Jake is still here—-and he’s promised he’s not going anywhere.
Their first days together after his return from Saratoga were consumed by the crisis at hand. Noreen’s life was hanging in the balance. Rowan and Jake didn’t talk about what had happened between them until she was stabilized. They’re still processing it all with the help of a marriage counselor. But Jake has forgiven her, and they’re going to get through this.
She closes the drawer, drags a chair across the kitchen, and climbs onto it to reach the cupboard above the stove. Those cookie cutters must be here someplace . . .
“What are you doing up there?”
Jolted by the voice behind her, she shifts her position. The chair wobbles, tilts, and she falls . . .
Right into Jake’s strong arms.
She laughs. “Good catch.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Cookie cutters. I thought I’d bake some cookies,” she says, and regrets it when pain shadows his eyes like a cloud crossing the sun. She’d told him a few details about the burnt cookies, and Rick.
“I’m sorry, Jake. What a stupid idea.”
“Climbing on chairs without a net?” He smiles faintly.
“Baking cookies. It was a spur--of--the--moment thing, and I should have known better. Why don’t I ever stop to think things through?”
But Jake is shaking his head. “You do think things through—-the things that count. It wasn’t a stupid idea. It’s Christmas. You always bake cookies for Christmas.”
“I know, but—-”
“Look, I don’t think we should spend the rest of our lives tiptoeing around things that might remind us of what happened. It’s over. We’re healing. We’re moving on. Right?”
“Right.” She smiles, and he smiles, and the light is back in his eyes.
“Oh, and by the way,” he says, “You’re under the mistletoe, so . . .”
“What? I’m not under the mistletoe.”
He lifts his hand and dangles a plastic sprig of green over their heads. “You are now.”
“Hey, where’d you get that?”
“It was in the pocket of my sweatshirt when I put it on. I have no idea how it got there.”
She knows how. He’d let her wear the sweatshirt to warm up the morning they were in the attic getting the boxes of Christmas decorations. She’d been so worried he’d discover her secret.
But Jake is right. It’s over. They’re moving on.
And they’re under the mistletoe.
Don’t miss the next thrilling book in the
Mundy’s Landing trilogy from
New York Times bestselling author
WENDY CORSI STAUB!
BLUE MOON
Coming Summer 2016
Prologue
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Mundy’s Landing, New York
As the real estate agent slows the car in front of 46 Bridge Street, Annabelle Bingham, seated in the leather passenger’s seat, might as well be seeing the place for the first time.
She’d literally grown up right around the corner, but she’d never imagined she might actually live under that mansard roof, in the shadow of the century-old unsolved crime that had unfolded beneath it.
“Here we are,” the Realtor, Lynda Carlotta announces. “It really is magnificent, isn’t it?”
Against a gloomy Sunday morning sky, the Second Empire Victorian presides over neighboring stucco bungalows and pastel Queen Anne cottages with the aplomb of a grand dame crashing a coffee klatch.
“Magnificent isn’t exactly the word that springs to my mind.” That comes from Trib, Annabelle’s husband, whose lanky form is folded into the seat behind them.