A Time To Forgive

A Time To Forgive
Darlene Gardner

Every moment counts…When Connor Smith has to unexpectedly care for his nine-year-old niece, he isn' t prepared. In fact, he' s overwhelmed. Blending their lives poses one problem after another until Jaye' s violin teacher throws them a lifeline.Abby Reed not only knows how to get through to his niece, she also makes an impression on him. Soon their time together means everything to Connor–and the tragedy his family faced a decade ago begins to have less power over him. Then he discovers Abby' s family' s connection to his own…Can their love survive Connor' s bitterness and Abby' s insistence that her brother isn' t the awful person he' s been branded?

“I don’t care what you do to me, do you hear me?”

Connor stood speechless, shocked into silence by his niece’s onslaught of emotion. Jaye resembled a cornered, injured animal ready to strike out at anyone who tried to help her.

Abby crouched down beside the nine-year-old, her eyes steady on the girl’s face.

“So scared, Abby,” Jaye said between hiccuping sobs. “Couldn’t figure out how to buy a bus ticket. Walked here to the library. Nobody talked to me. So alone.”

“It’s okay, honey.” Abby smoothed the hair back from his niece’s despondent face and made soothing noises. “Connor and I are here now. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Something thickened in Connor’s throat as he watched them—the innocent girl who’d been abandoned by her mother and the woman who refused to desert her guilty-as-sin brother.

But at that moment Abby Reed didn’t seem like the half sister of the man who’d murdered his brother.

She seemed like somebody who was on their side.

Dear Reader,

A Time To Forgive represents a departure for me. While many of my previous books were lighthearted, this one involves a ten-year-old murder and its lasting repercussions. It’s as much about hate as it is about the amazing power of love.

It’s also a book I’ve wanted to write for years, fueled by the tales of forgiveness I’d sometimes read about in the newspaper. Who hasn’t marveled at the people who ask judges and juries to be merciful toward the murderer of one of their loved ones? How, I wondered, could anyone forgive such a terrible crime?

In my book, Connor Smith faces a question that’s equally difficult. Can his love for the sister of the man who killed his brother survive the hate eating away at him?

I’m grateful to have been given the chance to write about the flip side of love—and the enduring truth that love is the strongest force of all.

All my best,

Darlene Gardner

P.S. Please visit me on the Web at www.darlenegardner.com.

A Time to Forgive

Darlene Gardner

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

For those who can find it within themselves to forgive.

But even more, for those who can’t.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

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

PROLOGUE

THE KILLER WALKED into the courtroom not with the shoulder-rolling swagger Connor Smith had expected, but with his head down, his eyes cast to the floor.

He was maybe five foot nine, not nearly as tall as Connor imagined he would be, and he was handcuffed and dressed in a prison-issue jumpsuit that was a garish orange. An armed guard stood on either side of him.

Connor gripped the armrest of his wooden chair to keep himself from surrendering to the impulse to leap from his seat and attack, reminding himself that the wheels of justice were about to turn.

He’d left the fragrant beauty of a sunny spring afternoon for a preliminary hearing in the austere interior of Laurel County District Court. Very shortly, the Honorable Preston A. Hodgkins would determine whether probable cause existed to believe the defendant had committed murder.

Judge Hodgkins wasn’t expected to do anything more than hand over the case to trial, yet the courtroom gallery was nearly full with members of the news media and spectators who had been shocked by the crime.

Connor didn’t pay attention to any of them.

He sat between his parents. He was peripherally aware of his mother clutching his surgically repaired right knee, which would probably give him trouble when he stood, and his father sitting stoically. But Connor’s eyes never left the killer as he shuffled to the defense table. Once there, he lowered himself into a seat beside the tired-looking public defender who’d been assigned to his case.