What To Keep

What To Keep
Mary Schramski

Mills & Boon Silhouette
She'd never had a real home…So it had never been about "what to keep" in her life; she'd not experienced that luxury. Then Juliette Carlton got a call, one that said she'd inherited a fortune–and could she please claim it? Juliette didn't know what to do. She was a down-on-her-luck Las Vegas card dealer with $38 in her bank account.Had she hit the jackpot? Or was it just another loss?At first it seemed the latter. The "fortune" was a dilapidated 140-year-old antebellum house that belonged to an uncle she barely remembered. Beneath layers of dust, every inch of the ancestral home was shrouded in secrets–secrets that would put in doubt everything Juliette ever thought she knew.She would have to decide what to give away. But along the way, she found what to keep….

A LETTER FROM

JULIETTE CARLTON

Greensville, NC

September

I could tell you a story about how my uncle Grey Alexander left me Magnolia Hall because I was his favorite niece. About how on the day he died I found out he made sure I, Juliette Carlton, a forty-year-old, three-time divorced blackjack dealer, his beloved niece and misplaced Southern belle, inherited all he had, including the memories of a loving Southern family.

But none of it would be true.

And before all this happened, I believed money would make my life better, different, worth living. What I didn’t know was that no amount of money could help me. It took something so strange to make me see what’s really important.

Mary Schramski

Mary Schramski began writing when she was about ten. The first story she wrote took place at a junior high school. Her mother told her it was good, so she immediately threw it away. She read F. Scott Fitzgerald at eleven, fell in love with storytelling and decided to teach English. She holds a Ph.D in creative writing and enjoys teaching and encouraging other writers. She lives in Nevada with her husband, and her daughter who lives close by. Visit Mary’s Web site at www.maryschramski.com.

What to Keep

Mary Schramski

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

From the Author

Dear Reader,

You and I have a connection. I’m a reader, too. When I hold a book in my hands, an excitement begins because, with just the turn of the page, the possibilities are endless. And I believe novels polish hearts and souls to a lovely brilliance.

I wrote What To Keep because I want you to experience a Southern town and live in an old Southern mansion. I want you to become acquainted with a woman who inherits her family’s home and all the memories that go along with it. Most of all, I want you to breathe Southern air, taste a bit of Southern food and hear the singsong cadence of a Southern accent.

Come on, take my hand, let’s go together.

Mary

www.maryschramski.com

To my editor, Gail Chasan, who has been my guide

and the ultimate professional.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

PROLOGUE

Greensville, NC

September 2000

I could tell you a story about how my uncle Grey Alexander left me Magnolia Hall because I was his favorite niece. Then you might think I visited him every summer to attend reunions, and our family was close and very loving. That’s when I’d explain that Uncle Grey always sent me beautiful birthday cards, telephoned me on Christmas morning to wish me a happy, peaceful holiday. And at the end of our conversation he’d go on and on about how he wished I were home instead of in dusty Las Vegas.

I’d also tell you on the day he died I found out he made sure I, Juliette Carlton, a forty-year-old, three-times-divorced blackjack dealer, his beloved niece and misplaced Southern belle, inherited all he had, including the memories of a loving Southern family.