Second Chances: Two Novellas
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Second Chances is Two Novellas: One Simple Wish and A Bitter Creek Christmas
One Simple Wish
The lady . . . and the blacksmith . . . Everyone in Fredericksburg, Texas, believes their newest resident, Alyssa Moreland, is a "true lady." So they don't understand why she's willing to be courted by the local blacksmith, Karl Everhardt. Surely, Karl isn't good enough for her. But if folks only knew the truth about her, Alyssa is pretty sure they wouldn't think she was good enough for him!
A Bitter Creek Christmas
A Black Sheep returns home at Christmas . . . Five couples celebrating the holidays at the Bitter Creek ranch in Texas share stories of their most memorable Christmas gift, while awaiting the arrival of a long-lost brother.
Joan Johnston
Joan Johnston is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than fifty novels and novellas with more than 15 million copies of her books in print. She has worked as a director of theatre, drama critic, newspaper editor, college professor, and attorney on her way to becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Colorado and Florida. You can find out more about Joan at JoanJohnston.com.
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Second Chances - Joan Johnston
Note to Reader
Dear Reader,
Included here are two novellas, One Simple Wish, and A Bitter Creek Christmas, which tell stories of renewal and redemption.
Many Americans traveled west in the hope of finding a new and better life. That’s the case for my heroine in One Simple Wish, Alyssa Moreland. I wrote this novella more than twenty years ago, and it asks a question we all may have pondered at one time or another: Is it really possible to start over, and put the mistakes of the past behind you?
The second novella in this collection, A Bitter Creek Christmas, also deals with the theme of redemption. A long-lost brother, Matthew Grayhawk, returns home at Christmas, unsure of his reception after he disappeared twenty years before without a word to anyone. While they wait for his arrival, five couples from my bestselling Bitter Creek series share stories of the best Christmas gift they’ve ever received.
Matt Grayhawk’s full story is continued in my King’s Brats series of Bitter Creek novels, Sinful, Shameless, and Surrender. Excerpts from all three books are included at the end of this collection. Enjoy!
I love hearing your thoughts and suggestions. You can reach me at www.joanjohnston.com; facebook.com/joanjohnstonauthor; or twitter.com/joanjohnston.
Happy reading,
Joan Johnston
Second Chances
Two Novellas
JOAN JOHNSTON
SECOND CHANCES
Copyright 2015 Joan Mertens Johnston, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-9912507-2-1
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Joan Mertens Johnston, Inc.
ONE SIMPLE WISH
Copyright 2015 Joan Mertens Johnston, Inc.
A BITTER CREEK CHRISTMAS
Copyright 2013 Joan Mertens Johnston, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Smashwords Edition
Licensing Notes
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Contents
Note to Reader
One Simple Wish by Joan Johnston
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
A Bitter Creek Christmas by Joan Johnston
About Joan Johnston
Excerpts by Joan Johnston
Sinful
Shameless
Surrender
One Simple Wish
Chapter One
Remember, Harmony, we can’t tell anyone. It has to be our secret.
But why, Mama?
Alyssa Moreland put an arm around her six-year-old daughter’s shoulder and brushed aside the child’s shaggy blond bands. How could she explain to one so innocent how cruel the world could be to a bastard child?
Alyssa felt a sense of desperation. Moving a thousand miles from Philadelphia wasn’t going to accomplish a thing if she couldn’t convince Harmony of the importance of keeping their past a secret.
The stagecoach was sultry, and everything inside was covered with a layer of fine dust. At least they’d the coach to themselves. Alyssa took out her handkerchief, dabbed it on her tongue to wet it, and began wiping Harmony’s angelic face clean.
We’re starting a brand-new life in Texas, sweetheart, just you and me. I’ll be calling myself Mrs. Moreland, so people will want to know why my husband—your father—isn’t with us.
But I never had a father,
Harmony protested.
Alyssa’s lips curved in a sad smile. Everyone has a father, sweetheart.
I just wasn’t married to him when you were conceived.
Not me,
Harmony said with certainty. Marjorie Rose said I came from the pumpkin patch.
Nevertheless, if someone asks about your father, what should you say?
"My papa got sick with new-moan-ya and died."
And where did we used to live?
In a brothel.
Alyssa froze. She stared, stricken, into her daughter’s enormous blue eyes. She cupped Harmony’s chin and tilted her daughter’s face up to hers. "You must never, never repeat that to anyone. If someone asks where we used to live, you may tell them in Philadelphia."
The little girl’s blue eyes misted with tears. I’ll try to remember, Mama.
Alyssa pulled Harmony close. She rocked the little girl in her arms. I know this must seem very confusing,
she whispered.
I miss Marjorie Rose, Mama. And I miss Lulu and Sophie and Coralie and Winnie and Olinda and Marybeth and—
I know, sweetheart. I do, too.
Why couldn’t we say goodbye to them, Mama?
There simply wasn’t time.
More lies. Would she ever be able to stop telling lies? We can write to them once we get settled in Fredericksburg.
Alyssa had carefully chosen the small Texas town nestled in the Hill Country west of Austin as the perfect place to start over. It was off the beaten path and had a population that consisted primarily of farmers of German descent. She’d heard the hill country was beautiful in the spring, with wildflowers that covered the fields with blankets of purple and orange. And there were lots of trees—pecan and cypress and live oak.
You’re going to love living in Fredericksburg,
Alyssa promised her daughter.
But why did we have to leave our home in Philadelphia?
Harmony asked.
I didn’t want you to be sold to some man for his pleasure before you were old enough to know a different life was possible. I didn’t want you to live the life of a whore. I have only one wish, sweetheart. One simple wish. That you grow up a normal, happy little girl.
Alyssa knew that having her wish come true depended on keeping their secrets. No one must ever find out the truth about Harmony. Or about her mother.
We left our home in Philadelphia to find a better life, sweetheart.
Alyssa clutched her daughter close and whispered, And we will.
* * * * *
As a widower and an eligible bachelor, Karl Eberhardt had so many invitations to supper that he seldom had to eat at Ellie Cooperman’s boardinghouse, where he lived. So he wasn’t there when Mrs. Alyssa Moreland and her daughter, Harmony, presented themselves at the dinner table for the first time. Karl would have met them at breakfast the next morning except Herman Bingaman’s mare was having problems foaling. As the town blacksmith, Karl was the closest thing Fredericksburg had to a horse doctor.
He might have met them at the noon meal, only Karl was so far behind in his work at the forge that he decided to send his apprentice, Mrs. Cooperman’s fourteen-year-old son, Jack, to the boardinghouse for sandwiches and work on through the afternoon. He’d plows to sharpen, wheels to repair, and hasps, hinges, and hammers to make.
Karl checked as soon as he arrived at his shop to make sure Jack had built the kind of fire he needed to do his work. He nodded imperceptibly in approval of the clear, concentrated flame, and the lack of a strong sulfur smell. A good fire,
he pronounced.
Jack grinned. I cleaned the fire pot first, just like you taught me. And I used wet coal and lots of it.
Karl clapped the gangly youth on the shoulder. You did well, Jack. You’ll make a fine blacksmith someday.
Have you met Mrs. Moreland and her daughter?
Jack asked as he worked the bellows.
Not yet,
Karl said.
Ma says she’s a real lady.
Karl smiled skeptically. How can she tell?
Jack looked surprised that his mother’s evaluation of Mrs. Moreland had been questioned. Why, ’cause of her manners, of course. Delicate, they was. And her daughter’s, too.
Karl checked the wheel rim he’d stuck into the fire. Color was all-important. If the iron got beyond a red heat while it was being shaped, he would have to cut it off and start again. How old is the daughter?
Karl asked, more to make conversation than because he was interested.
Six,
Jack said. But she’s as pretty as her ma is beautiful.
Beautiful, is she?
Karl held the iron over the anvil with tongs and began to drop the bundle as his elbow parted company with his ribs, and the flat peen hammer came up over his head in full, regularly spaced strokes.
Yes, beautiful,
Jack insisted. Blond hair up in a fancy do and cornflower blue eyes. She’s kind of shy, though.
What makes you say that?
Karl was ready to harden the iron, so he stuck it back into the fire and waited for it to turn a cherry red.
Her voice, for one thing.
Oh?
It was kinda soft. You had to listen real hard to hear her. And her eyes, for another thing.
Oh?
Jack put another scoopful of wet coal on the fire. She never stares right at you, just kinda peeks up at you from under her lashes.
And this makes her a lady?
Karl asked, arching a dark brow.
Well, she was dressed like a lady, too,
Jack said. Ma said she’d never seen the like of it. All them frills and furbelows. Anyhow, Mrs. Moreland plans to open a dress shop here in town. Today she’s off hunting herself a place of business to rent.
The iron had reached exactly the desired color. Karl took it out of the fire with his tongs and cooled it in lukewarm water, watching for the moment when the metal was tempered. He pointed it out to Jack so the boy would learn to recognize it for himself.
The iron must cool slowly,
Karl instructed. That will make it hard.
They worked the rest of the afternoon without a break. Karl insisted his shop be kept neat, so Jack was kept busy returning tools to the worktable near the forge. But there was no way to keep a blacksmith’s shop really clean. Karl whitewashed the walls once a year, but the inevitable soot and dust quickly layered everything and everybody.
Even if the soot and dust hadn’t been a problem, Karl had burned enough shirts with cinders that now he always worked bare from the waist up. He used a leather apron to protect his pants and his chest from flying sparks. It was hot near the forge, and Karl’s body glistened with sweat. His hammer was upraised when he caught sight of a dainty pair of black calfskin half boots beyond the anvil.
His eyes followed the boots to a pleated hem, then past swags of a very fine blue material to a hand span waist, then up to small breasts and a face that took his breath away. The woman standing before him possessed a firm chin, cupid’s-bow lips, a little bit of a nose, and yes, those eyes were definitely cornflower blue. Unless Karl was very much mistaken, he was staring at Jack’s beautiful lady.
Karl was suddenly very conscious of the soot in the creases of his hands, of the sweat that beaded in the black curls on his chest, and of the way his black hair hung lank over his forehead.
Are you Mr. Eberhardt?
Karl could barely hear her over the roar of the bellows. Jack, that’s enough now.
But, Karl—
The boy turned and his jaw dropped at the sight of Mrs. Moreland standing there in front of the anvil.
Karl felt the crimson stain of self-consciousness on his cheekbones as she stared at him, but was helpless to do anything about it. I’m Karl Eberhardt,
he said. His German accent sounded thick to his ears.
She seemed surprised by his size. He couldn’t help the