The Long Way Home

Author

Dedication

To Nancy and Lori, who never let me down

Dear Reader,

Home means so many different things to different people, doesn’t it? It can be the place you come from, or the brand new sanctuary you bravely carve for yourself out in the big, bad world. Sometimes it’s not a place at all, but a person—the one broke your heart-, or the one who pieces it together again.

For Abby Foster, home used to mean Marietta, Montana. It used to mean her father, and their beautiful family ranch. Most of all, it meant Joe Carlyle, the wild, sweet boy who was her first and only love.

Then Abby made a terrible mistake, and as a result she ended up exiled from everything that ever mattered. Eight long years later, she returns for Marietta High’s Homecoming Weekend, though she’s not sure why. Her father’s gone. The ranch is sold. And Joe will probably never forgive her for what she did to him back then.

But the pull is too strong to resist.

And that’s the miracle of Home. It’s the place that calls to our soul, and when we answer, it accepts us as we are. It’s the people who love us, warts and all, and always stand ready to rescue us from ourselves.

I hope you enjoy reading Abby and Joe’s story as much as I loved writing it. And I hope that, wherever you find yourself today, it feels a lot like Home.

Warmly,

Kathleen

Chapter One

"I didn’t choose to fall in love with Joe, Charlie. And if I knew how, I’d stop loving him right this minute. I swear I would." Abby Foster sat slumped inside a jumble of blankets on the floor of her darkened bedroom. She rubbed her small horseshoe charm necklace with one hand and with the other she squeezed a pillow against her stomach.

From her perch across the room on the window seat, Charlie didn’t answer. But Abby imagined she heard skepticism in her friend’s stony silence.

"It’s true, Charlie! I want to stop. I know it’s the right thing. For my dad, for me...and probably even for Joe. He doesn’t love me anymore He made it clear he wouldn’t take me back now, even if I asked him to."

She squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head, remembering how furious Joe had been, the last time she saw him. The names he had called her...

She whimpered softly, lifting the pillow to muffle the sound. "But how do you stop loving someone, Charlie? How?"

Still no response. Abby wasn’t surprised. There was nothing to say that hadn’t already been said a hundred times. No one had the answer, not even wise Charlotte Morgan, Abby’s best friend, and the most sensible person she knew.

Because there was no answer. There was no hope. Abby was trapped. She couldn’t stop loving Joe, and, when the morning came, she couldn’t escape marrying Blaine Watts.

Just a few hours left...

She glanced at her wedding dress, hung over her closet door to fluff out, as the maid called it. In the daylight, it had seemed beautiful, even to Abby, whose emotions were so mixed. But tonight its pearls and sequins played tricks with the moonlight and shadows. It might have been a ghost pinned there, restlessly glimmering.

Was it really possible that, in the morning, she’d put on that dress, walk out onto the lawn, and in front of two hundred strangers become Mrs. Blaine Watts? If she did, happy Abby Foster, the spoiled little rich girl who had fallen in love with wild Joe Carlyle, would disappear forever.

Happy Abby Foster would become the ghost.

But the ghost of Abby’s happiness wouldn’t haunt this bedroom. More likely, people would report seeing her floating around the old swayback Carlyle outbuilding, where she and Joe made love the very first time.

And the very last time.

Despair washed over her again, like storm waves pummeling the shore. She felt bruised on the inside, wet and eroded.

"How?" she repeated in a whisper. Then she cried for a little while. Softly. The loud, hiccupping sobs had worn themselves out at least an hour ago, when the effects of the Kahlua, which she’d smuggled upstairs to help numb the pain, had kicked in.

Time drifted, marked only by an occasional sniffle, or a fresh seeping of tears. Eventually, though, the unnatural silence from the other side of the room began to register. She let go of her necklace, and she lifted her head.

Charlie? She squinted toward the arched windows, where Charlie sat in a beam of blue moonlight. No response. Suddenly, Abby couldn’t even remember when Charlie had last murmured so much as an um-humh to anything she’d said.

Charlie, are you awake?

Nothing. Abby dropped her pillow, unwound herself from the blankets, and walked across the room, her bare feet making no noise on the thick carpet.

When she got close enough, she had her answer. Charlie was dead asleep, her face pale, with shadows under her eyes. She was still propped upright, with her willowy, beauty-queen legs stretched along the cushioned seat, but her mouth was open, her head tilted awkwardly toward her shoulder.

Her notepad had tumbled to the carpet, and her right hand dangled beside it. Somehow, the ballpoint pen still rested in the limp crook of her fingers.

Aw...poor Charlie.

Abby glanced toward the fireplace, where her mother’s gilt-and-white Limoges clock had stood as long as Abby had been alive. Stephanie Foster hadn’t needed it...she’d died while Abby was being born.

To Abby’s surprise, it was already two a.m.

A sliver of shame pierced her fog of self-pity. Charlie was such a good friend. She’d agreed to spend this awful night here, though she must have guessed Abby wouldn’t sleep. She’d shared the Kahlua, though she didn’t like it much. She’d listened without judging...and she’d even agreed to help make this list of the arguments for and against the wedding.

Abby bent down and scooped up the notebook. Across the top, in her firm handwriting, Charlie had written Marrying Blaine Watts. Below that, she’d created two columns, labeled Pros and Cons.

Even from a distance, you could see how lopsided the debate was. Charlie had taken faithful dictation, copying down every word Abby said, without even changing the pronouns.

The Pros side was long.

1.   Blaine’s a real grown-up. And successful. I’d be secure for life.

2.   He loves me.

3.   He’s very attractive.

4.   Dad says this is the kind of marriage my mother dreamed of for me.

5.   Dad needs to know I’m taken care of, especially since the cancer.

6.   I’ve spent so much money on the wedding.

7.   All those people are coming from everywhere, all his bigwig friends. How embarrassing for him if I called it off.

8.   I gave my word to Dad.

9.   I gave my word to Blaine.

Abby frowned at it. The list was pretty compelling, here in black and white. All those great reasons to go through with it.

And on the Cons side, just one entry.

1.   I still love Joe.

She stared at those four words a long time. The sentence looked so small. Insignificant ...maybe even selfish...next to the nine big, righteous reasons in the other column.

But so what? She had a sudden urge to rip the notebook to shreds. The list had been a stupid, stupid idea. No one could make a decision this important with a list. Love wasn’t measured in words and ink. Happiness couldn’t be predicted by its weight on a scale, like fish at the grocery store.

But then, in this tug of war between her heart and her brain, the brain side of the argument gave a sharp yank.

Be honest with yourself, Abby. The decision’s already made.

She’d come too far to turn back—and where would she go, anyhow? Joe had said he never wanted to see her again. And her father was dying, so the perfect harbor she’d known all her life was smashed. She was in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight. She didn’t have the courage to overturn the boat now.

As someone once said, when you’re going through hell, keep going.

She glanced through the window at the white party tents below, already erected in the backyard, waiting for the ten thousand white Dutch roses that would arrive by jet at dawn.

Number Six. She’d spent so much money...

When she’d finally said yes to Blaine—after weeks of ugly scenes with Joe that always ended with him calling her a snob, or a spoiled coward—she’d started planning the wedding. In spite of the rush, she’d insisted on the best of everything. She’d felt like she deserved it, if only for being the obedient daughter and choosing the sensible life path.

So she’d asked for the dream dress, which cost more than most people made in a year. The diamond the size of a boat anchor. The cake that rose nine tiers, the bridal march played by a string quartet, the honeymoon in Greece, the trousseau fit for a queen.

Her father had paid even the most outrageous bills without complaint, just as Blaine had done with the solitaire and the cruise. Both men had actually seemed amused, as if her extravagance proved her excellent taste, and her worth as a trophy wife and daughter.

Joe, however, had recognized the reckless spending for exactly what it was—a bribe from the men. A bribe Abby had accepted out of a deadly mix of despair, anger, and maybe a little revenge.

He hadn’t cared whether calling it a bribe insulted her. Joe had always been a straight talker, and he didn’t mince words about this, either.

Just three days ago, when Abby and Blaine were picking out chocolates from Sage Carrigan’s store to add to the dessert buffet, Joe had spotted them. Impulsively, he’d stormed into the shop and barreled right up to Blaine. Two of his brothers raced in after him, but they were too late. Joe already had shoved the heels of his hands into Blaine’s broad chest.

You pathetic pile of horse manure, Joe said in a hard voice, so loud everyone in the store could hear. "Do you think she’s a whore? Do you think you can buy her?"

Devlin, four years older than Joe, caught Joe’s right arm. Rafe, who was only ten, caught the other arm, but Devlin obviously was doing all the work.

Shut up, Joe, Devlin said, his voice low and steady, though the glare he shot toward Blaine was every bit as