Linda Goodnight - Sugarplum Homecoming

“I want a mom with brown hair,” Nathan said stubbornly. “Our other mom had brown hair.”

Paige smothered a sigh. She loved her brother a great big lot but sometimes he didn’t understand what was really important. Not the way she did. “Then pray for a mom with brown hair. I don’t care. Just pray.”

With all the reverence she’d been taught in Sunday school and children’s church since the day she was born, Paige folded her hands beneath her chin.

“Dear God, we need a mom. Daddy needs a wife. He’s been sad long enough and Aunt Jenny says it’s time for him to move on. Please send us a mother. Before Christmas would be nice.”

“With brown hair.”

Paige opened one eye. Nathan didn’t even remember their mother. He’d only seen pictures. Like the one at Daddy’s bedside. A piece of her heart felt really sad for him about that. “Yes, God, if it’s not too much to ask, send a great mom with brown hair. And make her pretty so Daddy will like her, too. Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Now, let’s get out of here before Daddy wakes up.”

“How do we get down?”

Oh, boy, she’d not considered that part.

“Nathan! Paige! Where are you?” Daddy’s voice came as a faint but worried echo through the silver curtain of water.

Nathan turned accusing eyes on his sister. “We are in so much trouble.”

Chapter One

Bad pennies always return. But what about bad people?

Lana Ross stepped up on the wooden porch of the weathered old two-story house. Her heart hammered painfully against her ribs. She’d not wanted to come to this place of bad memories. She’d had to.

A stern inner voice, the voice of hard-won peace, moved her forward, toward the door, toward the interior. A house couldn’t hurt her. If she’d been alone perhaps she would have given in to the shaky knees and returned to the car. But she wasn’t alone.

Lana aimed a wink at the child at her side. Sydney was her everything now and no memories were allowed to keep this nine-year-old darling from having her very first permanent home.

“Is this where you lived when you were my age?” Sydney asked, her vivid turquoise eyes alive with interest.

“Uh-huh, Tess and I grew up here.” Grew up. Yanked up. Kicked out.

A tangle of a vanilla-scented vine, overgrown and climbing upon the porch and around the paint-peeled pillar at one end, gave off a powerfully sweet smell. She didn’t remember the bush being there before, especially this late in the fall. But then, she’d not seen this place in thirteen years. Not since she was eighteen and free to leave without looking over her shoulder for the long arm of the law.

With the sour taste of yesterday in her throat, Lana inserted the tarnished key into the front door, an old-time lock a person could peer through, and after a few tries felt the tumbler click. Breath held, she pushed the door open on its creaky hinges, but didn’t step inside. Not yet. She needed a minute to be certain the house was empty, though she had the death certificate in her bag. Mama was dead. Had been for a couple of years. As far as she knew her entire family was dead. All except Lana and Tess and precious Sydney.

She couldn’t make herself go inside. Everything was still and quiet in the dim living room, but inside her head Lana heard the yells, the fights, the horrible names she’d believed and mostly earned.

She and her twin sister, Tess, were no more and no less than what their mother had made them. Now, all these years later, Lana was determined to be more for Sydney’s sake.

“We’ll be happy here,” Sydney declared with childlike confidence.

“Yes, we will.” If I have to fight the universe, you will have what you need and you will never, ever again live on the streets or inside a broken-down car.

“Can we go in now? I want to see my room. You said I could have my own room, remember? And we’d fix it up fit for a princess? Remember?”

“I remember.” The child’s enthusiasm stirred Lana to action. Sydney had never had a room of her own. She’d never had a house. They’d lived here and there, in tiny one-room apartments and cheap hotels, all in pursuit of Lana’s impossible dream. Most important of all, Sydney would be safe here. No one would ever expect Lana to return to the one place she’d tried so hard to escape. Especially Sydney’s mother.

“Who’s that?” Sydney asked from her spot half in and half out of what had once been the front parlor.

Across the street a man and two children stood in a neatly mowed yard watching them. Lana’s stomach dropped into her resoled cowboy boots. It couldn’t be. Surely not.

The thought had no more than crossed her mind than the sandy-brown haired man with the all-American good looks lifted a hand to wave and then started toward them. Two young children, close to Sydney’s age, skipped along as if on an adventure.

Lana froze, one hand on the doorknob and the other gripping Sydney’s as if Davis Turner would snatch her up and carry her away.

“Hello,” he said when he reached the end of the cracked sidewalk leading to the two-story.

Yep. He was Davis Turner all right. Mr. Clean-cut and Righteous. He’d been a year ahead of her in school. No one in Whisper Falls had a smile as wide, as easy and as bright as Davis.

Please God, don’t let him recognize me.

“Hi,” she said, not bothering to smile.

“You moving into the old Ross place?” Davis slipped his hands into the back pocket of his jeans, relaxed and easy in his skin. The man was much like the boy she remembered.

“We are.”

“Great.” He flashed that smile again. White straight teeth, easy, flexible skin that had weathered nicely, leaving happy spokes around grayish-blue eyes and along his cheeks. “The house has been empty a long time. Houses need people to keep them young and healthy.”

What an interesting thing to say. This house had never been healthy because of the people in it. “I suppose.”

“We live across the street in the beige brick with the black shutters. I’m Davis Turner and these are my munchkins, Paige and Nathan.”

Lana released a tiny inner sigh of relief. Davis didn’t recognize her, though sooner or later he’d discover he lived too close to the town bad girl. Would the people of Whisper Falls still remember? Did she dare hope that time had erased her teenage indiscretions from inquiring minds?

Not a chance.

“I’m ten. Well, almost,” the young girl at Davis’s side announced. “Nathan’s barely eight. I’m the oldest. What’s your name?”

“This is Sydney,” Lana said, purposely providing Sydney’s name instead of hers. She couldn’t avoid the introduction forever, but she wanted to buy some time before Davis’s bright smile withered and he turned on his heels, dragging his children in a rush to lock his doors and keep them away. “She’s also nine, just barely.”

Sydney hung back, aqua eyes cautious. She was too shy, too hesitant with others, something Lana hoped would disappear once they were settled. Her niece needed friends badly and Lana prayed her prior reputation in this close-knit mountain community wouldn’t interfere with Sydney’s happiness.

“Say hello, Sydney.”

Sydney ducked her head, displaying the precise part in her super curly brown hair. “Hello.”

“Are you gonna live here?” the little boy, Nathan asked.

“We are.”

“Just the two of you?” With the same blue-gray eyes, brown hair and square jaw of his father, Nathan was handsome. Unlike his father, he sported a dimple in one cheek.

“That’s the plan,” Lana answered.

“Are you married?”

Paige elbowed her brother. “Shh.”

“But Paige, we have to know,” Nathan protested. “She has brown hair!”