Roz Fox - Annie's Neighborhood

Turns out home may be where the heart is, after all…

Briar Run, Kentucky, is where Annie Emerson grew up, where her grandmother Ida raised her. Annie, now a social worker in L.A., left years ago but returns home when Ida’s health fails. She’s devastated to lose her—and shocked to discover how badly the town has deteriorated. But she’s inherited some money and uses it to help rescue Briar Run.

Police chief Sky Cordova is dealing with an overabundance of crime, severe budget cuts and a battle over the custody of his five-year-old son, Zack. The last thing he needs is a woman with a cause stirring up trouble. Despite that, he’s captivated by Annie and her passion to revitalize her neighborhood. He’s not the only one, since Zack falls for Annie, too. Sky starts to realize that her way of bringing the town back to life—one house at a time—might work. Just as she’s brought his heart back to life, one smile at a time…

Annie opened a small leather notebook.

“I surveyed a few residents,” she began. “I believe their spirits can be improved by something as simple as home face-lifts, like the one I’ve started. Fresh paint. Maybe new drapes. Possibly some rosebushes and weeded yards. Those things take sweat equity.”

“And money. Paint isn’t free. Cosmetic changes won’t break the stranglehold gangs have on local teens. If you want to do something meaningful, get me the names of the gang leaders.”

Annie and Sky faced off across the table. “Maybe the gang leaders will give up and move on if we create the kind of community where families want to live. Restore hope.”

“Perhaps that’s true in prosperous neighborhoods. Did any of the residents you talked to tell you how many hours a day they spend riding buses back and forth into Louisville to work at minimum-wage jobs that barely put food on their tables? Those privileged few who actually found new jobs?”

“I haven’t totally gained their trust yet,” Annie admitted. “But I plan to. I thought I’d distribute flyers inviting residents to a meeting where I can lay out my ideas in greater detail.”

“Good luck.”

“I had hoped I could enlist your support.”

He clattered down the steps and strode down the walkway without so much as a backward glance.

Dear Reader,

A lot of writers say that a story will come to life fully formed in their minds. For me, more often the characters appear first and then I need to find them a home. Annie’s Neighborhood was different. The houses in her neighborhood came first.

Whenever I travel, I do so with a tour book of the state in hand. On a trip to Kentucky I wanted to see the home of the Kentucky Derby. We’d just missed the race, but the immediate area was still decked out in new paint and roses. On leaving Churchill Downs, we wound through a warren of streets lined with older Victorian houses. The once-vibrant neighborhood looked faded. Homes needed paint. Retaining walls were cracked and overgrown with vines. Lovely stained-glass dormer windows looked dull, and wrought-iron fencing was rusted. The greater city of Louisville, built by immigrants who worked in manufacturing, was a city in transition. A news article said some areas were battling an infiltration of gangs. But even as we left the state I kept thinking about those homes, about how beautiful they could be. Maybe they are now.

My story of course is a total work of fiction, and Annie’s a character who rattled around in my head for quite a while. She had a murky background and needed roots. She needed my faded homes.

And because I write love stories, independent though Annie is, she needed a family. Who better than a once-burned, jaded cop? Sky Cordova is in the middle of a custody fight with his ex. He’s also trying to keep the peace in a dying community populated by apathetic homeowners cowed by defiant gangs. And then Annie Emerson shows up! She’s testament to the fact that big changes begin with small ones—when it comes to houses and hearts.

And that’s how this story was born. I’m glad Harlequin Heartwarming provided it with a home. I love to hear from readers. Contact me via email at rdfox@cox.net, or by writing to me at 7739 E. Broadway Blvd. #101, Tucson, AZ 85710-3941.

Sincerely,

Roz

Annie’s Neighborhood

Roz Denny Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ROZ DENNY FOX

Roz saw her first book, Red Hot Pepper, published by Harlequin in February 1990. She’s written for several Harlequin series, as well as online serials and special projects. Besides being a writer, Roz has worked as a medical secretary and as an administrative assistant in both an elementary school and a community college. Part of her love for writing came from moving around with her husband during his tenure in the marine corps and as a telephone engineer. The richness of settings and the diversity of friendships she experienced continue to make their way into her stories. Roz enjoys corresponding with readers either via email, rdfox@cox.net, or by mail (7739 E. Broadway Blvd. #101, Tucson, AZ 85710-3941). You can also check her website, www.Korynna.com/RozFox.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank

Executive Editor Paula Eykelhof, my editor of many years, as well as Victoria Curran, Heartwarming senior editor, and Marsha Zinberg, Executive Editor of Special Projects, for the time and work they devote to acquiring and publishing good stories so many readers enjoy.

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

Epilogue

Chapter One

ANNIE EMERSON WAS the lone occupant in the family car traveling behind the hearse that carried her grandmother to her final resting place. She stared numbly out a tinted side window. At the church, old friends of Ida Vance had said that at eighty-eight she’d lived a full, happy, productive life. But Gran Ida, as everyone called her, was Annie’s only known relative, and Annie wasn’t prepared to say goodbye.

She felt like a stranger in Briar Run, a small town bordering Louisville, Kentucky, where she’d grown up, and where Gran Ida had lived for nearly seventy years. Soon her grandmother would rest beside the man she’d loved and honored all those years, even though John Vance had died in World War II.

As the car crawled along, Annie reflected on the little she really knew about the woman who’d raised her from infancy. Ida didn’t dwell on the past. In fact, it wasn’t until after Annie had sought and accepted a scholarship to UCLA—half a country away in California—that Ida deigned to share a bit of Annie’s own history. Gran got out an old photo album and showed Annie pictures of her grandfather, John, who’d come home to Kentucky on leave before World War II turned really ugly. He had bought the Victorian home, then left again to fight and die before Ida discovered she was pregnant with a daughter from whom, sadly, she’d be estranged for many years. That daughter had been Annie’s mother, but she still knew next to nothing about Mary Louise Emerson. Because Annie had badgered her, Gran admitted that the girl who’d run away at sixteen with an itinerant musician had reappeared at her door one rainy night seventeen years later, ill, pregnant and penniless; she swore she was married and her last name was Emerson. Later, weakened by a difficult birth, Mary Louise died without providing proof of any marriage.

That had all taken place thirty-four years ago—her entire lifetime, Annie thought, wiping away tears of grief. For the past fourteen years she’d lived and worked in L.A. The truth was that she’d fled Briar Run because the boy she’d dated for two years and was sure she loved and loved her in return had let his parents break them up over Annie’s iffy parentage. That created a grievance, which stuck with her long after Gran Ida informed her Brock Barnard and his family had moved away. The hurt went so deep, Annie hadn’t been able to come back to Briar Run even for short visits until two weeks ago, when it became clear that Gran desperately needed her.