Chapter 1
Hunter Knox had never planned on coming back to Blessings, so the fact that he was riding up Main Street in the middle of the night was typical of his life. Nothing had ever gone according to plan.
It was just after midnight when he pulled his Harley up beneath a streetlight, letting it idle as he flipped up the visor on his helmet and glanced up at the Christmas wreath hanging from the pole.
From the sounds going off in town, a lot of people were ringing in the New Year. He could hear fireworks, and church bells, and someone off in the distance shouting “Happy New Year.”
He wasn’t looking forward to this visit, and he’d planned to get some sleep first, but he couldn’t. Too much time had passed already, and there was someone he needed to see before it was too late. So his reservation at Blessings Bed and Breakfast, and the bed with his name on it, were going to have to wait. He flipped the visor back down, put the bike into gear, and rode up Main Street, watching for the turn that would take him to the hospital.
* * *
The Knox family had just ushered in the new year in total silence—eyeing each other from their seats in their mother’s hospital room—already wondering about the disposition of the family home before their mother, Marjorie, had yet to take her last breath.
It wasn’t as if she had a fortune to fight over. Just a little three-bedroom house at the far end of Peach Street that backed up to the city park. The roof was old. It didn’t leak, but it wouldn’t sell in that condition. The floor in the kitchen had a dip in the middle of it, and the furniture was over thirty years old, but right now, it appeared to be a bigger issue than watching their mother still struggling to breathe.
Marjorie had given birth to six children. The oldest, a little girl named Shelly, died from asthma before she ever started school.
Four of her children—Junior, Emma, Ray, and Bridgette, who they called Birdie—were sitting with Marjorie in her hospital room. Only Hunter, the second child and eldest son, was missing. No one knew where he was now, and all knew better than to mention his name.
Their father, Parnell Knox, had died six years ago of emphysema. Marjorie always said he smoked himself to death, and while she’d never smoked a day in her life, now she was dying of lung cancer from someone else’s addiction. The diagnosis had been a shock, then she got angry. She was dying because of secondhand smoke.
* * *
Sometimes Marjorie was vaguely aware of a nurse beside the bed, and sometimes she thought she heard her children talking, and then she would drift again. She could see daylight and a doorway just up ahead, and she wanted to go there. She didn’t remember why, but she couldn’t leave yet. She was waiting for something. She just couldn’t remember what.
* * *
Ava Ridley was the nurse at Marjorie’s bedside. Ava had grown up with the Knox kids because Marjorie had been her babysitter from the time that she was a toddler. Her childhood dream had been to grow up and marry Hunt. But at the time he was a senior in high school, she was a freshman in the same class with his brother, Ray.
She’d spent half her life in their house, making Ray play dolls with her when they were little, and learning how to turn somersaults and outrun the boys just to keep up with them. As they grew older, they hung out together like siblings, but she’d lived for the moments when Hunt was there. At that time, he barely acknowledged her existence, but it didn’t matter. She loved enough for two.
And then something big—something horrible that no one ever talked about—happened at their house and Hunt was gone.
After that, no one mentioned his name, so she grieved the loss of a childhood dream, grew up into a woman on a mission to take care of people, and went on to become a nurse. After a couple of years working in a hospital in Savannah, she came home to Blessings, and she’d been here ever since. Ava had cared for many people in her years of nursing, but it was bittersweet to be caring for Marjorie Knox, when she had been the one who’d cared for Ava as a child.
Ava glanced at Emma. She was Emma Lee, now. Married to a nice man named Gordon Lee. Her gaze slid to Junior, and Ray, and Birdie.
Junior was a high-school dropout and divorced.
Ray worked for a roofing company and had a girlfriend named Susie.
Bridgette, who’d been called Birdie all of her life, was the baby, but she was smart and driven to succeed in life where her siblings were not. She was the bookkeeper at Truesdale’s Feed and Seed Store, and still waiting for her own Prince Charming.
Ava thought the family looked anxious, which was normal, but they also seemed unhappy with each other, which seemed strange. However, she’d seen many different reactions from families when a loved one was passing, and had learned not to judge or assume. And even though it was no business of hers, she knew the Knox family well enough to know something was going on. Her job was to monitor Marjorie’s vitals and nothing else.
The door to Marjorie’s room was open, and the sounds out in the hall drifted in as Ava was adjusting the drip in Marjorie’s IV. So when the staccato sound of metal-tipped boots drifted inside, they all looked toward the doorway.
The stride was heavy, likely male—steady and measured, like someone who knew where he was going. The sound was growing louder, and they kept watching, curious to see who it was who was passing by at this time of night.
Then all of a sudden there was a man in the doorway, dressed in biker leather and carrying a helmet. He glanced at them without acknowledgment, then went straight to the bed where Marjorie was lying.
Ava’s heart began to pound. Hunt Knox had just walked in, and the years since she’d seen him last had been more than kind. His face was leaner, his features sharper. He was taller and more muscular, and his dark hair was longer, hanging over the collar of his leather jacket, but his eyes were still piercing—and unbelievably blue.
She forgot what she was doing and stared as he approached. It took her a few seconds to realize he didn’t recognize her.
“Ma’am. I’m Hunt Knox, her oldest son. Is she conscious?”
“Not ma’am, Hunt. It’s me, Ava Ridley. And to answer your question, she’s in and out of consciousness. You can talk to her if you want.”
Hunt’s eyes widened. He was trying to see the young girl he remembered in this pretty woman’s soft voice and dark eyes.
“Sorry. You grew up some. I wouldn’t have recognized you,” Hunt said. “Is she in pain?”
“Doctor is managing that for her,” Ava said.
When his four siblings finally came out of their shock, Junior stood up.
“Where did you come from? How did you know?” he asked.
Hunt turned, staring until they ducked their heads and looked away, then shifted focus back to his mother. She had wasted away to nothing but skin and bones. Disease did that to a body. He put his helmet aside and reached for her hand.