“Doesn’t matter. This is going to sell newspapers. Lots of newspapers. People love all that hoopla, happily ever after, blah, blah, blah,” Grant went on, revealing the heart of a true romantic. “Don’t you remember how big the wedding reenactment went over last fall? It was the highlight of the historical society’s open house.”
How could Mac forget? Grant had given her that assignment too. Annie Price and county deputy Jesse Kent’s wedding reenactment at historic Stone Church, meant to honor the young couple who’d founded the town, had been scripted—except for the part when Jesse actually proposed during the ceremony.
Grant expected Mac to do a follow-up story when the couple exchanged their real vows at the end of September, but she wasn’t sure she’d be in Red Leaf that long. In fact . . . Mac skimmed through the rest of the e-mail and found an escape clause.
Yes! Thank you, Lord!
“According to this, Hollis’s wedding is the last weekend in August.” Mac tried to hide her relief. “I might not be here.”
Not if everything went according to plan. It had to. Mac refused to consider the alternative.
“Well, you’re here now, aren’t you?” Grant didn’t look the least bit disturbed by the reminder, which Mac found . . . disturbing. Did everyone assume she’d come back to Red Leaf to stay?
When she’d returned to her hometown to take care of her dad after he’d suffered a mild heart attack, it was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. And yet here she was, a year later, monitoring his diet. Making sure he got his prescriptions refilled and didn’t overdo it. It was the last one that proved the most challenging.
Red Leaf’s beloved Coach—even Mac called him by his title—wasn’t going to let a little thing like a blocked artery prevent him from doing what he loved. Coaching football and teaching PE at the high school. And because Mac loved her dad, she’d put her dreams on hold and moved back into her old bedroom with the glow-in-the-dark stars pasted on the ceiling, the shelves lined with books instead of sports trophies.
“There’s going to be an outdoor ceremony and reception at Channing House, so I want you to get some shots of the property today. We’ll run them on the Local Scenery page in this week’s issue, get everyone talking about it—and next week, we’ll run part two of the story.” Mac could almost see the subscription sales rising in her boss’s eyes. “Interview the caterer. The florist. The guy in the penguin suit who’s going to stroll around the grounds with a violin. Anyone connected with the wedding.”
“That seems kind of intrusive.” Even as Mac voiced the comment, she remembered this was Hollis Channing they were talking about. The girl who’d been taking selfies a decade before there’d been a name for it.
“Intrusive? Here’s our personal invitation.” Grant rapped his knuckles against the e-mail. “I’m sure there will be other newspapers angling to get the details, but the Register has an edge.”
“An edge?” Mac realized her vocabulary was shrinking in direct proportion to her level of control.
Grant leveled a finger at her nose. “You.”
“Me?” Mac squeaked.
“You lived next door to the family for years. You must have been friends with Hollis and her older brother, right?”
Wrong, Mac wanted to howl.
When Hollis hadn’t been ignoring Mac, she’d made her life miserable.
And Ethan . . . Ethan Channing had broken her heart.
After searching underneath practically every stone that lined the overgrown walkway for the spare house key, all Ethan Channing had to show for his effort was half a dozen night crawlers. Useful for catching a stringer of perch on Jewel Lake but not for opening a front door.
You can’t go home again. Isn’t that what the old adage claimed?
Ethan dropped a set of rusty hinges on the ground and smiled. Not true. A person could go home again . . . Sometimes he just had to choose an alternate route.
Like a window.
He slung one leg over the sun-bleached ledge and eased his body through the narrow opening. The thick carpet muffled his landing but didn’t stop his knees from buckling as he took in his surroundings. He hadn’t simply found a way into the house. He’d stepped back in time.
The study looked exactly the way Ethan remembered it. The faint scent of lemon furniture polish remained trapped in the air, along with a whole lot of memories.
Three months after his father’s funeral, with the ink barely dry on Ethan’s high school diploma, his mom had closed up the house and they’d moved back to Chicago, where her extended family lived.
Lilah Channing preferred city living over small towns, a complaint Ethan had heard on a regular basis while he was growing up.
He still wasn’t sure why his mother hadn’t sold the house in Red Leaf. She wasn’t known for being overly sentimental, and when she wanted to get away for a weekend, she booked a spa vacation or a shopping trip to New York.
His cell phone rang, shattering the silence.
“And so it begins,” Ethan muttered as he saw his sister’s name flash across the screen. “Hi, Hollis.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m fine. Thanks for asking. How are you?”
“I’ll let you know after you answer the question,” came the impatient response.