Today, Tomorrow, Always

by Peggy Jaeger

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Praise for Peggy Jaeger

  Today, Tomorrow, Always

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  A word about the author…

  Thank you for purchasing

  Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  His expression changed from wide-eyed with excitement to something entirely different. Something deep and dark and—gulp—wild.

  He repeated my name, and before I could blink, a pair of strong arms wrapped around my waist and a torso I knew was as solid and defined as a redwood tree flattened against the front of me.

  He dipped his head, those dreamy eyes dark now with desire, and zeroed in on my own like a laser pointer. Hypnotized by the naked need facing me, I took a breath—a physical and a mental one—and pushed up on my unshod toes until my lips pressed against his.

  For a nanosecond, Frayne stilled. The notion that he didn’t want this blew across my mind. A beat later and the thought died as his arms tightened and he pulled me fully against his body.

  And then kissed me back.

  Praise for Peggy Jaeger

  “DEARLY BELOVED will take readers on a journey of a fairytale wedding, or rather a true wedding filled with family drama start to finish! Ms. Jaeger captures a beautiful sibling relationship that flourishes when the parents are not emotionally or physically available. Overall, the push and pull of the budding romance is delightfully written, and readers will enjoy this quick read that ties up with a red-bow ending!”

  ~InD’Tale Magazine

  ~*~

  “A delightful start to what promises to be a winning series…with a myriad of moving parts…characters and their individual stories…that the author has seamlessly woven together into a story with emotions that will surely resonate with readers.”

  ~Netgalley

  Today, Tomorrow, Always

  by

  Peggy Jaeger

  A Match Made in Heaven, Book 2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Today, Tomorrow, Always

  COPYRIGHT © 2019 by Margaret-Mary Jaeger

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Diana Carlile

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Champagne Rose Edition, 2019

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-2934-5

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-2935-2

  A Match Made in Heaven, Book 2

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To Jane Rokes ~

  Thanks for all the insights into what it takes

  to be a wedding officiant.

  Now I know why you've been voted “Best of the Best” so many times by your happy couples.

  Chapter 1

  “Cathy, don’t forget you’ve got the historical society luncheon today,” my secretary-slash-office-be-all-end-all Martha told me as she placed a client brief on my desk.

  “How could I forget? Clara Johnson’s called me once a day for the past week to remind me.”

  Martha chuckled.

  “Was she the same way with Dad?” Martha had been my father’s paralegal and office manager back in the day. He’d told me more than once he couldn’t have survived without her and joked she knew where all the bodies were buried.

  “Nope. Whenever she was around your father, be it at a meeting or even if she happened to see him on Main Street, she’d smile and keep quiet as a dormouse.” Martha executed an eye roll a teenager fifty years younger would have been impressed with. “Clara was raised in a household where the menfolk ruled the roost and the women nodded, listened, and cooked.”

  “That explains a lot.”

  Martha left me alone to finish some preliminary paperwork I needed for an upcoming court appearance. At the door to my office, she turned. “Oh, I forgot. Fiona called.”

  “On the office line? She didn’t use Instagran?” My ninety-three-year-old grandmother never called my office, or those of my sisters, if she wanted to speak with one of us. Instead, she used our cell phones, knowing we were never without them, and therefore available at any time. She called the speed dial we’d all assigned as her Instagran number.

  “It went straight to voice mail. She thought you might be in court because that’s the only time you don’t pick up.”

  I opened my desk drawer and pulled out my phone. “I forgot to take it off Do Not Disturb after yesterday’s court session.” I turned it back on. “Did she say what she wanted?”

  “A reminder”—Martha’s lips twisted into a wry grin—“that she needs a ride to the doctor tomorrow. Her exact words were, ‘Tell Number One I’ll be ready to go at nine, and I’d appreciate it if she managed to get here on time and not be late like the last time.’ ”

  “Two minutes.” I shook my head and held up my first two fingers. “I was two minutes late because I got stuck behind a school bus.”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger. I already made sure your first appointment doesn’t start until after lunch. You’ve got the entire morning free in case she goes overtime with the doctor.”

  My grandmother had broken her arm a few months ago and required casting and then a temporary move to an adult-care facility while she recuperated. Up until then, she’d been living in our family home with my middle sister, Colleen.

  “Thanks. Nanny’s no doubt got a laundry list of questions for the doctor, plus another one filled with ‘suggestions.’ ”

  “Should I cancel your afternoon?”

  I knew she wasn’t serious.

  Well, maybe a smidge.

  “No. I’ll be back by one even if I have to clamp her mouth shut with my fingers like she used to do to us to keep us quiet in church.”

  “I’d pay to see that.”

  “Keep your money.”

  Once she was back at her desk, I concentrated on the brief in front of me until it was time to leave for the meeting.

  My father had practiced general law in our hometown of Heaven, New Hampshire, for over thirty-five years, and most people in the area knew, or knew of, him. My love of arguing and always wanting to be proven right no matter what the subject matter had led me to follow in my father’s well-heeled footsteps. With his retirement and my parents’ move south, I’d inherited his practice, his role as justice of the peace, and his position on several town boards and committees. Not to mention a third share in my elderly grandmother’s care and keeping.

  And believe me, there was a lot involved in her care and keeping. A community activism gene ran deep in my family�
��s bloodline. Keeping Nanny out of jail when she was the ringleader of a protest march, boycott, or sit-in, was a full-time job. My lawyer status made me her de facto one call, and no matter what time of the day or night, I was available to bail her out.

  At about fifteen minutes before twelve, Martha called out she was leaving to get lunch. A glance in my office bathroom mirror showed I needed to run a quick brush through my hair and reapply the lipstick I’d eaten off.

  The historical society was a quick walk up the street from my office. Our New England winter temperatures had been mild the past week, but experience as a lifelong New Hampshirite had taught me never to be caught without warm gloves, a hat, and a scarf any day after Halloween. The weather today had decided to stick to its temperate forecast, and I made it to my meeting without the need to pull on my gloves.

  Heaven’s historical society was housed in a two-century-old building as famous for its archives as it was for its Victorian Gothic architecture. The building had been designed by the great-grandson of the town’s founder, Josiah Heaven, and had been gifted to the town in the early twentieth century by the family on the condition it be turned into a museum.

  As I jogged up the sixteen marble steps of the front entrance portico and pushed through the massive oak doors to the foyer, the warmth of the interior smacked me square in the face. I’d forgotten how hot it stayed in winter due to its twelve-inch-thick walls. The opposite was true in summer. The interior remained cool on all floors except the top, due to the marble flooring and tempered glass windows.

  “Right on time,” Clara Johnson announced as I entered the dining room. “I don’t know why I was worried you’d forget about the meeting. You’re as punctual as your dear father always was.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say there was no way I could have forgotten about the luncheon since she’d called me numerous times to remind me of it. If Nanny had taught me one thing in my thirty-nine years, though, it was to respect my elders.

  Clara grabbed me into a bone-crushing hug. For a woman in her seventh decade, she was surprisingly strong.

  I smiled at the society members taking their seats around the large table and found my own chair.

  There were nine members present and ten places set for lunch.

  “Is someone joining us?” I asked Davison Clarkson, my ninth-grade history teacher, seated to my right.

  He tugged at his goatee—a habit he’d had even when I’d been his student—and said, “Writer fellow, what’s his name? The one who wrote that Emily Dickinson book a few years back? Frey?”

  “Frayne?” I said. “McLachlan Frayne?”

  “A-ya. ’At’s the one.”

  “Mr. Frayne has requested to meet with us,” Clara said, butting into the conversation, “so I invited him to join us for lunch.”

  “Do we know why?”

  “Maybe he’s writing a new book,” Eloise Cruckshank said. She clapped her palms together like a tiny bird flapping its wings, a wide, childlike smile gracing her chubby cheeks.

  “No one for him to write about ’round here. No one famous hails from Heaven.” Peter Gunderson’s booming voice startled me. I was wondering if he’d forgotten to turn on his hearing aids just when Olaf Tewksburry chastised him.

  “Fer Cris’sake, Gunny. Turn your damn ears on. They can hear ya screamin’ in Concord.”

  Peter’s hand flew to his ears. A second later, the air around us shattered with a shrill whistle.

  “You’re gonna deafen us all!” Olaf clamped both his palms over his ears.

  Clara thwacked her gavel against a book she’d placed next to her luncheon plate in an attempt to protect the antique table, and called us to order. “Let’s get started. We can get some work done before Mr. Frayne arrives.”

  For the next several minutes, Eloise read the long-winded minutes from our last meeting in her singsong, high-pitched voice. My mind began to wander before she got to page two. For more than the first time since I’d become a member of the society, I wished I hadn’t been invited. For his last act as board president, my father had put my name in for consideration and knew, because I was his daughter, I’d be voted in unanimously. I was the youngest person in the room by at least thirty-five years, the only one who worked full time, and one of three females.

  Nanny Fee likened my position as a board member to the Pope’s. Namely, I was stuck with it unless I moved at least one hundred miles away, was kicked off for a major offense like criminal malfeasance, or died, whichever of those three came first.

  Since I was an officer of the court, I wasn’t getting voted off the island anytime soon for a crime, and I had no intention of leaving Heaven. Ever. It appeared I was stuck until my funeral mass was conducted at my parish church.

  Clara banged her gavel against the book again, and I was yanked out of my mental meanderings.

  “Any discussion on the minutes before we vote to approve?”

  I crossed my fingers and prayed no one issued a challenge.

  “Good.” Clara smiled and rang the one-hundred-year-old dinner bell sitting at her right to call for the staff to serve lunch. And just in time, thank you, Jesus. Forget growling, my stomach was literally howling with hunger.

  A knock on the door sounded at the same time it was pushed open.

  “Ah, wonderful,” Clara said.

  “Looks like the writer fella is here,” Davison said. “Right on time to eat, too.”

  I had a vague idea of what McLachlan Frayne looked like from his last book jacket photo—a book I’d devoured in bed one Saturday night, because Emily Dickinson was my favorite poet. He was in his late thirties maybe, with a serious, authorial air only a black and white headshot gave justice to. His eyes were light hued since the photo was devoid of color, his hair a generic dark, cut military-like. If I’d had him for an English professor in college, I might not have chosen law and instead opted into literature. Not that it would ever have happened. Not if my parents had anything to say about it.

  Clara jumped up and trotted to greet our visitor. An impressive set of wide shoulders filled the doorframe. Gone was the chopped crew cut of the book jacket photo, replaced by a longish mop of wavy, salt and pepper hair, heavy-handed on the salt. Clara pumped his hand, and I could imagine the jaw-wide smile she graced him with. My secretary hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d told me the head of the historical society was deferential to the male population.

  With Frayne’s hand still clasped in her own, Clara turned to the group. Yup. Her maniacal smile was front and center. “Everyone, Mr. Frayne is here.”

  “We got eyes in our heads, Clara.” Olaf’s mouth pursed into a decided sour pucker as he shook his head. Under his breath he added, “Fool woman. Thinks we’re all blind.”

  I bit back a grin and lowered my head to hide it. These two had known one another since the cradle, gone all through school together, and even—old gossip had it—been involved romantically for a while when both their spouses died.

  When I was sure my amusement was no longer noticeable, I lifted my head as Clara arrived at the table with our guest.

  Any remnants of a grin remaining on my face died the moment my gaze lit on McLachlan Frayne.

  On the book jacket, he’d given off an air of commanding arrogance as he’d stared into the camera’s lens. In the flesh, that description flew out the window.

  He was tall, so I had to lift my head to view him properly. Those wide shoulders were covered in a dark sports jacket a size or two too big for his frame. Under it, a black V-neck sweater sat over the same color T-shirt, the collar peeking through the jagged neck of the vee. Yards of leg were covered by faded jeans, white from wear in all the regular stress places. Black Converse sneakers adorned his feet and looked so soft and comfortable, I grew a little jealous.

  Shaggy hair a good time past a trim framed a face that could have been a tourism board ad for Ireland. Eyes the same color as frozen Arctic ice were deer-caught-in-the-headlights wide as a twin set of commas inde
nted the corners of his mouth. The notion he was in some kind of pain shot through me, and for the briefest of moments, I wanted to reach up and run a finger along those grooves to smooth away whatever anguish had caused them.

  Clara introduced us all in turn, Frayne reaching out to shake each hand as it was offered. When I slipped my hand into his, his wide eyes narrowed, tiny lines fanning out from the corners to his temples.

  His gaze swept over my face and confusion drifted over his features as if he recognized me but couldn’t place from where.

  A moment later he tugged his hand from mine.

  “We were about to have lunch, Mr. Frayne. Please, join us.” She indicated the chair next to hers, which put him directly across from me. As everyone around me started in on what I knew were delicious crab cakes, I took my time opening my napkin and placing it in my lap. Time spent in a feeble attempt to get the unusual sensations circling through me under control.

  “I’ll admit,” Clara said, her bright smile aimed at Frayne, “we’re all excited to hear why you wanted to meet with us today.”

  “The man’s a writer, Clara.” Olaf shoved half his crab cake into his mouth. “Obviously he’s here to write ’bout something,” he added, speaking around the food.

  Frayne opened his mouth, but Eloise spoke before he could.

  “Or someone,” she twittered. “Someone famous.”

  “Nobody famous ’round these parts,” Gunny said, loudly, preventing Frayne from answering again.

  “Wasn’t that gal on the TV singing-competition show from Rutland?” Olaf asked. “You know, the one where you vote the lousy ones off each week?” A sea of bobbing heads circled the table. “Rutland’s only thirty miles away. You writing about her?” he asked Frayne.

  “Why would he be writing about someone who lost, you old coot?” Finlay Mayhew, who’d been unusually silent up until now, asked.

  Once again, Frayne open his mouth to answer, then shut it when Finlay started laying into his brother-in-law.

  This started a loud discussion between the two, each vying to be heard over the other. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence at these meetings.