Love Under Review

by Britney M. Mills

  Love Under Review

  Britney M. Mills

  Crystal Canyon Press

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Also by Britney M. Mills

  Copyright © 2020 by Britney M Mills

  Cover design by Bree Livingston

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Chapter 1

  Liam Pearson watched the sunrise from the front porch, breathing in the fall morning air. After a long day at the hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado, the day before, it was nice to sit on something other than hard waiting room chairs, especially after trying to keep Cari occupied as her mother went in for surgery.

  He’d had to fight his six-year-old niece to get in the car to go home late that night. An image of her defiance played in his mind, and he smiled, realizing she was the spitting image of her mother when she did that. Cari had been lying on the hospital bed next to her mother, playing a game on his tablet. He understood somewhat the fear the young girl harbored. She’d gone through so much in her young life, and the hospital was a place of unknowns. Would her mother come back home alive after her treatments? Because her father hadn’t after his car accident.

  At this hour, he should be waking her up to get ready for school, but he needed the silence, the quiet reflection this moment gave him. He’d never had moments like these in New York, and he wondered how he’d made it five years there without slowing down even a bit.

  Every day over the past six months, his decision to leave investment banking and move in with his sister and niece in Sage Creek, Colorado, proved to be a good move, and better health was only the tip of the iceberg. Had someone told him he’d now own an independent bookstore, he’d have thought they’d lost a few brain cells.

  Most of the stress he felt now was in regard to his sister’s health. She’d been diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma the month before, after several months of fatigue, nausea, and weight loss. As stubborn as Kara Plumfield was, it had taken her fainting and blacking out on two separate occasions to convince her she needed to get checked out. But Liam hadn’t imagined the whirlwind that would come of it.

  They’d had to wait for the specialist to come over from Denver. The surgery from the day before had been to remove the tumor in her stomach, a procedure with several risks. But Kara had never wavered, knowing she had to do whatever she could to prolong time with her daughter.

  On the doctor’s recommendation, Kara had chosen to do a session of radiation before they sewed her back up. Liam just hoped it would get all of the cancerous cells and help his sister get back to her normal vivacious personality. She still gave off as much enthusiasm as she could from her hospital bed, but that spark of excitement seemed to wane each time she saw the doctor.

  The door opened, and Cari walked out, her hair sticking out in every direction. She rubbed her eyes beneath her glasses and climbed into his lap, snuggling her head against his chest. For the moment, all was right with the world, and he could have stayed like that for days. He’d checked his phone several times in the half-hour since he’d been awake, knowing this morning’s updates would bring critical information about his sister’s health.

  “How’d you sleep?” he whispered into Cari’s ear.

  “Okay. I had one bad dream that woke me up. But I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.”

  Liam smiled, kissing the top of her head. He could only imagine what she would dream about. Most likely hospitals and needles as she’d seen the nurses poke and prod her mother for blood samples over the past few weeks.

  “How about pancakes for breakfast? I’ll get making them while you get ready for school. How does that sound?” He leaned back and smiled as her head popped up, eyes wide.

  “Can we call my mom?” Her eyelashes fluttered, and as much as Liam wanted to call his sister, he knew she still needed the rest.

  He shook his head. “Your mommy’s probably really tired still from the surgery yesterday. When I hear back from the hospital, we’ll know we can call her. Maybe after school. Is that okay?” He watched as the sadness on her face disappeared with his proposal.

  “Can I wear my purple dress?” Cari asked, bouncing up and down on his knee.

  Liam turned his lips to the side and tapped his cheek with one finger, watching as she waited in suspense. “It looks like it will be a nice day. I think your purple dress would be fine.”

  She slid off his lap and danced on her toes in celebration before running inside. Her footsteps pounded up the stairs, the sound echoing through the hallway and out the front door.

  Liam looked out at the line of trees over the tops of the houses across the street and smiled. She definitely got her zest for life from her mother.

  Walking in, Liam pulled out the bag of pancake mix and measured it out, not needing to look at the directions anymore after the many times he’d made them over the past few months. He looked around the kitchen, seeing his sister’s touch everywhere. Her favorite color was plum, and some of the appliances she owned were either completely that color or they had some part in that shade.

  A minute or two later, Cari ran down the stairs and took up her usual seat at the table. Liam studied her face as she stared at the griddle, her eyes wide with excitement. He’d never met anyone who loved pancakes more than his niece.

  He tried to hide a smile as his eyes traveled to her hair. It looked as though she’d tried to put it into a ponytail, but with the large bumps on top and several sections sticking out on the sides, she looked like she’d been in a tussle rather than just waking up.

  “Here are a few hot off the griddle,” he said with a smile, piling two pancakes on a paper plate. He poured syrup over the top of it and gave her a fork. “When you’re done, we’ll have to do something with your hair.”

  Cari turned to him with a scowl. “I already did it.”

  “I just want to fix one little part,” Liam said, making a small space in between his forefinger and thumb.

  Cari liked being independent, especially with her clothes and hair. Liam wasn’t all that good at the fancy hair Kara could create with a few elastic bands, but he’d learned fast how to braid and use bows to his advantage.

  “Fine. But we get to go to the park after school today if I let you.” She held out her fork, using it to emphasize each word. Her negotiation skills were something to admire.

  Liam chuckled, the serious face of his niece reminding him so much of Kara when they were younger. She was three years older than him and should have the world ahead of her. He just hoped the results of the surgery would be favorable and they could get back to their lives.

  Twenty minutes later, they were out the door and walking the few blocks to Sage Creek elementary school.

  “Don’t forget. We’re goin
g to the park after school,” Cari said, her lips pursed and her chin raised.

  “If it doesn’t rain, we will.”

  She folded her arms against her chest. “You said we could go to the park. I think we should go even in the rain.”

  Raising both hands in surrender, Liam chuckled. “We’ll see what we can do.”

  Cari hesitated, and Liam could tell the wheels were turning from his statement. “If we don’t go to the park, then you owe me a big bowl of ice cream.”

  “Deal.” Liam pulled her into a hug, but she tore away and waved, disappearing into the crowd of children playing on the playground. Liam smiled, remembering when he’d do that with his own mother.

  His thoughts turned to his mother as he walked back to the bookstore on Main Street. It was just south of the coffee shop, probably the best spot they could have hoped for as people would grab their beverage and walk over, looking for their latest read. It had been their mother’s dream to own one, as she loved reading or anything that had to do with books. In his mind’s eye, Liam could see her chatting away when he was as young as Cari, talking about how the characters in the book she was currently reading “moved” her.

  It had been Kara’s idea to open the store in Sage Creek, and while Liam had been skeptical that a bookstore would survive in a small town like this, he’d put up the money to get it started and trusted his sister that it would all work out. Five months in, every day he was surprised by how much income they were making and the number of people he spoke to about this book or that.

  Now, New York seemed light-years away, as if that had been a long dream he’d had and this was what his reality looked like. He was content for the most part, aside from worrying about his sister. But he wouldn’t have been able to help out like this, taking care of Cari and driving back and forth to Grand Junction for this appointment or that surgery, if he still lived across the country.

  Opening the door to the bookstore, Liam flipped the lights on and walked to set his current book down on the counter. It was a mystery, one that many of the citizens of the town had already bought or borrowed. MK Malone was the hot topic for many, and Liam was pleasantly surprised when he’d finally broken down and started reading it.

  He’d always thought cozy mysteries were for girls, as the main character was usually some snoopy woman who couldn’t mind her own business. But the way the author had crafted the characters and the plot so far, Liam had to smile several times throughout the first half as he realized the author had linked with points A, B, and C from the beginning of the book. Such nuances he’d overlooked until they’d begun to come into play. He found himself looking forward to seeing how it ended.

  He walked in the direction of the small breakroom in back, past the rows of shelves and the small study desks along the wall, to place his leftovers in the fridge for lunch before he moved to the large event room. He’d ordered several new computers to go next to the row of desks, and with all the little trinkets he’d started stocking, he’d drawn in more and more customers.

  When looking for a place to open up shop, Kara had the idea to find something big enough for the books and space large enough to allow people to talk about them. After looking throughout Sage Creek and finding nothing suitable at first, Liam asked the landlord if they could rent two units and place a few doors in the wall that divided them to allow passage between the two. He’d approved without hesitation, glad to rent out both.

  The bell over the door chimed, and Liam walked back to the counter to see who it was. “Oh, hey, Tanner.” He walked over and shook the hand of the owner of the hardware store. They’d hung out quite a bit before his sister had taken a turn for the worse, but with the extra appointments and surgery, it had been a while since they’d gotten together. “What can I do for you today?”

  “I’m just wondering if you have any books on sewing?”

  Liam raised his eyebrow, curious as to why Tanner Hart would suddenly need something for sewing. He’d been the quarterback for his high school and had even gone to school on scholarship. Liam knew a lot of guys who could sew, but that was something he couldn’t picture Tanner doing. “Yeah, here in the Arts and Crafts section.”

  They walked over to one of the back rows, and Liam waved across the selection that spanned several shelves.

  Tanner’s eyes went wide, and he frowned. “It’s for my mother, so any advice you have would be great. She wanted one with embroidery. Is that when they make a whole bunch of x’s on the white fabric?”

  Liam laughed and slapped Tanner on the back. “Yep. Okay, here at the bottom, we have a lot of those kinds of books, different themes along here. If there isn’t something you think she’d like, I can order one for you. When do you need it by?”

  “Tomorrow,” Tanner said, a sheepish grin on his face. He bent down and looked over the books displayed there, pulling out one with fairytale designs. “I’m going to go with this one. If she doesn’t like it, I’ll send her here and you can order her something.”

  Liam turned and walked back to the counter, realizing he hadn’t started the computer up just yet. “At least you thought about her the day before her birthday, right?”

  “Yep.” Tanner chuckled and pulled out his wallet, extending a credit card toward Liam. “What are you doing in a couple of weeks? A bunch of us were going to head up into the mountains on side-by-sides the weekend after Colton gets back from his honeymoon, and we haven’t seen you in a while. You should come.”

  Focusing on the computer, Liam nodded, swiping the card through the reader. “It sounds like a lot of fun, but I’ve got Cari.”

  “No news yet about Kara?” Tanner’s lips drooped, making him look ten years older. He was one of a handful of people in town who truly knew what was going on with Liam’s sister. It was hard enough having his sister in the hospital, but in a town like this, Liam would get attacked by the questions and pity stares.

  Aside from Tanner, Colton Maxfield, the builder of a new subdivision and one of the first people to welcome him in town, along with his fiancée, Becca, and two or three of the older ladies in town were about the only people who knew her condition. Becca owned the flower shop up Main Street, and the one time Liam had broken down and told Colton just after Kara’s diagnosis, she’d sent several bouquets to the hospital.

  “I’ve just been waiting for a call that Kara has woken up. And any news on her counts. It might be too early to know too much, but I’ll take whatever information they’ll give me. I’m hoping she can come home next week, but who knows.”

  Tanner signed his name on the touchscreen and replaced the pen. “What if I arrange for someone to watch Cari? Since it’s fall, we won’t have light for too long.”

  The idea was tempting, but Liam wasn’t going to hold his breath. Tanner was a good-looking single guy. There wasn’t a chance he’d actually remember to talk to someone about babysitting Tanner’s niece once he walked out the door. At least, that would have been Liam’s mentality just a few years ago.

  “I mean, if you can find someone, then I’ll see what I can do. It all depends on when Kara gets out and what she needs right now.”

  Tanner smiled. “Awesome. I’ll get it all set up.” He waved goodbye as he headed out with the book in hand.

  Liam grinned, thinking of the fun it would be to adventure into the hills behind Sage Creek, something not possible in Manhattan. But then he remembered his sister and niece and brought himself back to reality. There was no way he was going to let either one of them down now, when they needed him most. He’d already done that to his sister once, and he wasn’t about to repeat it.

  Checking the time, he moved into action, knowing the weekly book club would be arriving in a couple of hours. It had become a tradition for a group of over a dozen ladies to stop in once a week to talk about the books they were reading. It was great for business and even for a good chuckle when Liam managed to catch snippets of the conversation.

  When the seats were all arranged in the large ro
om they used for bigger gatherings, Liam settled behind the counter. He settled in with the MK Malone book, intrigued as the clues came in for who had killed the town chef.

  Things were quiet for the next two hours, and as he finished the last page, it felt like he’d just stepped out of a new world and into his regular one. A thought somewhat depressing.

  He looked at the back cover, reading about the author, but the biography was only two sentences long and no picture.

  The thought crossed his mind that he should contact the author to do a reading and sign some books in the next month. They’d had two other authors visit since the store opened, which always helped sales go up as people flooded into the store. The book club wasn’t the only group of people reading the cozy mysteries, and he couldn’t keep the books in stock. That could be a big enough pull to draw the author into their sleepy little town.

  The bell rang on the other side of the wall, and Liam jotted on a sticky note to find contact info on the author when he finished helping the book group settle in.

  “Ah, Liam, dear. It’s so good to see you again. How is your sister?” Mrs. McCready asked. She was a small woman, her hair looking like a snowfall around her shoulders. Reaching up, she patted his cheek as though he were still a small child. She reminded him of the grandparents he’d never met, having lost them when he was much younger than Cari.

  Liam gave her a small smile. “I’m just waiting to hear how things turned out with the tests.” He waved his cell phone as if it would summon the call from the hospital right then.