Lost & Found Love

Book 2: Mountain Meadow Homecomings

by Laura Browning

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

A haven in his arms…. Welcome to Mountain Meadow, Virginia, where homecomings lead to happily ever after… Tabitha MacVie has come to Mountain Meadow to meet the sister she never knew, and find the family she longs for. What she discovers is a close-knit community determined to close ranks against the new art teacher, especially once she catches the eye of the town’s most eligible bachelor. Tabby tries hard to keep Joe Taylor at a distance.  But staying away from the handsome preacher isn’t easy once he opens his arms to her…. Tabby is the answer to Joe’s prayers. Too bad the spirited beauty believes she doesn’t belong in Mountain Meadow—or with him.  Still, Joe can’t resist offering her shelter against the local gossips, or giving her a strong shoulder to lean on when her family hopes are dashed.  And when Tabby’s life is suddenly on the line, Joe will do anything to save the woman who stole his heart.

Release date: February 2, 2016

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 208

Sample

 

For a girl who’d grown up in a rundown millhouse, what Tabby stood in front of now was a dream. Best of all, it was hers. The house was a unique blend of colors. A rich, rusty red exterior with creamy yellow shutters and lacy wood trim, which betrayed its Victorian origins. The rounded left front, with its big bay windows on the first and second floors, reminded Tabby of the tower on a castle. The third floor was tucked under a steeply pitched roof, and at ground level, a wide, covered veranda wrapped around the front and side. Tabby gazed at it with a smile. It was exactly like the picture the real estate agent had sent her. Good thing. She’d bought it, sight unseen, in an Internet auction.

The purchase was a win-win situation for Tabby and the former owner. The elderly woman had taken the proceeds and moved into the Mountain Meadow Retirement Community. She was free from caring for such a huge home, and Tabby had gotten a great deal.

With her cat carrier in her left hand, Tabby unlocked the heavy front door and wandered inside. Her artist’s eye quickly circled the high-ceilinged front hall, the living room on one side, and the dining room on the other. The house had possibilities. Even the furnishings would work with a colorful throw here and a few accent pillows there. Since the previous owner had little use in her new patio home for most of the furniture, she had thrown what she didn’t need into the deal.

At a sound behind her, Tabby turned. A leggy boy with long, dark brown hair shifted from foot to foot. His grin alone was enough to light up the room, even without the sunshine streaming through the lacy curtains.

“Who are you?” she asked. “My one-man welcoming committee?”

“Tyler Morgan. I do odd jobs at Tarpley’s…uh…Mountain Meadow General Store, but most folks around here call it Tarpley’s. They—that’s Mr. and Mrs. Tarpley—sent me over with a box of groceries for you. Said it should get you started till you have a chance to stop in.”

Tabby glanced from the box to the boy with his warm brown eyes. Was this place for real? She’d grown up around Asheville, North Carolina where folks were friendly, but not like this.

“Thanks, Tyler. That was thoughtful of you and the…Tarpleys was it?”

“Yeah.” He smiled with a trace of shyness. “You’re Miss MacVie, aren’t you? The new art teacher?”

Tabby nodded. It seemed a quiet, unobtrusive arrival was out of the question. Another difference to keep in mind about such a small community. Someone new around here was news. Not exactly what she wanted to be. “Yes.”

“Cool.” He grinned, the shyness disappearing. “I like art way better than math and science, but not as good as English.”

Tabby laughed. “Maybe I can change your mind.”

“What’s in the pet carrier?” He craned his neck to see.

Tabby held it so he could. “My cat. Katie Scarlett…Katie for short.”

Tyler’s eyes rounded, and he laughed. “She looks like you—black hair and gold eyes too. Can I take the groceries back to the kitchen for you?”

While doing her student teaching, Tabby had gotten used to the lightning fast conversational changes children always seemed to make.

“If you don’t mind. You caught me just walking in for the first time.” She followed him, since he already seemed to know his way around the house. If all her welcomes were this warm, then the task her mother had given her should be easy. Tabby sucked in a deep, cleansing breath of relief.

They put the groceries away. Tyler pointed to the kitchen door that led out to the back corner of the veranda. “It will be easier to unload your car and come in this door. You can go up the back stairs. I can help.”

“That’s mighty nice. Thank you.”

“You sure don’t have much stuff,” he commented as he looked at her open trunk.

Tabby laughed again, finding it so much easier to relax here. “I just got out of college, so no, I don’t. Just my clothes, my bike, and my art supplies.” As Tyler made a move to grab a stack of canvases, Tabby stopped him with a smile and a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’ll get those. You carry my case there with my paints and brushes. We’ll take everything to the top floor.”

After they’d unloaded, she opened her wallet, but Tyler shook his head. “Holly and Jake, my sister and her husband, would kill me if I took money for being neighborly.”

Tabby’s eyes widened. This place couldn’t be for real. She felt like she’d walked into The Andy Griffith Show with Tyler as a cuter, twenty-first century version of Opie. “Well thanks then, Tyler. I guess I’ll see you in a week, or sooner.”

With a wave, the boy sprinted out the door and down the walk, no doubt on his way to tell everyone, including the mysterious Tarpleys, that he had actually met the new art teacher. Tabby smiled. She could get to like this town if Tyler and the Tarpleys were any example of what to expect. If the one welcome she really wanted was just as warm, Tabby could easily call Mountain Meadow home.

* * * *

Joe studied the two sulky combatants as they faced him from the other side of his desk. As Pastor Joe, head of the town’s largest Baptist church, he had mediated many disagreements. This one between Hannah Hairston and Charlie Gardner was just the latest in a long line. The two had been at each other since the Christmas pageant last year when Charlie had knocked Hannah’s halo off. The latest problem was a dispute over glue and scissors in the first grade vacation bible school group. The teenager in charge of the class called Joe in for help when it looked as if the problem was escalating.

“Let me see if I understand this. Charlie, you want the glue, and Hannah won’t give it to you… And Hannah, you want the scissors, and Charlie won’t give those to you. Is that correct?”

They both nodded. Joe worked hard to keep the smile off his face.

“Well, you give me the scissors, Charlie, and Hannah, you give me the glue.” They dutifully handed them over. “I’ll give the glue to Charlie and give Hannah the scissors. Does everyone have what they want now?”

Charlie nodded, and Hannah did, too, but then she asked suspiciously, “What if I want the glue back, Pastor Joe?”

Joe looked at Molly Saunders and said gently, “Well then you give it to Molly, and she will help you exchange it. How about that?”

Molly’s look of gratitude also revealed a bit of the crush he feared she still harbored. “Thanks, Pastor Joe.”

“No problem, Molly.”

It was opening day of a week’s worth of vacation bible school. Joe recruited his high school students to assist with the younger kids during the day, and in the evenings, he met with the teenagers. Joe watched Molly leave with the two children in tow. He loved his job, and he loved the area, but lately discontent nagged him. It had started last Christmas right after the ceasefire between the Presbyterian and Baptist church ladies.

He’d watched Jake, the town’s police chief, and Holly Allred settle into their marriage, and seen the love and trust restored to Evan Richardson and Jenny Owens, one of the rural area’s few doctors. The two couples had forged strong, loving relationships, even marrying in a double ceremony. The wedding had been short notice, but the Allreds had been out in force. Jenny had no family, and Evan was alienated from his. Still, it had been a joyous affair.

What Joe suffered now, he tried to reassure himself, was not so much a crisis in faith as simple loneliness. Sure he had parishioners all around him. In fact, he spent a lot of time surrounded by people—just not someone with whom he could share his feelings or concerns.

It was hard enough as a single man in a community like Mountain Meadow. It was almost impossible when you were also the minister of the Baptist church. Women, he found, fell into two categories when it came to ministers. They either turned tail as fast as they could, or they instantly envisioned remodeling the parsonage. It didn’t matter that all he might want was company for dinner and a movie. Joe might be a man of God, but he was still a man. He’d like to be able to enjoy the company of an attractive woman once in a while without her obsessing over how the parsonage would look with a woman’s touch or, conversely, trying to end the evening early.

Lately, he’d even wondered if he’d made a mistake choosing the path he had. Joe closed his eyes for a moment. A crisis of confidence wasn’t what he needed right now. He’d grown up in a small community like this, farther west, and the path he’d chosen as a kid and a teen had been anything but holy. Seeing his best friend killed in a knife fight had been a wake-up call. No, he hadn’t chosen wrong. It just wasn’t always an easy or a comfortable choice. Having someone he could talk to would help. His monthly clandestine card games with Evan, Jake, and Sam provided some outlet, but not the intimacy he craved.

The last of the teens left, and Joe locked the church before walking through the parking lot and across to the backyard of the parsonage. In the house next door, a light on the third floor glowed, but otherwise, the house was dark and nearly as empty looking as it had been the past few months. He jumped slightly as a dark shadow dashed back toward the house and up onto the veranda railing. Two glowing eyes glared at him. A cat?

Joe didn’t have anything against cats, but he definitely did not want paw prints all over his prized possession, a vintage, cherry-red Mustang convertible. He’d gotten it his first year in college and spent years restoring it to mint condition. He didn’t need to drive it often with work right beyond his backyard, but he enjoyed it this time of year for the odd afternoon drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

That was one of the attractions of living in Mountain Meadow, one he couldn’t lightly dismiss. He knew the car raised the eyebrows of a few of his more conservative flock, but this was one area where he wouldn’t compromise. It was a way to relax, one of his few vices other than the odd poker game. He grinned.

As he walked by, he saw the car was still pristine, and he glanced back at the veranda railing, but the cat was gone. He spotted a bike leaning against the wall of the house. He’d heard the rumor his neighbor was the new art teacher, and he’d already half formed a picture of a motherly woman with paint stained fingers and Birkenstocks. The bike didn’t quite fit that image. It screamed serious bicyclist. He might have to readjust his mental image of his new neighbor.

Before he settled down to work on his sermon, Joe reached for his guitar. Music had always been an important outlet for him. Sure, being able to sing was a tremendous bonus for the guy who had to stand up in front of a congregation, but Joe loved classical and pop music too. So that’s what he launched into from the privacy of his own living room. With the evening breeze fluttering the curtains at the windows, it was the perfect way to spend the bit of free time he allowed himself.

He heard a window slam next door. The light in the neighbor’s third floor window was still burning, but the window had been firmly shut. Had he disturbed her with his singing? They would have an uneasy relationship if that were the case because Joe not only loved to sing, he loved to listen to music. Still he tried to be thoughtful. That was part of who he was. The angry, defiant teen had disappeared long ago.

He closed his own windows on that side of the house before turning up his stereo while he made a snack. With plate and glass in hand, he went to his study to work on his schedule for the week. Even with the addition of vacation bible school, he still needed to fit in the visits he made to the nursing homes and members of his congregation who were unable to get out and about much. And there was a sermon still to write.

He started on the sermon first. Joe found that once he had an idea the words flowed. He thought about Hannah and Charlie. The two children had wanted to share, but had simply been unable to move past their differences until they were shown how. He smiled and began to write.

When he stretched and stood up a couple hours later, he noticed the house next door was dark. He wondered again about his new neighbor. Of course he knew she was the new art teacher for the Mountain Meadow Public Schools. How could he not? It was a small town where everyone seemed to know everything. His parishioners also enjoyed sharing whatever news they had.

What bothered Joe was the comments weren’t always well-intentioned, or didn’t seem to be.

The town’s Facebook page had several comments about the fact that the new teacher had put a sizable down payment on the house next door, and they were already wondering how a new teacher could afford that. Joe shook his head. Facebook, phones, or face-to-face—Mountain Meadow loved to gossip.

If this teacher was like the last few new teachers to move here, she was nearing retirement and simply seeking a place where she could work for a few years until she could draw a second pension after working to retirement age in a neighboring state. Joe contented himself with his picture of a kindly, matronly woman who would have kids working on papier-mâché and macramé, maybe some clay projects for the older kids. He had modified his vision somewhat to make her lean and athletic after getting a glimpse of the bike, but in his imagination she still had Birkenstocks. He smiled as he turned the lights off and went to bed.

* * * *

The singing from next door, beautiful as it was, didn’t help Tabby’s attempts to work. She continued half-heartedly trying to translate her first impressions of Mountain Meadow to the canvas in front of her, but it wasn’t easy. Too perfect. The whole town seemed too perfect. Bright, Rockwell-esque art wasn’t her forte, although she was trying to stretch herself. She slapped her brush and palette onto the small table next to her easel. Who was she trying to kid? She was attempting to create art that was a bit more marketable than her normal subject matter, but Normal Rockwell she wasn’t.

Turned against the opposite wall were the rest of her paintings, some so dark Tabby didn’t look at them again once they were done. She also couldn’t get rid of them. They were part of who she was, part of her personality. She had always painted darker images. Disturbing, some of her instructors had called them. Other teachers hadn’t been so kind. While she knew, logically, there was nothing wrong with her art, she also recognized, with the same logic, that it made some people uncomfortable.

People didn’t look at the work of Edvard Munch and smile. The drawings Kathe Kollwitz produced weren’t hanging behind people’s couches. Tabby knew her work was unlikely to head a list of popular artists. She had accepted that, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t create some commercially viable pieces. She hoped Mountain Meadow would be the inspiration for that. A new start that would give her a fresh perspective on life.

She paused and rolled her shoulders as Katie Scarlett glided into the room. The cat picked her way daintily through the canvases, hopped up into the window seat, and curled up.

“I know. I know. I should go to bed. What kind of artist am I that I paint at night rather than taking advantage of all that marvelous daylight?” Tabby set the brush down and sat next to the closed window, her hand absently stroking Katie’s sleek coat. She examined the house next door, like hers in a lot of ways. There were lights on there, down on the first floor in what would be the equivalent of her dining room. Was he still singing in that lilting tenor voice? Tabby closed her eyes, hearing it again in her head. It had been beautiful, mournful, and a bit lonely.

The beautiful voice from below had soothed and seduced her. Peace was a fantasy she had never found. The rich, male voice had rolled over her like a cool mountain breeze or a dip in a quiet pond. It had also given her a feeling of loneliness. However, unless she changed her approach to life, she would become as lonely here as she had always been. Had the singer below been sharing his talent with his family? His girlfriend?

That was why she’d slammed the window shut.

She wanted life to be different here, hoped she would have a new start. Dropping her head forward, Tabby sighed in resignation. Just once it would be nice not to have people look at her as if she were a freak. Just once it would be nice to feel normal. Did people look at Stephen King or Dean Koontz as weirdos because they wrote stories that often plumbed the worst of what man was capable of?

Tabby turned off the lights. It was time for bed. She was here to find her sister, to start a new life that she hoped would provide a chance to be like everyone else. Surely, the darker side of her art could be kept under wraps.

Tabby rose before dawn. It was her first workday of a week she knew would fly by. As the only art teacher in the town’s small school system, she had two rooms to set up—one at the elementary school and another for both middle and high school, since the two schools shared a campus. She was pleased to see plenty of supplies. The upper grades’ room boasted not only a kiln, but also a great supply of clay and two electric pottery wheels.

There were paints, mostly tempera and watercolors, but she did find a small supply of canvas and acrylics. No oils, which was what she preferred to work in, but this would be a great start for all the kids. Drawing boards were neatly stacked at the back of the room where there were also rolls and rolls of paper, from plain newsprint to bright colors. Tabby was beside herself with happiness.

She’d worried when she accepted the job with such a small system that it would also be impoverished, but it appeared to her the folks in Mountain Meadow did not take arts education for granted. She had already met the music teacher, who also served both younger and older students, and the band director, a bit of a stuffy, fussy man who looked at Tabby’s long flowing skirt and blouse and her Birkenstock sandals and simply raised his brows superciliously.

Tabby sighed when he walked away. Disapproval rolled off him so obviously, even a complete idiot would have felt it. Had he expected June Cleaver complete with sweater sets and pearls? Tabby was sure he wouldn’t be the last to treat her with censure. People often ridiculed or disapproved anything or anyone different. It would probably be best if she kept most of her best artwork to herself.

Images from her childhood flashed before her, but she pushed them away. She was gone. It was over, and other than finding her sister, Tabby wanted no reminders of her past. She had been careful to leave no forwarding address with her college. She had arranged for everything to go to a post office box and hoped that would be enough to prevent anyone tracking her down. Her art had made her a target since she first picked up crayons as a child. Over the years, she had learned to be careful.

Tabby deliberately busied her hands and her brain setting up class rolls and portfolios to take her mind off her childhood. The nightmare images were sometimes too easy to allow back in. The pictures stayed, though, and by the time she stumbled through her kitchen door that afternoon, she flew straight up the stairs to her studio. Painting had always been her outlet, and as long as she kept it to herself, surely she would be safe here.

She set aside her Norman Rockwell-like vision of Mountain Meadow. This time when she painted, the images flowed dark and disturbing. She worked without stopping through the afternoon and evening and on into the night. She didn’t eat, didn’t drink, intent only on getting the pictures out of her head and onto the canvas where she could control them.

* * * *

Joe’s gaze narrowed on the light high up in his neighbor’s house when he arrived home. He had yet to see the new teacher, just her cat, which dozed during the mornings on the wide veranda as Joe went out for his morning run. The cat was a sleek, black-coated animal with the most amazing golden eyes that followed him wherever he went. Joe knew from Tyler that rather than fitting his image of the matronly teacher, Miss MacVie was young and she looked like her cat, whatever that meant. Tyler wasn’t quite at the age yet where he paid attention to females. Either way, he had one advantage over Joe—Tyler had actually seen the mysterious Miss MacVie.

Joe fixed dinner, listening to some classic rock while he hummed along. As he sat down at the kitchen table, he glanced out and saw once again that the only light came from the third floor window. After dinner, he worked in his study, polishing his sermon. When he stopped for a snack around eleven, the same light still burned in the house next door. In the middle of the night, he went downstairs to get a drink of water, pausing as he looked out and saw the light was still on. Was she all right? His brow furrowed as he stared at that window. Weren’t artists always going on about needing natural light? That must mean they painted during the day. So what was she doing?

He stepped out onto his back porch. The sash was open, and for a moment, he thought he heard soft sobs. Joe frowned and started to cross the drive to her house, but then the light went off. He watched the window for several minutes, but no other light came on. He was torn between wanting to find out if she was okay, and not wanting to intrude on someone he had never met at one o’clock in the morning.

* * * *

Tabby felt drained and glad it was Friday. The school year started Tuesday, right after Labor Day. Although she looked forward to it, today she simply wanted to get her work done and go home. She’d finished last night’s painting, and if she could help it, she wouldn’t look at it again. Maybe someday she would find a market for her work, but not now. It was too personal.

Tabby decided she would use the weekend to get things in order in the house and finally go to Tarpley’s to stock the kitchen. When she arrived home a little after noon, she spotted a tall, lean figure with broad shoulders and a tight butt headed through the backyard next to hers over to the Baptist church. His caramel-colored hair glinted with golden highlights in the sun. No way was that the minister. She had pictured an older man with slicked back hair and a bit of a paunch when the real estate agent mentioned she would be living next to the parsonage. Tabby was surprised to find out he was not married, having assumed he was an older, widowed man. Maybe this guy was a parishioner.

Well, no matter. Minister or not, she had no intention of making his acquaintance. Tabby made a point of staying as far as possible from organized religion. Some of the biggest hypocrites hid behind the . . .