Harlequin Heartwarming May 2017 Box Set by Patricia Forsythe

Author:Patricia Forsythe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488015656
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

LIVING AGAIN FOR Sloane meant taking small steps—making a counseling appointment, enrolling in a driving course, baking a cake without a recipe, finding the crumpled business card from the cookbook acquisitions editor and scheduling a meeting with her—and a few very big ones.

It involved summoning a little bravery and lot of support from Grace to buy an early-morning plane ticket. It meant baking some of Levi’s favorite chocolate bars and asking him to remove all ties to VisibilityNet from her website before calling Aaron’s parents to tell them she was finally taking them up on their offer. More than twelve years later.

After her plane landed she took her parents to breakfast to tell them everything, how she’d essentially existed in isolation except for her City on a Hill kids. How she’d fallen in love and fallen in loss, only to decide she wanted to live again.

And then she asked them to drive her to Aaron’s parents’ house. Somehow, her heart didn’t hammer its way out of her body on the way, even though she felt it was a distinct possibility. Somehow they welcomed her, as if they’d been mourning her absence as much as Aaron’s. After she left, she took a long walk, reveling in the memories they’d shared.

It was unseasonably mild for early winter in Indiana, the sky calm and clear. The road, once flanked by woods and fields, was paved now and lined with a gas station, a church, a shopping center, the heart of the city now stretched all around it. And the tree—their tree—stood like an indignant matriarch, tall and regal with a broad girth despite its scorched trunk.

Children played on equipment that had been built near the tree. Aaron Jacobsen Memorial Park. The sign took her breath away.

She sat on a bench that was situated in almost the exact place where she and Aaron had watched the car burn. Her attention alternated between the playground, full of children enjoying the sun, and rewriting the area in her memory. The town had built a guardrail by the tree and installed a stop sign just before that severe curve in the road. How many lives had those simple constructions saved?

The screams and laughter of the children were punctuated by the sound of a car door, and the prickle of every cell in Sloane’s body told her who it was before she could turn her head.

Cooper. Not an ounce of her was surprised to see him. It was the most natural thing in the world that he had come for her.

Sloane stood when he was close, opening her arms to his warmth and leaning into that place that was hers. “Cooper. How did you find me here?”

“Grace told me.” He eased away from her but kept his hands wrapped around her waist. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I think I would have regretted not following you again the most.”

She kissed him. “I’m so glad you did.” When she rocked back on her heels, the glimmer of tears in his eyes constricted her throat and blurred her own vision.

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