Tracy Kelleher - On Common Ground

You never forget the one who got away

When Lilah Evans graduated from Grantham U, she was ready to leave college behind and change the world. Now, at a crossroads, she’s doing something she never wanted to do: attending her ten-year reunion. And that means running

into Justin Bigelow.

A decade ago, Justin was the big man on campus—Mr. Self-Involved himself. So why did he nominate Lilah for the Distinguished Alumni award? One thing that’s clear this nostalgia-filled weekend, he isn’t the partying jock she remembers.

What’s also clear is that the attraction that used to simmer between them is now more intense—and impossible to ignore. With the stakes higher, do they finally have the courage to go for it?

He bit back a smile and the sudden impulse to take her in his arms

Instead, Justin enjoyed the warm glow that permeated his being and had nothing to do with the sun beating through the car windows.

Lilah cocked her head and stared at him.

Justin held his breath.

She wet her lips.

The only noise was the whizzing of traffic outside and the occasional honk of a car horn. Not to mention the violent thumping of his own heart.

This would be it...their first kiss. Finally.

Dear Reader,

I live in a small college town. Every spring, the azaleas bloom in candy cane colors, the daffodils and tulips blanket the lawns and flowerbeds and the spirited alumni return for their class reunions. These annual rituals bring together the bittersweet memories of past joys and disappointments as well as the promise of beautiful and fulfilling things to come—all the elements of a great romance, in my opinion. Is it any wonder that I had to write a series of stories set during Grantham University’s reunions? I hope you enjoy reading this first installment as much as I took pleasure in writing it.

Let me mention the inspiration for my heroine, Lilah Evans. I happened to read an op-ed piece by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on the organization Run for Congo Women and its founder, Lisa Shannon. As a woman and a mother, I couldn’t help but be moved by Ms. Shannon’s valiant efforts, and I knew I wanted to create a heroine who embodied her spirit. While I was influenced by elements of her story, the characters and events in my book are, of course, strictly fictional.

As always, I love to hear from my readers. Email me at tracyk@tracykelleher.com.

Tracy Kelleher

On Common Ground

Tracy Kelleher

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tracy sold her first story to a children’s magazine when she was ten years old. Writing was clearly in her blood, though fiction was put on hold while she received degrees from Yale and Cornell, traveled the world, worked in advertising, became a staff reporter and later a magazine editor. She also managed to raise a family. Is it any surprise she escapes to the world of fiction?

Many thanks to Renée Dinnerstein,

an inspired teacher. You’re a good sport.

For her insights into early childhood education,

see Renée’s blog, Investigating Choice Time: Inquiry, Exploration, and Play, at investigatingchoicetime.com.

This book is dedicated to Peter and James:

two great guys who are generous, smart and funny.

Plus you give the best hugs!

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER ONE

March

THE VILLAGE WOMEN STOMPED their bare feet to the rhythm of the drums. They kicked up dirt that collected on the hems of their long cotton dresses, making an earthen border of red clay. The bright, bold patterns of their bandannas created a swirl of color. And the joyous sounds they intoned combined in a song in celebration.

To say the least, Lilah Evans was a long way from home.

You couldn’t get much farther from Orcas Island, off the coast of Washington State, than the remote jungle of the Democratic Republic of Congo. But whatever the distance—indeed, whatever the differences—the primal African beat had a universal appeal. And a special one for Lilah.

Because the women who sang and danced? They were singing and dancing for her.

It was a gift from the hearts of women who owned almost nothing and had lost so much—husbands and children and homes in the ongoing civil war.

Growing up on an idyllic island, surrounded by fishermen, artists and executive escapees from Seattle, Lilah wouldn’t have been able to imagine that people were capable of such cruelty. After her schoolteacher mother had read her Grimm’s fairy tales, she’d had nightmares for weeks. To this day, she never looked at gingerbread quite the same way.

So when Esther, her good friend among the Congolese women, had told her what had happened to her, her soft voice mingling with the smoke from the kitchen fire in her small hut, Lilah had cringed.

“Lilah, they came one day—this was after they had raided the village and killed my husband and the other men. And taken my oldest son,” Esther had explained. Her tone was flat, but raw emotion cut the sentences into staccato clips. “They were crazy. The militiamen—crazy on drugs. They went from hut to hut. They raped the women, young daughters no more than children, grandmothers—toothless grandmothers. Then they came to me.” Her voice faltered. “They took me, too, in ways not normal. They made sure that my children were watching. It was a game, a sport, n’est-ce pas? When they were done, they laughed. Then they started to talk among themselves. I knew there was more to come. I tried not to show any fear. That was what they wanted of course.”

“You don’t have to say any more,” Lilah remembered telling her friend. She was too old to hide under the covers, but that was what she wished to do. Barring that, she wished she could cover her ears with her hands. But she didn’t. She owed it to Esther to listen, to be brave in any way she could be.

And her friend finished the story, a story so horrific that now, after the fact, Lilah still blotted out the details of how Ester came to lose her leg and what had happened to the rest of the family. What she did recall vividly was her own reaction—crying and reaching out to her friend. Her own words, thinking back now, seemed so self-centered. “I don’t think I would have been able to withstand that. I don’t know if I am strong enough,” she had said.

And Esther had placed her thin hand, as light as a bird’s, on Lilah’s arm and replied, “You do it because you have to. You have to think of tomorrow. There is no choice.”

But for Lilah, there had been a choice. Back in her senior year of college, suffering from the flu, she’d wrapped herself in a quilt on her couch and killed off a dozen boxes of Kleenex, while flipping through the channels on the TV. By chance she landed on this daytime talk show, the sort that she would have never admitted to watching. It carried a heart-wrenching report on the plight of Congolese women.

By the time the program broke away for a commercial for a new women’s deodorant, Lilah had made that choice. She decided to enlist other women to help provide health care to women and children in the remote areas of Congo—places where medical providers were practically unheard of.