Abound in Love Read online

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Abound in Love

  © Copyright 2012 by Rosemarie Naramore

  All rights reserved.

  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

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Prologue

  Hey, Sis,

  I know it’s been awhile since I’ve e-mailed. It’s been longer since we’ve spoken. I’m sorry about that. I really am.

  I miss you.

  I know things weren’t always so great between us, but I want you to know that I do think of you often. I can’t tell you how many times lately I’ve recalled us as little girls—long before we reached high school age and things got strained between us—and remember how close we’d been.

  Do you remember the time the neighbor boy decided he was ‘in love’ with you? You must have been about six. Remember how you declared you were going to ‘vomit’ if he didn’t vacate the ‘premises’? (Your vocabulary was always far more advanced than mine.) Anyway, he was forever chasing you around the yard. You came to me—I was eight—and begged me to handle him. And I did. I charged him and knocked him to the ground. I sat on him, pinned his arms above his head, and told him in no uncertain terms to steer clear of you. If memory serves, he didn’t bother you again.

  Sis, I don’t know when you stopped seeing me as your protector, and I don’t recall when I relinquished the role. You could have gone to Thomas for help, but you came to me. You always did. What happened?

  Laura, I know what happened. I changed. I became your tormentor, rather than your protector, and the memory of my unkindness makes me want to cry. I understand why you left home and never looked back. I would have run away too.

  I wish I could change the past. I would do things so differently. So many things…

  Laura, please come home for the Thanksgiving holiday. I know I don’t have the right to ask, but I would love to see you. And the truth is, although I don’t deserve you, I could really use a sister right now…

  Chapter One

  Laura Landers pulled the e-mail out of her purse for the third time today. She re-read it, wondering what had prompted her sister Candace to send it. What had really caused her to send it? And what’s more, she had to wonder if it was a sincere extending of the olive branch. Had Candace changed?

  She gave a withering sigh. She hoped Candace had had some sort of epiphany—and that the sentiment was genuine. But if she was simply luring her home for some as yet undetermined, but likely selfish reason, as was typical Candace fashion, she wasn’t sure if there would ever be hope for their relationship.

  She slipped the key in the ignition of the rental car, intending to drive away from the Portland International Airport, but she paused and glanced out at the grey Northwest sky. Dark clouds hovered, threatening rain. To think, she’d left a sunny Georgia sky for this.

  She abruptly glanced heavenward. “Sorry, Lord. Thank you for this day,” she prayed, making a quick decision to look on the bright side of things. She had much to be thankful for. Life was good. She was young, healthy, and blessed with a fulfilling career. She was about to spend the first Thanksgiving holiday in years with members of her family, and her sister had reached out to her. Surely that portended even more positive things to come.

  She started the car and followed I-205 north until it merged with I-5. She soon pulled off of Interstate 5 and onto the exit to Battle Ground. As she neared the quaint town—named for an anticipated battle that hadn’t actually come to pass—she gave a wry smile. Although that 1855 battle between area Native Americans and Army captain William Strong had never happened, Laura had certainly fought a battle or two of her own while living here.

  She glanced at the clock on the dash. It was nearly four in the afternoon and unfortunately, already getting dark. It was par for the course during the fall season in the Pacific Northwest. Night fell quickly—typically following relentlessly grey, cloudy days.

  Lord, she was going to miss Georgia while she was here. Happy thoughts, she mused.

  Driving through town, she was surprised at how much the small town had grown during her years away. Fast food restaurants dotted the commercial landscape, as well as a couple large grocery stores. Several small boutique-type stores still lent small town charm to Main Street, as did the feed store that had been around for decades.

  She spied the high school on her left and frowned. She often felt as if high school was light years behind her, but seeing it again, she was abruptly transported back to her school days. Teenage insecurities popped to the forefront of her mind, not nearly as easy to suppress as she might have imagined if she was still at home in her adopted state of Georgia.

  Unlike her sister Candace, who had relished her school experience, Laura hadn’t been able to graduate fast enough. In fact, she’d spent both her junior and senior years attending the local community college, as part of a program that allowed high school students who tested well enough to get a jump start on their college education.

  That had been her saving grace—getting out of school and into the community college, where she hadn’t had to reside squarely within her sister’s formidable shadow. Candace had been the school’s version of a superstar. She was tall, thin, blonde, and gorgeous. By comparison, Laura was short, brunette, curvy, passably pretty, but too studious to be embraced by the popular in-crowd her sister had ruled with an iron fist—albeit a fist comprised of slender, fingers, boasting perfectly manicured nails. She typically wore a promise ring from one boy or another, depending on who happened to have won her heart during a given week.

  Laura attempted to force thoughts of Candace from her mind. It was too painful to remember how her own sister had cast her aside in favor of her friends—and had laughed along with them at her lack of a fashion sense and awkwardness around the opposite sex. While Candace had practically resided at the mall in nearby Vancouver, Laura had preferred riding horses at her neighbor’s home. Candace was a fashion do, Laura a fashion don’t.

  Though there was only two years between her and her older sister, at the time Laura had felt as if the age difference was a chasm, vast and unbridgeable. She often told herself she was okay with that, that Candace was a vapid girl who could easily step into their high school’s mean girl role, and as such, she wanted nothing to do with her. But then there were other times when Candace could behave like a caring older sister, and when those moments ended, that’s when her heart broke…

  Maybe things wouldn’t have been so strained between them if Laura hadn’t skipped a grade, putting her only a year behind her sister in school. Likely contributing to their difficulties was the fact that Laura sometimes found herself in classes along with her sister, and it wasn’t unusual for teachers to compare the two. Candace wasn’t much of a student; Laura, on the other hand, had been every teacher’s dream—an eager learner and active class participant.

  Laura shook her head, to clear away the memories for now. Many of them still had the power to hurt, which surprised her. She was twenty-eight, a professional woman who had long since overcome her self-consciousness and awkwardness. Even her closet was a testament to the fact that she’d grown up and into a confident woman. It held an assort
ment of crisp, tailored pants and skirts, that when paired with any of her selection of blouses, emphasized her slim, toned figure. She had her fair share of admirers, but had forgone serious romantic entanglements in order to achieve her professional goals.

  Laura paused at a stop light. If she was being honest with herself, she knew her resistance to male attention was more than a means to advance her career without distraction. The truth was, he remained a distraction—a constant, shadowy figure in her thoughts and memories.

  She gave a brittle laugh. It was time to put away childish musings. He hadn’t really known she existed back then—to him, she was simply the younger sibling of his friends—and he probably wouldn’t even recognize her now. Lord, she was as pathetic now as she had been when she lived here. Buck up, she told herself. Grow up.

  She smoothed a hand across her hair, and despite her attempts at reasoning with her own tired mind, she glanced around, warily, as if fearful she might see him—afraid he might suddenly materialize on the street, or in a truck in the lane beside her, or even driving his patrol car. She sighed, and gave a self-deprecating laugh. Maybe she wouldn’t even have occasion to run into Dalton Jance, and if she did, maybe she would discover that he no longer had the power to set her heartbeat into over-drive and cause her to go weak in the knees.

  She gave a withering sigh, almost embarrassed. If her friends in Georgia could see her now… Surely they would have a good laugh at her expense.

  Laura continued through town, finally taking a left onto a roadway that led both to her family home, as well as onward to Battle Ground Lake State Park. The familiar road boasted the same twists and turns she remembered, and she found herself driving on autopilot, as her mind wandered.

  It had been over seven years since she’d visited her hometown. After graduating from college, she’d returned home briefly, only to leave again when she’d secured a job in Georgia as a news writer for a large Atlanta television station. She felt some guilt that she’d been gone for so long, but then, her folks had left Battle Ground soon after her, settling in Phoenix. Only Candace and their brother Thomas lived here now—her brother having bought the family home from their parents.

  She wondered if he and his fiancée Macy had set a date for their wedding yet. Or had their sister’s marital woes prompted the couple to slow the pace a bit. Laura still couldn’t believe Candace had left her husband Dan. More difficult to believe was that Candace had sent that e-mail, asking her to come home for Thanksgiving. She had gone so far as to tell her that she needed a sister right now…

  Laura still couldn’t fathom that her sister had turned to her for anything, let alone comfort. They rarely spoke to one another, sent only the occasional e-mail, and certainly didn’t have what anyone could call a close relationship. As her sister had pointed out in her e-mail, they hadn’t been close since they were small children.

  Despite having differences with her sister, Laura had reached out to her children, assuring she remembered every special occasion with a gift. She e-mailed them often, offering love and encouragement. Although she had only met them in-person one time, and they’d been tiny at the time, she still felt close to them. Sometimes she wondered if her sister even knew how often she talked to her son and daughter.

  As the country road that led to her brother’s place came into view, Laura took a shoring breath. Her heart began beating rapidly, and she couldn’t fathom why. She’d grown up here, yet something felt off to her. She didn’t feel a sense of coming home. On some level, it pained her. Shouldn’t she be eagerly anticipating a reunion with loved ones?

  She turned down the curving lane to her home, watching the old farmhouse grow larger before her eyes, as if in a scene from a movie. Her heart began drumming in her chest, her palms became sweaty. Good Lord, had coming home precipitated a heart attack?

  When she pulled in front of the house and parked, she took a deep, shoring breath. She was home. No. She was a visitor here now. Georgia was home.

  Deciding to leave her luggage for later, she walked up the front steps to the wide, wrap-around front porch. She was pleased to see her brother had given the old place a good bit of much-needed TLC, since it boasted a new paint job. The subtle yellow tone leant a crisp, cheerful countenance to a once nondescript, run-down home. Laura suspected the hanging plants, and Autumn flowers within new window boxes, were likely her brother’s fiancée’s contribution to the design scheme.

  Before she had a chance to ring the doorbell, Thomas threw open the door, pushed open the screen door, and abruptly pulled her into a hug. “It’s about time you got here,” he said mock-gruffly, holding her tightly. “Wow, I’ve missed you.”

  “It has been a long time,” she admitted, laughing with surprise.

  “Too long.” When he finally released her, he smiled into her face. At over six feet tall, he towered over his petite sister, but he boasted the same dark hair—inherited from their father. Candace, though tall like Thomas, was blonde like their mother. “You, sister, are a sight for sore eyes,” he declared.

  “It’s great to see you too.”

  “Where are your bags?” he asked, frowning. “You are staying awhile?”

  “I left them in the trunk of the rental. I’ll get them later,” she said dismissively.

  “I’ll get them now,” he said, snatching the car keys from her. He dashed past her and paused at the foot of the stairs. “Man, it’s great to see you, Laura.”

  She couldn’t help smiling at his enthusiasm. Clearly, he was happy to see her. Though if she didn’t know better, she might think he was determined to stow her luggage in the house, lest she decide to change her mind about staying for the holiday and make a run for it. She sensed a weariness about him, and gave him an assessing glance before she followed him down the steps and met him at the trunk of the rental car. She took one of her bags from him.

  “I’ve got it. Come on inside. I’ve got dinner cooking on the stove.”

  Laura came to a stop. “You … have dinner … cooking…?”

  He gave a shrug. “Well, yeah. I’m actually a great cook.”

  She laughed. “If I remember right, you couldn’t make toast without help.”

  He grinned ruefully. “Yeah, well, pretending I was helpless in the kitchen meant I rarely had to do anything in the kitchen,” he admitted. “Unfortunately, Macy never bought my ‘pitiful man’ routine.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Laura said drolly. “I wish I hadn’t bought it. I remember all the times I made sandwiches for you and your buddies, when I now know you were more than capable of doing it yourself.”

  “I did appreciate it…”

  “You did not!” she scoffed.

  “Well, I offer you my heartfelt thanks now, for everything you did for me.”

  She eyed him with exaggerated suspicion and he only laughed. “I’ll tell you what. You won’t have to do any cooking while you’re here.”

  “I hadn’t planned to,” she responded, grinning cheekily. “I’m your guest.”

  “You’re hardly a guest,” a deep, masculine voice said from the doorway.

  Laura’s heart skipped a beat. She didn’t have to glance up to recognize that voice.

  Dalton.

  What was he doing here? She gave herself a shake. He was visiting her brother, of course. Why else would he be here?

  She’d been so afraid of how she’d react when she saw him for the first time. She had hoped to settle in before seeing him, to at least have the time to get her bearings. If she was being honest with herself, she’d have preferred to avoid any contact all together. Well, maybe that wasn’t necessarily the truth…

  “It’s good to see you, Laura,” he said, his voice as deep and husky as she remembered. He smiled. “You look good.”

  She finally lifted her eyes to meet his gaze, bracing for impact. His deep blue eyes, the color of a Georgia sky in the spring time, sought hers, and Laura felt the same curious electrical current pass between them that she’d often felt
in the past. Of course, when she was young, she had believed it was her who felt it, rather than him. Candace had confirmed as much.

  Once, when the two had been getting along, and Laura had let her guard down, she had confided in Candace that she had feelings for Dalton. She had hesitantly told her that she sensed he might actually feel something for her in return.

  She could still hear her sister’s brittle, contemptuous laughter. “Dalton doesn’t like you! He comes over here to see me, of course.” She had watched her with a pitying expression. “Oh, Laura, whatever you do, don’t tell him how you feel. You’ll be a laughingstock.”

  Remembering those words caused Laura to put up her guard, to stand taller, and to erect the protective walls around herself that she had done so often in the past.

  “Hey, sis! Aren’t you going to say ‘hello’ to Dalton,” Thomas said cheerfully. “You remember him, don’t you…? Of course, you remember him.”

  “Oh, yes, sure,” she said, smiling stiffly in his direction. “How are you, Dalton? It’s, er, good to see you again.”

  He flashed a dubious smile, since she hadn’t sounded particularly enthusiastic in her greeting. “Yeah, you look thrilled to see me,” he said drolly.

  “Oh, I’m…”

  “How long will you be staying?” he asked, dropping down the steps and coming to stand beside her. He was a bit too close for comfort.

  She took an instinctive step back, which he appeared to register when he narrowed his eyes slightly. “Uh, well, I’m not sure yet,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’m sure Thomas will want his home to himself before too long.”

  Dalton tossed his head back and gave a hearty laugh. “Yeah, well, we can all wish him good luck with that,” he said, chuckling, and to her surprise, pulled her into a hug. “Boy, are you in for a wild ride,” he said, still chuckling, though she heard the distinctive note of warning in his voice.

  When he released her, she was still reeling from the shock of the close contact. Since when did Dalton hug her? Since when did he even glance her way?