Sweet Reunion Read online

  Sweet

  Reunion

  By

  Melanie Shawn

  Copyright 2012 by Melanie Shawn

  Cover Design by Hot Damn Designs

  Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing 2012

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.

  This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks go out to the following people, whose help has been incredibly valuable in getting this book ready to be released: Diane Roza and Bonnie de Jonge, for their excellent and selflessly given editing and proofreading services, and Kim, Jennifer, and Abigail at The Killion group, for their graphic design and formatting prowess! Thank you, ladies!

  From Melanie

  First and foremost, to my best friend in the world, my writing partner and little sis, Shawna Wesley-Roza! You are the best sister I could ever have hoped to be blessed with. Your strength in the face of any adversity is always inspiring. I LOVE YOU, SISTAH!

  Next, to my awesome parents, John and Bonnie de Jonge. Shawna and I would never have found our calling as Romance authors if we didn't grow up with such an awesome example of what True Love really looks like! Your support, love, and humor have been unwavering all of our lives. Thank you!

  I couldn't leave out my amazing dog, Hercules. Mommy loves you, Hercy-man!

  Lastly, to my niece and nephew. You guys ROCK! You are the most creative, hilarious, smart, and loving kids ever. Game night soon, K? :D

  From Shawna

  First, my sister and writing partner, Melanie de Jonge, thank you for always being there for me. You are such an incredible, talented, funny, intelligent and beautiful person. I am so lucky and blessed to be your sister. My parents John and Bonnie de Jonge, thank you for your unconditional love and support, I don't know what I would do without you two. You are both not only the BEST parents a girl could have you are also the Best Grandparents Ever!

  Thank you to my son Joey and my daughter Mya Papaya, two of the most amazing people on the planet, your faith in me gives me the courage and strength to face anything! You're both my heart and soul. Being your mom is the best thing in the world.

  And lastly thank you to my hero, man-genius, day-brightener, best friend, personal comedian, and husband Tony Roza. No matter what life throws at us we just keep swimming, swimming, swimming! I love you baby!

  Table of Contents

  Dedication and Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  First Chapter of Sweet Harmonies, Coming December 2012

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Amanda Jacobs was truly alone for the first time in her entire life.

  I mean, sure, she had been alone for a few minutes before. A few hours. Maybe as long as a few days, although she’d be hard pressed to remember when. But that was different. This was the first time in her life that she was really and truly completely alone. She had no one in the world. There was no one to take care of her, and - in what was even a more melancholy notion for someone with Amanda’s nurturing spirit - no one for her to take care of.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She did have her black lab, Teddy. Her father had bought Teddy for her on her 16th birthday. It had been like a moment from a movie, her father carrying the exuberant puppy to her in a basket, the bright red silken bow tied around his neck a stark and lovely contrast with his equally silken raven black fur. Amanda had snatched the wriggling bundle up and held him close to her chest as he licked every inch of her laughing face, and they had been inseparable ever since.

  Now it was 11 years later, and his fur was not as silky nor as deep a shade of black. In fact, it was downright gray around the muzzle. The youthful exuberance he had exhibited on that day of their introduction had also faded through the years, much like the hue of his coat. Now his favorite activity was not to wriggle jubilantly in her arms but rather to sleep contentedly by her feet.

  Amanda bent over and stroked Teddy’s head. “Who would have imagined on the day Daddy gave you to me,” she ruminated aloud to the pooch, “that you would actually outlive him?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. Her father, the indomitable Parker Jacobs, was really dead. It was still so hard to wrap her mind around it. After all, it had only been a little under a week since it had happened. But to Amanda’s grief-stricken consciousness, it didn’t seem possible that the amount of time that had elapsed could possibly be a factor in how surreal the fact of her father’s passing felt. She didn’t believe it would feel any different 6 years after the fact than it felt 6 days after.

  Her father had been a larger than life figure. His booming voice filled a room, heck, to Amanda it seemed that it filled the whole forest! He had been the owner and operator of their family business, Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures, in Mountain Ridge County, California. He was the mayor of their small town, Hope Falls.

  Parker Jacobs had loved the quaint mountain village of 5,000 that he had called home for his entire life, and had passed that love along to Amanda. Hope Falls was an idyllic place, lush with deep green pine trees and dotted with colorful aspens in shades of brilliant yellow and shocking red. The heart of the town was Downtown Main Street, a five block stretch of small storefront businesses, lined on each side with wooden, almost porch-like sidewalks.

  Downtown Main Street was where many of Amanda's favorite places were. Sue Ann's Cafe was there, which was the main eatery in town. The proprietress, Sue Ann Perkins, was a close friend of the family, and Amanda had actually waitressed there for a couple of summers when she was home from college.

  Then there was Read Between the Lines, the used bookstore where she had spent many long afternoons perusing the books, and simply enjoying the smell of the pages and the feel of the paper underneath her fingers.

  There was the Hope Falls Twin Cinemas, the tiny two-theater movie house which was Hope Falls' only real entertainment venue. The proprietors had, in a very savvy move, begun showing independent films on weekends to lure up the artsy crowd from Lake Tahoe. They showed the big blockbusters during the week, to attract the local clientele, and on weekends they devoted one of the two theaters to showing art house movies that were making a big splash in metro areas, and that small film buffs from Lake Tahoe would have otherwise had to drive all the way to San Francisco to see. They then advertised in the Tahoe Daily Tribune to lure the artsy citizens further into the wilderness. This, of course, was also great for Sue Ann's and other specialty food places, such as Two Scoops, the ice cream shop.
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  In the several blocks surrounding Downtown Main Street in all directions were all the buildings that made the town function – City Hall and the municipal complex, the library, schools, churches, parks, the community center. Spreading out past the main part of the town were neighborhoods filled with homes that contained the true heart of Hope Falls – its people.

  They had been the real reason that Parker had been so passionate about leading the town as its mayor – and more than just the mayor, really – he was the city’s unofficial adviser, known throughout town for his wisdom and compassion. His nickname was the King Solomon of Hope Falls.

  There had been countless nights throughout Amanda’s childhood that she had awoken to the low, comforting rumblings of his voice, and tiptoed to the top of the stairs to see him talking in his even, reasonable manner to a crying mother with toddler in tow or a pale, drawn rancher sitting at their kitchen table with his hat in his lap. The stress of whatever situation had brought them to the Jacobs home in the wee hours of the morning would always be evident on their face, but what would always be equally evident was another common thread among anyone who sought counsel from Parker Jacobs - relief. Safety. Clarity. All of those things would come to you in spades as Parker clearly and compassionately outlined the next steps that needed to be taken.

  And Amanda got it, she understood 100%. Just because she was Parker’s daughter didn’t mean that she didn’t go to him with her problems, that she didn’t benefit from his keen insights. In fact, she doubted that she had ever made a big life decision that didn’t follow the path that Parker had recommended. Why would she? He was the wisest man she knew.

  He was the wisest man anyone in Hope Falls knew. His shoes could never be filled. His responsibilities, though? Those had to be filled. There was no choice.

  Someone had to run Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures. And, since it was a family business and she was the only surviving family member, that responsibility would fall to her. There were so many activities going on at the resort on any given day. There was hiking, horseback riding, ziplining, white water rafting and kayaking...the list went on. And that was only the activities they offered during the summer season, which (Thank Almighty Lord!) was drawing to a close, this being the end of September. She would have almost six weeks to get her ducks in a row before they opened again for the winter season. She had to come up with a plan, and to familiarize herself with the day to day responsibilities of running the place. She needed to meet with each of the staff members, and establish herself as the new authority figure, as many of them still just thought of her as “little Amanda.” Parker's shoes were, indeed, going to be big ones to fill.

  Adding to her dilemma with the staff was the fact that Parker had actually died on the property, while working. He had been high on a ladder, doing some routine repairs. Nothing he hadn't done a million times before. But this particular time, in what was nothing more than a cruel twist of fate embodied in a fluke accident, his foot had landed wrong on one of the high rungs as he was climbing down, his ankle had gotten twisted up in the ladder as he fell, and his life had ended when he hit the ground.

  Now a lot of the staff were traumatized, not only from losing Parker, but by the fact that it had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly, and in a place that was so familiar and comfortable to them. Amanda needed to figure out a way to gain their confidence as a leader, and to re-instill in them the sense of loyalty, home, and community that had always been the best fringe benefit of working at Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures.

  Mentally going through the checklist of things that needed to be taken care of, Amanda noted that tomorrow was the reading of her father’s will. She shuddered. Aside from the funeral service, was there anything that made a death more final than the reading of a person’s will? At least she would have Geoffrey there by her side.

  Yes, she chided herself; she still had Geoffrey, her boyfriend of two years. She had been going on and on to herself about how alone she was in the world, but she still had Geoffrey. She wondered briefly why he hadn’t immediately sprung to her mind when thinking about the people she still had in her life, to take care of her, and for her to take care of.

  She supposed it might be because he wasn’t what you would call soft and cuddly. He wasn’t emotive. He was reserved, and patrician, and every bit as taciturn as his polished Upper East Side appearance would lead one to believe that he was.

  She conjured a mental image of him – tall, lean, and with a golden, healthy tan. His features were even and handsome, like the quintessential East Coast rich boy's should be. His blonde hair fell perfectly in place, as if he were able to keep as tight a reign on each individual hair as he did on his bearing and emotions. Gazing out from beneath that perfectly coiffed hair were a pair of cool brown eyes, which for all their objective physical perfection, sometimes unnerved Amanda because she couldn't quite get a read on what was going on behind them.

  Amanda passed the hallway mirror and caught a glimpse of herself in it. It occurred to her that her image contrasted in almost every way with Geoffrey's, she had never thought of it in quite that way before. Where he stood an impressive six feet tall, she rose to only five feet and two inches. Where Geoffrey's sandy hair was impeccably tame, hers was a mass of golden waves, which she had neither the time nor the patience to wrangle. Most days, it was hastily whipped up in a slapdash ponytail, from which locks were constantly trying to escape.

  While Geoffrey's skin had a sunkissed glow to it, one that seemed to hint at a recent sailing trip or round of afternoon golf, Amanda's skin was porcelain doll fair, with rosy pink cheeks and naturally red, full lips contrasting with her creamy skin.

  And, lastly, the biggest difference – their eyes. While Geoffrey's brown eyes were cool and assessing, Amanda's sapphire blue eyes were constantly sparking with fiery emotion, or burning with bubbling joy, or freezing in icy despair. In short, any emotion that Amanda felt, no matter how fleeting, was always on immediate display in her expressive, bright blue eyes.

  Geoffrey didn’t live in Hope Falls, in fact, he didn’t even like it in Hope Falls. Amanda saw him once or twice a month when he flew into Lake Tahoe, which was a 45 minute winding, pine tree lined drive away. Of course, she always made the trip into the city to see him. It was actually a somewhat odd experience for her to see him here in Hope Falls, where he had been spending quite a bit of time since her father’s death, to help her get his affairs in order. Of course, he still wouldn’t deign to stay in Hope Falls, but at least he’d been making the drive up to see her.

  It seemed odd to Amanda that her father’s affairs were all he ever mentioned helping her with. He never asked her how she was doing, or if she wanted or needed to talk. She supposed that was simply his reserved, unemotional way. But, damn, she could use someone to talk to!

  Maybe she had been spoiled by her father, and his constant concern for her. There was nothing so important that Parker Jacobs wouldn’t drop it at a moment’s notice if he saw his only daughter crying. She had depended on her father all her life, but it had really solidified after they had lost Amanda's mother to cancer when Amanda was 8, and Parker had become all she had, the only stable figure she had in her life. When she cried, she had no one else to turn to, but she hadn't needed anyone.

  He would fold her up in his arms and utter the phrase that had been effective when she was 2, and had remained so well into her 20s. “Tell me about it, baby,” he’d say. And she would. There was nothing she could keep from her father.

  Geoffrey, on the other hand? He seemed singularly unmoved by her tears. “Amanda,” he had said stiffly on more than one occasion this week when she’d lost control and broken down, “I realize this is a difficult time but you really must make some sort of an effort to keep yourself together.”

  Yes, that was it. Maybe she’d been spoiled. Maybe other men just weren’t like her father, as caring, as pure-hearted, and as concerned for her. After all, she’d never met another man like him. No other man sh
e’d ever met had made her feel as safe, as loved, as thoroughly understood as her Dad. Except, of course...NO! Amanda stopped herself; best not to think of him now. There was enough on her plate without adding him into the mix. Not to mention, she’d been a teenager then. Puppy love! Infatuation! Not real.

  This was real, Geoffrey was real, and grown up love was not like fairy tales. Prince Charming was not going to swoop in and wrap her in his arms and say, “Tell me about it, baby.” No. He was, apparently, going to look her up and down with a vaguely disdainful expression on his face and tell her to pull herself together. But that was fine. Maybe that’s what she really needed right now, a swift kick in the rear.

  Still, she couldn’t help but be wistful when thinking of her teenage years. They’d been so sweet. She had her Dad. She had her three best friends - Lauren, Karina, and Samantha - and they’d spent every waking moment either together or talking on the phone. The Fabulous Four, Nothing We Can’t Accomplish! That was their motto. Of course, looking back now through adult eyes, she recognized it as typical teenage hubris - but when they’d pumped their fists in the air and yelled it together:

  “THE FABULOUS FOUR, NOTHING WE CAN’T ACCOMPLISH!”

  And then collapsed in giggles and hugs...well, dammit, it had felt true! If she was honest, just remembering it now was enough to make it almost feel true again.

  And, of course, yes. In her teenage years, there was...her thoughts trailed off into silence.

  Amanda sighed. She couldn’t even bear to think his name? That was silly. She needed to say it, to take away its power. His power.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Justin,” she said aloud. “There was Justin.”

  Chapter 2

  Just then, a loud knock startled Amanda out of her reverie. As she moved toward the front door, Teddy meandering along at her heels, she heard laughter. Not just any laughter, though. Three very distinct laughs intermingled with one another, and they were three laughs she hadn’t heard in over a decade. It couldn’t be. Could it?