A Special Kind Of Family

A Special Kind Of Family
Eileen Berger

A FAMILY FOR VANESSALife in Sylvan Falls was picture-perfect for Vanessa McHenry–until her beloved grandmother broke her hip, leaving five troubled teens in Vanessa's care. Vanessa struggled to balance her job with her new family, but without helpful neighbors she didn't have a prayer….A LITTLE FAITH AND A LOT OF LOVERob Corland knew he was taking a chance that his heart would break a second time when he offered Vanessa a supportive hand. Yet Rob was determined to show Vanessa she was deserving of love. And he was praying that he'd be able to open her heart.

Rob wondered if his emotions had been that obvious.

The empathy in Vanessa’s concerned blue eyes almost unnerved him. His arms ached to hold her, and he suspected that, were they alone, nothing would keep him from putting his arms around her. But he couldn’t do that, not here in the presence of the girls.

And not without having at least some idea of how Vanessa really felt about him—and how she’d respond!

He blinked hard to clear his vision and, hopefully, to clear his mind. Her head tilted in that questioning way he’d begun to recognize.

“Headache, Rob?”

He grinned slightly. What would she say or do if I were to admit it was my heart, rather than my head, giving me difficulties?

EILEEN BERGER

has been writing for many years, mostly children’s stories and poetry when her daughter and two sons were small, before having hundreds of other manuscripts published. She had been happy growing up on a farm, then living for a time in two major American cities, but feels blessed to continue living in the same north-central Pennsylvania town, Hughesville, where she and her husband, Bob, raised their now-grown children.

She is active in writing circles as speaker, teacher, board member, panelist, conference director and contest coordinator, but is especially grateful for the West Branch Christian Writers, the wonderful critique/support group without which she says she might never have gotten even the first of her six novels published.

A Special Kind of Family

Eileen Berger

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

There is a time for everything, and a season

for every activity under heaven…a time to heal…

—Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 3

To—

Vicki, Jim and Bill,

Our children who, while growing up,

never seemed to notice that a typewriter on the

dining-room table was not a usual part of their

friends’ decor. You have given your father and me

much joy and reasons for thankfulness.

We dearly love you.

Contents

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

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

Chapter One

Although it wasn’t quite dark yet, streetlights were already glimmering by the time Vanessa McHenry drove into town. Because she had worked late, there had been only a few minutes to visit at the hospital with her cousin, Keith, his wife, and their new baby; Gram wouldn’t be able to leave to see her newborn great-granddaughter until Vanessa came to relieve her.

She always enjoyed the small-town ambiance of wide sidewalks overhung by yellow-and red-leafed maples, some branching in an archway above macadamized Main Street. But as she passed the cross-street she abruptly stopped humming along with her car radio; the red Sylvan Falls Volunteer Fire Company ambulance looked frighteningly out of place in front of Gram’s big, white, early-Victorian house.

She parked hastily, and was just getting out of her car when AnnaMae came running down the porch steps. “Oh, Vanessa! Gram fell—they think her hip’s broken!”

Oh, no—not Gram! “What happened?” She, too, was running now, horrified at this happening to the woman they all loved.

“She was up on a chair, reaching for a dish on the top shelf of one of the kitchen cabinets.” AnnaMae’s hand slid into Vanessa’s as they hurried up the steps. “I called 911, like she told me to.”