What the Heart Wants (What the Heart Wants, #1)
Jeanell Bolton
Acknowledgments
It takes a village to write a book.
A big thank you to the Austin, Texas, chapter of Romance Writers of America, especially Janece Hudson, Jane Myers Perrine, April Kihlstrom, Louisa Edwards, and Jessica Scott. And a special shout-out to my RWA guardian angels, Liana Lefey and Colleen Thompson.
I also appreciate the encouragement of beta readers Joan Barton, Tina Bolick, Sharon Kite, Suzy Millar Miller, Ashley Vining, and Linda Wiles, as well as the enthusiasm of literary friends Paula Mitchell Marks, Carol Fox, and Suzy Gregory. Musical friends Mary Bedrich and Marion Mayfield were my expert sources on child prodigies.
Thank you also to my fabulous literary agent, Liza Dawson, who believed in me, and my ever-patient editor, Michele Bidelspach, who made my dream come true.
And, as always, thank you to my long-suffering husband, because he has been unfailingly supportive of my writing career, and my three wonderful children, because they have allowed me to write under my own name.
Chapter One
Laurel held the long rope of pearls up to the brilliant midsummer sunset shining in her bedroom window.
Here she was, sitting at her dressing table and wondering if pawning Gramma’s necklace would provide enough money to pay the bills for the next couple of months. Her finances would straighten themselves out once she sold the house, but she’d had it on the market for almost seven weeks now, and not one soul had expressed interest in her six-thousand-square-foot white elephant.
She should have tried to sell it last fall, but managing her mother’s funeral was all she could accomplish back then. Besides, she’d had another year to go on her teaching contract, and her work had become her life after Dave left her and Daddy died.
The past three years had been mind-numbing, one blow after another. Not that she really missed Dave. She’d married him because it was time for Bosque Bend’s favorite daughter to march down the aisle, and he’d seemed like the logical choice. Too bad he’d ditched her when being married to Laurel Harlow became a liability rather than an asset.
The last blow came seven weeks ago, when her principal told her she wouldn’t get another contract. She should have seen it coming, but she’d thought she was safe in the elementary school across the river, in Lynnwood, the new subdivision populated by new people who didn’t know the protocols of old Bosque Bend, and who seemed to care more about her effectiveness as a teacher than her family history.
She’d driven home in a trance from the meeting with her principal, and as soon as she entered the safety of the house and locked the door, she’d whirled into a spate of activity to counteract the numbness that fogged her brain and made her feel like she was dragging around a fifty-pound weight. First she called the Realtor father of one of her students and put the house she’d lived in for most of her life on the market. Next she started contacting school districts in the Rio Grande Valley for jobs. Her days of servitude to Kinkaid House and her family legacy were over.
She rolled the pearls between her fingers. Living alone was the pits. Mrs. Bridges, across the street, employed a live-in maid, had a daughter who visited regularly, and was followed by a big, happy-looking dog everywhere she went. Laurel was her own maid, had no friends anymore, and Kinkaid House hadn’t housed a dog since Mama’s older sister died of rabies seventy-five years ago.
The doorbell chimed from downstairs. She sighed and nestled the rope of glowing beads back in its padded box. Who was it? Prince Charming magically appearing to rescue her from Bosque Bend?
She stood up and squared her shoulders. She didn’t need Prince Charming. She’d make her own happy ending.
The bell rang again as she headed down the hall toward the stairs. Probably the ill-mannered paperboy come collecting, though it didn’t seem time for him yet. He always peered behind her down the hall as she handed him the money, then ran as if all the demons in hell were chasing him.
Her overactive conscience, part and parcel of being a preacher’s daughter, charged into action. Of course the paperboy was afraid. Who could blame him? This house was notorious. Everyone in town knew what had happened here.
She started down the wide stairway.
If she could just mail in her payment, like when she used to take the Dallas Morning News, but Art Sawyer, who put out the town’s biweekly newspaper, had never met an innovation he didn’t dislike. Thus the Bosque Bend Retriever was printed on the same press he’d been using for the last forty years and was still hand-delivered by an army of schoolboys on bikes.
The doorbell pealed a third time. She gritted her teeth.
Sorry, whoever you are. I’m not about to break into a gallop. I might not have anything else left, but I can still muster a shred of dignity.
Three generations of family portraits on the staircase wall watched in approval as she regally descended the steps. As a child, she’d sped past them as fast as she could go to avoid their see-all stares, but now she drew strength from them. She might have to sell the house out from under their gilded frames, but she’d do it with her head held high.
And she’d burn the house down to the ground before she’d let it go for taxes.
Think positively, Laurel Elizabeth. Maybe your caller is a prospective buyer that the Realtor has sent over to look at the house.
She opened the heavy oak door a few cautious inches. Just last week someone had lobbed a string of firecrackers at her when she was out in the yard, searching for her newspaper. Of course, it was right before the Fourth, but she doubted that those firecrackers were a patriotic salute.