Where Love Grows (Book 3)

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Enjoy a sample from Where Love Grows

SPOILER WARNING: Do not read this excerpt until you have read Books 1 and 2 in series.

Prologue

Twenty Months Earlier

Asher Hill opened the email, adrenaline rushing to his limbs in the same way it did when he was heli-skiing or bungee jumping or placing first in a triathlon. His eyes skimmed the numbers in the report, landing on the bold one at the bottom of the page.

He jumped out of his chair with a hearty, primal shout of victory and pumped the air with his fist. The door of his office burst open. His best friend and president of Paramount Sports stood at the threshold. “Sales numbers that good, eh boss?”

“Yeah, buddy. Man, it feels good to be on top.”

“We’ll be saying the same thing at the top of El Cap by the end of the weekend.” Lucas pocketed his phone. “Checked with the tech team, and they’re all set to film. I’m heading out. See you tomorrow, bright and early.”

“Sure thing.”

“Don’t work too late—the missus won’t be happy.” Lucas chuckled at his joke and closed the office door.

Alone, Asher leaned back in his chair and smiled. Hiring the new director of marketing had been a good choice, after all. Another few months like this and Asher would hand out hefty bonuses to his team.

He closed his eyes, and imagined climbing over the last ledge of the Dawn Wall in Yosemite. The rush. The scent of pure, fresh air. The feeling that nothing was impossible.

Though he’d never free-climbed the mountain, victory rushed through his blood already. Those sales numbers were just a foretaste of the success to come this weekend.

Asher’s phone rang, her name lighting up the screen. The fact that those five letters didn’t make him apprehensive or urge him to run away was both foreign and strange.

He picked up. “Mon cheri,” he said, low and seductive, already anticipating their time together that night—the scent of her long blond hair and the softness of her honey skin. How her laughter reminded him of a bubbling brook, or the sound of the first bite into a crisp apple.

“Asher Hill, I don’t care if you are one of Forbes 30 Under 30. I don’t care if you are the hottest guy I’ve ever dated…Asher, you do not stand a girl up—you do not stand me up—for dinner.”

He looked at the display clock on his laptop and cursed. “El, I’m on my way right now. Just tying some things up at the office.”

“You’re always tying things up at the office.”

He sensed what she doesn’t say heavy beneath her words. When are you going to tie things up with us?

He shivered at the thought of marriage. “Give me twenty minutes.”

“Tonight was supposed to be about us. What if you fall off the top of that horrid mountain and I never see you again?”

“Free climbing, Elise. It doesn’t mean we don’t use protective gear, we just don’t use special gear to help us ascend. I’m not stupid. I’ll be home safe and sound and into your waiting arms by Sunday night.”

“Okay, but hurry over now. I want every last minute I can with you.” Her voice turned husky. It stirred desire within him. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while, especially if you leave your phone at the door.”

“Oh, really?” He played into the game. “And how would that be? The hottest guy you ever dated deserves some details, don’t you think?”

She giggled, and he thought of that bubbling brook again. Could this be the woman he was meant to be with forever?

“I’ll see you soon, Mr. Forbes.”

Asher hung up the phone while loosening his tie. He slid his laptop in his briefcase and walked out the door of his office. He passed down a long hallway, each room now empty, and into the reception area where a large professional picture of him hang gliding was suspended above the desk. Asher Hill Takes on the World, the Sports Illustrated headline read. The magazine had interviewed him about his hobby-turned-multi-million-dollar business.

On a normal night, he would stay a few minutes and enjoy the quiet heartbeat of the company he built, but Elise’s words propelled him out the glass double doors.

He pushed the button to the elevator. It opened to reveal a grungy-looking fellow closing a guitar case. There was a music agency on the floor above Paramount run by a family friend of his parents.

Asher whistled long and low after getting a glimpse of the guitar. “That a Gibson?”

“Sure is, and it just got me an agent.”

“Sweet. Congrats, man.”

Asher’s gaze dwelt on the guitar case. Someday soon he’d pick up his guitar. When things settled down, when he could be sure the company he’d worked to build could survive without his constant supervision.

He said goodbye to the guitar man as his phone rang out from his pocket.

His lawyer. Asher groaned. The man didn’t call to make small talk.

“Ted, what’s up?” He pushed open the door and entered the busy city streets of Los Angeles, vibrant and hopeful. As full of opportunity as it was of culture and diversity, greasy food and nightclubs.

He passed a man in ragged clothing with a cardboard sign asking for handouts and Asher dug into his wallet for one of the coffee shop gift cards he kept for such a purpose. He may have grown up privileged, but he always gave to the less fortunate. Life handed out hard turns, and he often wondered if he’d be where he was today if he wasn’t raised in the home of his childhood. If he hadn’t had the privilege of going to the best schools and getting a lesson on any sport he’d taken to at the moment. If his parents hadn’t been so obsessively encouraging.

Thinking of his family reminded him of the deep-sea fishing trip he promised his younger brother Ricky the month before. Asher made a mental note to scour the internet tonight for a boat to take them out on the water. Tonight, after his time with Elise.

Ted’s voice brought him back to reality. “Nothing good, sorry to tell you. You remember that lawsuit I told you about?”

Asher searched for a cab. The sky spat rain. The air smelled of wet pavement. “The guy with the prosthetic who claimed we fired him because he was handicapped when, in fact, he was smoking pot on our time?”

“That’s the one. Well, I hate to say it, but it sounds like he actually has a leg to stand on. No pun intended.”

Seeing a vendor selling flowers, he decided to get Elise a bunch to make up for his tardiness. He craned his neck to peer around the slight turn in the road. It was clear. “We spoke to the manager. Seemed straightforward to me. What’s the issue?”

He pressed his phone to his ear and began to jog lightly across the street as the sky opened up.

Not until he was halfway across did he realize his mistake. Elise hated flowers. She was allergic and would much rather have something tiny and sparkly, something that adorned the third finger of her left hand. She’d told him so last week.

He hesitated for a split second, thinking to turn around, hearing Ted’s voice drone in his ear about a disability act and the guy with the prosthetic. He heard a horn and turned. Too late, he saw a car glossier than that Gibson guitar careening toward him. He tried to move, but for once, his body failed him. All he could see was the hood of the car, the Mustang logo in between the sting of raindrops. A scream overpowered the murky air, foreign and so filled with primal fear it couldn’t belong to him.

And then, everything went black.

Chapter One

Present Day

It wasn’t the glossy black truck that first caught my attention. Nor was it the incredibly handsome face or the muscled arm that grabbed the coffee from the donut shop’s drive-thru window. It wasn’t even the fact that he may very well pay for my coffee again.

No, it was the gentle curve of the guitar case sitting in the back of the cab that attracted my notice. The window was clean, free of any stickers or adornments, and I could make out the cased neck of the instrument. I imagined those strong fingers on wood and strings, wondered what kind of music the mystery man played, if he leaned more toward rock or jazz, contemporary or country.

The girl at the drive-thru window handed the mystery man some napkins.

Seven Fridays in a row I had found myself behind the man with the guitar at exactly 7:48 a.m. in the donut shop drive-thru. The third week, I noted he wore no ring on the left hand that grabbed the coffee. By the fifth week, I had conjured up all sorts of exciting careers and hobbies for him—was he a park ranger somewhere in the White Mountains? Did he hike for fun, like I did? Perhaps he played in a band on the weekends. Perhaps he did charity work on the side—he was certainly generous paying for my coffee every week.

The rational part of me believed he must pay for the coffee of whoever was behind him each and every day. The irrational part thought that perhaps—despite the odds—this was him. The guy meant for me.

Not that it mattered, for I would never get up the nerve to talk to him. My younger sister Amie had been in the drive-thru line with me last week, had apparently seen “love” written all over my face, and promptly urged me to jot my phone number on a piece of paper so she could run up and hand it to him.

I’d been mortified.

“Come on, Lizzie. If he doesn’t call you, it’s not like you have to see him again. There are other coffee shops around town, you know.” She scribbled my number on a torn corner of notebook paper.

“Amie, no.” I said the words low, but with as much ferocity as I had ever mustered. Only because I’d come close to tears had she given up on the idea. But days later she continued to ask me about what she dubbed “Mission Mr. Coffee.”

“The man of your dreams could be five steps away, and you’re doing nothing about it!”

I now contemplated my dramatic sister’s advice.

Five steps.

Not so far away, unless you’re in a drive-thru line. I snuggled into the beat-up seat of my Honda Accord, the comfortable boundaries of metal and glass between me and Mr. Coffee. Surely it was illegal to get out of one’s car in a drive-thru line, anyway? And if he wanted to introduce himself, wouldn’t he have given his number to the girl at the window to pass on to me?

Not to mention that I would never consider pulling an audacious move like my sister suggested.

I studied the man in his side-mirror. Beard neatly trimmed and skin tanned, I could picture him hiking the White Mountains or Camden Hills State Park. Maybe even with me by his side.

He smiled at the girl in the drive-thru window, and I shrunk farther into my seat. My face heated as I pulled up to the window, the scent of coffee wafting from the building into my car.

“Woohee, he’s a cutie, isn’t he?” the girl at the window said, staring after the truck.

“Um, yeah.” My hands shook as I fumbled for my cash. “How much do I owe you again?”

“It’s paid for.”

I couldn’t hide my smile as I thanked the girl, took my coffee, and drove away, thinking what a beautiful, promising Friday it would most certainly be. I would go make music with my students. Tomorrow, I’d get in a good hike and spend plenty of time in the garden. And I’d do it all while savoring the possibility that maybe one day, Mr. Coffee would indeed pass his number back to me in the drive-thru line.

* * *

If there was a time to be like my sisters, it was now.

I opened my mouth, pushed forth words that jumbled on my tongue. “But Mr. Snizek, I don’t understand. I thought my working as a volunteer this past spring would help the music program survive at least another year. After our New Year’s Eve fundraiser…”

The older man with a slight paunch looked around the small music room where I had taught for the last year. I followed his gaze, took in the piano where I’d instructed students. The guitars standing at attention along the wall. The cases cradling brass. The drum set, which attracted many a preteen boy.

“I’m afraid it’s not my decision. It’s the board’s. Apparently, keeping the program is too much money, even with you volunteering your time. They want to give the kids a good start in learning a language, or perhaps begin a career and computer class.”

“But the kids…they need music.”

“I’m sorry, Lizzie. Maybe we can plan an after-school music program in the fall for students who’d want to participate. We could charge a small fee to make it work, and that way, you’d actually get paid.”

I swallowed down more protests. If I were Josie, I might argue with the principal. If I were Maggie, I might plan another fundraiser on the spot. But I was not like either of my smart, outspoken older sisters.

In truth, working for free wasn’t working. I had school loans to pay. I had dreams to achieve. Dreams that required money.

But the kids…my family…they’d worked so hard on the fundraiser. I hadn’t summoned the courage to tell them we didn’t raise enough money for both the music and art programs, or that I volunteered my part-time hours to finish out the second semester, living off the small amount I earned from the family bed and breakfast.

Now, though, it seemed my career hinged on the hazy potential of an after-school music program. It could be a blessing to a few kids who loved music and whose parents would lay down the money, but not a way to make a living.

“I understand,” I whispered, even though I really didn’t. 

* * *

“It’s okay, Lizzie. You’ll find something.” My brother Bronson shoveled a heaping fork full of blueberry pancakes bathed in maple syrup into his mouth.

“You could apply to other schools.” Amie sipped her coffee. Her blond hair piled neat on her head, makeup done to perfection, despite the fact it was Saturday morning.

“I looked. No one’s hiring a music teacher within seventy-five miles.”

Josie dribbled syrup on her pancakes. Nine-month-old Amos sat on one knee, eyeing the pooling syrup with interest. “Would another fundraiser help?”

I blew out a long breath. “The music program can’t live off fundraisers.”

Across the open floor plan and from the nearby kitchen, Mom carefully arranged two pancakes on a plate and sifted confectioner’s sugar on top. She placed two sprigs of lavender on the side, did the same with another plate, walked over, and handed both to me. “For the Neilsons.”

I breathed deep, preparing to greet our guests. The first few months after the bed and breakfast opened, Mom served the food. I’d been so scared of dropping a plate of culinary perfection or speaking to so many strangers at once. Only seeing Mom completely overwhelmed in the kitchen one morning had prompted me to offer to serve the food.

Our method saved Mom’s sanity, and so I continued. I took one table at a time, focusing on a singular task before planning my next move. Whatever it took to get through the breakfast rush. 

I licked my lips and walked through the butler’s pantry that separated the kitchen and our living quarters from the main living area of Aunt Pris’s Victorian home. We’d turned the old house into Mom’s dream—The Orchard House Bed and Breakfast, complete with author-themed guest rooms and a five-course breakfast. Pride filled me at the thought of all we’d done, and all we continued to do.

Two plates in hand, I pushed open the door of the pantry with my shoulder, finding the middle-aged couple at a table-for-two near the fireplace. I forced a grin. “How was the coffee cake?”

Mr. Neilson patted his stomach. “I dare say you’ve managed to ruin every breakfast for the rest of my life. We sure are spoiled here.”

I placed the two plates on the laced paper placemats and cleared away the fruit dishes and coffee cake plates. “We’re glad you’re enjoying your stay.”

“Pardon, dear? I couldn’t hear you.” Mrs. Neilson leaned closer to me.

I forced my shoulders back, pretended I was outspoken Josie or graceful Maggie or endearing Amie. Any of my three, outgoing sisters. I projected my voice. “We’re glad you’re enjoying your stay. Can I get you anything else?”

“Perhaps more coffee?”

“Absolutely.”

I scurried back to the kitchen, making brief eye contact with the other couples at the tables out of my peripheral vision and giving them a slight nod of acknowledgement.

“The Marsdens just sat down,” I told Mom upon entering the kitchen.

Mom glanced at the orders our guests had indicated the previous day, tacked neatly to the refrigerator. “They both want the Eggs Benedict.”

I checked the bacon crisping in the oven. “Almost done.”

Mom whisked melted butter and egg yolks together for her Hollandaise sauce. “Hey, Lizzie…we can talk about this after breakfast, but with spring upon us, not to mention solid bookings, I could pay you a bit more. Perhaps we can do some flowers along the landscaping to spruce up the place? If you wanted, that is.”

My heart near burst at her words. “Really? I would love to help with that. But I don’t want you to pay me more. This place is still new. Let’s let it sail for a year before you start giving raises.”

“Not a raise so much as more hours. If you’re doing more work around here, it’s only right you’re paid for it.”

I kissed my mom on the cheek, grateful for her efforts. “That sounds great. Let’s talk later, okay?”

“I’m out.” Bronson rinsed his dishes in the sink before loading them in the dishwasher. “Wish me luck with the kid I’m tutoring this morning. He’s a doozy.”

Josie knocked the brim of Bronson’s hat with a flick of her finger. “You weren’t a star student yourself, if I remember. You’ll relate to him just fine.”

I tickled Amos’s belly. “Need me to watch the bookshop today?”

“Can you stop by around lunch so I can feed this guy?”

“Sure thing.”

My older sister studied me. “You feeling okay? You look a little pale.”

“Never better,” I brushed Josie off, hating the extra attention that an eight-year-old illness still managed to muster in my family.

I escaped to refill Mrs. Neilson’s coffee. As much as serving strangers intimidated me, it was better than succumbing to the over-zealous concern of my family.

Chapter Two 

 

I’m still me.

Asher Hill ground his teeth against the sentiment as he used his arms to propel himself out from under the hood of his truck. 

I’m still me.

It was something his doctors reminded him about a lot. So did his therapists—all of them. Physical therapists, occupational therapists, recreational therapists, psychotherapists, even his family who thought they were therapists.

But he had trouble believing those people. All of them.

Because he wasn’t really still the Asher Hill who had walked out of the offices of Paramount Sports the night of September 22nd, twenty months earlier. He was another version altogether. A version who couldn’t bungee jump or run marathons or climb the Dawn Wall. Heck, he couldn’t even go to the bathroom like he used to. If he was any type of version of Asher Hill anymore, it was a very different version. A flawed and broken version.

He pushed himself to a sitting position on his creeper seat and craned his neck towards his workbench, searching out the headlamp he’d forgotten to bring beneath the truck. He spotted it, right beside the radio that played Don’t Stop Believing.

Yeah, right. Believe in what? Believe in who? Certainly not himself anymore.

No doubt about it. He’d taken his legs for granted. What used to be a quick jump up and walk over to a workbench to grab a forgotten tool was now a project and practice in patience. He backed himself up to his chair, locked the wheels of his creeper seat, placed his hands on the handles of his wheelchair and used his arms and abs to lift himself up and backward. His skinny legs dragged behind, and he raised them one by one onto the footrests.

Elise had tried to stick around. She’d made it three months after the accident. In the end, she blamed leaving on his poor attitude. She said he was the one who had pushed her away. Though he couldn’t deny it, it didn’t make the wedding invitation sitting on his low, custom-built kitchen counter any easier to bear.

Elise and Lucas.

Ouch.

Some best friend. Good thing Asher didn’t have to see his face at the office anymore, day-in, day-out. Weekly virtual conference calls were so much easier than Monday through Friday in-person meetings.

After grabbing his headlamp and lowering himself back on the creeper seat with his tools on his chest, he shimmied beneath the engine. He placed a container beneath the oil pan before using his ratchet wrench to unscrew the drain plug. Oil streamed out.

He positioned his wrench to unscrew the filter but struggled to loosen it. Readjusting his grip, he thrust his muscle behind the tool. His oily hands slipped off the wrench. His knuckles smashed against the truck frame.

He cursed good and loud, shaking out his hand.

He could have simply gone to his mechanic, but he liked accomplishing what he could himself. He thought he did, anyway. Especially when it came to his truck—one of the only places where no one could see the brokenness of his body. He could smile at the kids making faces at him from the back of a school bus, sit at a crosswalk to allow an elderly lady to pass by, or buy a coffee for the car behind him. No one had to know.

Asher Hill takes on the world. Ha, what a joke.

He was far away from it all now, both in physical distance and physical ability. Far away from the family and the friends he’d grown up with. Far away from Elise and his corporate office.

He could still hear his mother’s voice from their latest conversation.

Come home, honey. We’ll give you your space. We promise.

But it wasn’t so much about space. It was about navigating this new life away from pitying eyes. It was about finding his way. Alone.

Piano Man ended on the radio and the morning show DJ came on, announcing it was time for their Connections hour.

The DJ’s voice rang through his garage, loud and clear. “We have Lizzie from Camden on the phone. Let’s see if we can help her find her drive-thru dreamboat today. And if so, will it be a connection or a misconnection? Lizzie, why don’t you go ahead and tell us about the man you’re trying to find. Perhaps he’s listening right now.”

Asher positioned his wrench again, placed as much pressure against the tool as possible. Still, it didn’t budge.

“Hey, Melanie. Thanks for giving me this chance. So, I’ve been going to the donut shop on the corner of Elm and Norwood Street for the last several Fridays and I happen to be behind this man in a truck. And every time he pays for my coffee.”

Asher lowered his wrench, interested. He did go to that shop every morning, as it was right down the street from his house.

“Oooh, so we have a chivalrous hero providing a much-needed morning dose of caffeine. Consistently, too.”

The woman on the phone laughed. “I’m sure he must do it for whoever is behind him, but I’d love to find him and thank him in person. Especially since I’ve been the one behind him for the last seven Fridays.”

The DJ’s sultry voice came out over the airwaves. “Coincidence? I hope not for your sake, Lizzie. Could you give us a description of the truck, or of this man so, if he’s listening right now, he’ll know we want to find him?”

“Well, he’s in a black Chevy Silverado. He’s pretty cute. I think he has a short beard.” The woman on the phone giggled, and Asher rolled his eyes. If she only knew.

He wiped his oily hands on his shirt, raised his wrench again, twisted hard.

“Oh, and he has a guitar in the back cab of his truck. That really caught my eye because I play guitar, too. I like to write songs.”

Again, his hand slipped and he banged the same knuckle, cursing up a blue streak as he pushed himself out from beneath the truck.

On the radio, the DJ put out a call for the handsome coffee shop man in the Chevy Silverado with a guitar in the back of his truck.

Asher wiped his hands on a rag, noted his bleeding knuckle. He thought of the woman on the radio, searching for him. She sounded nice enough. Maybe in his former life they could have dated. Maybe it would have turned into something. Or maybe not. What kind of a girl was desperate enough to call into a radio station about a man who bought coffee for her in a donut shop drive-thru?

He thought of the wedding invitation with Elise and Lucas’s names in elegant script at the top. His knuckles burned. He looked with scorn at the dead weight of his useless legs.

He dug in the pocket of his wheelchair for his cell phone.

Better to set things straight for this girl now before he passed her at the coffee shop again.

* * *

After I finished the breakfast rush with Mom, I escaped to the gardens to weed. Later, after I cleaned the guest rooms, I’d head out for a hike. Maiden Cliff, probably. There was nothing like a dirt trail beneath my feet and a canopy of trees to inspire a song in my head. I grabbed up late-spring weeds by their roots and shook off the dirt, quietly singing the song I’d started writing last week.

My deepest song to date, I was trying to tap into some of my own insecurities and fears, to travel to places I hadn’t yet taken my music. Perhaps the music would heal some of those old fears inside myself.

My hand found the scar at my neck, the spot where they’d taken out my thyroid when I was fifteen. In my head, I knew the cancer could come back at any time, to any part of my body, but in my heart I knew I’d been healed. That God had given me victory over the illness.

While I wanted to sink into that, my family—by means of their sweet attention—had rendered me weak. Everyone looked out for me, and while I loved them for it, I couldn’t help but wish they’d throw their extra attentions around Amie or Bronson. Hover over someone else for once. I was strong. I felt it. If only what I knew inside showed on the outside.

It was one of the reasons I loved hiking. Alone in the woods, conquering mountain upon mountain, I proved myself tough, resilient. There, victory and healing sank deep in my bones. While my family sometimes inadvertently confirmed my weakness, the mountain trails confirmed my strength.

I chastised myself for the ungrateful thoughts, turning my attention back to my song. If there was any fear left within me—and I knew there was—the music always drowned it out, made me forget. Like the voice of a sweet friend, it called and assured.

I sank into the song, singing the first verse over and over to myself, hearing the melody and the tune playing on my guitar, trusting the next line to enter my mind in time.

“Lizzie!” The scream snapped me from my song and my work. I jumped up from where I’d knelt beside the raised herb beds, the scent of thyme and basil fresh in my nostrils.

Amie ran toward me, phone in hand.

“What’s the matter? Is it Isaac?”

Maggie, my oldest sister, had a son who’d been diagnosed with type one diabetes last fall. He’d been doing well, but I still remembered the rough start, the hospital trips, the fickleness of the disease.

Amie shook her head, eyes wide. She smothered the phone in her sweater. “Don’t be mad, okay?”

“What?”

“I—I called the radio station. You know how the morning show has a Connections hour?” The corners of her mouth inched up into a smile she tried hard to contain.

My breaths came fast and hard, my knees weakened. “Amie, no. What did you do?”

“It’s only because I love you and I want to see you happy.” She studied me, air in her cheeks. She let it out in one whoosh. “I pretended to be you. I told them about Mr. Coffee. Lizzie, he called in! He’s on the phone right now and wants to speak with you.”

“Amie, no. How could you?” If I was the type of person to see red, the brightest scarlet would have flashed before my eyes. Instead, I knew only betrayal. Horrible betrayal. And fear. I was no stranger to fear, but this…this was paralyzing. Tears pricked the back of my eyelids. I shook my head, wanting to deny the last thirty seconds. “No. I am not talking to him.”

“Lizzie, he called in. If he wasn’t interested, he could have ignored you. This could be your chance. The chance to meet the guy of your dreams! Take a risk for once.”

Take a risk for once.

“I can’t. You already pretended to be me. Why don’t you keep it up? Maybe he’s your dream guy.”

She shook her head, held out the phone. “He’s waiting, Lizzie.”

I looked at the phone, the seconds ticking off, the red circle bright and inviting at the bottom. I should reach out and tap the button to end the call. Sever this nightmare and any chance I had with the handsome guy in the pickup.

A pickup with the potential for off-roading adventures and cozy camping trips. A guitar with the potential to play romantic love songs. Unbidden, an image of a crackling campfire and the handsome stranger strumming a guitar came to mind, effectively weakening my resolve.

I stared at the phone, my heart knocking hard against my ribcage.

Take a risk for once. 

If I didn’t take this call, would I forever wonder? I’d just been thinking how I was stronger and braver than others saw me. When the chance came, would I prove it, or would I slink away with my tail between my legs?