by Iris Morland
“I’m so sorry,” Harrison said, the anguish plain in his face. “We almost lost you, and if I hadn’t been able to tell you how sorry I was—”
“But I’m here.” She sighed, shaking her head, but she smiled, too. “It’s all water under the bridge. But it also means you have to be civil to Heath. We’re together now. I love him.”
Harrison enveloped her in a hug. “Jubi, I’ll never love the idea of you going far away, but I’m happy for you.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll miss you.”
Her throat closed, and she nodded. She was excited to move to Seattle, but she’d miss her family—no matter how annoying they tended to get.
“And if Heath hurts you, I’ll break his legs,” he said, his voice way too cheerful. “Although Caleb, Mark and Seth might get to him before I do.”
Jubilee snorted. “Love you, too, Harrison. Now, I hope you got me that tablet I wanted, because that’s really all you needed to do to make up for being a total jerkface.”
He gave her a noogie as they returned to the sitting room. Heath gave her a searching look, and she smiled.
“Everything okay?” he asked as she settled next to him.
“Everything’s perfect.”
A few days later, Heath told her he’d gotten a call from Principal Anderson. “He says he wants me to finish the school year,” Heath said. “Apparently the school board reassessed and realized they didn’t want to be bullied by a few overbearing parents.”
“That’s great! So you get your job back?”
“I told him I would need time to think about it.” At her surprised expression, he added, “I wanted to see what you thought.”
“I’m sad you won’t be moving to Seattle with me,” she admitted. “I am.” Taking his hand, she squeezed it. “But I know how much your students mean to you, and it would mean the world to them to finish out the year with their real teacher. We can make it work. I know we can.”
“I love you.” He kissed her, pressing his forehead against hers. “You’re way too good for me, you know.”
She’d snorted at that statement and had made a point to show him exactly how very naughty she could be.
Now it was the first week of June, and the last week of classes. Jubilee had loved going to college: the professors, the other students. The studying until the wee hours of the morning, even the homework. Renee had thought she was crazy when she’d told her she was excited about writing her first essay.
But Renee couldn’t understand what it had been like, to live so confined like Jubilee had. Now that she lived away from Fair Haven, she realized how stifled she’d felt. She was free: free to make her own decisions, to spread her wings, to make mistakes. Lisa still called her regularly, but she was making an effort not to be so involved. After Jubilee’s brush with death, her family seemed to have realized that life was too short to keep her in that bubble she hated so much.
Her family had also expanded in recent months: Harrison and Sara had welcomed their baby boy, Bennett, on a cold, rainy day in February, while Megan had given birth to her and Caleb’s daughter, Evie, just a week ago. With three grandchildren to spoil, both Lisa and Dave seemed to have fixed their interests on the new babies of the family instead of on their stubborn adult children.
It was afternoon by the time Jubilee had finished speaking with her favorite professor, a biology teacher who’d encouraged her to pursue her dream of veterinary school. He’d advised her on the classes she needed to take, and he’d told her he’d be more than happy to write her a recommendation letter.
Jubilee sighed happily as she walked through campus. The sun shone above without a cloud in the sky, people talking and laughing around her.
She’d missed Heath terribly, of course. They tried to see each other every weekend, but sometimes life got in the way. Video calls had become their go-tos, although Jubilee had to make sure Renee wasn’t around whenever those calls got a little raunchy—which they inevitably did.
Heath had shown her how much he loved her, time and time again. He’d been the first person to support her move to Seattle to start college, and he’d listened to her frustrations and fears and only given encouragement and a shoulder to cry on. She’d done the same, especially when he’d had to testify against Johnny Porter at Johnny’s trial. To everyone’s relief, Johnny had received a twenty-five-year sentence for all his crimes, and Rich was looking at a similar amount of time behind bars.
“Jubilee,” a voice called.
Jubilee squinted. The sun was so bright that she couldn’t make out who had said her name.
Then she spotted him: Heath. He was here, in Seattle.
It had been over three weeks since they’d seen each other in person, and Jubilee almost pushed a few people to the ground in her haste to get to him. She threw her arms around him, and he laughed, squeezing her tight.
“You’re here! Why are you here? Oh God, I missed you.”
He took her head in his hands and kissed her, right in front of everyone. If Jubilee weren’t so happy to see him, she’d be embarrassed by their PDA. Someone whistled while someone else hooted. Giggling, Jubilee ended the kiss.
Heath somehow had managed to look handsomer than ever: his hair was recently trimmed, the auburn strands glinting in the sunlight. He’d gotten a tan, despite working in a school all day, and he seemed healthy and happy. Jubilee wanted to kiss him until they couldn’t breathe, and it was only because they were in public that she didn’t yank off his shirt and kiss him everywhere else, too.
“I missed you, too,” he said. He caressed her cheek.
“How did you know where I’d be?”
“Renee.” He grinned. “I had to bribe her with a latte to get her to talk. Your roommate is a good negotiator.”
“Good thing she wants to go to law school.” Staring up at him, she shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re here. I feel like I haven’t seen you in so long.”
“I have news, but I wanted to tell you in person.” He took a deep breath. “I’m not returning to Fair Haven Elementary—”
“What? Why? Did they make you leave? They can’t, they promised—”
He shushed her. “It was my decision. I’ve loved working there, but it’s time to move on. There’s something that’s more important to me now. Or more specifically, someone.
“I’m moving here. To Seattle.” His gaze searched her own for her reaction. “I was offered a teaching position at Smithton Academy, and I’m going to take it.”
Jubilee couldn’t speak, she was so elated. They could be together. Renee would be annoyed that she had to find another roommate, but Jubilee could buy her some Thai food—Renee’s absolute favorite—to make it up to her.
“That’s wonderful, Heath. I’m so happy for you.”
“I want us to live together. I’ve looked at apartments and townhouses, and although we won’t be able to afford anything amazing, we could swing it. I have the opportunity for a promotion at Smithton within two years, if I work hard. Oh, and I’m not arrested, of course.”
“Don’t even joke about that.” She poked him in the chest. “But why drive two hours to tell me this? We have phones, you know. Texts, email…”
He pinched her ass for that, and she squealed. “Cheeky. I’m not just here to tell you about my job.” He took a deep breath, and then to Jubilee’s shock, he went down on one knee in front of her before pulling a telltale box from his jacket pocket.
“Jubilee Thornton, the love of my life, the woman who means everything to me,” he intoned, opening the box to reveal a diamond ring that shimmered in the sunlight, “I can’t imagine life without you. Will you make the happiest man on earth and marry me? Be my wife?”
The tears had started the moment he’d gone down on one knee, and now Jubilee was crying too hard to answer coherently. Someone nearby yelled, “Are you going to answer him?” prompting laughter from the crowd.
Jubilee smiled so hard her face hurt. “Yes, yes, yes,” she sobbed. “Of course I�
�ll marry you.”
He stood up and kissed her, making the crowd cheer around them. Jubilee giggled. The crowd cheered even louder when he slipped the ring onto her finger.
“I’m so glad I wrote that list,” she said as they walked back to her apartment. “Otherwise we might never have gotten together.”
He hugged her close. “List or no list,” he said, his voice laced with promise and heat, “I would’ve made you mine.”
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I’ll Be Home for Christmas
(A Thorntons Christmas Novella)
Releasing December 2017
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Enjoy this exclusive excerpt
From I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Harrison and Sara
The idea had been Harrison's, and once Caleb had gotten on board, the rest of the family had followed. Harrison had wanted all of the Thornton siblings, their spouses and significant others, and children to rent a cabin near the Cascades during Christmas.
As Sara Thornton watched her husband and the rest of the Thornton clan bustle inside the huge cabin, she wondered how great of an idea this really was. Nothing like putting a bunch of people together in a cabin to create some chaos, she thought wryly.
The cabin could house up to fifteen people, with seven bedrooms and four bathrooms, a huge living room and kitchen, and a hot tub out back. Constructed solely out of pine, it resembled a log cabin you'd imagine one of the pioneers living in centuries ago—if you didn't include the indoor plumbing and central heating. Although it hadn't gotten dark yet, someone had already turned on the outdoor Christmas lights, the colors twinkling merrily.
The selling point was that it had enough rooms for each couple and one more for the kids. Sara’s son James wasn't pleased that he had to sleep in the same room as the little ones, but when Sara had promised him he could help Harrison and the guys cut down a Christmas tree, he'd gotten over his disappointment with his rooming situation quickly. James also enjoyed looking after the babies, no matter how much he tried to act otherwise.
Sara couldn't help but smile as she inhaled the scent of evergreens. She'd never been in the woods like this. Having grown up poor, her family had had to make do with cheap, artificial Christmas trees strung with popcorn.
"Mom, Mom!" James scampered up to her, his cheeks rosy. At almost ten years old, James was growing so much that soon he would be taller than his mother. He shared her blue eyes, although Sara preferred to blame his sauciness on her James's father, who was also Sara’s ex-husband.
"Mom, there's a bird stuck in the chimney!" James’s eyes widened. "Uncle Caleb is trying to get it out."
"That's great. Where's your brother?" Sara and Harrison's son Bennett, now ten months old, was just starting to become mobile, and Sara had asked James to watch him while the adults got their suitcases out of all of the cars.
"He's with—um. Aunt Lizzie? I think?"
Before Sara could grill James about Bennett's whereabouts, James scampered off again after Caleb shouted something unsavory from the nearby living room.
Along with Harrison, his five other siblings were also staying at the cabin: Caleb with his wife Megan and their infant daughter Evie; Mark with his wife Abby; Lizzie with her husband Trent and their toddler Bea; Seth with his girlfriend Rose; and Jubilee with her fiancé Heath.
Sara found Bennett in the living room and scooped him up, kissing him on his chubby cheeks. She couldn't believe her baby would be a year old in just two months. Where had the time gone?
Bennett giggled when Sara kissed him again before wiggling to get down. He'd been lifting himself up lately and, with the help of his parents, had walked some. Sara definitely wasn't ready for her baby boy to be running all over the place yet.
"Where's the broom?" Caleb asked as he crouched under the chimney, Harrison and Mark close by. "We need to get this damn bird out, otherwise it's going to get roasted for tonight's dinner."
"You could smoke it out," said Mark, his voice low and rumbling. "Not sure a broom would help, though.”
"I think if you light a fire, it'll fly out," said Harrison as he peered up into the chimney. "Then again, it might just catch on fire."
"Please don't set the cabin on fire," said Sara. She caught Harrison's gaze and smiled. "I'm going up to our room. Bennett needs to take a nap."
Harrison smiled back, and Sara couldn't help the flutter in her chest at the sight. Even after two and a half years of marriage, Harrison still managed to make her giddy.
"I'll see you up there," said Harrison with a wink.
Caleb rolled his eyes. "Get a room, you two."
Mark snorted. "Didn't I just catch you and Megan kissing in the pantry?"
"I never kiss and tell."
Sara, with Bennett in her arms, left the men to figure out the logistics of getting a bird out of the chimney while they bickered and bantered. Upstairs, she found her younger sister Megan nursing Evie in one of the rooms.
It still felt strange sometimes to be around such a huge family, considering it had been just Sara and Megan, along with their mother Ruth, for years. Sara often needed a break from all of the commotion, and she had a feeling Megan felt the same way.
Sara set Bennett on the floor before collapsing onto a overstuffed armchair next to Megan. "I'm already exhausted and we just got here," she complained.
Megan laughed. "Tell me about it, but it'll be fun. If all else fails, you can get drunk on spiked eggnog." She patted Evie's bottom, touching the infant's thatch of bright red hair. "Are you still nursing Bennett?"
"Not much anymore," Sara said with a sigh. "Is it terrible that I wished he wouldn't stop?"
"Not really. I'll be a wreck when Evie decides she's done. Then again, it'll be nice to drink again."
"Hard to believe my baby sister has a baby. The wild child has been tamed."
Megan grinned. "Don't tell Caleb that."
Sara heard James clomp up the stairs right before he found her and Megan. "Mom, they got the bird out!" He crouched down next to Bennett and began to help his brother race cars across the cabin rug. "Uncle Caleb totally said the f-word, too."
"Oh dear," said Megan, trying to bite back a smile. "I'll have to tell him to behave himself."
James shrugged. "Travis said the b-word last week in class, and he got detention. I told him it was his own fault."
Travis was James's best friend and their former neighbor, and although Sara sometimes wished Travis would get his mouth washed out with soap, she was glad that James had such a good friend to count on. She knew how tough it could be without any friends when you were young.
"Why did Travis call someone the b-word?" asked Megan.
Sara almost tossed a car at her sister's head. Instead, she sent her her most judgmental older sister glare.
"Oh, I can't remember. It wasn't a big deal." James shrugged and made a point not to look at either his mother or his aunt, which raised Sara's suspicions immediately. Although James was in fourth grade now, he rarely kept secrets from Sara.
"Really? Sounds like a big deal to me," said Sara. "Especially if Travis got detention for it. Did he call someone in your class that word? Because that's not nice of him to do, you know."
"I know it's not. I didn't say it." James was sulky now as he slowly pushed a car toward Bennett. "I don't know why it's a big deal, that's all," he said again.
Sara decided not to press James despite her intense curiosity. This wasn't the first instance of Travis getting into trouble for saying a bad word, but as far as Sara knew, he'd never called a fellow classmate one.
So what had brought that on? Had the two boys gotten into some argument? But wouldn't their teacher have contacted her if that had been the case?
&nbs
p; Sara had been working at James's school as one of two third grade teachers until she'd given birth to Bennett. She'd decided to stay home for the foreseeable future, although that didn't mean she didn't still talk with her former coworkers from time to time. If something had happened, Sara knew that Karen, James's teacher, would've told her as much.
Bennett squealed at his older brother's antics, effectively distracting Sara for the time being.
Later that evening, when the kids were asleep and the adults were sitting in the living room together in front of the fire, Sara nestled closer to Harrison and said quietly, "I think something's up with James."
With his good looks, charm, and his fancy medical degree, Harrison Thornton had seemed like the last man who would fall for a girl like Sara. A girl who'd grown up in trailer parks and had gotten a bad reputation in school simply because she'd turned down one of the asshole jocks after he’d tried to hit on her.
Every time Sara looked at Harrison, she knew how lucky she was that he'd seen past the rumors and seen her. And he'd fallen in love with her, just as much as she'd fallen in love with him.
"Really? Like what?" Harrison rubbed her shoulder, keeping his voice as low as hers.
They sat on a couch furthest from the fire. At the moment, Jubilee and Rose were toasting marshmallows over the fire while Heath and Seth supervised.
Abby and Mark were talking quietly nearby, while Megan, Caleb, Lizzie, and Trent were debating the merits of real Christmas trees versus artificial ones. Currently, Caleb was arguing for real Christmas trees with perhaps a little too much gusto, Megan looking on with an amused expression on her face.
"I don't know. He wouldn't tell me what happened at school. Travis called someone the b-word—"
"He called someone a bastard? Or a bitch?"
Sara snorted. "You would ask that. I don't know. I didn't ask him to clarify. Anyway." She huffed out a breath. "He told me it wasn't a big deal, but if he and Travis fought with some other students..."
