gender, but he was pretty sure most women
didn’t want to hear they had lines of any type.
The
woman extended her hand. There was a
zing of awareness as they touched and he realized it had been a long time since
he’d been this attracted to a woman. And
that little zing sent a ripple through the blandness he’d been living with for
a long time.
“Sorry,”
she said as she shook his hand. “I’m
Lily. Lily Paul. Hank’s tenant and—”
He
pulled his hand away, disregarding any attraction that he imagined he’d
felt. He knew who this was, and he was
absolutely not attracted to her. As a
matter of fact, he felt an immediate surge of another emotion. Annoyance.
Not that he’d thank her for that either.
“You’re
her,” he said.
“I
am.”
