by Lyn Cote
With Spring’s lovely blue eyes gazing up at him so seriously, Marco felt tongue-tied like a young boy.
Why hadn’t the years toughened him so that this beautiful, unattainable woman would no longer have the power to make him want to pull her close for a stolen kiss?
Spring Kirkland—I thought I’d completely forgotten you. But his heart had played him for a fool again. He still wanted her. He still couldn’t have her.
Books by Lyn Cote
Love Inspired
Never Alone #30
New Man in Town #66
Hope’s Garden #111
Finally Home #137
Finally Found #162
LYN COTE
Born in Texas, raised in Illinois on the shore of Lake Michigan, Lyn now lives in Iowa with her real-life hero and their son and daughter—both teens. Lyn has spent her adult life as a teacher, then a full-time mom, now a writer.
When she married her hero over twenty years ago, she “married” the north woods of Wisconsin, too. Recently she and her husband bought a fixer-upper cabin on a lake there. Lyn spends most of each summer sitting by the lake, writing. As she writes, her Siamese cat, Shadow, likes to curl up on Lyn’s lap to keep her company. By the way, Lyn’s last name is pronounced “Coty.”
Finally Found
Lyn Cote
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He shall direct your paths.
—Proverbs 3:6
Dedication
Thanks to Roxanne Rustand,
my award-winning critique partner.
I’m honored to call you friend.
And to my sister, Carole.
Thanks for being a great sister.
Acknowledgments:
Thanks to Doris Rangel
for information of the quinceañería.
And special thanks to Priscilla Kissinger, aka
Priscilla Oilveras, for help with my fledgling Spanish.
¡Gracias!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Letter to Reader
Prologue
“God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” played softly in the background. Everything around Spring Kirkland harmonized to create a holiday scene worthy of gracing any Christmas card. The windows of her parents’ new home were fogged with moisture from the warmth from gingerbread baking in the kitchen. But nothing in this holiday setting distracted Spring from the hidden purpose for her trip home.
Her sister, Hannah, wearing a red-and-green apron, flipped on the oven light and leaned over, peering through the glass oven door. “These gingerbread cookies are just about golden around the edges.” Without glancing over her shoulder, she added, “Doree, keep your fingers out of that frosting.”
Pulling her finger back from where it had been poised over the bowl of white butter cream, Doree exclaimed, “You’re no fun! I was only going to steal a taste.”
Though Spring’s nerves moved her to start pacing, her sisters’ sparring amused her. Dark-haired Hannah, the professional cook and food writer, was in her element: the kitchen. Blond Doree, their younger sister, still in college, was enjoying her role as family tease.
The three of them had been left alone in their parents’ brand-new house in Petite Portage, Wisconsin, to bake cookies for the Christmas Eve service at church in two days. Ever since Spring had arrived last night, one unspoken question had been hanging over them. With their parents out of the house, the time finally had come to ask the question. She cleared her throat.
The timer on the stove buzzed. Hannah set about lifting the sheets of cookies out of the oven. The fragrance of gingerbread filled the air.
Spring started again. “Hannah, you said you had some news for us about—”
Someone knocked on the door. Spring went to answer it. “Oh, hi, Guthrie.” Holding in her frustration, she stepped back to let him in.
“Guthrie!” Hannah flew to the kitchen doorway, still holding the spatula in one hand and wearing a Christmas oven mitt on the other.
“Mmm.” Guthrie made a sound of approval. “Sure smells good in here.” He drew Hannah close for a quick hello kiss.
Hannah giggled and kissed him back.
Folding her arms in front of her, Spring felt torn. She couldn’t help beaming at them. Hannah had certainly found her match in Guthrie Thomas, the carpenter who’d built her parents’ home. But why did he have to stop by right now? They only had until their parents returned to discuss this!
“Guthrie, I’m amazed at the creative excuses you come up with to see Hannah.” Doree smirked from the other end of the kitchen where she leaned against the doorjamb. “What explanation are you using this time?”
Guthrie chuckled. “No excuse. Just dropped in to greet your sister, Spring.”
“Then, say hi to her,” Doree instructed dryly with a motion of her hand. “You haven’t even looked at her—”
“All in good time,” Hannah murmured, then she moved aside to let Guthrie take a few steps forward.
Guthrie held out his hand to Spring.
She gripped it. “Oh, you’re cold.”
“Yeah, the temperature is dropping, all right. Glad you’re here, Spring. Hope you enjoy your first Christmas in Petite.”
“I’m sure I will.”
She’d liked Guthrie, her sister’s fiancé, from the very first time she’d met him, but she wanted to get to the topic topmost in her mind. She glanced at Doree and saw the same anxiousness reflected there.
Guthrie turned his attention back to Hannah. “I have to go do some chores at the farm, then I’ll be back to take the three of you out to the tree farm to get your family tree.”
Hannah kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Thanks. I just have two more balls of dough to roll out and bake. We can finish frosting them afterward.”
Guthrie kissed her cheek, then left with a wave. Spring closed the door behind him, shivering in the cold draft.
“You two have got it bad,” Doree taunted cheerfully.
Hannah smiled and walked toward the oven. “You can start frosting and decorating the first batch now. It should be cool enough.”
Spring halted near them. If she didn’t ask the question quick, someone else might interrupt. “Hannah, tell us what you found on Mother’s birth certificate.”
Hannah continued placing raw cut-out cookies one by one onto a baking sheet. “What I didn’t find was what was really important.”
“Then, what didn’t you find?” Sitting at the table, Doree started frosting the first cookie.
“Mom’s birth certificate had been altered to show only the adoptive, not the natural, parents.” Hannah glanced up.
“You mean you didn’t find out anything?” Doree demanded.
Spring’s spirits dropped, and she slumped onto a kitchen chair. Their mother’s life might depend on this information. “You mean we’ve hit a dead end already?”
“In a way, yes. In a way, no.” Hannah slid another two sheets into the oven and set the timer. “This would be so much easier if we didn’t have to keep it from Mother.”
“Don’t be irritating.” Using red rope licorice and Red Hots, Doree began carefully crafting a face on her gingerbread boy.
Spring’s worry had turned to dread. She had to know the truth. She made herself pick up a cookie to frost. “Just
tell us.”
Hannah sighed. “A few days after we’d settled in here, one night late, I went into Dad’s office and opened the file that holds all the family records.”
“Yes,” Doree prompted, and bit off the head of the first gingerbread boy she’d decorated.
Hannah frowned at her. “But after I found the birth certificate, Dad walked in!”
“Oh, no.” Spring put down the cookie she was frosting.
“What did you tell him?” Doree demanded.
“The truth, of course. He caught me red-handed.”
“What did he say?” Spring asked. All the sweetness in the air was beginning to cloy in her throat.
“After I told him I was looking for Mom’s natural parents and why,” Hannah went on, “he explained why the natural parents’ names weren’t on the birth certificate. Then he said he did have some information that our grandmother gave him on her deathbed about Mother’s birth.”
“He did!” This surprised Spring. She popped up again, unable to sit still.
“So what was the information?” Doree insisted.
“He said that he couldn’t violate Mother’s wishes—”
“Oh.” Doree groaned.
Hannah continued. “Unless he prayed about it and felt that it was right to go against Mother’s—”
The outside door opened, letting in a rush of cold air.
Spring, pacing the floor, spun around. “Father!”
“I thought so.” Her father took off his gloves and unwound his navy-blue scarf. “It smells delicious in here.”
Going against Mother and Father wasn’t something Spring had decided to do lightly. And now, with her father’s unexpected return, she felt as though she’d been found with her hand in the cookie jar. “What did you think, Father?”
“I thought you three would be talking about your mother, so I came back—”
“Where’d you leave Mom?” Doree asked.
Father, the local pastor, sat down at the table with them. “I asked her to type something for me at the church office. I have to go back in a few minutes, then we’ll head to Portage for her blood checkup.” He picked up an unfrosted cookie and took a bite.
“Dad, have you changed your mind?” Hannah set down the dough she’d been flouring to roll out.
Dad nodded, then finished swallowing his first bit of gingerbread. He reached for Spring’s hand and drew her to the chair beside him.
“Don’t keep us guessing! What do you know, Dad?” Doree persisted.
“First, dear Doree, I want you to know I’ve decided to tell you all the information I have.” He waited till all eyes had turned to him. “Your grandmother Gloria, who adopted your mother, wanted me to have the information about Ethel’s birth mother because she said Ethel someday might want or need to know about her birth.”
Hannah nodded while Doree bit her lower lip.
Spring’s anxiety surged inside her. Mother’s leukemia was in remission now, but would it last? If it hadn’t been for this disease, they wouldn’t have to delve into the past. They wouldn’t need to find possible bone marrow donors for her.
Father went on. “Your grandmother told me two facts about your mother’s birth. She told me that her natural mother died from complications of the birth and that her name was Connie Wilson.”
Shock zinged through Spring. “Connie Wilson?”
Everyone turned to look at her.
Father asked, “Is that name familiar to you?”
With surprise shimmering through her, Spring sat up straighter. “Yes, I know who Connie Wilson was.”
Chapter One
The semi-truck’s air brakes screamed in protest, and the huge cab bounced as it slowed to miss Great-Aunt Geneva’s 1985 gold-toned Cadillac. Spring’s heart stopped, then surged into an inner cacophony.
Without turning a hair, Aunt Geneva completed her illegal left turn across two lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“All these tourists! The northern ‘sunbirds’ have arrived for the winter.” Aunt Geneva shook her tinted blond-over-gray head. Wearing a purple linen suit with her customary double shoulder pads, Aunty sat at the wheel like the captain of a cabin cruiser. “The traffic around here gets worse and worse all the time. And half of them never learned how to drive in the first place.”
Spring’s heart still thumped sickeningly. Dear Lord, get us to the country club alive. I should have insisted on driving. Out her window, the turquoise-blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico beckoned Spring in vain. The soft, warm breeze flowed in through the car window and over her face. As she kept an eye on the six lanes of traffic on Highway 19, she ran her fingers through her long hair, trying to keep the wind from tangling it.
“I’m just so thrilled that you’ve come to visit!” Aunt Geneva repeated for the umpteenth time, taking her eyes off the road to smile at Spring.
“You’re making me feel guilty,” Spring murmured nervously, eyeing the intimidating cement truck traveling beside her. “I come every year.”
“But only for a week in February! This year I have you for three whole months in Gulfview! It will be just like having you at the university again.” Aunty sounded her horn, swerved into the left lane, then cut in front of a bus.
Desperately holding onto her composure, Spring nodded. “I’m looking forward to it, too.” She swallowed to moisten her dry mouth. “January, February and March in Milwaukee can sometimes be so…grim.”
“I know, my dear, I spent many dreary years there.”
“But Milwaukee’s a fun town, and I’m near my parents—” Spring squeaked, “Red light!”
Aunty obligingly squealed to a halt.
Flying forward against her seat belt, then back against the seat, Spring hoped she hadn’t suffered whiplash.
“Well, you were with them for Christmas. I loved the pictures you brought of Ethel’s new house. At last, she has the house she’s always deserved.”
Spring wondered had she applied enough deodorant this morning? The warmth of the day and her aunt’s fearless driving style was putting hers to the test!
“Now, don’t get me wrong. Your father is a wonderful man, but Ethel hasn’t always had everything just as I would have wanted it for her. The clergy don’t bring in the bucks.”
“At least, none they can spend in this world,” Spring pointed out gently. Why hadn’t she offered to drive? How could she have forgotten her aunt’s kamikaze driving style?
“Exactly so.” Aunt Geneva nodded. “But she does have you three girls, and you mean the world to her.”
Thinking of her sisters made Spring recall her mother and the leukemia. Spring’s worry swelled within her. Would she and her sisters really be able to discover their mother’s biological parents?
Even before her father had mentioned Connie Wilson during her Christmas at her parents’ home, Spring had planned to spend time in Florida with Great-Aunt Geneva. Spring had taken a leave of absence from the Milwaukee Botanical Gardens to come to Florida for a few months to help Aunt Geneva, now in her late eighties, make the move to a retirement home.
The name, Connie Wilson, had rung a bell in Spring’s mind—a moment during a visit to Aunt Geneva years ago. Had her memory been correct? Would Aunt Geneva have more clues for them?
“Penny for your thoughts, dear.”
Spring couldn’t bring herself to ask this most pressing question so early in the trip. Getting information about Connie Wilson might take some finesse. Something from the past warned Spring that this was true.
Piloting her massive sedan around a broad corner to a quieter local street, Aunt Geneva left the crush of traffic behind. Before Florida had boomed in the late eighties, her aunt’s adventurous driving style hadn’t been so dangerous. But now…
Breathing a sigh of relief, Spring recognized Bougainvillea Avenue, which would take them to her aunt’s longtime country club. “Is the retirement home near Golden Sands?”
“No, no, dear, I have a little surprise for you. We have to st
op for a brief meeting here first. Then we’ll go on to tour the retirement home. Though, since you’ve come, I already feel twenty years younger.”
Spring didn’t return a comment on this “little surprise” of her aunt’s. She was different from her sisters. Doree would have made some outrageous quip. And before Hannah had ever left the house, she would have asked for an itemized itinerary, but Spring just relaxed against the velour seat. Aunt Geneva always had a plan and she always got her way! Why fight it?
Aunty’s car surged up the long drive to the venerable country club past bountiful azalea bushes, decorated with blossoms in every shade of pink imaginable, lining the way. Seagulls squawked overhead and the scent of the salty Gulf of Mexico spiced the air. Spring closed her eyes, savoring the moment. Thank you, Lord, for bringing us safely here.
The car jerked to a halt. A uniformed valet stepped out from under the canopied entrance. “Señora Dorfman, good afternoon. A lovely day.”
The young Hispanic man, no doubt a college student still on break from school, helped her aunt out of the deep cushiony seat, then drove the car away to park it in the covered lot.
Aunty marched away with military straightness and purpose. Aunty had served in the WACs, the Women’s Army Corps, in the Second World War and her gait still showed this.
Spring hurried to keep up with her, as they entered the low, rambling club. Only one-story high, painted white with graceful verandas on all sides, Golden Sands had been established before 1940 and still retained its southern charm. Palm trees and red hibiscus basked in the sun. Florida “tacky” had never been permitted within its gates.
Spring wondered what the surprise was and what meeting they would be attending. Aunty had served on every committee here at one time or another. But safely out of the car now and walking into the familiar building lulled Spring into a lush, dreamlike contentment. Two of Aunty’s many friends waved to them from a round table on the veranda. Aunty steered Spring to meet them.
