A Small Town Thanksgiving

“You have nothing to drop,” Miguel told him calmly. “I have already checked.”

Mike didn’t like being thought of as predictable. “What if I had plans you didn’t know about?” he challenged.

“When have you ever had plans no one knew about?” his father countered.

“I could,” Mike maintained stubbornly.

“Do you?” Miguel asked, his eyes meeting his son’s.

With reluctance and no small measure of annoyance, Mike replied, “No, I don’t.”

“Good, then I would hurry if I were you.”

“How am I supposed to find this literary genius?” he wanted to know.

It was more a matter of the young woman finding his son, Miguel thought. After he’d seen her picture, thanks to Olivia’s computer, he saw great potential—not just for his ancestor’s journals, but for his present-day son, as well.

“I told her you would hold up a sign with her name on it and I described you to her.”

Mike stared at his father. “You knew I was going to pick her up?” He’d just agreed to it this moment. He could have just as easily said no and refused, Mike thought.

“Of course,” Miguel replied complacently. “I am your father. I know everything. I told her to look for a tall, dark, handsome man with a deep scowl on his face. Of course, if you have the sign with her name on it, it would not really confuse the young woman if you were, perhaps, smiling,” his father concluded hopefully.

“Maybe not, but it might confuse me,” Mike quipped. And then he sighed. “What’s her name so I can write it on the sign?”

“Her name is Samantha Monroe,” his father told him. Reaching behind the sofa, Miguel pulled out a large white poster board he’d prepared earlier. Both the woman’s name as well as his own was on it. And beneath that was the name of their ranch.

The lettering was rather distinctive and very eye-catching. That did not look like his father’s handiwork, Mike couldn’t help thinking.

“You did this?” Mike asked rather skeptically.

Miguel laughed softly under his breath even as he shook his head. “I would like to take the credit for it, but it was Tina, Olivia’s sister, who is the artistic one.”

“Tina,” Mike repeated. “Olivia’s sister,” he added for good measure. “Did everybody in town know about this woman coming but me?”

“Not everybody,” his father replied evasively. “Just those who would not be upset by the news.”

“In other words, everyone but me,” Mike repeated.

He blew out a breath, annoyed because he knew he was on the losing end of a disagreement that he had been destined to lose before he was ever born. Mike freely acknowledged that he was different from his brothers and his sister in that by no stretch of the imagination could he be described as being sociable, ready to call any stranger “friend” after an exchange of only a few words. Pressing his lips together, he kept his comment to himself. Instead, he reached for the sign and muttered, “I’ll see you later.”

His father followed him to the door. “Thank you, Miguel.”

Mike made no answer. He didn’t trust himself to say anything at all. Instead, he merely nodded in response and kept on walking.

* * *

PACKING WAS EASY when you had very little to pack, and possessions had never been a big factor in Samantha Monroe’s life.

So, picking up and physically being ready to travel was no problem.

Acclimating was more difficult.

Sam had butterflies in her stomach. The same butterflies that showed up each and every time she began a new project. There was that fear that she wasn’t up to the job and the fear of having to travel alone to unfamiliar places.

Before she had undertaken this career, she had never seen the outside of her little suburban Maryland town. She’d had twenty-five years of moving along the same streets, nodding at the same neighbors and being completely devoid of any desire to see anything beyond those boundaries.

Those were hard things to give up.

But she had to.

With Danny gone, a bank account amounting to seventeen dollars and twelve cents and bills to pay, Sam knew she had no other choice. She had no way to take care of herself if she remained inert.

Danny had been the very light of her life, but he hadn’t exactly been the kind who believed in saving for a rainy day. He believed in spending every dime as long as the sun was shining.

Which was exactly what happened when he went on that February skiing trip with his two best friends. Promising to be “back before you know it,” he went off for a carefree weekend of fun.

He hadn’t counted on an encounter with a tanker truck whose cross-country driver had pushed himself too hard and had fallen asleep behind the wheel. The truck careened out of control and despite Danny’s frantic attempts to get the car out of harm’s way, there had been a collision. It ultimately turned out not to be as serious as it could have been—but just serious enough for one fatality—Danny’s.

His two friends and the sleeping driver survived the crash.

And so, a little more than eighteen months after becoming a bride, she had become a widow. A widow with bills and no way to pay them. There were no parents for her to fall back on or turn to, no parents around at all. Her father had never been in the picture, vanishing months before she was born, and her mother had worked endless hours to provide for the two of them. When she wasn’t working, her mother was searching for “Mr. Right,” someone to take them away from the brink of poverty where they had always existed.

However, when her mother finally found that man, he only took her away. And Sam was left behind. By then, she had turned eighteen and was officially on her own, the way she had been, unofficially, for most of her life.

But she wasn’t alone, not really. Danny had lived across the street and had been part of her life since she’d had her first memory.

Before even that.

They were friends, and then sweethearts and then lovers who were destined to get married. When they did, Sam was truly ready for a happily-ever-after life—as much as any life could be happily-ever-after.

But fate had other ideas and fate always won out in the end. So, at twenty-seven, she found herself very much alone and determined to hold her head up high. The latter entailed providing for herself. All she needed was the way how.

Sam loved biographies and had always had the ability to put words together eloquently on a page. She eventually combined her passion and talent to become a ghostwriter. A much sought-after ghostwriter because she also had the ability to mimic any voice, sound like any person who hired her to do the heavy lifting and tell the story of their life.

In addition, she had an aptitude for knowing what interested readers and a neat, clean style that delivered what had been promised while leaving the so-called autobiographer’s ego intact.

Her chosen career necessitated travel, which in turn required a certain independence she was only now growing accustomed to. Eventually, she hoped to be comfortable with flying to parts unknown at a moment’s notice.

Right now, Sam thought as she deplaned amid a flock of passengers, she needed to find her new employer, for while the publishing house paid her salary, the person whose autobiography she would be fashioning was her boss. It was something she didn’t ever forget and that one small trick was responsible for her working as steadily as she had been these past two years.

Joan, the main publisher’s assistant at Tatum House, had told her to be on the lookout for her driver. The man had been described as tall, dark and handsome. He was also said to be scowling, although about what Joan hadn’t a clue. The person who had called her hadn’t covered that detail.

So there she was, walking in slow motion and taking in both sides of the area as best she could. The person, Joan had promised, would be holding a sign with her name on it.

So there was hope.

Bingo, Sam thought as she zeroed in on a man who fit the description she’d been given to a T.