Sugarplum Homecoming

A New Mommy For Christmas

Widower Davis Turner doesn’t need to hear his children’s whispered wishes for a new mom to recognize that new neighbor Lana Ross is a beautiful woman. But he worries that his feelings for the former bad girl could put his family at risk for small-town scandal. Lana knows she should steer clear of Davis. Yet she can’t resist spending time with the handsome single dad, even if the truth might soon tear them apart. Though Lana has turned over a new leaf, her secrets have followed her to Whisper Falls. Secrets that could destroy her hope for a future with Davis.

Whisper Falls: Where every prayer is answered…

“It’s kind of interesting to look at who we were then and where we are now. Life has a way of changing us.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” She’d gone pensive on him, gaze somewhere in the distance.

“Aw, come on. You weren’t so bad.”

“You always were the nicest guy. With an apparently faulty memory.” She motioned toward the paper in his hand. “So what do you think? Any ideas for me?”

She was shutting off the conversation, unwilling to talk about herself anymore, but for a moment he’d glimpsed the young girl she used to be. He’d seen some things in her expression that surprised him. Hurt. Regret. Sadness.

Troubled, he turned his attention to the list, though he was more aware of Lana Ross than he wanted to be.

He swallowed, bothered to be thinking about her, not as a neighbor in need as he’d told his sister, but as a beautiful, interesting woman an arm’s length away.

LINDA GOODNIGHT

Winner of a RITA® Award for excellence in inspirational fiction, Linda Goodnight has also won a Booksellers’ Best Award, an ACFW Book of the Year award and a Reviewers’ Choice Award from RT Book Reviews. Linda has appeared on the Christian bestseller list and her romance novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Active in orphan ministry, this former nurse and teacher enjoys writing fiction that carries a message of hope and light in a sometimes dark world. She and her husband live in Oklahoma. Visit her website at www.lindagoodnight.com. To browse a current listing of Linda Goodnight’s titles, please visit www.millsandboon.co.uk.

Sugarplum Homecoming

Linda Goodnight

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

—John 8:7

The Whisper Falls series is dedicated in memory

of my brother, Stan Case. I miss you, bro.

Contents

Prologue

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

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

Prologue

“Come on, Nathan,” nine-year-old Paige whispered with urgency. “Hurry before Daddy wakes up.”

Nathan cast a worried eye toward his father sprawled on a blanket beneath a tree, hands behind his head. The remnants of an early autumn picnic were strewn about the quiet glade deep in the Ozark Mountains. “We’re going to get in trouble.”

Paige fisted a hand on one slight hip. “Do you want a mom or not?”

Nathan’s gray gaze went from his dad to the twenty-foot-high waterfall only yards away. “Well, yeah, but Whisper Falls is kind of big and scary.”

Impatiently, Paige tugged on her little brother’s arm. He could be such a baby sometimes. “You can do it, brother. God will help you.”

Paige knew her brother well. Give him a challenge, tell him God was in it, and he would give everything he had. Which wasn’t much considering how little he was.

As she expected, Nathan thrust out his dinosaur T-shirt and trotted toward the waterfall. The noise from the water tumbling over the mountainside was really loud but not that scary to Paige. Daddy had brought them here before. They loved Whisper Falls. They loved wading in the pool below, beyond the foam and current, where even now three teenagers splashed and yelled.

But fun wasn’t Paige’s mission today. She’d thought up the picnic as an excuse to get here, to do the one thing she was certain would bring her their heart’s desire. To pray. Everybody said it was true. The story was in the brochures all over town. Anyone brave enough to reach the secret place behind the falls would get their prayer answered. And Paige had decided the time was now.

With her pointed chin as determined as her brother’s, Paige jogged toward Whisper Falls. Nathan tagged along, a little reluctant but willing. Like her, he was ready to do anything to get a mom.

They reached the slippery gray rock face and started the climb. Natural cleaves in the mountainside offered a foothold but over the years so many people had made the climb that the path was well worn. If they clung tight, like the slugs Joel Snider brought to fourth grade for show-and-tell, they’d make it all the way up to God’s special place.

“Why do we have to pray up here?” Nathan asked, his face wrinkled with worry as he crept along in front of her, small hands gripping the rocks. If Daddy caught them, they’d have to do more than pray to get out of trouble.

Paige grunted as she took another handhold and waited for her brother to inch forward. The waterfall grew louder by the second, so she raised her voice. “I told you already. We’re on a mission. Like in the movies when that guy had to bring back the ring to save the world. We have to prove ourselves worthy of a new mom.”

“Oh.”

She hoped that satisfied him for now because she was getting out of breath trying to talk and climb. Climbing was harder than she’d imagined. Harder than the sixth graders said. Maybe none of them had really climbed the falls at all.

“We’re almost there,” she huffed.

Paige glanced down and wished she hadn’t. Daddy looked tiny, like a Ken doll, and the pool looked huge and bubbly. Spray dampened her skin. The smells of trees and leaves and water swirled like the pool below. One of the teenagers saw her and pointed.

Please, please, don’t let him tell.

She gave a casual nod, hoping the teen believed she wasn’t nearly as scared as she was. When she turned back toward the climb, Nathan was gone!

Panic seized her. Her hands were cold and wet, but she climbed faster, praying that the stories were true, that a secret room existed behind the waterfall, that Nathan hadn’t fallen to his death.

She stretched her leg as far as her muscles would go, felt a foothold with the toe of her tennis shoe and lunged...and found herself standing on a wide ledge behind a terrifying rush of water. There was Nathan grinning at her.

“This is way cool.”

Paige heaved a shaky sigh. “Let’s pray and get out of here fast.”

“I like it up here.” He stuck his fingers into the violent spray of water whooshing in front of them.

Paige grabbed his hand and pushed him back. She had to get him out of here before he did something childish. Like fall off the mountain. “Never mind about that. Close your eyes and think about Jesus and a new mom.”

“But—”

“Do it, Nathan. Dad might wake up any minute.”

This was enough to get his attention. He nodded and clasped his hands beneath his chin. “Okay. Do we want a mom with blond hair or brown hair?”

“Silly, I don’t care about that kind of stuff. I want a mom who reads to us and tucks us in and bakes cupcakes for school parties.”

“Daddy does that. Well, except for the cupcakes. He gets those at the bakery.”

“That’s not the point. We need a mom. Dad can’t even fix my hair.” She slapped at the side of her super short cut, the only kind of hairstyle Daddy could manage. She was nearly ten, for goodness’ sake. Most of all she longed for a mother to love. Sometimes her heart hurt so bad at night when she prayed that she thought it might burst right out of her chest.

“I want a mom with brown hair,” Nathan said stubbornly. “Our other mom had brown hair.”

Paige smothered a sigh. She loved her brother a great big lot but sometimes he didn’t understand what was really important. Not the way she did. “Then pray for a mom with brown hair. I don’t care. Just pray.”

With all the reverence she’d been taught in Sunday school and children’s church since the day she was born, Paige folded her hands beneath her chin.

“Dear God, we need a mom. Daddy needs a wife. He’s been sad long enough and Aunt Jenny says it’s time for him to move on. Please send us a mother. Before Christmas would be nice.”

“With brown hair.”

Paige opened one eye. Nathan didn’t even remember their mother. He’d only seen pictures. Like the one at Daddy’s bedside. A piece of her heart felt really sad for him about that. “Yes, God, if it’s not too much to ask, send a great mom with brown hair. And make her pretty so Daddy will like her, too. Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Now, let’s get out of here before Daddy wakes up.”

“How do we get down?”

Oh, boy, she’d not considered that part.

“Nathan! Paige! Where are you?” Daddy’s voice came as a faint but worried echo through the silver curtain of water.

Nathan turned accusing eyes on his sister. “We are in so much trouble.”

Chapter One

Bad pennies always return. But what about bad people?

Lana Ross stepped up on the wooden porch of the weathered old two-story house. Her heart hammered painfully against her ribs. She’d not wanted to come to this place of bad memories. She’d had to.

A stern inner voice, the voice of hard-won peace, moved her forward, toward the door, toward the interior. A house couldn’t hurt her. If she’d been alone perhaps she would have given in to the shaky knees and returned to the car. But she wasn’t alone.

Lana aimed a wink at the child at her side. Sydney was her everything now and no memories were allowed to keep this nine-year-old darling from having her very first permanent home.

“Is this where you lived when you were my age?” Sydney asked, her vivid turquoise eyes alive with interest.

“Uh-huh, Tess and I grew up here.” Grew up. Yanked up. Kicked out.

A tangle of a vanilla-scented vine, overgrown and climbing upon the porch and around the paint-peeled pillar at one end, gave off a powerfully sweet smell. She didn’t remember the bush being there before, especially this late in the fall. But then, she’d not seen this place in thirteen years. Not since she was eighteen and free to leave without looking over her shoulder for the long arm of the law.

With the sour taste of yesterday in her throat, Lana inserted the tarnished key into the front door, an old-time lock a person could peer through, and after a few tries felt the tumbler click. Breath held, she pushed the door open on its creaky hinges, but didn’t step inside. Not yet. She needed a minute to be certain the house was empty, though she had the death certificate in her bag. Mama was dead. Had been for a couple of years. As far as she knew her entire family was dead. All except Lana and Tess and precious Sydney.

She couldn’t make herself go inside. Everything was still and quiet in the dim living room, but inside her head Lana heard the yells, the fights, the horrible names she’d believed and mostly earned.

She and her twin sister, Tess, were no more and no less than what their mother had made them. Now, all these years later, Lana was determined to be more for Sydney’s sake.

“We’ll be happy here,” Sydney declared with childlike confidence.

“Yes, we will.” If I have to fight the universe, you will have what you need and you will never, ever again live on the streets or inside a broken-down car.

“Can we go in now? I want to see my room. You said I could have my own room, remember? And we’d fix it up fit for a princess? Remember?”

“I remember.” The child’s enthusiasm stirred Lana to action. Sydney had never had a room of her own. She’d never had a house. They’d lived here and there, in tiny one-room apartments and cheap hotels, all in pursuit of Lana’s impossible dream. Most important of all, Sydney would be safe here. No one would ever expect Lana to return to the one place she’d tried so hard to escape. Especially Sydney’s mother.

“Who’s that?” Sydney asked from her spot half in and half out of what had once been the front parlor.

Across the street a man and two children stood in a neatly mowed yard watching them. Lana’s stomach dropped into her resoled cowboy boots. It couldn’t be. Surely not.

The thought had no more than crossed her mind than the sandy-brown haired man with the all-American good looks lifted a hand to wave and then started toward them. Two young children, close to Sydney’s age, skipped along as if on an adventure.

Lana froze, one hand on the doorknob and the other gripping Sydney’s as if Davis Turner would snatch her up and carry her away.

“Hello,” he said when he reached the end of the cracked sidewalk leading to the two-story.

Yep. He was Davis Turner all right. Mr. Clean-cut and Righteous. He’d been a year ahead of her in school. No one in Whisper Falls had a smile as wide, as easy and as bright as Davis.

Please God, don’t let him recognize me.

“Hi,” she said, not bothering to smile.

“You moving into the old Ross place?” Davis slipped his hands into the back pocket of his jeans, relaxed and easy in his skin. The man was much like the boy she remembered.

“We are.”

“Great.” He flashed that smile again. White straight teeth, easy, flexible skin that had weathered nicely, leaving happy spokes around grayish-blue eyes and along his cheeks. “The house has been empty a long time. Houses need people to keep them young and healthy.”

What an interesting thing to say. This house had never been healthy because of the people in it. “I suppose.”

“We live across the street in the beige brick with the black shutters. I’m Davis Turner and these are my munchkins, Paige and Nathan.”

Lana released a tiny inner sigh of relief. Davis didn’t recognize her, though sooner or later he’d discover he lived too close to the town bad girl. Would the people of Whisper Falls still remember? Did she dare hope that time had erased her teenage indiscretions from inquiring minds?

Not a chance.

“I’m ten. Well, almost,” the young girl at Davis’s side announced. “Nathan’s barely eight. I’m the oldest. What’s your name?”

“This is Sydney,” Lana said, purposely providing Sydney’s name instead of hers. She couldn’t avoid the introduction forever, but she wanted to buy some time before Davis’s bright smile withered and he turned on his heels, dragging his children in a rush to lock his doors and keep them away. “She’s also nine, just barely.”

Sydney hung back, aqua eyes cautious. She was too shy, too hesitant with others, something Lana hoped would disappear once they were settled. Her niece needed friends badly and Lana prayed her prior reputation in this close-knit mountain community wouldn’t interfere with Sydney’s happiness.

“Say hello, Sydney.”

Sydney ducked her head, displaying the precise part in her super curly brown hair. “Hello.”

“Are you gonna live here?” the little boy, Nathan asked.

“We are.”

“Just the two of you?” With the same blue-gray eyes, brown hair and square jaw of his father, Nathan was handsome. Unlike his father, he sported a dimple in one cheek.

“That’s the plan,” Lana answered.

“Are you married?”

Paige elbowed her brother. “Shh.”

“But Paige, we have to know,” Nathan protested. “She has brown hair!”

The adults exchanged glances and smiled. Davis appeared as clueless about the comment as Lana. What did her hair color have to do with anything, especially marriage?

Paige, an elfin beauty, simple and pure with pale brown freckles and ultrashort blond hair, attempted to explain. “What he means, ma’am, is that we’re glad to meet you and we’d like to get better acquainted. Isn’t that right, Daddy?”

Davis turned his twinkly smile on Lana again, clearly amused by his children. “Always glad to welcome new neighbors. I didn’t get your name.”

The jig was up. She’d prayed to get settled before her tainted past charged in with all guns blazing. Apparently, God, Who’d brought her this far, expected her to face her fears head-on.

It was now or never. Either Davis remembered or he didn’t. Time to find out.

Chin up, eyes meeting his, she said, “I’m Lana Ross. You and I attended high school together.”

* * *

Davis blinked rapidly, off balance. This was Lana Ross? The wild child from high school? The girl with the bad attitude and potty mouth who was rumored to do about anything with anyone?

“I thought you looked familiar.” But different, too. The hard-eyed teenager who’d run off to seek fame and fortune in Nashville looked softer as an adult. Lana had always been pretty, but the softer look made her beautiful. Long, brown hair waving past her shoulders, dark mink eyebrows above clear eyes the color of the Tuscan blue tile he’d installed in a recent boutique remodel, cowboy boots over skinny jeans and an off-shoulder blouse on a petite form.

Pretty. Real pretty.

Davis was disturbed to feel a pull of interest.

Considering the welfare of his children, he wasn’t even sure he wanted Lana Ross for a neighbor. He certainly didn’t want to be attracted to her.

His conscience dinged, a sign the Lord was knocking on his door. Let you without sin cast the first stone.

Right. He agreed. He was no better than anyone else. But what about his kids? He was a firm believer in the old adage, “If you run with the wolves, you’ll begin to howl.” As a single father, he struggled to find exactly the right parenting balance, but he certainly didn’t intend to have howling children.

“Daddy.” Nathan tugged at his sleeve. “Can we go inside? Can we explore the haunted house?”

Lana arched an eyebrow at him. A little embarrassed, Davis said, “Sorry about that. You know how kids are. The house has been empty such a long time....”

“And it is spooky looking, Daddy,” Paige said, eyes widening. “I looked in the windows before and didn’t see no headless horsemen or creepy monsters, but Jaley says they only come out at night.”

Jaley was Paige’s best friend, a child with a vividly overactive imagination. He could, however, understand why the house had gained a reputation. Peeling paint, sagging doors and filthy dormer windows that looked out like empty eyes through faded black shutters were creepy enough, but the overgrown bushes and vines and the sheer loneliness lent an air of doom to the place. More than one shaky teenager had been caught climbing in through a window on a dare.

But Paige’s comments had scared Lana’s little girl. Small like Lana with kinky curly beige hair, Sydney had stiffened, growing paler with each spooky word. She clung to Lana as if she was now afraid to go inside the house.

Davis put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder and squeezed, the signal he used in church to get her to stop talking. Paige hushed, shoulders slouching as her bottom lip protruded. She’d gotten the message.

“The house is not haunted,” he said firmly. “I told you that. Houses get lonely. All this one needs is a family.” And an enormous amount of work.

“Now it has one,” Lana declared, relief in her husky voice, though she tugged Sydney closer to her jean-clad thigh and soothed the child with a pat on the back.

“She’ll need some fixing up,” Davis said. “You know how some teenagers are when they know a house sets empty.”

He’d caught a few of them himself, usually on nights with a full moon or late in autumn just before Halloween when wind and dry, rustling leaves permeated the atmosphere.

Lana blanched, eyes widening as she swiveled her head toward the peeling paint and loose siding and then back to him. “The house has been vandalized?”

Hadn’t the woman considered the possibility?

“I haven’t been inside in a couple of years, since before your mother passed, but things had run down even then.” He didn’t say the obvious. Patricia Ross had two daughters and neither had come home to help their ailing mother. He couldn’t imagine being that coldhearted against your own kin. But then, Lana and Tess Ross hadn’t been the usual girls. Patricia’s brother had come from Nevada to bury her.

“Vandals,” Lana murmured, looking as if the weight of the house was on her shoulders. “Wonder what that will cost to repair?”

Regardless of his doubts about her, Davis’s natural compassion kicked in. He could help her out. He had the expertise. He was her neighbor. He fought the urge, but kindness won out in the end. Might as well give in to it now and save wrestling with his conscience later.

“I could take a look around the place if you want and give you a rough estimate.” That was all he planned. Just a quick walk-through.

“You do that sort of thing?”

The warm autumn wind lifted a lock of her hair and swirled it around until she had a spiderweb of brown matted on top of her head. She brushed at the nest, making it worse. He found the look charming and vulnerable. Davis was a sucker for vulnerable.

Tough-as-nails Lana Ross, vulnerable?

“I can,” he said. “Mostly, I lay tile but I’ve flipped a house or two. I can do a little of everything when the situation calls for it.” His face relaxed in a self-mocking grin. “In tile work, especially around here, the situation almost always calls for it. If I redo a shower, the floor beneath is inevitably rotten. Tile a floor? Bad joists.”

For the first time since his arrival, Lana’s pretty mouth curved. Just a little. “A true renaissance man?”

“Nowhere near that interesting, but I do know my way around a construction site.”

Renaissance man. Huh. Funny. Except when he had a trowel or a hammer in hand, he was as boring as vanilla pudding. Didn’t his sister remind him of that fact at least once a month? Jenny was forever trying to get him out into the world again. The dating world.

“Thanks for the offer, Davis,” Lana was saying, “but I guess we need to get settled in first and then figure out where to go from there.”

“Got it. Good plan.” She was blowing him off, rejecting his offer. Even though disappointment made his smile droop, Davis knew he should be glad about her refusal. He’d have no obligation now, no guilty conscience for not being neighborly to a woman and her daughter living alone.

Which brought him to another subject: Where was Sydney’s father?

As soon as the question settled in like good grouting mud, another followed. She’d never addressed Nathan’s oddball question about being married, and she and Sydney were moving in without any sign of a man. Recalling Lana’s teenage years, Davis thought the chances were very good the two were alone.

Chapter Two

“He was nice,” Sydney said.

Lana absently stroked a hand over Sydney’s frizzy hair as they stood on the top porch step—the only porch step—and watched Davis Turner and his kids recross the quiet residential street. A vanilla breeze danced around their feet, tossing leaves and dirt over their shoes and into a growing pile against the siding.

Davis was nice, but she’d seen the shock in his eyes and felt the temperature drop when she’d told him her name. He remembered.