by Casey Hagen
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Marina Adair. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original St. Helena Vineyard Series remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Marina Adair, or their affiliates or licensors.
For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds
OUT OF THE FIRE
Healing Hearts Duet Book #1
Casey Hagen
Hagen Novels, LLC
KENNEBUNK, MAINE
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Table of Contents
Blurb
Dear Reader
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Blurb
Bellamy Stone and Shane McGovern shared a storybook, high-school-long romance that made them the envy of St. Helena. That is, until Shane gave up his first love for the college of his dreams and left Bellamy, and St. Helena, for the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles, without looking back.
Twelve years later, Bellamy Stone has built a fulfilling life in St. Helena, without Shane and his promises of forever. She owns her own home and business, has friends, and contributes to her community. So what if her dates lack a certain spark. A girl can’t have it all, right?
When tragedy strikes, Shane is called away from a stalled, career-boosting project to return home to stand in for his father in the family contracting business. Only, the next project up is Bellamy’s, thrusting Bellamy and Shane into close proximity, where old sparks flare to life.
Shane never intended to see Bellamy again. He’d managed to avoid her for twelve years, through a marriage, the birth of a son, and the death of them both. But his father’s heart attack and the responsibilities heaped on his shoulders force him to face the woman he left behind, and the dormant feelings for her that flare back to life.
Can Shane forgive himself for the way he ended things with Bellamy, and the death of his wife and son, and dare to hope for a second chance at a happily-ever-after he doesn’t believe he deserves?
Dear Reader
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the St. Helena Vineyard’s Kindle World, where romance is waiting to be uncorked and authors from around the globe are invited to share their own stories of love and happily ever after. Set in the heart of wine country, this quaint town and its cast of quirky characters were the inspiration behind my St Helena Vineyard series, and the Hallmark Channel movie, AUTUMN IN THE VINEYARD. I want to thank these incredible authors for spending time in St. Helena, and all of you readers who are adventurous enough to take the journey with us.
I hope you enjoy your time here as much as we have.
Warmly,
Marina Adair
Chapter 1
Shane McGovern paced in front of his drafting board, glaring at the layout for the new Sykes project. He hated it.
He hated all of it.
He raked his hands through his hair and linked his fingers behind his head, dropping his chin to his chest. This was not the time for his creativity and bold ideas to take a damned hiatus. This concept was the project of a lifetime, with over one hundred countries participating in the global rise of “Independence Evermore,” a series of worldwide buildings showcasing a united stand for freedom and unity through architectural design.
This was the kind of project that put a person’s name in the history books. If he blew this project, the past ten years, everything he’d lost, would all be for nothing.
He grabbed his coffee mug and took a sip of the tepid brew he’d long since forgotten about, not tasting a bit of it on his indifferent tongue. Maybe it was better he didn’t taste it. Laura had always said he made shit coffee.
His heart seized as a faded memory of his late wife, taking a sip from his mug and gagging, cropped up unwelcome in his mind. Their son, Jason, mimicked her pinched face from where she held him perched on her hip.
Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed, forcing it back down. The memory had once been a good one. Now, it was just one more way for his subconscious to torture him whenever the hell it felt like it.
The peal of his cell phone splitting the all-too-familiar silence saved him from a night of torment from a past he was powerless to change.
“Hey, Mom,” he said, his throat thick with rising emotions.
“Shane.” Her shaky voice came over the line, banishing all thoughts of the past and catapulting him into the present.
His skin prickled. “Mom? What is it?”
She sniffled over the line. “It’s your dad. We’re at the hospital.” Her choked sob echoed over the phone. “They’re saying he had a heart attack.” His mother’s cry of anguish reached through the line and wrapped around his hardened heart.
“Which hospital are you at?”
“St. Helena’s. Please hurry,” she whispered.
“I’ll get the first flight out. Did you call Devin?” His older sister was much harder to reach with her modeling schedule, but she made sure to go home on a regular basis, unlike Shane.
Sure, he made it seem like he wasn’t avoiding St. Helena by reserving vacation houses in Northern California and inviting his parents out to join them. He told himself, and them, that it was the only way they would take a vacation. But really, he didn’t want to run into Bellamy Stone.
The girl his younger self had thought he would spend forever with.
Once he had married Laura he went back a few times, but at neutral times of the year where his parents wouldn’t try to parade them around at local events. He’d loved his wife with everything he’d had. He didn’t want to put her in an awkward position. Of course, there was a part of him that also wanted to save a little face since he’d ended it so badly with Bellamy.
He’d managed to avoid her and the wounded look he pictured in her pretty green eyes every time he thought of her.
“Yes. I didn’t get to talk to her, though. Skyler took the message and was going to get it to her right away.” Her statement ended on a whimper, telling him that she was holding on by a thread as thin and fragile as spun glass.
“I’ll call you before I board,” he said, already mentally forming a list of everything he needed to grab to get out the door.
“Thank you for coming, baby.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d be, Mom. I’ll see you soon. Tell Dad…” He cleared his suddenly dry throat. “…I’ll be there before he knows it.” He meant to say, “Tell Dad I love him,” but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It seemed too final. As if he was giving his dad permission to give up.
He needed his dad to fight with everything
he had…and then some.
He opened his travel app first and secured a flight leaving in three hours, the last flight out of L.A. until morning, and first-class. The price tag didn’t matter. He’d charter a damn private plane if he needed to.
The time crunch gave him about thirty minutes to get packed and out the door. He threw his suitcase on the bed and haphazardly tossed in jeans, t-shirts, a sweatshirt, and other incidentals.
Whatever he’d missed, he’d buy.
His gaze landed on the drawings he’d just been working on. One phone call and he’d been catapulted into chaos. The lines on the paper represented another time, only ten minutes earlier, but it might as well have been five years.
He had a job to do, whether he did it in L.A. or in St. Helena. He rolled up the drawings and slid them into his leather-bound tube. If he was lucky, his mother hadn’t gotten rid of his drafting table.
Without knowing how long he’d be gone, he called a cab instead of leaving his car in the airport parking.
Unsettling thoughts of his father, and fear of what this heart attack could mean for his mother, the family business, and for everyone’s future, consumed his mind. The pressure and grief sat on his chest like an anvil, slowly crushing his ribs, stealing the air from his lungs.
Pressure and worry plagued him, and by the time he made it onto the plane he had no recollection of going through check-in and security. He did remember to call his mother, but it went straight to voicemail.
Shane prayed she was on the phone, or maybe in with his dad, and that her not answering wasn’t a sign of something worse.
His father had always been larger than life, an unstoppable force with never-ending energy. He worked six days a week and had a reputation for being one of the best general contractors in Northern California. He’d worked his fingers to the bone, sacrificed his own dreams, and gave up his wants to put Shane and Devin through college.
He deserved to retire. To get that fishing boat he’d always wanted. To take Shane’s mother on that trip to Hawaii she’d always dreamed about.
Fate had been an unyielding beast to Shane over the past two years. Maybe fate could take some time off and give his father a damn break.
An image of his father bubbled up in his mind. They were in the front yard. His father wore a pair of faded Levi’s and a faded maroon San Francisco 49ers t-shirt, and smiled down at Shane while he taught him how to hold a football.
The innocence of it. The patience his father had shown him. The time he took out of his grueling schedule to do the things that dads were supposed to do.
Shane could never repay all his dad had done for him, but he sure as hell would try.
***
“Did you hear the news?” Marsha Whipple whispered almost loud enough for anyone shopping in the next building, The Boulder Holder, to hear.
Bellamy Stone smiled at the owner of Cute as a Button Fabric and Crafts, a three-week-old Godsend that opened up on Main Street in St. Helena.
Finally, she didn’t have to make routine runs to JOANN Fabrics anymore. She’d managed to reduce those trips to once a month, at the most. Bellamy was happy to pull her money out of the pockets of big oil companies every time she filled up and put her money into local businesses instead.
“I guess that depends on what news you’re talking about.” The latest news she’d heard while standing in line at the library yesterday morning was that George McGovern had had a heart attack. The thought of the man she had believed would one day be her father-in-law being brought to his knees brought tears to her eyes.
As far as she knew, the addition on the back of her house to make into a second studio was his next project. He’d given her a great deal since he’d agreed to do the work with his own two hands instead of hiring subcontractors.
When she had heard the news she assumed there would be a delay, and took on two last-minute shoots: a newborn and a toddler session. It would only take about six hours of her week in actual shoot time, but they were six hours where she needed quiet.
“Well, this one, my dear, should be of particular interest to you. Shane is back in town indefinitely, to keep George’s business going while he heals.” She said it with a conspiratory grin and a wink that made Bellamy’s stomach pitch.
She loved her small town, and had no interest in ever living anywhere else, but there was a price to be paid for that love.
Everyone knew your business, and every one of them had a bit of matchmaker in their blood.
Shane had made his decision.
And he’d never looked back.
He’d cut her to the core. Twelve years later she still experienced aftershocks.
Maybe it was time to get her head examined.
She perused the snacks at the counter, feigning indifference, while Marsha rang up her purchases. She spotted a bag of peanut M&Ms and threw them on top of the gauzy fabrics, elastic bands, skeins of yarn, and rustic pails. “Shane has always been a loyal son. I’m not surprised.”
Aww, listen to me. I managed to sound positively unaffected. Go me.
“You know he’s single again. Tragic what happened to his wife and son. It’s been two years. Maybe he’s ready move on. How better to heal a battered heart than with an old, familiar love.”
Leave it to Marsha to reduce Bellamy to an old, broken-in pair of slippers. She knew Marsha didn’t mean to be crass, but that’s how her suggestion came across just the same. He’d lost them in a house fire. She carried scars from her childhood. Ugly scars. But she wasn’t sure her deepest wounds could ever compare with the raw edges of what ripped through his heart two years ago.
“You’re a hopeless romantic. I think you missed your calling. You should be weaving love stories for the masses, or writing greeting cards,” Bellamy said with a laugh, in an attempt to redirect Marsha’s attention to something not so…involving Bellamy’s love life.
Not that she had a love life.
Her Friday and Saturday nights with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and the Hallmark Channel probably didn’t count.
And the heroes in those movies had set an impossibly high bar for future dating prospects. Bellamy was pretty sure that Hallmark had cornered the market on all men who looked mouth-watering in both Levi’s and suits. She certainly hadn’t seen anything that quite compared in real life.
Shane.
Shut up.
This was the problem. Bellamy knew about George; even knowing that, her mind didn’t go to Shane. At least, not in that way.
Not until Marsha had strapped the thought with cement shoes and parked it in the depths there.
That would teach Bellamy to shop local.
Marsha bagged the skeins and linens in a cute paper shopping bag, the image of a teal button with a threaded needle going through on the front. “You and Shane were the love story of all love stories,” Marsha said with a wistful sigh.
“I think Shane and I are better off firmly planted in the friend zone.” Not that they were actually friends. Friends stayed in touch. Visited at least once in the past twelve years. Exchanged Christmas cards.
Marsha shrugged, and bagged the rest of Bellamy’s items. “Suit yourself. Mark my words, though…love like that doesn’t just go away. Who knows what proximity will bring.”
Bellamy paid for her things, hopped into her Nissan Altima, and headed out of the town center. The businesses on Main Street had gone all out with their fall decorations. Awnings trimmed with rustic pine cones and foliage shaded doorways and window. The ghosts, carved pumpkins, witches, and black cat décor had been weeded out a week earlier with the passing of Halloween, leaving behind whole pumpkin and gourd displays set up on bales of hay. Gourds, vibrant red, orange, and yellow leaves, and wreaths added flair to doors and window displays.
Bellamy smiled from an overwhelming feeling of pride for her hometown. In a world moving at lightning speed, this quaint city came together and savored the traditions that brought a community together.
They were headed right
for the time of year she loved. Townspeople would gather for seasonal events, tree lightings, and carols. Families made it a priority to carve out time from their ordinarily chaotic schedules to make lifelong memories. Neighbors reminisced with one another over their town and children, and forged stronger bonds.
Bellamy enjoyed the intricate dance between the people of St. Helena. The comfort of watching a town take care of its own is what inspired Bellamy to get involved during her down time. She wanted to spread love back to the town and the people who had embraced a terrified little girl and made her whole again.
A half mile out on the outskirts of town she passed Oak Lane, her road, and headed toward Smith Circle.
What the hell are you doing, Bellamy?
She didn’t look directly at the bungalow at 46 Smith Circle. She didn’t dare. She did spot the unfamiliar SUV parked in the driveway with Arizona plates.
A rental.
Heat rose in her cheeks, and she knew if she looked in her rearview they’d be flaming red. Damn her Irish skin.
Shane McGovern was home.
Chapter 2
Shane took a minute in the doorway of his father’s room. What he waited for, he didn’t know. Acknowledgement? Courage? It was anyone’s guess.
He hadn’t let himself think about what his father might look like lying in the ICU at St. Helena’s hospital. If he had, he still wouldn’t have been able to imagine the gravity of it.
Tubes and wires lay in a tangle over his father’s solid chest. They’d secured an IV to his arm with tape; clear fluid dripped into the line and down into his father’s veins. They’d affixed oxygen tubes just inside his nose. The monitors beeped and flashed. Wires spread from outside of his father’s hospital gown attached to small electrodes stuck to his ashen skin.
He’d gotten in too late last night to visit the ICU so he’d crashed at his parents’ house, in his old room, until visiting hours. His mother had never made it home. No doubt the hospital had a policy about strict visiting hours for the ICU, but his formidable mother with her spine of steel was a force to be reckoned with, and likely spent the night right by his bedside where she belonged.
