Strawberry Lane

Book 1: Someday Valley

by Jodi Thomas

Genres: Westerns; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Set in Someday Valley, surrounding the charming small town of Honey Creek, Texas, New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas’s latest novel tells the heartwarming, tenderly romantic tale of a man who drives his car off a cliff—straight into a life he never imagined …
Starri Knight is a big believer in fate. How else to explain the compelling connection she feels to the stranger she pulls out of a wrecked car on the very same road where her parents died twenty years earlier? Alongside Auntie OnaMay, the only mother she’s ever known, Starri saves Rusty O’Sullivan’s life—just
as Ona-May once did when Starri was an orphaned babe. But convincing Rusty he has something to live for is going to take all of Starri’s faith in miracles …
Like a wish he hadn’t even known to make, Starri landed in Rusty’s life, filling him with a longing for a family. … Then Jackson Landry, a new lawyer, turns up to present a surprise that will change the direction of his life: An inheritance from the father Rusty never knew—and the promise of the family he’d never had. It’s a
lot for the hard-bitten loner to accept as love from an unexpected direction rushes into his life …
A sense of duty has Rusty heading to Honey Creek to deal with his father’s estate—and find his lost siblings. But having family is one thing, learning to love them is another. Good thing new friends are by his side to help him along the way.

Release date: April 25, 2023

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Saturday at Midnight

Rusty O’Sullivan gunned the old Ford’s engine just before he swung onto the back road and headed up the hill toward Someday Valley. A storm was putting on a show. Rain pounded so hard he almost believed he was driving in an ocean. There was always a chance the car wouldn’t make the incline in the muck, but he’d had a hell of a day and figured his bad luck had to run out sometime.

He’d made it over the last bridge but the rotted boards seemed to be crying out in protest. Half a mile later the road turned to mud. No one but Rusty lived beyond a rustic cabin. If someone gave his dirt road a name it would be “Nothing Beyond” or “Nothing Worth Seeing Up This Way.”

The little cabin in daylight looked like a painting, but at night it was more a set-piece from a horror film. Except for one whimsical touch—someone had planted strawberries everywhere. There were dark green plants in the shade beneath the trees, along the edge of the porch, and lining every rock path. The strawberries would erupt in the summer, but tonight the plants were in winter’s sleep, the leaves were almost black to match the sky.

The mud that was moving downhill like lava on his left drew his attention. A ten-foot drop was on his right. Bald tires didn’t put up much of a fight to hold onto the two-lane road.

In the midnight rain, Rusty felt the Fairlane begin to slide sideways. Like a slow rerun of an old black-and-white movie, the Ford tilted right as the road disappeared and three thousand pounds of steel began to roll. Rusty tightened his grip on the steering wheel as if he still had some control of the car . . . or his life.

He didn’t bother to scream or cuss. He simply braced for a crash. Bad luck had always ridden shotgun with trouble all his life.

The ground slammed into the passenger side, shattering windows and crunching metal. Then, as the roof hit the incline, he felt the cut of his seatbelt, and it seemed to be snowing glass.

The Ford rolled again and the driver’s door pushed against Rusty’s shoulder. He braced as it rotated once more and the inside of what had once been a car was now a coffin of flying glass and metal.

Something hit his head and the world went completely black, but for a moment, the sounds remained in his brain as if echoing since birth. Unwanted. Nothing but a bother. Deserted.

One last echo whispered through the bedlam. One word he’d heard for as long as he could remember.

Worthless.

Saturday at Midnight

Starri Knight lay on the hardwood floor of her aunt’s hundred-year-old cabin as she watched rain slide down the huge picture window. If she didn’t move, maybe she’d feel closer to nature like she had when she was a child. Maybe the moon would play peekaboo with her through the storm clouds. She was almost positive the man in the moon had once seen her when she was small.

When she was a kid, stars winked at her and the moon smiled. She’d tell her Aunt Ona-May and they’d laugh together.

But tonight, all Starri saw were car lights making their way up the hill and lightning running across the sky like a tidal wave igniting.

All her life, pretty much everyone who took the back trail in rain got stuck. Aunt Ona-May would wait until morning to back, the tractor out of the barn and go pull them out of the mud. For thirty bucks, of course.

No driver ever complained at the cost. A tow from town would have been fifty or more.

Starri watched the rain as she remembered the story of the night her aunt took her in as if she were kin. Ona-May said one rainy midnight a young couple, not out of their teens, took the road to Someday Valley way too fast. They collided with a pickup coming down hauling hay. The crash killed both the teenagers instantly, but the baby in the back didn’t have a scratch.

Two farmers to the north heard the crash and came running to help the driver pinned inside his truck. Ona-May had crawled through a shattered window and pulled the baby out from the backseat. She said the minute she pushed the blanket away, the newborn reached up trying to touch the stars.

No one came to take the infant that night. Ona-May decided to call the tiny child Starri until kin came. But no one arrived. No one wanted the tiny baby.

Since Ona-May Jones was a nurse in her younger days, the county let her foster the child. That rainy night she became an aunt to a little girl who had no one.

Starri smiled, remembering the beginning of her story. She couldn’t miss parents she’d never known, but she was thankful Aunt Ona-May had found her. Auntie might never have a family of her own, but she poured all her love on a child no one wanted to claim.

Tonight, watching as the car on the incline began to roll sideways down the hill, Starri froze. For a moment it seemed no more than an awkward falling star.

Then the sounds of glass and metal snapping blended with the rain.

Starri screamed.

Someone was dying in the same spot her parents had twenty years ago. She closed her eyes, reliving a memory that had formed before words.

As always, Auntie’s arms surrounded her. “Starri, it’s all right.” As the old woman saw the car rolling, she added calmly, “Get on your boots. We’ve work to do. There is a soul in that car who may need our help.”

Auntie’s old body straightened into the nurse she’d been in Vietnam, fifty years ago.

While Ona-May collected supplies, Starri dialed 911 and was told the road between Honey Creek and Someday Valley was closed. One of the bridges was out. The only ambulance in the valley was on the other side of the bridge and would take an hour to circle around. “We’ll take care of it, Starri. Don’t worry,” Ona-May whispered. “Doctoring humans is pretty much like doctoring the other animals around here.”

Starri nodded, but this time she wasn’t sure she believed her aunt.

As they trudged up the hill in mud that sucked at their boots, the lights on the car went out. The rattling continued as if the auto was dying a slow death. The engine was still sputtering when they reached the wreck. Their flashlights swept the ground like lightning bugs hopping in the night.

Her hand was too cold to hold the flashlight steady, and the whole world seemed to be crying while it rained. She circled closer to what had been a car but heard no cry for help. She feared that the soul her aunt had come to save might have already moved on. Tears blended with the rain running over her face.

“Here!” Ona-May yelled as she moved a few feet below the car. “I’ve found him!”

As she ventured closer, Starri saw the outline of a body. A tall man dressed all in black. Rain pounded on the stranger as if determined to push him into the ground.

Auntie pulled off her raincoat and covered him. “I can’t see where he’s hurt, but he’s breathing. We’ll wrap any wounds we see, then roll him on your coat and pull him to the cabin. If he makes the journey back to the house, I’d say he’s got a chance.”

Starri followed orders. She’d seen her aunt set a broken leg and stitch up a cowboy who’d refused to go to the doctor. Auntie delivered babies when they had no time to make the drive to Honey Creek. The people in the valley were mostly poor and didn’t go to a clinic unless they had to. They knew Ona-May would take care of what she could and often loaned them money if she recommended the doctor.

As they pulled the unconscious stranger over the wet grass, Starri thought of another talent her aunt had. She loved people. Not just the good ones or the righteous ones like the preacher counted. She loved them all, even the sinners and the drunks.

Starri figured Ona-May overlooked folks’ shortcomings because she had a few herself. She wasn’t beyond stealing the neighbors’ apples or corn, and she cussed when she was frustrated. And every New Year’s Eve she’d drink and tell stories of her days in the Army.

When they reached the cabin, her aunt started issuing orders as if she had troops and not just Starri.

“We’ll put him on the floor by the fireplace. Get me towels and warm water. Start cleaning him up while I collect more supplies, then I’ll call the doctor over in Honey Creek. Knowing those young doctors, they’ll find a way to get to us. I can already see our patient has his right arm broke, so cut off his shirt. I’m guessing he’s got internal injuries. Oh, add logs to the fire, girl. The way he’s losing blood, he’ll be shivering.”

Staring down at the muddy man, Starri noticed hard times showing in worry lines on his young face. “You’ll have to help me, mister. I can’t even remember all the orders. Ona-May gets like that sometimes when she’s excited, but my ears still listen slow. She was an emergency nurse for thirty years. You’re in good hands.”

“Starri, get moving!” Ona-May yelled as she came loaded down with bandages and antiseptic from the kitchen. “We got to keep him alive until the ambulance gets here.”

She handed her aunt the phone as she ran for towels and a pan of hot water. When she returned, the stranger’s eyes were open. She saw pain but not fear.

“You an angel?” he whispered.

“No,” she answered. “I’m a star that fell out of the sky twenty years ago. Kids at school said I’m as strange as they come, but I’m not. I’m just different.”

“Me too,” he whispered through pain. “I’m Rusty O’Sullivan. Folks say I’m worthless. You’re wasting your time fixing me up. I’ll just scatter again.”

He closed his eyes as she gently washed his face. She didn’t know if he fell asleep or passed out, but the worry lines had faded. She barely heard him whisper, “Watch over me, little star.”

“I will. You just rest. Don’t worry about that windshield wiper sticking out of your side. My aunt can fix that.”

Sunday, 12:25 a.m.

Jackson ran through his parents’ rambling ranch house, stripping off his clothes as fast as he could with one hand while he held his cell in the other.

“Slow down, Ryan. I can meet you at the bridge with two mounts. I’ve got Mack saddling the horses and loading them in the trailer now. I can be there by the time you drive from the hospital to that old bridge heading into Someday Valley.” Jackson hit speaker as he pulled on jeans. “Any idea who the injured man is?”

“Yeah,” Dr. Ryan Henton answered in a clipped tone. “He’s your departed client’s son. He’s Jamie Ray Morrell’s oldest. One of the nurses said Jamie Ray talked about his boys when he asked her to be a witness to his will. Later, after she’d called you to notify you Jamie Ray was dead, a 911 call came in on a wreck. Rusty O’Sullivan rolled his car on the climb to Someday Valley. The nurse remembered the name.”

Jackson shoved his feet into ten-year-old Justin boots he hadn’t worn in a few years and ran toward the barn. “How bad is he hurt?”

“The caller was patched through to me. One vehicle rollover on the dirt trail heading up the back side of the hill. The woman who called said she thought Rusty had a broken arm. Maybe a fractured leg. Internal bleeding and cuts all over his body. What sounded like a young girl said a retired nurse was with the guy.”

Ryan hesitated and added, “With the bridge out it would take more than an hour to get to him by circling the north way. We can ride in on horseback in half that time. If we can get him stable, he might just survive the ambulance drive back to the hospital in Honey Creek. They’ll have to take the long way out, but at least it’s a good road.”

“I’m en route.” Jackson started running. “I’ll meet you at the bridge.”

As Jackson moved through the dark rooms of his childhood home, he barely noticed dust covering everything or the mail piled up on the dining table. His boxes from college were still stacked in the hallway. He remembered kissing his folks goodbye and leaving for Austin to celebrate passing the bar. Four days later his uncle found him at a friend’s house.

Jackson was hungover, but one look into his father’s brother’s eyes sobered him up.

Uncle Pete said simply, “You got to come home, Jack. Your folks crashed flying into Angel Fire, New Mexico, yesterday. I must have told him a dozen times to land at Santa Fe and drive over. I . . .”

Jackson had stopped listening to Uncle Pete. He picked up his duffel bag and went home, not to his folks’ ranch, but to a room above the law office. He came by the ranch to collect clothes and check on Mack. The old foreman could run the ranch, but Jackson couldn’t sleep here. Too many memories. An only child, the joy of his parents’ lives. He couldn’t let even good from the past in.

Home to Jackson was his dad’s office—wrong, his office now. He slept in the bedroom apartment above the office after working until he was exhausted. That way he didn’t have to think about how his life had changed in an instant.

He was living in his hometown, but Jackson never felt he was home. His dreams had been a big city. Dallas, maybe Houston. Starting off at the bottom of a big law firm. Not here, in a town where he could walk the length of it before he finished his morning coffee.

Ten minutes later, Jackson met Ryan at the bridge, or rather what was left of it. They’d been friends all their lives, from kids riding the ranch all summer to college roommates for the first four years at Tech. Ryan chose medicine and Jackson wanted law. More than once, they’d talked each other out of dropping out.

If this ride was dangerous tonight, they’d make it together.

The men swung into the saddles with medical packs on their backs full of supplies. The lawyer and the doctor, with generations of cowboy in their blood, morphed into midnight riders running full out into a hell of a rainstorm.

They didn’t need to worry what direction. Down was the only option.

“Let’s ride!” Jackson shouted as he raised one hand and turned his horse onto the rocky slope littered with pieces of wood and concrete from the shattered bridge. Both men had grown up on horseback, but neither had chosen that kind of life. Yet tonight, they were risking their lives to save a stranger.

Ryan’s excitement blended with the thunder, but Jackson worried that if he didn’t break his neck in a fall, he’d probably drown in the raging river below. He could almost hear his father yelling from the grave about wasting all that money for law school on a son determined to kill himself.

The race down was far more frightening than any roller coaster. They hit the water riding full out in what had been a stream a few hours ago. Now the water splashed almost to the saddles. Jackson laughed. “Geronimo!” he shouted and Ryan echoed back.

Their grandfathers had yelled the battle cry when they’d jumped as part of the 101st Airborne paratroopers in World War II. Both old men swore they were laughing when they dove out of the plane, and fighting fear when they hit the ground.

Tonight, their grandsons rode west with lightning blinking across the muddy road. Three miles from the broken bridge, they saw a cabin about halfway up the hill. Every light in the place was on and lanterns lined the porch.

They rode hard on horses born to run across unbroken land.

Fifty feet before they arrived, both men pulled up the mustangs.

Ryan jumped down, tossed his reins to Jackson, and ran for the woman waiting, with a lantern swinging on her arm, flashing bright light across her face one moment and leaving her in shadows the next. She didn’t say a word. She simply held the door open.

Jackson took time to tie the horses before he slipped off his pack.

“I’m Jackson Landry, miss. That man who ran past you is Ryan Henton, the doctor. I’m not sure, but I think he came out of the birth canal running. We’re here to help.”

The young woman nodded. “Glad to see you both. I’m Starri. The ambulance called in and said they are still forty miles out and my aunt is doing all she can.”

With worry in her eyes she added, “I’ll take care of your horses. The doctor may need your help. The man is half out of his mind with pain. I tried to keep him still, but I couldn’t.”

As Jackson ran inside, Ryan was already shouting orders. “Hold him down, Jack! We’ve no time to waste. I can see open wounds on his chest, but blood is also coming out from underneath him. He’s going into shock.”

Jackson met his friend’s gaze and saw defeat. They might already be too late. A memory of their last high school football game flashed across Jackson’s mind. Ryan had been the quarterback, always in control. Jackson, a lineman. One minute left in the game, two touchdowns from victory. A hopeless situation.

Jackson shouted now what he had yelled then on the football field: “What do we do?”

In a cabin, with blood covering the floor, Ryan gave the same answer he’d given over ten years ago: “We fight like hell!”

Nodding, Jackson echoed, “Win or lose, we fight like hell.”

They’d lost that night years ago, but they hadn’t lost yet tonight. And they weren’t going to without a fight.

An old lady holding pressure on one leg straightened as if called to arms. “Damn right, men. We fight!”

About then, a bloody fist connected with Jackson’s jaw and almost knocked him to the floor. Rusty was doing his own fighting, but it seemed to be against them.

“Hold him down, Jack!” Ryan commanded as if Jackson wasn’t trying. “We’ve got to keep Jamie Ray’s son from bleeding out.”

In what might have been hours or minutes, the woman who’d met them on the porch reappeared. Her wet clothes were plastered to her body, but she joined in. It was obvious she wasn’t trained, but she did have more skill than Jackson. Her low, soothing voice became the background melody as they all worked. She was petite, with an angel’s face.

As the minutes passed, they all worked together. Jackson would have guessed Rusty O’Sullivan didn’t have a chance, but by the time the ambulance arrived, the injured man had taken several swings at everyone trying to help. But they’d got him stable enough to transport.

Ryan climbed in with his patient and told the EMTs to help Ona-May in also. She’d been knocked over twice and, even with blood in her hair, she wouldn’t let Ryan examine her wound.

“We stay with our patient, nurse,” Ryan ordered the old woman. “Once we get him taken care of, I plan to have a look at that cut on the back of your head.”

“All right, but it’s just dripping, nothing serious,” she answered as the ambulance door slammed shut.

Suddenly, Jackson was standing on the porch, alone with the woman who called herself Starri.

“They left us,” she whispered.

“Do you have a car?”

“No. I’ve got a tractor but it has no lights. Aunt Ona-May loaned her car to the neighbor.”

Jackson rocked back on his heels. “I got two horses. Can you ride? That seems our only way out.”

“I’ve ridden a few times. I can stay in the saddle.” She headed toward the barn and he followed.

Jackson watched as the ambulance lights turned onto the north road, the long. . .