by Holly Jacobs
Table of 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
Epilogue
Once Upon a
Thanksgiving
Holly Jacobs
Copyright The characters and events in these stories are fictitious.
Any similarities to real people, living or dead, is coincidence and not intended by the author.
Ilex Books 2017
Previous Published By: Harlequin (October 14, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0373752369
ISBN-13: 978-0373752362
Copyright Holly Fuhrmann
All Rights Reserved
Reviews:
"If you're looking for a comfort book as the season gets busier and busier, you can't go wrong with Once Upon a Thanksgiving, And, for those of us who are fans of Jacobs, it's wonderful to discover this is the first in her new holiday series."~Lesa Holstine in USA Today
"Beyond delivering a compelling read, or the first in an inventive series about parenting, Holly Jacobs earns her kudos by seriously dealing with the difficulties of divorce on children and parents." ~ RT Bookclub
"Award winning author Holly Jacobs creates a heartwarming story filled with humor and a multitude of reasons for her characters to avoid each other. Despite distance, emotional baggage and family interference; Samantha and Harry realize that they must be together. Their precarious journey to a HEA is creatively told by Holly Jacobs in her signature compassionate style which will have you grinning ear to ear." ~CataRomance
"I love Holly Jacobs’s writing and I was thrilled to get the chance to read…Once Upon a Thanksgiving. This is the perfect home for her stories which are a pleasing blend of charm and humor surrounding everyday life." ~
© Kelley A. Hartsell
This is for everyone at St. John's School,
especially the parents who have served on the PTA
or volunteered in any way. Thanksgiving is a holiday
where we give thanks, and I'm thankful to have been
a part of such a great community for
more than twenty years.
"Samantha. I think maybe it's more than friendship on my end."
"It can't be, Harry. We can't let it be. Either of us. We're not ready for anything more."
Rather than respond, Harry got up and walked around the desk. He took her into his arms and gently, oh-so-tenderly kissed her. It was a soft kiss of introduction, growing bolder and decisive with every second—or was it minute?—it went on.
A small voice in Samantha's head said, Pull away. Stop this now.
But she didn't agree as she took control of the kiss, deepening it as she pressed into Harry's chest. She needed to be closer.
When they finally broke apart, she took an immediate step back.
"I think we both need to admit what we've been developing over the last few weeks is stronger than friendship." His voice sounded raspy. "There's friendship there, but that's not all. . . ."
Dear Reader,
I have four kids, and I'll confess I've volunteered a lot at their grade school. I was the kindergarten story lady. I participated in Halloween parties, field trips and even the Christmas Fair. Maybe that's why I feel such a big connection to Samantha and her fellow social planning committee members, Michelle and Carly. But while the committee brought the three women together, what they discover is a true friendship. A friendship that helps all three women along the rocky road to rediscovering love.
It's been a year since Samantha's husband walked out and her world crumbled. Now she's feeling stronger and more optimistic. Despite a glass-half-full outlook, she's not sure she's ready to stumble again. But love isn't something you can plan on. It's a gift. And there's no denying it when it finds you. So when Harry, the new principal at school, calls her into his office, she finds more than she bargained for with the interim principal.
I hope you enjoy the first book in my PTA Mom trilogy. Come visit me at Hollyjacobs.com and say hi! I love hearing from readers.
Holly
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
Epilogue
Prologue
Samantha Williams looked at the reflection in her bedroom mirror as she strained to button her jeans. She knew she needed to lose at least ten pounds, but starting up with the Women's Weight Center again didn't enthuse her. And she wanted to be enthused.
After the hardest year of her life, Samantha was determined to cultivate a more upbeat disposition. She'd picked up How to Be Happy Without Really Trying at Books-a-Million in the Millcreek Mall last week. Step one on the path to happiness, as listed in the book, was to cultivate optimism. Well, she was going to be optimistic this week, even if it killed her.
Samantha adjusted her rose-colored glasses as she struggled with her jeans button. She could do this. She sucked in her stomach and tried the button again.
It slipped through the hole and Samantha felt a spurt of elation.
Okay, it was a small victory, but Samantha reveled in it, then released her breath and found that the small bit of stomach she referred to as her baby-pooch had oozed over the waistband.
For a moment, she began to slip off the positive-thinking bandwagon, but then she hoisted herself back up on it and sucked in her stomach. One bit of baby-pooch wasn't going to ruin her sunny disposition.
She'd just hold her stomach in today and maybe, if she made it an all-day project, her abs would get stronger without doing millions of crunches. And if her abs got stronger her baby-pooch would disappear, her clothes would fit better and she could skip Women's Weight Center meetings all together. And that would definitely make her happy.
Yes, there was an upside to everything. The kids had just started a new school year and she was going to make it a new start for herself, as well.
Her kids had all been lobbying for a dog. Maybe if she had a dog that had to be walked, she'd be more inclined to actually get out every day.
It couldn't hurt to go down to the pound and just take a look. The kids would love a dog. Of course, she wasn't sure if the cat would, but he'd adjust.
The phone rang, interrupting her dog thoughts.
She picked the receiver up off the nightstand. "Hello." She walked toward the kitchen, knowing the kids would be late for school if she didn't hurry them along. She had Tuesday mornings off, and after she ran them to their elementary school, she planned to spend the rest of her morning running all over Erie, Pennsylvania, doing the dozen errands on her list.
"Hi, Samantha, it's Heidi."
Samantha stopped dead in her tracks, and it had nothing to do with her daughter Stella's makeshift tent that was blocking her path.
Phone calls from the PTA president first thing in the morning did not bode well.
Be positive, she reminded herself. Heidi was a friend.
"Heidi, it's so good to hear from you." She smiled as she said the words, hoping to infuse them with sunshine that she wasn't quite sure she felt.
Samantha climbed over the tent and into the kitchen as Heidi said, "We missed you at the PTA meeting last night. It was the fir
st one of the year, and you know how important those meetings can be."
The remnants of the kids' breakfast lay scattered all over the island counter. Grunge, the cat, was licking a puddle of spilled milk off the floor. Samantha gently pushed the cat off the spot and started wiping the mess up. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I got home from a crazy day at work and PTA is normally the first Monday of the month, but that was last week and Labor Day. It never occurred to me that in September the meeting was the second Monday—" She stopped midwipe. She had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to this phone call than an early morning hello and update on the meeting. "Well, you don't want to hear my excuses for missing the meeting. Suffice to say, I'll be there next month for sure."
"About that, Samantha—"
Samantha dropped the sponge. She knew she was done for. "I know what happens when someone skips a meeting."
She remembered when Connie missed the April meeting last year. She was volunteered for the eighth-grade all-day bus trip to Toronto. To this day, Connie wouldn't speak about the trip. When asked, she turned pale, the tick near her left eye would start to jump and she'd change the subject. Occasionally she mumbled the word coatroom, but that was all.
Samantha just hoped there were no field trips scheduled this early in the year. "You might as well just tell me what job I've been assigned."
Maybe it was a fun job. Reading to kindergarten or something. Or working a bake sale, which might not be good for her overflowing stomach, but was always a prime PTA job to snag.
Her attempts at positive thinking faded rapidly when Heidi didn't respond. "Heidi?"
"Well. . ."
Chapter One
Samantha Williams was a newly rehabilitated optimist. Since Tuesday's stomach sucking, she'd maintained her glass-half-full worldview.
Yet on days like today, she was reminded that half full was just as easily half empty. After all, Fridays should be spent joyfully anticipating the weekend. But when the kids' cat brought her a gift—a field mouse sort of gift—first thing in the morning, she should have guessed that the only thing she'd be anticipating was the day's end.
Still, she'd tried to continue her positive outlook. She'd firmly reminded herself that unlike other cats, Grunge never killed his presents. He only caught them and gave them. That was definitely a silver lining.
Also on the plus side, there was the fact that she'd chased Grunge's gift around the living room. Chasing a mouse might not sound positive, but she counted it as a cardio exercise, and added to the fact she'd been sucking in her stomach since Tuesday, she was way up on her physical exercise for the week.
Her boys—Stan, Seton and Shane—all helped her try to corner the terrified rodent, while her daughter Stella stood on the couch screaming directions when she wasn't just generally screaming. Uh, the good thing about that was. . .
Samantha was stumped and decided to count it as family time and that was always good, since the boys were thirteen, twelve and eleven, they were frequently more interested in hanging out with friends than with her. But it was hard to count chasing mice as a proper family activity, especially with eight-year-old Stella's shrieking.
Who knew that seeing the glass as half full was so much harder than seeing it as half empty?
Samantha had held off starting chapter two of How to be Happy Without Really Trying. She wanted to feel that she'd mastered chapter one's positive outlook first. And to that end, she'd asked, how could her day get worse than cardio mouse chasing?
And that one particular thought on her way into work was akin to throwing down a gauntlet and challenging the universe to step up its game. And man, what a game the universe had.
Dr. Jackson's pediatric office had been swamped with flu cases, and since it was only September, and way too early for the official start of the flu season, Samantha had been unprepared for the onslaught of patients. She loved being an RN, but some days she dreamed of doing something—almost anything—other than giving shots to terrified toddlers, holding screaming babies and comforting angst-ridden mothers. She tried to find something positive about the day's cases, but the best she could come up with was at least they weren't inundated with stomach viruses. It was lame, and she knew it, but she gave herself points anyway.
She'd finally admitted defeat when she received a phone call from the new principal asking for a meeting next week to discuss her sons. The kids were at their father's this weekend, so she wouldn't find out what happened until Sunday night when they got home. But she would find out. She'd learned, through her numerous trips to the principal's office last year, that forewarned was forearmed.
Yes, today might be Friday, but it had been the hands-down worst day of her week. And while she'd have loved nothing better than leaving work and heading home, the day wasn't quite over yet. She still had her first meeting with the committee she'd been volunteered for. A seven o'clock meeting on a Friday night seemed a rather stiff price to pay for missing one PTA meeting.
As she pulled up in front of Erie Elementary at six fifty-eight that evening, Samantha tried to muster any fleeting remnants of her rose-colored glasses. The best she could come up with was that no matter what happened at the meeting of the Social Planning Committee, she was on her way home afterward. That was definitely a good thing.
She turned off the car. Rather than get out, she sat in it a moment and just looked at the old brick school building, with its row of massive oaks in front of it and the smaller twin maples flanking the entry. The leaves on the trees were that tired green that meant they'd be changing into their fall colors soon. A few had fallen prematurely, and lay on the grass. And others had jumped the gun and started to hint at the oranges and reds they'd all be soon.
The sun was sinking low on the horizon, leaving the city in the pre-dusk gloom. It was getting dark earlier and earlier. Samantha loved the cool autumn nights. Technically, it might be late summer, but to Samantha, as soon as Labor Day had been celebrated, her autumn began.
She realized that she felt a bit more centered.
Coming back to the school was, in so many ways, like coming home.
Erie Elementary School was a small private grade school known for its strong academics and modest tuition.
Not much had changed about Erie Elementary since Samantha had attended the school. . . She did the math—could it really be twenty years since she'd graduated eighth grade?
She got out of her car and walked toward the main doorway.
Her mood lifted slightly. It wasn't quite back to her jean-buttoning high of Tuesday, but it was better than her principal's-on-the-phone low this afternoon.
Maybe this PTA committee wouldn't be so bad. How hard could planning a couple school functions be?
Samantha hurried inside, up a half set of steps, and across the hall to the meeting room.
"Hi, Carly. Michelle," she called out as cheerily as she could manage.
She knew the two other women on the committee in a peripheral way. They all had seventh graders. And even without that, Erie Elementary was small enough that everyone knew everyone else, even if only slightly. That was a big advantage. The school had that it-takes-a-village-to-raise-a-child sort of feel to it. The downside of belonging to a small school community was that it was similar to a small town—no one could sneeze without everyone else knowing about it.
Which is how Samantha knew Carly Lewis, a tiny, dark-haired woman who seemed to live life with a giant ferocity that Samantha admired. Carly was going through a messy divorce with her ex because she'd found him and his secretary together. Carly's kids, Sean and Rhiana, were only ten months apart, and both were in seventh grade with Samantha's son, Seton.
Michelle Hamilton was raising her nephew, Brandon, who was also in Seton's class. Tall, blond and always organized, Michelle was PTA President Heidi's friend. To the best of Samantha's knowledge, there had never been anything about Michelle for the Erie Elementary gossips to sink their teeth into, other than the fact she'd been very young when her sister died an
d she'd taken her nephew into her home.
The two women were seated at one of the small round tables in the school's meeting room.
"Hi, Samantha. Have a seat." Michelle nodded at the chair across from her. "I brought refreshments." There was a small cooler of sodas and a foil-wrapped platter on the table.
"We were just going to open them." Carly peeled back the foil and exposed a tray of cookies.
Behave, Samantha warned herself, sucking her stomach in a bit farther as a reminder. She reached in the cooler and took a diet cola, while Carly and Michelle each took a napkin's worth of cookies.
"They look great," she assured Michelle, "but I'm stuffed. Maybe I'll have one later."
Michelle nodded, and rather than comment on Samantha's cookie-less status, asked, "So how are things?"
Just as Samantha knew about Carly's divorce, everyone at Erie Elementary knew that Phillip had walked out on her and they'd divorced. For more than a year, people's voices had gone soft when they asked about him, as if whispering the question would make Samantha's answer easier. She was equally sure the school was aware of how little Phillip had been involved with the kids since they split up.
Michelle's voice had that asking-about-your-ex tone to it. "Everything's great," Samantha replied in her most optimistic voice. "My ex has the kids this weekend, so I've got the night to myself."
She tried to sound enthused. And really, a night to herself was a treat. But she was worried about the kids. This was only the third time in a year that Phillip had taken all four of their kids. She could deal with him walking out on her. They'd married so young and people changed. Though it hurt at the time, she'd accepted they'd grown apart. But walking out on his kids? That was harder to forgive. She worried how, after such a long absence, Phillip was dealing with them.
She changed the subject. "So we're in charge of the PTA social events this year?"
"Yes. We're the official Social Planning Committee. Heidi gave me the files." Michelle reached into her briefcase and pulled out manila folders.
