The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club

Book 1: Coldwater Series

by Lexi Eddings

Genres: Humor & Satire

Synopsis

“A unique take on what it means to go home again.” —Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author

The lake is crystal blue, the hills roll for miles, and breaking news travels via the Methodist prayer chain. But don’t let the postcard fool you. Coldwater Cove, Oklahoma, leavens its small-town charm with plenty of Ozark snark.

For Lacy Evans, returning to flyover country is the definition of failure. She had everything she wanted—an award-winning design firm, a chic city condo, a handsome, aristocratic almost-fiancé. Then her boyfriend ran off with her receptionist and her clients' money. Now she’s out of business and crashing on her parents’ couch. When she slides into a booth at the Green Apple Grill, she's feeling lower than a worm's belly.


But Lacy’s old classmate Jacob Tyler is happy to see her. Coldwater’s football hero came back from Afghanistan short part of a leg and some peace of mind, but he’s counting his blessings, and Lacy could be one of them. Then there’s her ex, Daniel, wearing a sheriff’s badge and a wedding ring, but looking like young summer love. And a host of unlikely serendipities: the selfless do-gooders who sneak around taming curmudgeons and constructing second chances. The Fighting Marmots. The sprawling, take-no-prisoners Bugtussle clan.
 
Lacy thought she knew her hometown, and herself. She just wanted to get on her feet and keep running. But the longer she stays, the more she finds to change her mind. . .
 
“Readers of sweet romance will fall in love with Coldwater Cove. Lexi Eddings’s talent shines in this edgy, fresh story.” —Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author

Release date: January 1, 1949

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. At least according to Robert Frost,” Lacy Evans muttered. “But he didn’t say you have to like it.”

She didn’t usually talk to herself, but she’d been on autopilot for two bleary-eyed days. After driving halfway across the country, she tooled into Coldwater Cove, Oklahoma, at six o’clock on a Sunday morning.

The town was one step up from rustic, a hundred steps down from trendy. It was the last place on earth she’d ever thought she’d live again. But that was before her business partner ran off with half a million dollars in client funds and left her holding the empty bag.

It was too early to pop into her parents’ house. Mom needed her “beauty sleep” until eight at least. Dad was probably puttering about in the kitchen, making his abominable coffee, but if Lacy tried to slip into the house now, his booming welcome would be loud enough to wake the dead in the cemetery next door.

Besides, after what had happened in Boston, she didn’t deserve a welcome. So she drove around the narrow streets, looking for evidence that time had passed since she was home last.

Coldwater Cove was a quiet little place where Arkansas tossed a rumpled blanket of hills and hollows over the Oklahoma state line. The air that morning was so still there wasn’t a single ripple on Lake Jewel, the blue eastern boundary of the town. The tired peaks of the Winding Stair range brooded over the lake, their velvety foothills bathed in an Ozark haze. Nothing ever seemed to change here.

In a weird way, Lacy was glad. If nothing was different in her hometown, it was almost like Boston never happened.

The lights were on in the Green Apple Grill on the Town Square. Her stomach rumbled, a reminder that she hadn’t eaten since those stale Twinkies in Peoria. She pulled up in front of the hurt-your-eyes green door. There were still no parking meters on the Square around the Victorian gem of a courthouse, so she got out, locked her Volvo out of habit, and went into the Green Apple. A trio of bells tinkled over the door.

“Have a seat. Be with you in a minute.” The rumbling baritone came from a guy on the other side of a half wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the place. His broad-shouldered back was turned to her. The grill hissed when he gave it a quick scrub-down with a damp rag.

Lacy slid into the nearest booth, hoping they still had Belgian waffles on the menu. Just thinking about melted butter and powdered sugar made her mouth water.

“Lacy? Lacy Evans, is that you?”

Jacob Tyler peered at her from the kitchen. Superstar halfback, homecoming king, voted most likely to succeed—he was Mr. Big Stuff when they were in high school. Lacy never expected he’d still be in Coldwater Cove, much less manning the Green Apple’s grill.

“Hey, Jake. How’ve you been?”

“Can’t complain. Besides, no one would care if I did.”

Lacy doubted that sincerely. Jacob still had that devastating dimple in his left cheek and a megawatt smile. It was almost enough to make her forget the flotilla of broken hearts bobbing in his wake.

Almost. The last thing she needed was more man trouble on top of everything else.

“What can I do you for?” he asked.

“Coffee, and—please, God—waffles.” They weren’t listed on the plastic-covered menu affixed to the wall.

“For you, anything.”

That was Jake Tyler’s gift. He made a girl feel special. Only trouble was, he made all the girls feel special.

While he went to work on her breakfast, Lacy took a deep breath and enjoyed the sensation of not moving. When she pulled a tablet from her backpack, her hand shook a little. She chalked it up to lack of sleep. She refused to think of it as residual panic.

I’m OK. The people I borrowed all that money from have no idea where I am.

When she powered up her tablet, Bradford Endicott’s face grinned up at her from the screen saver. She quickly deleted him, wondering why it had taken her so long. She was so over feeling anything for the guy but loathing. Deciding her belly was fluttering because she was just hungry, Lacy flexed her fingers and scanned the to-do list.

The first item to tick off was finding a place to live. Her stuff, such as it was, was on a truck en route from Boston. She had two days to call in a delivery address.

Lacy so didn’t intend to spend any more nights in her parents’ spare room than she could help. Granted, she deserved to suffer for being so stupidly gullible, but being reduced to the status of a perpetual twelve-year-old might be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

Her savings were far from bottomless, but it would be cheap to live in Coldwater Cove. If she was careful, she’d have a month or so to figure out what to do with herself. She’d be broke inside of a week in Boston.

More broke than she felt on the inside.

“I was sorry to hear about your troubles,” Jake interrupted her thoughts. “So, how you holding up?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. That business about the guy back in Beantown who absconded with your money.”

It wasn’t her money. It was their clients’ money, deposits on special pieces, for design and renovation work yet to be delivered. And Bradford wasn’t just any guy. He was her partner. She and Bradford had been all but engaged. Trusting him was the biggest mistake she’d ever made. She frowned at Jacob. “How did you—”

“Remember where you are, Lace,” he said. “Your mom tells her hairdresser, who confides in her sister, who lets it slip to the UPS guy, yada, yada, yada. Then once something makes the Methodist prayer chain, it’s better than going viral on YouTube.” His smile faded. “Seriously, though, are you OK?”

She’d lost her business, her condo, and her professional reputation, but she was better off than Bradford Endicott would be if she ever laid eyes on him again. Lacy wasn’t a naturally violent person. But if Belize ever honored the extradition request for him, she’d be more than happy to bloody his nose. Then she’d testify against him for ripping off their high-end design clients and running off to Central America with all the firm’s liquid assets. And Ramona, their stiletto-wearing, hair-flipping, sure-to-rock-a-bikini assistant.

“I’m fine,” she assured Jake. She wished she could assure herself. Switching off the tablet and stowing it in her pack, she couldn’t think about what to do next. At least, not until she got some real food in her. “I didn’t make it to the ten-year reunion. What’ve you been up to? I expected to see you in the NFL.”

“College football convinced me my future lay elsewhere. Two concussions in as many months was too much. Not much point in a football scholarship if you get your brain rattled every week trying to keep it. I need all the gray matter I got.”

“You did OK in school.”

“Yeah, but only in classes where the answer was a matter of opinion.”

Jacob smiled again and a shock of dark hair fell forward on his forehead. Lacy itched to push it back for him, but she scrunched her fingers in her lap instead. She should be immune to his brand of self-deprecating charm.

That’s how vaccines work, isn’t it? You take in a little of the virus, get comfy with it, and then you’re safe from the full power of the real thing.

Still, her chest constricted a bit at his lopsided grin.

“Did a hitch with the Marines after that,” he said.

“Semper fi.”

“Oo-rah.” He came around the half wall with a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate of steaming waffles in the other. She noticed his slight limp for the first time. And the fact that below his camo shorts, his left leg was titanium from the knee down. He caught the direction of her gaze. “Ran into an IED in Helmand province.”

Afghanistan. According to Mr. Curtis, their high school history teacher, the land of the Khyber Pass was a place where plenty of countries had had their rears handed to them over the last millennium or so. “Jacob, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I was one of the lucky ones.” He set down the plate of waffles and coffee in front of her. A shadow passed behind his dark eyes. “Most of the guys in my unit didn’t make it back.”

Lacy buried her nose in her cup and wondered how to change the subject. Out of nowhere, she blurted, “So, did you ever get married?”

“Once. Didn’t take. You?”

“Almost engaged. Once. Ditto.” She forked up a bite of waffles. Deciding that carbs were better than men, Lacy sank into powdered-sugar bliss.

“Saving yourself for me, huh?” Jacob said as he settled into the booth opposite her.

“You’ve uncovered my evil plan.” They laughed together. They both seemed to need it.

“Are you home for good?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” It was more like she was home for bad. Coldwater Cove was her penance. And her sanctuary. And the slow-paced, backwater vibe of the place was likely to drive her batty if she stayed longer than six months.

“Think you’ll start your own business or will you need a job here?” Jake asked.

Hadn’t Boston proved she wasn’t much of a businesswoman? “Since I’m not independently wealthy and I’m kind of addicted to eating and sleeping indoors, yeah, I need a job.”

“I hear Wanda’s looking for someone over at the Gazette. She’d jump at the chance to have you.”

Lacy nearly choked on the waffle. She used to write part-time for the Coldwater Gazette when she was in high school, covering ball games and board meetings alike. Back then, everyone figured she’d become an investigative journalist like her uncle Roy. Instead, she shook off the dust of this little wide spot in the road and followed her passion to a design school in New England. She specialized in fusing Old World antiques and architectural features with industrial kitsch. Her work won awards, the important hang-on-your-brag-wall kind.

But that was before Bradford Endicott ran off with their clients’ deposits and she had to liquidate everything to try to make it right. From the displays in their trendy Back Bay showroom to the equity in her condo and every last nickel in her IRA, everything she’d worked for was gone. Even after all that, she still had to sign a usurious note with some semi-unsavory characters for a balance that would eat her alive if she didn’t find a way to pay it off pronto.

Even though she wasn’t cut out to be a businesswoman, she’d never considered that she might have to dust off her reporter hat.

“I don’t think I can work at the Gazette again. It would feel like going backward. Besides, my uncle Roy says small-town papers are a license to steal,” Lacy said between waffle bites. The local rag filled its pages with puff pieces that ended with “a good time was had by all,” and then charged the earth for advertising space. It was an insult to her uncle’s journalistic soul. Since Lacy adored Uncle Roy, she thoroughly endorsed his opinion. “It’s like Chinese food, only in print. After you read the Coldwater Gazette, your brain is hungry again in an hour.”

“Yeah, well, it might pay the bills. Things change and sometimes you have to do whatever comes to hand.” A hard edge cut through his tone. It hadn’t been there before. Jake shrugged. “It was just a thought.”

While she polished off the waffles and made appreciative noises at appropriate intervals, Jake filled her in on what had happened with some of their other classmates. Quite a few had moved on, but more were still in Coldwater Cove than she expected. There’d been marriages and shacking-ups, splitting the sheets and reconciliations. Kids had been born, houses built. Businesses had bloomed or withered. Everyone had been filling up their lives with people and things.

All Lacy had to show for her twenty-nine trips around the sun fit neatly into a relatively small shipping pod. She figured her worldly goods ought to be somewhere in Ohio by now.

“Everyone will be happy to see you back,” Jake assured her.

She smirked. “On the theory that misery loves company?”

“After you’ve seen Kabul, Coldwater’s not so bad,” he said. “Besides, it’s not the back of beyond it used to be. We’ve got cable and Internet on top of the Gazette to keep us up to speed. And whatever news they miss turns up on the Methodist prayer chain.”

She took a swig of coffee. It wasn’t as bitter as the brew she was used to. She’d become accustomed to coffee that gave her taste buds a smack. “Never figured you for a Methodist.”

“Getting your leg blown off will make you rethink a lot of things.”

Lacy nodded, but Jake looked away, signaling that was all he had to say on that topic. If she waited long enough, he’d probably tell her more. All her life, people had told Lacy the most amazing things, surprisingly personal things, simply because she was willing to sit in silence and wait for them to fill it.

But she didn’t want to invade Jake’s head. It didn’t seem polite after he’d made her waffles and all.

The bells over the door jingled and a guy in sheriff’s office khaki came into the Green Apple. Coldwater Cove was too small to have its own police force, so the county boys did double duty. He took off his hat. The tight brim hadn’t done his dark-honey hair any favors, but Lacy’s stomach lurched in recognition anyway.

It was Daniel Scott.

Back when Lacy was in school, it seemed every girl in Coldwater Cove had a not-so-serious fling with Jacob Tyler at one time or another. It was like a rite of passage.

You go through it and get your heart bruised. Sadder, but not much worse for the wear because even though Jake has moved on to the next girl, he’s so darn likeable, you’re still his friend.

Lacy was glad she’d gone through her “Jake phase” in fifth grade when their courtship consisted of holding hands during school assemblies. Once their budding “true love forever” ended abruptly after a new girl moved to town, Lacy’s dad had mended her broken heart by signing her up for riding lessons. She stopped pining for Jake almost immediately. At ten or eleven, girls love horses more than boys anyway.

But Daniel Scott . . .

For one breathless summer before Lacy headed east to study design, Daniel was her soft, warm night and endless sky. Even though she was the one who moved to Boston, he was the one who got away.

“Saw the out-of-state plates and—” Daniel stopped mid-step. His eyes were as green as she remembered them, not muddy like a moss green, but vibrant like a spring morning.

“Lacy,” Daniel said.

That was it. Just her name. It’d been over a decade since she’d seen him, yet something inside her hummed with remembered longing. A slow-motion scene where they ran toward each other, arms outstretched, scrolled across her mind.

Down, Lacy. You are so seriously sleep-deprived. And Bradford Endicott should be enough to make any girl swear off men completely.

Instead of a slow-mo sprint, Dan walked over to the booth where she and Jake were sitting. They started the round of small talk again. It was basically the same ground she’d covered with Jacob, only Daniel didn’t sit with them. A question tromped around on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back.

The bells over the door jingled again. A group of folks dressed in church clothes filed in for the breakfast special before Sunday School.

“Gotta go.” Jake slid out of the booth to take care of his customers.

“Me too.” Daniel put his hat back on, and when he looked down at her, one side of his mouth lifted. She would have given her last penny for the thought behind that half smile. “It’s good to see you, Lacy. Welcome home.”

His lips parted as if he was about to say something else, but then he turned and walked away. Still looked pretty incredible doing it, too, but Lacy didn’t need to ask that other question anymore.

She’d seen the ring on his left hand.

Back in Boston, the streets had been rimed with crusts of dirty snow, the remnants of a late-season nor’easter. Lacy had chased warmer weather half the way across the country and arrived in Coldwater Cove in time for full-blown spring. Crocuses and daffodils pushed through the red clay soil and forsythias erupted in a yellow riot on every block.

In her parents’ yard, the War of Squirrel Insurgency began afresh.

Lacy had never actually seen the squirrels in action, but her dad was convinced they broke off twigs from his oak trees and threw them down into the yard for pure cussedness. Of course, it didn’t help matters that her parents’ neighbor, Mr. Mayhew, put out bird feeders that had the (hopefully) unintended effect of enticing even more squirrels to the Evanses’ yard. According to Lacy’s dad, the feeders were supply depots for the enemy. As she pulled up, the first casualties of this year’s opening salvo littered the grass.

Dad was out front, gathering fallen twigs from under the ponderous oaks. Fergus, his little Yorkie, nosed around the trunks, always alert for the stray “rat with a fluffy tail.” Her dad had been warned not to break out his shotgun in town anymore, so Fergus was all the firepower he could muster against the furry foes.

Still, the battle must be enjoined each spring.

Again, Lacy was glad some things didn’t change, however ridiculous they might be.

She was barely out of the car before her dad had her in a solid hug. Sometimes, her parents’ affection was like being smothered by a blanket of molasses, too sweet to resist and too sticky to escape. But now Lacy sank into her dad’s loving acceptance with gratitude, blinking away tears.

She was the baby of the family. On a scale measuring good behavior, Lacy fell somewhere in the lower middle between her perfect sister, Crystal, and her black sheep brother, Mike. It had been tough going through school with teachers expecting her to either be as brilliant and good as her sister or as wild and irresponsible as her brother. Lacy was never given the benefit of a totally clean slate either way.

When her dad patted her back, the years sloughed off, as she’d feared they would, and she was reduced to childlike dependence again. Amazingly enough, that wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. For a few moments, she allowed herself the fantasy that she had ever been that innocent. Then she pulled away.

She was back in Coldwater Cove because she hadn’t been careful, because she hadn’t been professional. Because she wasn’t . . . good enough to cut it in the big city.

“Lacy-girl, we weren’t expecting you till this afternoon.” Dad’s resonant voice echoed off the stand of trees. If he’d been a trial lawyer instead of a tax and estate planning attorney, he’d have been a terror in the courtroom. His James Earl Jones–like tone would carry every argument. As it was, every self-respecting squirrel within earshot ought to have been shaking in its little rodent boots. “You must have driven all night.”

“The car seemed to know the way and I didn’t feel like stopping.” Lacy had a fear of bedbugs, so hotels held zero charm for her, even if she could have afforded a higher-priced room, which she couldn’t. And besides, once she was horizontal, it was anyone’s guess whether she’d sleep. Bradford’s face had a nasty habit of hovering at the edges of her vision just as she started to drop off.

“How’s the Volvo running?”

Gas mileage and odd knocking sounds in her motor were topics of intense interest to her dad. To Lacy, they had the charm of being safe to discuss, so she gave him the latest report. That way, she didn’t have to revisit the reason she’d run home like a scalded dog. Besides, if Dad wanted more details, he’d be sure to ask.

“Coffee’s on.” Dad unloaded her suitcase from the trunk and led the way into the house.

The home Lacy grew up in had been built in the 1920s. It was a lovely two-story Colonial with decorative dentils under the eaves, a carved wooden pineapple on the newel post at the foot of the stairs, wainscoting in the dining room, and crown molding throughout.

Really good bones.

Unfortunately, it was filled to the rafters with stuff. Not quite at hoarder levels yet, but every room in the place was crammed with furniture of various vintages ringing the walls. It would be hard to find space on those walls for even one more eight-by-ten photo. Occasional tables jutted into the hallways and every horizontal surface was covered with bric-a-brac, collectibles, and doodads.

Mom never met a garage sale she didn’t like.

Lacy followed her dad into the kitchen and perched on one of the bar stools at the island. He poured her a cup of vile, dark liquid and, like a good penitent, she drank.

Her dad’s coffee was a cross between Starbucks on steroids and about six Red Bulls. Even though she’d been driving for thirty-some hours, the cobwebs in her brain began to dissolve.

Dad took a sip and made a face. “Well, that’ll make a grown man tremble. Brewed it a might stout today, even for me. Let’s sweeten it a bit.” He took down a bottle of Bailey’s from the top shelf and liberally dosed both their mugs. The creamy liquor emitted pleasantly alcoholic fumes. “Don’t tell your mother.”

Dad was of the opinion that the apostle Paul’s admonition to Timothy to “take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake” extended to distilled spirits as well. Mom was a more literal theologian. They argued the point on a regular basis, but without a definitive winner.

Lacy was the pragmatist of the family. Anything that made her dad’s coffee drinkable was aces in her book.

“So how did you leave things back east?” he asked.

“I sold everything. The matter is settled to the DA’s satisfaction.” At least, she hoped it was.

“Did you have to take on some serious debt, daughter?”

What? Did he have some sort of weird dad-radar that pegged out when one of his kids got in over her head? She wasn’t about to tell him that as part of the deal that kept her from being indicted along with the absent Bradford, the district attorney had required her to liquidate all she owned to make reparations. When that wasn’t enough, she had taken out a huge loan for the rest with no idea how she’d pay it back.

“I’m OK, Dad,” she said, more to convince herself than him. She’d had no choice really. It was accept the loan that almost miraculously became available from the O’Leary brothers or face jail time.

Lacy had lost everything. It made her chest ache every time she realized afresh that her trendy design studio was gone. In this economy, she wasn’t the only one whose business had gone south, but her misfortune was the result of bad judgment rather than bad luck.

She really blew it when she took on Bradford as her business partner. As an Endicott, he was so well connected, so old money. Lacy figured he’d be able to bring in seriously well-heeled clients with discerning tastes. She’d counted on the patina of his Boston Brahmin status to cover the fact that she was from the sticks. As it turned out, it didn’t seem to matter where she’d grown up. Once she’d completed a few projects, her designs were what brought in the work. Then “old money Brad” had used her to make off with a boatload of new money.

She was such a rotten judge of character. Maybe she deserved to lose everything. Lacy was grateful when her dad interrupted her increasingly depressing thoughts.

“What did they ever find out about that Endicott fellow?”

“The case is still open, but the trail is pretty cold. He made it to Belize, but the authorities there show no signs of wanting to return him.”

At least, not until he spends all the money he wired to an account down there.

“Well, I was wondering if somehow the Irish mob was behind it. You know, putting your partner up to the scam.” Lacy’s dad had retired from a legal practice consisting mostly of drawing up wills and settling disputes over water rights. But in his heart, he was a big fan of true crime. He could rattle off the names of mob bosses as easily as some men spout baseball stats. She suspected he’d always wanted to work with an Eliot Ness type who spent his life putting. . .