Huntington Family Series Read online

  Huntington Family Series Bundle

  Rachel Ann Nunes

  © 2012 Rachel Ann Nunes.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Winter Fire

  Winter Fire

  Acknowledgments

  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

  No Longer Strangers

  No Longer Strangers

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Chasing Yesterday

  Chasing Yesterday

  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

  By Morning Light

  By Morning Light

  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

  About the Author

  About the Author

  Winter Fire

  Winter Fire

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Jana Erickson, Suzanne Brady, Emily Watts, and the other great people at Deseret Book who have made this novel possible. It is a pleasure working with you.

  Additional thanks must go to the writers at LDS Storymakers, who are as close as family, for their continuing support and love. How wonderful it is to associate with talented (if sometimes eccentric!) people who share not only my love of the written word but also my values!

  Chapter One

  Amanda Huntington’s quick footsteps echoed eerily in the nearly deserted hallway of Grovecrest Elementary where she taught fourth grade. Though it was barely four o’clock, the school was darker than usual, signaling that clouds had moved in to cover the sun. The artificial lights overhead did little to cut through the resulting gloom. Snow was definitely on the way.

  “Did the fire alarm go off?” James Hill emerged from the other fourth-grade classroom and hurried on his shorter legs to catch up to her. “Oh, I know. I bet you have a hot date—eh, greeny?” He called her that because her eyes were green and because she was the newest teacher at the school.

  “Not hardly,” she retorted. James was always teasing her about finding someone special. He said he couldn’t understand why a woman as attractive as Amanda wasn’t dating. In the few months she had taught at the school, James, abetted by his wife, had repeatedly tried to set her up with a seemingly endless slew of available bachelors. Amanda wasn’t interested.

  Her history with men wasn’t good. She’d experienced one brief, misguided engagement right after high school, and then last year, worried about growing older, she had nearly married a man she cared for but really hadn’t loved—not totally and completely in the way she’d always dreamed. She’d been saved from making that terrible mistake by a chance encounter with an old high school flame, Tanner Wolfe. As they began dating, she discovered that he was the man of her dreams—everything she could want. She fell in love, quickly and hard, only to realize too late that he cared for someone else. In the end she had let him go. The experience had been painful, to say the least.

  No, for the time being, she was satisfied with her single existence. She alone decided what she wanted to do and when, what she wanted to eat and where, and she was becoming independent. That was good. She hadn’t even joined the singles ward in the area yet, preferring a family ward because it gave her the opportunity to get to know her neighbors. It also gave her time to . . . well, heal.

  There was a part of her who hoped for—and even planned for—a relationship in the future. Growing up in the Church, she had long envisioned herself as part of a growing family, surrounded by children to love and to raise.

  Well, she was surrounded by children every day. That part, at least, had come true.

  Twelve long months had passed since she’d said good-bye to Tanner, but, if she were truthful, sometimes she relived the memory as though the events had occurred only yesterday. Oh, how her heart had broken, seeing him walk through her apartment door and out of her life! She wondered if she would always regret letting him go, always regret allowing him to believe she had accepted Gerry’s proposal, when the reality was that her love for Tanner had been the determining factor in her refusal. How could she marry Gerry when she had caught a glimpse of true love? Yet how could she make Tanner stay when his heart was elsewhere? When Tanner had married a few months later, she knew she had done the right thi
ng. Part of her wished him the best, but another part had cried into her pillow for months until there were no tears left.

  That was then. She was over him—or so she reminded herself for the millionth time.

  “So how’d class go today?” James asked.

  “What?” Amanda forced herself to return to the present.

  “The kids. You know, the ones you teach.” James’s large nose and receding brown hairline made his bright hazel eyes stand out in his thin face. “How’d it go?”

  She smiled wearily. “They were all really restless. And it’s only Wednesday. We still have two more days to go before the weekend.”

  “It’s the change in the weather. Once it snows they’ll settle down soon enough. You’ll see.”

  Amanda hoped so. She’d taken this post at the end of August when Rilla Thompson had become ill and opted for early retirement. Amanda knew she’d only been offered the job because she’d worked with Rilla at the school last year while doing her student teaching. This was Amanda’s first real teaching post, and she worried about succeeding. So far she’d made it to November.

  “They’re great kids,” she said.

  James shifted the small stack of papers he carried to his other arm and opened the outside door for her. “Yeah. Lot of energy. Keeps me young.” He was barely in his forties, but Amanda laughed as he’d intended, though she didn’t find it funny. She’d be twenty-five next month and was just beginning to comprehend how fast the years really did pass.

  “Well, it’s home to the new baby,” James said, taking a step toward his car. “My wife’ll be ready for a break. I tell you, we’re too old for this again. Eight years between number five and number six. That’s just crazy.”

  “I thought it kept you young,” she quipped.

  James laughed and unlocked his car door. As Amanda watched him leave, her smile died. At least James had someone home waiting for him.

  Maybe it had been a mistake, moving out of her shared apartment in Orem and buying a house in Pleasant Grove. Yet she had wanted to move on with her life—not hang in limbo while she waited to meet someone special. Truth be told, she had come to the point where she didn’t even want to meet someone special. She wanted to be whole and well. She wanted to depend on herself. Never mind that most of her friends were married. Never mind that her sister, barely two years older, had a perfect husband and three perfect children to live in her perfect house. Yes, three perfect children spaced exactly two years apart—just like their mother had timed her four babies. In another two years, another baby would appear. It was a good thing for Amanda that the oldest of her younger brothers hadn’t married yet. At twenty-three and two years off his mission, Mitch was finally beginning to draw some of the heat at family gatherings.

  Amanda had her hand ready to open the door to her green Audi when she noticed a change in the sky. The mountains were edged in mist and gloom, but right in the middle there was a break in the clouds where the sun lit up the steep slopes. Her breath caught in her throat, and her spirits lifted. This was why she had moved to the East Bench in Pleasant Grove—so she could view the majestic mountains from her kitchen window every day.

  After a moment the clouds closed again, and Amanda slipped inside her car. On the drive home, her thoughts drifted toward dinner. The idea of cooking exhausted her. Once, she had enjoyed cooking and creating something special for a date or her roommates, but living alone had squeezed much of that pleasure from her. She always ate too much and ended up with leftovers that went to waste. It was more economical to throw a ready-made meal into the microwave oven.

  Then she remembered that her sister, Kerrianne, was feeling sick, and with a new two-month-old baby, even her perfect sister might need a little help. The thought of seeing her niece and two nephews brightened Amanda’s thoughts. Though she spent much of her day with children, her niece and nephews were the most important children in her life.

  It’s my stupid biological clock, she thought. Of course, her mother’s weekly phone calls and overt questions about her personal life never helped matters.

  Amanda made a silent vow to get out more with her friends. Generally, her life was filled with laughter and important things to do. Only in this past month as the first anniversary of her break with Tanner loomed had she become so melancholy.

  She whistled to herself as she went inside her small, three-bedroom house. Facing the west and nestled on a hill above newer, much larger homes, the house was her dream. She had the best of a good neighborhood, a low mortgage, and when there wasn’t fog, a view to die for. The only thing she regretted was the lack of a garage. Hopefully, the coming winter wouldn’t be too severe.

  In the kitchen she turned on the gas oven before walking into the attached family room where she put in her new Josh Groban CD. The music bore little resemblance to the new wave rock she had adored in high school, but her tastes had refined as the years passed. A companion she’d had on her mission to Georgia had introduced her to Groban, and now she was hooked. She especially loved the rare songs he sang in French. They were so romantic.

  Her smile faltered, but she forced the thoughts aside. So what? She was listening to romantic music alone. That was perfectly okay.

  She rummaged through her freezer, finding several small packages of chicken. Hmm, what else did she have? In the refrigerator she found sour cream, milk, and fresh broccoli. In the cupboard she had a large container of rice. Perfect. She would defrost the chicken in the microwave and then rustle up her tasty chicken rice casserole, liberally decorated with broccoli florets and topped with cheese. Her mouth watered.

  Kerrianne lived only three streets over, and the meal would still be piping hot when she arrived. Amanda would feed the children and her brother-in-law at the table, take Kerrianne a plate to her room, eat a bite herself while cleaning up, and then play with the children until bedtime. After that she’d come home, call a few friends, and arrange to go out for lunch or dinner over the weekend. She might even go dancing.

  Pausing a moment to listen to a particularly beautiful passage of music, Amanda swept up the telephone, pressing the button that held her sister’s number in memory. “Hello, Kerrianne? Hi, it’s me, Amanda. How’re you feeling?”

  “Yuck and yuck and more yuck,” came Kerrianne’s tired voice. “My nose is running like a faucet, and my head feels like it’s going to burst.”

  “Well, I’m bringing dinner, so don’t worry about that. I’ve got it all planned. Remember that chicken broccoli casserole you love so much? Well, if I get started right now, I can bring it over by six.”

  “Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Manda! But Adam’s bringing food home. He called a few minutes ago before he left work to tell me he was coming early with dinner.”

  Amanda’s smile faded. “Oh, that’s nice of him.” Leave it to Adam to play the role of the perfect husband.

  “Oh, but I’m sure I’ll still be feeling lousy tomorrow. Do you think . . . would you mind bringing your casserole then? The children loved it that time you brought it when the baby was born. If I remember, we ate it for three days. I appreciated it so much!”

  “Well, only if it will help.” The last thing Amanda wanted was to be an annoyance with her casserole.

  “Of course it will! In fact, Adam has a late meeting at the district office tomorrow with some of the other school administrators, and afterwards he has to go to the church for Scouts. If you bring dinner, it will really help out. And if you could stay a bit and help get the kids to bed when Adam’s gone, I’d be so grateful. I’ll understand if you can’t. Believe me, the casserole alone is plenty. They’re so picky nowadays, it’s hard to find something they love to eat. I wish I could cook as well as you do.”

  Kerrianne could make table scraps into a gourmet meal, but Amanda was already feeling better at her sister’s assurances. The chicken would thaw out better in the refrigerator anyway—that way she wouldn’t accidentally cook parts of the meat before the casserole went into the oven. “Okay,
I’ll bring it tomorrow. And I’ll stay for a while. Be glad to.”

  “You’re so good to me.”

  Amanda felt content as she hung up. Kerrianne always did that for her. No matter how lost or unneeded Amanda was feeling, her big sister turned things around. Humming with the Groban CD, Amanda returned the casserole ingredients to the refrigerator and the cupboard. Hmm, what to eat now that the oven was hot? She didn’t want to waste electricity. How about pizza? She had leftovers from Monday when her brother Mitch had picked up take ’n bake. She hadn’t eaten the leftover slices yet because she didn’t like pizza warmed in the microwave. It just wasn’t the same.

  “It’s fate,” she told the pizza, as she threw the pieces onto a round baking pan and slipped them into the oven for an early dinner.

  When she returned ten minutes later, worrying about the possibility of having left the pizza in too long, she found smoke snaking out from the cracks around the oven door. “Oh no!” She opened the door and the smoke billowed into the room, momentarily blocking her view. When she could see again, flames engulfed the pizza, growing larger now that she had opened the door and allowed more oxygen inside.

  What should I do?

  She had never started a fire in her oven before, and several scenarios presented themselves. If she closed the door, would it eventually burn itself out? Or would it burn down the whole house? She couldn’t risk that.

  Amanda reached in with her oven mitts to remove the pizza, only to watch as they too blackened and started to burn. She released the pizza immediately. At that moment the smoke detector went off, adding its shrill scream to the confusion. Shaking the mitts to put out the flame, she darted to the sink, dumped the singed gloves, filled a cup with water, and threw it on the pizza inside the oven. The water sizzled as it hit the hot metal, sending steam into her face. To her relief, the fire around the pizza seemed to be dying. Amanda threw in another cup of water to make sure.

  Finally, she dared to take the pizza out. Underneath the edge, caught between the pan and the pizza and hanging down over the edge, was a smoldering dishrag. She groaned. When she’d thrown the pizza onto the pan, she must not have been paying much attention.