Holiday Homecoming

Their history can’t be rewritten. But their future…

Bears, eagles and wolf dogs she could handle. But ten years after their split, Nature Times journalist Jimmy Murphy still had the power to rattle Meredith Stone. One look at him and a lifetime of memories came flooding back—and a decade of carefully constructed defenses came crumbling down. Defenses she’d need in order to deal with her grandpa’s latest turn for the worse, her sister’s upcoming wedding and Jimmy’s persistent questions. Why was he probing into her work at the animal rescue? And why did she care so much about what he thought? She’d buried her feelings for him a long time ago…

“You need any help?” Jimmy asked, his voice a different kind of serious.

“No.” She certainly didn’t need any help with the prescriptions. She might, however, need a prescription to get rid of a very real headache named Jimmy Murphy.

“How is Ray?”

Ever the calculating journalist out for information any way he could get it. She’d dealt with people like this before. They had agendas; she had animals to take care of. They had deadlines; she had animals to feed.

Still, it felt different when the one asking the questions happened to be the one who got away.

Dear Reader,

I’ve long been an animal lover. Growing up, I had cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, birds, guinea pigs, turtles and fish. Every Christmas from age six to about twelve, I asked for a horse. We lived in the city, and boarding a horse would have cost about the same as what we paid to rent our house. The closest I came to getting a horse was the Christmas I got a bike. My dad said the bike could take me to “almost” all the same places as a horse could. In my twenties, I was a kindergarten teacher. My classroom had birds, fish, hamsters, lizards and, for a short while, ferrets. One night the hamster escaped and attended a school board meeting. Apparently, Goober wasn’t recognized right away for the hamster that he was. We had new rules about pets in the classroom after that. Right now, I’m typing with a cat pressed against my arm. What a great life.

The heroine in Holiday Homecoming is Meredith Stone. She introduced herself to me in Katie’s Rescue, the first Scorpion Ridge book. We’ve all met that person at work, school, church, who is the powerhouse that gets things done. Well, that’s Meredith. She gets things done, mostly when it comes to the animals under her charge. But now, she has to slow down to help care for her grandfather. It’s a time for reflection. Of course, nothing’s that easy.

Jimmy Murphy’s whole world changed when his wife died, and he realized that a vagabond life didn’t work well for his daughter. Now he’s caught between the old and the new. His career still means a lot to him, but his latest story is in direct opposition to what Meredith believes in. Jimmy’s first love was Meredith, and sometimes first loves are meant to be forever loves.

I hope you enjoy Holiday Homecoming. If you’d like to meet some of the Mills & Boon Heartwarming authors, please visit www.heartwarmingauthors.blogspot.com. If you’d like to learn more about me, please visit www.pamelatracy.com. I love to hear from readers!

Pamela

Holiday

Homecoming

Pamela Tracy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PAMELA TRACY

is an award-winning author who lives with her husband (who claims to be the inspiration for most of her heroes) and son (who claims to be the interference for most of her writing time). She started writing at a very young age (a series of romances, all with David Cassidy as the hero, though sometimes Bobby Sherman would elbow in). Then, while earning a BA in journalism at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, she picked up writing again—this time it was a very bad science-fiction novel.

She went back to her love and was first published in 1999. Since then, Pamela has had more than twenty romance novels in print. She’s a winner of the American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Award and has been a RITA® Award finalist. Readers can find her at www.heartwarmingauthors.blogspot.com or www.pamelatracy.com.

To Aimée Thurlo,

a gifted author who opened her heart to both

people and animals.

We miss you, Aimée.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“I CAN’T GET a hold of Grandpa. He’s not answering the phone—again.” Meredith’s brother’s tone was more annoyed than frantic. For the last three months, Grandpa Stone had been acting more like a teenager—disappearing for hours, not answering questions directly, grumpy.

“You are still coming, right?” Zack asked.

“I’m just ten minutes from his house.” Meredith pressed on the gas pedal while assessing the dirt road that was more dirt than road. A few miles back some idiot in an old black truck—its windows so darkly tinted she couldn’t see the driver—had almost run her off the road. That was the last thing she needed if Grandpa truly was in trouble.

If...

Raymond Stone was eighty-two, born a little more than two decades after Arizona had become a state. He was hard of hearing, so the phone was more miss than hit lately. Thus her brother’s exasperation.

It was Grandpa’s forgetfulness and wandering, however, that had led to a recent powwow between the two oldest Stone siblings. They had agreed that someone had to stay with him for a while. Family emergencies weren’t Meredith Stone’s forte anymore. But this time it was her grandfather who needed her, and she was the best choice.

The only choice her grandfather might tolerate.

She put her cell phone on speaker so she could talk more easily. “I really hope we’re just overreacting and this isn’t necessary.”

Her brother, Zack, didn’t hesitate. “It’s necessary.”

Ah, the theme of her youth. Necessary was an important word in a household that had a father and mother who were gone too much. Both had been high-end real estate agents working a three city area. When Meredith was young, they’d worked seven days a week because it was necessary. By the time the real estate bubble burst, Meredith was a junior in high school and it was too late to suddenly have mother/ daughter chats or attend father/daughter dances on a Friday night.

Zack and Susan, being the middle and youngest children, had those memories, but not Meredith, the eldest.

Meredith had been raised in an atmosphere where chaos reigned. She, of all the siblings, craved order and control. The drive to excel, make goals and persevere had been necessary for her, as way too often, she’d been the parent. It had gotten her to where she was today: head animal keeper at a small but well-known habitat and at only twenty-eight years of age.

Only once had “necessary” been too high a price. The repercussions from that disaster still kept her awake at night, and it was the biggest reason she’d left her hometown of Gesippi.

She hadn’t gone far.

Zack obviously wasn’t going to say anything else, so Meredith tried once more. “You really think Grandpa needs someone with him all the time? He seemed fine at his birthday party. And he’s made it clear he really doesn’t want me living with him.”

“That party was five months ago.” Zack’s tone changed from worried to resigned. “Plus, he had the whole family doting on him. Even Dad showed up. With the Fourth of July celebration going on, nobody else noticed anything amiss, just me. You didn’t come home two weeks ago for Thanksgiving...”

No, she’d worked instead so that the other employees, the ones with spouses and children, could take the day off.

“All night, Grandpa kept looking over his shoulder as if he was expecting someone. I’m worried he was looking for Grandma. And in the last week, it’s gotten worse.”

Yikes, it was the beginning of December already. Time to decorate for Christmas. Had it really been five months since she’d visited? Bad granddaughter. Bad.

But it was Zack’s nature to fret. As middle child, Zack knew his job description. When they were kids, Meredith had made the rules: bed at nine, lights out at nine-fifteen. Zack had been the nurturer. He’d read Susan her bedtime stories; he checked under beds for monsters. His whole life, he’d expected to find one. He’d have battled it; Meredith would have fed it. Susan would have handed it her doll and ordered, “Play.”

Her parents would have sold it a haunted high-end mansion. The house, of course, would be in foreclosure now.

Zack continued, “Yesterday morning, I stopped by to see how he was doing, and he was clear out past the field. Claimed he was searching for Rowdy. I’m not sure how far he’d have gone if I’d not have showed up.”

Okay, now Meredith understood his worry. Rowdy had been her grandpa’s beloved border collie. Had been being the operative words. Rowdy had died when Meredith was eighteen: a decade ago. He’d died the week after her almost wedding.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I reminded him that Rowdy had gone on to greener pastures and led him back to the house.” Zack was in his second year of community college and determined to be a doctor no matter how long it took. He’d know how to gently break the news of Rowdy’s passing to Grandpa again.

Raymond Stone had never been without animals, both wild and tame. Under his tutelage, she’d learned how to work with the wild ones: how to mend broken wings, sew stitches in a rabbit’s side and bottle-feed a baby white-tailed deer. She had always been drawn to animals that had no one looking out for them. Maybe because back then, at home, no one had been looking out for her, and she very much wanted someone to.

On Grandpa’s farm, she’d also learned to milk cows, groom horses and feed chickens.

This past week, Meredith, as head keeper at a zoo, had been stepped on by an ostrich, kissed by an orangutan and sneezed on by a bear. She loved it, and she had Grandpa to thank for pushing her toward doing what she loved.

“The dog is another thing we have to worry about. Twice now Grandpa’s gotten up in the middle of the night and tripped over Pepper.”

Pepper was a big, old black-and-white dog. He was hard of hearing, like Grandpa, and no longer had the oomph to do much more than follow Grandpa around and sit and wait. Meredith figured the mutt was part golden retriever, part shepherd and possibly a bit standard poodle. Big dog; big heart.

“Grandpa would be miserable without a dog.” Meredith had no idea how she’d manage it, but she’d make sure Grandpa kept this one. Grandpa needed Pepper just as Meredith needed all of her animals. At last count, she’d cared for one hundred and eleven different species. All of which needed her, many of which loved her. But canines were what she did best.

Right now, she didn’t own a dog. Not really. Yoda, her favorite at the zoo, wasn’t really a pet she should keep in the backyard or take to dog parks. Yoda was a high-content wolf dog: half wolf, half German shepherd. He came when he was called and walked on a leash, but he was a little too wild to keep in her tiny apartment. He required space to run and dig and howl.

Plus, Yoda was the property of Bridget’s Animal Adventure, BAA for short. Except that he, like Meredith, didn’t really belong anywhere. At the moment, he was being sequestered in a barn off the property, away from the other two wolves BAA had because of a territorial battle between them that had resulted in a torn ear, twenty-nine stitches and new digs for Yoda.

But she shouldn’t be worrying about Yoda right now. She had her grandpa to think about. Still chatting with her brother, Meredith turned off the main road and drove past a dozen barbed-wire gates that guarded farms full of greasewood, paloverde trees and dirt. It took a good three miles before the tiny town of Gesippi came into view. A minute later, she drove by her parents’ house—the biggest in town—and tried to listen while Zack filled her in on the rest of the family.

By the looks of things at her parents’ house, only her mother was home. No surprise, since Mom rarely left. Her job now was cutting coupons and cleaning the house. Dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Instead of real estate, he now sold medical products at trade shows, traveling four out of every five weeks, often to different states. Today, she knew, he’d driven into Phoenix for a meeting and Zack said he wasn’t answering his cell phone.

Zack had just given her the update on Susan, who apparently was in the throes of young love, when Meredith pulled into the driveway of her grandfather’s house.

“I’m glad Susan’s happy,” Meredith said. “But I’m here now, and you know how Grandpa gets if you talk to a phone instead of him. I’ll call you in a bit.”

While his grandchildren were busy grabbing at life with both hands, Grandpa was hard pressed to find things for his hands to do. The end of his story was nearing, and no one in the family—especially him—was prepared for the conclusion.

Meredith turned off her phone and pocketed it, then took a deep breath and tried to figure out what to do first. Should she act as if this was just another visit? No, that wouldn’t work. She’d never stayed overnight...not in a decade, anyway.

At eighteen, thanks to Grandpa’s insistence and money, she’d traveled an hour away to Tucson and the university there. After earning her degree in zoology—in three years instead of four—she’d secured a job at a major zoo in California. As the new kid on the block, her responsibilities hadn’t been as hands-on as she desired. Plus, she hadn’t liked being so far away from Gesippi and her family. What if she were needed?

So, after just one year, she returned to Arizona and found work at BAA in Scorpion Ridge, only seventy-five miles from her home. Far enough away so she didn’t keep bumping into her past; close enough to be available to help her family if they needed her.

But since returning to Arizona, she’d never spent the night in Gesippi.

Grandpa knew the reason why, and he’d be suspicious when he saw her bag, so it would be better to just jump right in and tell him the family’s concerns, and that she was staying indefinitely. Yes, that’s what she’d do. Hopefully, Zack would show up in time to help.

She studied the place where her early childhood had flourished thanks to horses, tree houses, creeks and Grandma’s cookies. All the Stone children had basically lived here while their parents worked evenings and weekends. But once Meredith hit fifteen, she’d been more interested in the boy next door and spending time in the tree house and creek with him. She’d also learned to make Grandma’s cookies because he liked them.

The way to a man’s heart and all...

Too bad the young man in question had been so intent on leaving Gesippi, getting an education and making a name for himself as a journalist that he’d managed to break her heart.

Ten years later, her grandfather’s horses were now gone and the tree house was in as much disrepair as her heart. The boy next door had moved away, married, had a daughter and indeed was making a name for himself by writing and filming documentaries.

He was now a widower. Not that Meredith cared.

His shy younger brother was moving on, too, and getting married.

Good, she wished him the best after their misguided relationship.

Switching off the ignition, she shook away those memories and opened the door, pausing before stepping from the car. The house had always been painted white. Grandpa saw no need for any other color. But now, it was weathered and looked a bit like a white-and-gray-speckled egg. Not a pretty one, either. The gutters circling the house were loose and in one place a section was missing.

Luckily, it was a small house, so, if necessary, she could probably do the painting herself these next few months. The Rittenhouses, Luke and Katie, her bosses at the animal habitat, had kindly changed her schedule so that she was only working weekends. They’d told her to take all the time she needed to settle things here in Gesippi. If Zack was right, she might have to take a full leave of absence. She’d heal the house even if she couldn’t heal her grandfather.

“I’ve got the time,” she whispered to herself. “I might even enjoy it.”

She gazed beyond the house to the barns and stables, now empty. Beyond, Grandpa’s land, currently farmed by someone else, spread as far as the eye could see. When she was young, she’d thought it spread to the ocean. When she hit fifteen, she knew it bumped against paradise.

A boy named Jimmy Murphy.

Slamming the door to her SUV, she stepped down not onto the walkway that led to the front door but onto grass that grew across the pathway that led to the front door.

One more thing to do: mow.

“Grandpa! Where are you?”

Used to be, he was at the front porch door before a visitor could even exit the car. It had driven the family crazy. He’d invite strangers in and offer them something to drink, talk their ear off about his family, his animals and his God. But as his hearing worsened, he couldn’t hear cars approaching. Today, if the volume of the television was any indication, he hadn’t heard her arrive, either. She’d wanted to surprise him, but maybe she should have called.

“Grandpa, it’s me. Meredith!”

The screen door was unlocked, so she stepped onto the porch. Grandpa’s jacket hung on a hook by the door. A pair of old brown boots waited underneath. Two chairs faced the windows. Newspapers were spread over one—Grandma’s. The other chair was empty, although Grandpa’s reading glasses and a half-empty coffee cup were on a nearby table.

The door to the house was unlocked also. Meredith pushed it open until she could see into the living room with its olive green couch, antique coffee table and large-screen television, which had a morning-news show blaring. Meredith turned off the TV before hollering Grandpa’s name again.

When Grandma was alive, something half crocheted always waited in a basket on the floor and partly read books lay open over the couch’s armrests. After five years, very little remained of Grandma’s presence, and if loneliness had a smell, this was it. Meredith knew it well.

Somewhere in the distance she heard Pepper bark. Maybe Grandpa was in the backyard where he liked to feed the squirrels; Pepper liked to chase them.

Veering off the front walk, she headed through the grass—which was past her ankles and full of weeds—and to the backyard.

As she made her way to the backyard, she saw more signs of neglect but no signs of her grandfather. Meredith fought the out-of-control feeling threatening to make her turn around, tuck her tail between her legs and flee.

In Gesippi, she was a Stone and had been what the kids called an overachiever, voted Girl Most Likely To Get Whatever She Wanted. No one knew that in high school she’d filled her calendar—along with her siblings’ calendars—with so many things just so they wouldn’t have to go home.

And, even more funny, the yearbook with that predication had arrived the day after she’d lost what she wanted most.

Jimmy Murphy.

Twelve months after that, one rash act had made her rethink who she was, where she was going and why. Thanks to her grandfather, she’d sidestepped a huge mistake with Jimmy’s younger brother, Danny, and she’d left Gesippi. In the years since, she’d rarely returned because while many were forgiving, none had forgotten.

It was only on television that leaving a groom standing at the altar made for good entertainment.

CHAPTER TWO

JIMMY MURPHY LEANED against his shovel and watched as the brown SUV sped across the dirt road, skidding slightly while taking the bumps too quickly. Clearly an outsider who cared little about the vehicle’s alignment.

“Ray expecting anyone?” he called to his brother. Danny was on the other side of the truck, messing with a roll of plastic ditch.

Jimmy had been stuck with the digging and was glad for a break.

“Not that I know of.” Danny didn’t even sound winded.

“Any of the Stones get a new car?”

“Not that I know of.”

Jimmy could have asked a few more questions, but obviously Danny wasn’t in the mood to speculate. He was getting married in less than two weeks, the Saturday before Christmas. Although their mother and Holly, his bride-to-be, were doing all the work, Danny was stressed. Thus, all the Murphys were stressed.

They deserved to be. The last time Danny had tried to get married, his bride hadn’t shown up for the wedding.

Meredith Stone, the girl next door. Both Murphy boys had loved her. But it had been Jimmy who had owned her heart, only to walk away from her. Danny had tried to fill the empty space, but failed. In the end, everyone had gotten hurt.

For years, he and his brother had maintained a polite friendship. It wasn’t until Danny had gotten engaged that the laughter returned. Looking in the direction the car had traveled, Jimmy wiped sweat from his brow. It wasn’t easy pulling a shallow ditch, and what he and his brother were about to do was even more strenuous. Jimmy wished for the millionth time that he was back in California, sitting across from his boss, hashing out his next assignment. But his boss had asked him to take some time after Jimmy had gone over budget and still hadn’t delivered a good story on his last two assignments—a story on pandas in China and bears in Alaska

It was probably overdue. After the death of his wife a year ago, he’d been dragging his daughter to faraway places, gathering stories and losing himself.

But really losing six-year-old Briana.

The grief swelled, threatening to take him to his knees. Instead of letting it consume him, Jimmy stomped his steel-toed boot on the shovel’s edge, driving it into hard dirt by a good inch. Then he did it again, and again, and again.

Still he was mad, mad at a world that didn’t include Regina. Asthma wasn’t supposed to kill a twenty-six-year-old mother who took care of herself and carefully monitored her disease. And it certainly wasn’t supposed to kill her as she went into the bathroom to get her inhaler because she was having a little trouble breathing.

In all, her death had taken twenty minutes. It had begun as a persistent cough when she was in bed one night. When it turned into a short, strangled intake of breath, he’d still not been concerned. This had happened before. She’d finally rolled out of bed, her face taking on the blue, pinched look he knew so well. She hated her asthma, hated that it attacked her without provocation. She’d stoically and quietly walked the length of the room—not wanting to wake Briana asleep on the other side of the wall—and gone inside the bathroom. He’d heard the sounds of the medicine cabinet door opening followed by water running and something else...her hand slapping against the counter maybe.