Come Back Home Again
a Hope Valley novel
Jessica Prince
Copyright © 2019 by Jessica Prince
www.authorjessicaprince.com
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.
Contents
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Prologue
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
Epilogue
Sneak Peek of The Best of Me
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About the Author
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HOPE VALLEY SERIES:
Out of My League
Come Back Home Again
CIVIL CORRUPTION SERIES
Corrupt
Defile
Consume
Ravage
THE PICKING UP THE PIECES SERIES:
Picking up the Pieces
Rising from the Ashes
Pushing the Boundaries
Worth the Wait
THE COLORS NOVELS:
Scattered Colors
Shrinking Violet
Love Hate Relationship
Wildflower
THE LOCKLAINE BOYS (a LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP spinoff):
Fire & Ice
Opposites Attract
Almost Perfect
THE PEMBROOKE SERIES (a WILDFLOWER spinoff):
Sweet Sunshine
Coming Full Circle
A Broken Soul
GIRL TALK SERIES:
Seducing Lola
Tempting Sophia
Enticing Daphne
Charming Fiona
STANDALONE TITLES:
One Knight Stand
Chance Encounters
Nightmares from Within
DEADLY LOVE SERIES:
Destructive
Addictive
Prologue
Temperance
The sun had broken through the hazy gray clouds, shining down on everyone like a spotlight, but the warmth from the rays couldn’t penetrate the intense cold that had seeped beneath my skin and into my bones. It was so deep, so frigid, that I felt I’d never be warm again.
As the pastor spoke, it sounded like his voice was coming from the end of a long tunnel. I was so lost in thought, tied up in my own head, that I wasn’t paying attention to a single word he was saying.
I’d expected this day to come. I’d been anticipating it for months. Fearing it, really. But that didn’t mean I was prepared. I most certainly wasn’t. After all the loss I’d suffered through in my lifetime, this one should have come as a relief. After all, my beloved aunt Maureen, the only blood I had left, the only person I’d been able to count on in the past two decades, had been suffering for far too long.
I should have been grateful that her pain was finally gone.
And part of me was. But the other part of me, the part that lived in darkness and was consumed by loss, wasn’t.
People say God never gives you more than you can handle. Well, sometimes I wish He didn’t trust me so much, because this was all becoming way too damn hard.
As I stared, unseeing, at the casket, at the humongous spray of vibrantly colored flowers that were spread across the entire top, the sensation of being watched pricked across my skin, making the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I lifted my eyes, covered by my dark sunglasses, and scanned the mass of people gathered all around the gravesite until I landed on another pair of shades. Shades that covered eyes I’d know anywhere. They were the color of deliciously rich melted chocolate, the most beautiful eyes I’d seen in my whole life. Eyes that haunted my dreams for more than twenty years. They were eyes that belonged to a man I’d tried for years to convince my heart it hated.
Thanks to the stylish aviators covering that gaze, I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were pinned right on me. I felt them like a physical touch along my skin. And I knew to my bones that they were just as stunning as ever.
It was as if we were locked in a silent standoff that everyone around us was oblivious to. Who would be the first to look away? Who was going to break contact?
Back in the day I used to love going toe-to-toe with Hayes Walker in a battle of wills. We were perfectly matched, both stubborn and equally persistent. We’d enter into childish staring contests that usually ended in me giggling like a lunatic when he lunged and began tickling the hell out of me in an effort to win. The tickling would eventually turn into a full-blown make-out session, and once we got a bit older, something more.
But this wasn’t one of those times.
There would never be another one of those times.
This time, I closed my eyes beneath my sunglasses, pulled in a painful breath that didn’t quite fill my lungs, and turned away, focusing once more on the casket.
Today I was saying goodbye to the woman who’d been the closest thing I’d had to a mother for more than half my life. Today I was putting my aunt to rest only feet from where my parents had laid for so many years. It was bad enough being back in this town, around these familiar faces. The moment I’d stepped foot back in Hope Valley a few months ago after being gone for so long, the memories bombarded me, slamming into me like a wrecking ball and causing nearly as much damage. The last thing I needed just then was to revert to old games with the boy who’d broken my heart only days before my entire world had been shattered beyond repair.
“May the road rise to greet you. May the wind be always at your back…”
I mindfully tuned back out during Pastor Matthew’s benediction, preferring to say a silent goodbye of my own to my aunt.
The service finally came to a close, and I didn’t have it in me to stay and watch them lower Aunt Reenie’s casket into the ground. I just couldn’t. Guilt crawled up my throat like acid at the thought of leaving her, making it impossible to swallow, but seeing that glossy wood sink beneath the earth was too hard, too final.
I just loved her too much to watch. She’d given up so much for me, practically her whole life.
I’d only been eighteen, a senior in high school, when I discovered my parents’ bodies. I’d snuck out of the house at Hayes’s insistence and went to meet him at our place in the woods. We’d been together for four years. He’d been my first everything, and while my heart was shatt
ered, I felt I owed it to what we used to have to hear him out. So, after finding the note from him lying on my bed, I’d bundled up and made the trek in the dark of night to see him.
He never showed. And when I finally gave up on him and went back home, my life was changed forever.
Those moments in the woods, waiting for the boy I’d loved for as long as I could remember, were the last moments of my childhood. After that, I was forced to grow up, whether I wanted to or not.
While most girls my age were thinking about high school football games and pop quizzes, I was burying my parents. While my classmates were getting excited about prom and what colleges they were going to attend the following year, I was packing my life and all the memories it contained into cardboard boxes.
After witnessing what I had, I couldn’t stay in that house, in that town, any longer. I had to get out of there. And Aunt Reenie didn’t even blink when I told her as much. She packed her belongings without hesitation, and together, we loaded up her beat-up station wagon and left the only home either of us had ever known.
That had been twenty-one years ago, and I’d never gone back. At least not until a few months ago when my aunt called and gave me the news.
Cancer.
Inoperable.
She didn’t have long.
She’d kept it from me so as not to cause me any pain, but in the end, it really didn’t matter, because she was still gone. And I still missed her like I would a piece of myself.
Now I was back in the one place I’d sworn to myself I’d never step foot in again. Only this time I didn’t have anybody at my back. This time I was well and truly alone.
I rose to my feet and started toward the sea of cars parked all around the gravesite. I shouldn’t have been shocked by the turnout for Aunt Reenie’s funeral, but I was. The fact that the whole town had come to say their goodbyes to her made my heart swell at the same time it caused my eyes to burn with unshed tears.
To say my aunt was well liked would have been a gross understatement. For as long as I could remember, she was one of the most beloved residents of Hope Valley. Even during all the years she’d been gone, she’d still stayed in touch with those closest to her.
Despite the decade spent living in Chicago, the tiny mountain town in Virginia was still very much her home. Like most everyone who’d grown up here, Hope Valley was in her blood. She never said it, but I knew she missed the place like crazy. I was grown, settled in my life and career as an emergency room nurse, so it was time for her to go back to the place she’d always loved so much.
When she moved back several years ago, everyone was so damn happy. I thought the townsfolk were going to throw a party that would rival the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square.
It wasn’t much, but at least that settled my soul a bit, knowing she spent the past years surrounded by love and laughter with so many people she cared about. It would have to be enough.
“Temperance, honey.” At the sound of the familiar voice, I whirled around just seconds before I was pulled into a warm embrace so strong it lifted me off my feet.
I used to receive hugs just like this one on a regular basis years and years ago, and until that very moment, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed it.
“Hey, Ralph,” I managed to eke out past the huge lump in my throat.
I’d been in town for a while, but every moment of that time had been spent by Aunt Reenie’s side. I didn’t want to waste a single second I had left with her. And by the end, her pain was so acute that I was scared to be away from her, so I hadn’t ventured outside the walls of her farmhouse, even going so far as to have our groceries and other household items delivered instead of shopping for them myself. Besides my trek to the funeral home to plan out where and how she’d be laid to rest, today was the first time in two decades I’d laid eyes on someone from my past. Ralph was an incredibly welcome, if not bittersweet, sight.
“God almighty, girl, it’s damn good to see your face. Still as beautiful as always.”
The big bear of a man set me down, and the second his arms disengaged, another pair took their place.
“Tempie, sweetie. I’ve missed you so much.”
At the choked-up words spilling from Sally’s mouth, that burn behind my eyes grew more intense.
Ralph and Sally Hanson were the husband and wife duo behind one of Hope Valley’s most famous establishments, Evergreen Diner. I’d worked as a waitress for them back in high school before everything in my life started on a downward spiral, and they were two of the best people I’d ever had the privilege of knowing.
My voice came out as a weak whisper as I replied, “I’ve missed you too, Sal.”
Breaking from the hug, Sally took my cheeks in her hands and stared into my sunglasses like she could see right through them, sadness and loss shining bright in her eyes.
“I wanna tell you I’m happy to see you again, but I really wish it was under different circumstances, darlin’.”
“You and me both, Sally.”
“But I’m still real happy to see you,” she added quietly.
A smile I hadn’t thought I was capable of pulled at the corners of my mouth. “I’m happy to see you too.”
“Know you been back a while girl,” Ralph said, joining back into the conversation. “Hoped to see you at the diner, or around town at least.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I should’ve come to see you both sooner. I just couldn’t….” That lump came back with a vengeance. “I couldn’t leave her.”
“We know, honey,” Sally said on a sniffle, reaching up to bat at a few tears that had slipped down her cheeks. “And we understand.”
I wanted to give them something, anything. They’d been so amazing to me back then, and I found myself opening my mouth and speaking before I gave it a single thought. “I’ll be in town for a while to handle Aunt Reenie’s estate. I promise I’ll stop in while I’m here.”
“Don’t suppose I could get you to tie the old apron back on and wait a couple tables while you’re here, huh? Still the best waitress we ever had.” Ralph always had a gift for lightening the mood, and in that moment I was more grateful for that than words could express.
He gave me his charming, good ol’ boy smile from beneath his scruffy beard, and I had no choice but to return it. I gave his offer a second of thought and actually found myself liking the idea. “You know what? I might just take you up on that,” I replied, visibly surprising them both. “It’ll give me something to do while I’m here so I’m not just sitting and wallowing.”
“Well we’d love to have you, darlin’ girl,” Ralph announced. “But you know, times ever get a bit too rough for you, you just pick up the phone and call us. We’ll be there in a flash.”
God, he was too much. “Thank you,” I croaked through a ball of emotion. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
With a few more hugs, they said their goodbyes a minute later and headed for the same beat-up junker van they’d driven back when I was a kid. A few more people I remembered stopped to offer their condolences, and I acted accordingly, offering smiles and thank-yous that I certainly wasn’t feeling as I slowly inched my way toward my car.
By the time I hit the driver-side door I was more than ready for this day to be over. But as soon as I reached for the handle I felt that prickling along my skin again.
My head slowly swiveled of its own accord, turning until my eyes stopped on Hayes in all his glory, standing against a shiny silver Sequoia.
I gave myself the chance I hadn’t at the gravesite, taking in this version of Hayes Walker, twenty-one years older and even bigger and more commanding than he’d been back in the day. And he’d been damn big and commanding back then, even as a nineteen-year-old.
To top all that off, he was wearing a charcoal gray suit with a pale blue button-down, both of which looked like they’d been tailored just for him. The only hint of the country boy I’d fallen in love with was the black cowboy boots on his feet. I di
dn’t know whether or not suits were his gig now, but if they were, he wore them well.
His dark hair was trimmed close at the sides, but a little long at the top, and it was styled like all he’d done was hop out of the shower and run his fingers through it. And damn if that didn’t work really well for him.
He still had the same square jawline and prominent cheekbones, but there was a more liberal five-o’clock shadow than there had been when he was nineteen. But the thing I noticed most was how much bigger he’d become.
There was still a glimpse of the Hayes I used to know, but now he was just so much… more. I could practically feel the power radiating off him from ten yards away.
My breath hitched when he lifted his arm and pulled the aviators from his face. Those eyes were just as beautiful and intense as I remembered, and a quiver worked its way down my spine and centered right between my thighs at the sight of those rich chocolate browns.
I don’t know how long we stood there like that, staring at each other, but then he jerked his chin up and flicked out two fingers before rounding the hood of his truck, and just like that, the spell was broken.
I shook off the haze that had enveloped me, pulled the door open, and climbed into my car.
I’d survived my aunt’s funeral.
Come Back Home Again (Hope Valley Book 2) Page 1
