by Liz Johnson
If they would take him back.
He stabbed the fingers of his good hand through his short hair and flexed his other hand beneath the black wrist brace.
The breeze off the bay carried the almost forgotten scent of salt water and sunshine, setting the clay wind chime on the house’s white wooden porch singing. His mom had made that when he was seven or eight. She’d been inordinately proud of it, hanging it where all the neighbors could easily see it.
The other houses on the small block gleamed just as bright, the sunshine filtering through towering trees and dancing across two-story roofs. Lacy white curtains hung in kitchen windows, and bright welcome mats sat before front doors.
It would be better if he walked away. No uncovering of old sins or confessing new ones. No need for apologies and atonement. No fear that they might send him right back where he came from.
After all, Oliver had told him in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t be welcome back.
Leaving had been his choice. Returning, less so. He had nowhere else to go. And he’d spent his last loonie on the bus ride over the Confederation Bridge that had dropped him off along Route 1. He’d walked to Victoria by the Sea without the aid of a map, his feet sure of the way before his mind could be. They’d carried him past the white theater and Carrie’s Café, unchanged by time. And they’d taken him down the old paved street, the center line long faded.
He’d been standing in front of the old house for going on thirty minutes, and if he didn’t make a move, one of his mom’s neighbors was likely to report him for suspicious activity. Although if the neighbor recognized him, he might be asked for an autograph—which would be so much worse.
“They’re not there.”
Eli jumped, stumbling off the sidewalk and into the street, his gaze swinging toward a sprite of a woman who had snuck up on him. The top of her dark head didn’t quite reach his shoulder, but the angle of her sharp chin and the power of her gaze made her appear to take up more space than her slender frame actually did.
“Excuse me?” He glanced around, because surely she couldn’t be speaking to him. But they were the only two people here.
“They’re. Not. There.” She overly enunciated each word, her eyebrows raising higher on her forehead with each syllable.
“Who?” But his sinking stomach suggested he already knew. He just didn’t know how she did.
He hadn’t seen her before in his life. He was pretty sure. He squinted at her, studying the smooth lines of her fair cheeks, the button nose, and the plump pink lips set in a frown. Unfamiliar. He was almost certain. But it was her eyes that convinced him. He’d have remembered that strange shade of blue—half intensity, half serenity, nearly royal.
“You’re Eli Ross, aren’t you?”
His entire body went rigid except for his hand, which ran down his face and over the early beard he’d hoped would mask his identity. “Have we met?”
She crossed her arms. “I know who you are.”
Was he supposed to know her too? He scratched his chin and offered a fake smile, the one the team publicist had coached him to give until it was second nature. Maybe they’d gone to high school together. Truthfully, he hadn’t paid much attention to anything beyond the ice. And the girls in the stands at every game.
“Good to see you again,” he said.
Her frown turned into a smirk. “Again?”
He swallowed thickly. “For the first time?”
She nodded, quick and sure.
He turned toward her, facing her fully. “Then you seem to have the advantage. How do you know me?”
“Oh, I don’t assume that I know you. I just recognize your face.”
She was talking in riddles that made him want to shake some truth out of her. “But you assume that you know who—or what—I’m looking for.” He nodded toward the house.
Her smirk turned sheepish, her nose flaring. “I suppose I do. Only because if I hadn’t been home in more than ten years, I’d probably be looking for my family too.”
He nearly growled at her. “There you go again, making assumptions about my life. What makes you think I haven’t been back in ten years?”
“Because your mom misses you.”
Her soft comment hit him harder than any opposing player checking him against the boards ever had, and he clenched his teeth, using everything inside him to keep from showing how much he hated those words.
And how much he’d longed for them too.
Maybe he’d succeeded in keeping his face from reflecting his reaction. Or maybe he hadn’t. Her lips twitched, and then her whole face softened.
“I guess it’s really none of my business,” she said and turned to walk away.
His hand shot out to catch her elbow, and she spun easily on the uneven sidewalk. “Who are you? How do you know so much about my family?”
Eyes turning serious, she glanced down to where his hand was wrapped around her arm. Her pointed glance back up at him made him drop his grip, and the intensity in her eyes dimmed a fraction. “I don’t like seeing my friends hurt.”
And he definitely wasn’t one of her friends.
When she stepped away again, he didn’t try to stop her. Instead, he watched her stroll past the deep purple house with the white porch and lots of gingerbread at the end of the block. Mrs. Dunwitty used to live there—back when the house was brown and Oliver had mowed the old woman’s lawn every other week.
She turned the corner and disappeared, and only then did he ask the question he should have from the start. “If they’re not here, where’s my family?”
By the time Violet Donaghy returned to Mama Potts’s Red Clay Shoppe from her midmorning walk, her pulse was racing, her head spinning. She slammed the front door and sank against the wall beside a six-foot wooden shelf. Rows of mugs made from the island’s famous red clay rattled in their places, and she reached out to still them.
“Vi? Is that you?” Mama Potts’s voice rang through the open door to the studio in the back. It carried a touch of worry, and Violet’s heart pounded even harder.
Did Mama Potts know already? Maybe she’d heard the news. Maybe Victoria by the Sea’s gossip mill had been hard at work, spreading the word, ringing the church bells. Kill the fattened calf. Prepare the family signet ring. The prodigal son had returned.
Eli Ross was back in town.
“Yes.” Violet’s voice cracked, and she cleared her throat to try again. “It’s me.” She wanted to ask what Mama Potts had already heard, but she could manage only silence. Something Mama Potts knew well. After all, they’d heard exactly nothing from Eli in the more than seven months since every sports reporter on the continent had announced that he’d been let go by the Rangers and ejected from the entire National Hockey League.
Not that silence was unusual from him. It was all that Mama Potts, Oliver, and Levi had known since Eli took off for his chance at a career in the pros. Therefore it was all that Violet had ever known from him. Well, silence and the aftermath of heartbreak.
But he was every bit flesh and blood. And piercing blue eyes—despite an impressive shiner. And unruly black hair. And more than a five-o’clock shadow at ten in the morning. And broad shoulders.
Not that she’d noticed. Much.
She scowled at herself.
Okay, so he was a broader, handsomer version of his brothers. He was also a selfish, thoughtless—
“I think there’s something wrong.” Mama Potts had rarely raised her voice in the nine years Violet had known her, but there was an edge to it now, an urgency that sent Violet pushing off the wall.
She weaved between the rows of waist-high wooden bookshelves that displayed countless pieces glazed in bright blues and greens and every other color of the rainbow. She whipped past a stack of purple platters, rattling them as her hip bumped the corner of the shelf. Pain shot toward her knee, but she didn’t stop until she’d raced past the built-in counter and through the open door off to the left.
“Are you
—” Violet’s question and feet both stopped when she saw Mama Potts standing on the far side of their studio.
The older woman looked just fine, small but strong. Her fists were pushed against her hips, and her pretty features pinched as she glared at the large round kiln in the corner.
Violet pressed a hand to the thudding in her chest and tried for a smile. Whatever had made Mama Potts call out couldn’t be that concerning. And most likely it did not involve any knowledge of Eli. She hoped.
Then again, that did leave her to share the news—the beans she was not eager to spill. These were family beans, and despite nearly a decade of mentorship and business partnership, Mama Potts wasn’t her mom, and Oliver and Levi weren’t her brothers.
“What’s wrong?” Violet finally asked.
Mama Potts shook her head and kicked the front of the metal kiln. “Something’s off. It’s—” She stopped at the exact moment the room filled with the acrid scent of burning rubber.
Violet twisted her neck, looking for the source, and shrieked as sparks jumped from the wall beside Mama Potts. Racing across the room, Violet had nearly reached her side when the socket kicked out another round of fireworks and the white wall around the plastic plate turned black and charred.
“It’s in the wall!” Mama Potts shrieked, grabbing Violet’s arm and tugging her back.
But the fire didn’t stay there. Flames suddenly burst from the electrical panel on the kiln and lit up the whole room. The morning sun shining through the open garage door made the flames disappear except for the blue at the center, which flickered in the wind.
Mama Potts’s hand beat on her shoulder. “Get the—get the—get the—”
Violet ran for the red fire extinguisher mounted below the wooden steps that led to her apartment on the second floor. She fumbled with the release, and when she finally got it open, she spun around just in time to see the flames jump to the wooden shelves that held pieces waiting for their turn to be fired.
Right beside the shelves sat a pile of rags atop a small pallet holding metal cans of glaze mixed with solvents. And all with plastic lids.
Her stomach hit the cement slab floor. She tried to scream, but her throat closed.
The wind whipped the fire across the pallet, igniting the rags and melting the lids.
The explosion wasn’t like in the movies. Shrapnel didn’t go flying. The roof stayed firmly in place.
And the fire was manageable. Until it wasn’t. The blaze went from blue to towering orange flames in an instant, consuming everything in its path. The heat weighed on Violet’s shoulders, dozens of kilos pressing her arms to her sides. She couldn’t even lift the extinguisher in her hands. Not that it would have helped.
Mama Potts scrambled back from the flames, her heel catching on a worktable and sending her sprawling on the ground.
Violet screamed, trying to warn Mama Potts, but her words were lost. She glanced at the extinguisher again but set it aside without any real consideration. The spray it held wouldn’t stop the inferno devouring their studio. But at least she could get Mama Potts out safely.
Rushing toward the heat, she squinted into the light as sweat poured down her back. When she reached Mama Potts, she squatted next to her, bracing an arm behind her back. “Here. Get up. Come on.”
But when the older woman braced her foot against the floor and began to push herself upright, she cried out.
Violet gasped, immediately choking on the smoke and chemicals filling the air. Her lungs burned, and tears rushed to her eyes. “Come on. You have to help me.”
Mama Potts coughed, doing her best to scoot across the floor. She cringed with each inch, and Violet turned to see how far they had yet to go to reach the sunshine-covered yard.
Please, let us make it.
She didn’t pray as often as she had as a child, but if ever there was an occasion, this was it. She hoped God heard even the desperate cries of those who had almost forgotten how to pray.
Then there wasn’t time to think about it. There was only a massive black silhouette in the open door, his arms pumping and his feet swallowing up the ground.
“Oliver!” Violet couldn’t help the tremor in her voice as relief rushed through her. His dark head bowed over his mom, and he scooped her into his strong arms. Mama Potts rested her head against his shoulder, linking her hands about his neck as he cleared the fire.
Free of the building and the suffocating smoke, Violet pressed her hands to her knees, savoring the salty tang of the fresh air. The wind dried her tears to her cheeks as she looked back at the building, half of their studio already consumed.
The metal buckets flickered among the flames near the kiln. Right where she knew better than to leave flammable solvents. Right where she’d left them anyway.
This was her fault.
Her stomach heaved, and she gasped for more air as sirens split the air. They were still a kilometer or more away, but they were on their way. She hadn’t called. Neither had Mama Potts. They hadn’t had time.
Oliver. He must have called for firefighters. When she turned to thank him, her insides twisted again. This time she really was going to be sick.
Because the man gently setting his mom on the ground wasn’t Oliver Ross. Or even his little brother, Levi.
In the sunlight and free of the shadows, there was no denying the way his mom cupped his cheek and whispered his name with pure love.
“Eli.”
Acknowledgments
I had hoped to go back to Prince Edward Island while writing this book, but a global pandemic changed my plans. So, like you, my reader friends, I’m thankful for the chance to visit it once again on the page. And I couldn’t have done so without an incredible group of people.
Rachel Kent and Books & Such Literary Management, thank you for believing in my stories. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for your steady guidance and calm assurance for more than a decade.
The amazing team at Revell makes every one of my books better and each publishing journey more fun. Thank you, Vicki, Jessica, Michele, Karen, and the rest of the team. Thank you for helping me tell my stories well.
The writing journey can be a lonely one. I’m beyond grateful that God brought a special group of writers into my life. Thank you, Lindsay Harrel, Sara Carrington, Jennifer Deibel, Sarah Popovich, and Erin McFarland, for your brainstorming and your input, your kindness and your encouragement. This group has been one of the joys of my life.
The earliest seeds of this story began to bloom on a sweet writing retreat in the mountains of Southern California with Joanne Bischof and Melissa Tagg. I’m forever grateful to have spent a long weekend with such amazing writers and stellar women.
A special thank-you to reader and friend Debi Hodam, who suggested the name Mama Potts.
While I was writing this book, my family weathered a terrible storm, an awful blow. There’s no doubt that I could not have written these words without their love and support. God gave me an extra blessing when he made me a Johnson. Being a part of this family is the best.
Finally, I owe all my gratitude and all my joy to the Miracle Maker, my good, good Father, who has showed up and showed off more times than I can count.
Liz Johnson is the author of more than a dozen novels, including A Sparkle of Silver, A Glitter of Gold, A Dazzle of Diamonds, The Red Door Inn, Where Two Hearts Meet, and On Love’s Gentle Shore, as well as a New York Times bestselling novella and a handful of short stories. She works in marketing and makes her home in Phoenix, Arizona. But she wishes she could live on Prince Edward Island.
LizJohnsonBooks.com
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Table of Contents
Cover
Endorsements
Books by Liz Johnson
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Content
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Epigraph
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Sneak Peek of Book 2
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
List of Pages
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