A Stillness of Chimes
Praise for
A Stillness of Chimes
“Meg Moseley has composed a haunting, melodic tale that, like any great ballad, lingers long after the last note. Full of romance, intrigue, and whispers from the past,
A Stillness of Chimes
will stir readers’ hearts and awaken their own unanswered what-if’s … and bring hope that maybe some dreams don’t have to die.”
—B
ETSY
S
T
. A
MANT
, author of
The Rancher Next Door
and
Addison Blakely: Confessions of a PK
“If you’re looking for sweet tea with a twist, you’ll find it in Meg Moseley’s irresistible
A Stillness of Chimes
. With sacred themes of family and the beauty of second chances, this novel sweeps you south and touches your soul in ways you won’t soon forget.”
—L
AURA
F
RANTZ
, Christy Award finalist and author of
Love’s Reckoning
“A small mountain town in Georgia, with its wry humor and full complement of kudzu, is the background for this story of three closely related families. However, less than congenial relationships lurk beneath the poetic prose of this talented writer. Clue upon clue builds—to at last reveal the startling end, hinted in the story’s beginning. The finish may catch you by surprise, but its rich meaning will leave you with wonderful food for thought.”
—R
UTH
T
RIPPY
, author of
The Soul of the Rose
“Assured writing, fully realized characters, and family secrets revealed are deftly woven to create a story as compelling as its title. When the chimes still, healing, faith, and light weave through the silence left behind. Readers will find themselves caught up in Sean and Laura’s journey to wholeness and love.”
—L
ISA
W
INGATE
, national best-selling author of
The Prayer Box
and
Wildwood Creek
“I loved
A Stillness of Chimes
. It’s a classic southern story with childhood friends, memories, a mystery, and a lake. Moseley tells the tale in her unique fashion and lyrical storytelling voice. I highly recommend.”
—R
ACHEL
H
AUCK
, best-selling, award-winning author of
Princess Ever After
and
The Wedding Dress
“There’s something magical in the sound of chimes. Something ethereal in the tinkling of notes gracing the air. Ms. Moseley has written an ethereal story of love and of loving family. Don’t miss
A Stillness of Chimes
, lovely in the prose, magical as it unfolds.”
—A
NGELA
B
REIDENBACH
, author of
A Healing Heart
and president of the Christian Authors Network
A STILLNESS OF CHIMES
PUBLISHED BY MULTNOMAH BOOKS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
Scripture quotations and paraphrases are taken from the King James Version.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-0-307-73078-7
eBook ISBN 978-0-307-73079-4
Copyright © 2014 by Meg Moseley
Cover design by Kelly L. Howard; cover photography by Lee Avison
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company.
MULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moseley, Meg.
A stillness of chimes / Meg Moseley.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-307-73078-7—ISBN 978-0-307-73079-4 (electronic)
1. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Family secrets—Fiction. 4. First loves—Fiction. 5. Georgia—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.O77876S85 2013
813′.6—dc23
2012033874
v3.1
To our wounded warriors and their loved ones.
You have my unending respect and gratitude.
WoundedWarriorProject.org
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
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
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Readers Guide
Acknowledgments
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds
.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
Eighteen years ago
Laura Gantt didn’t believe in ghosts, but sometimes she wondered if living across from a graveyard had warped her. Part Irish, all southern, descended from moonshiners and holy rollers, she’d always believed in things she couldn’t see. Her dad said it was just the old whisperings in their blood.
All morning, she’d heard soft, sure warnings. Some kind of trouble was on its way. The whisperings hinted it would come for Sean.
She and her friends, plus one tagalong kid sister, had been picking blackberries for an hour in the brambles that lined the railroad tracks. Trees choked with kudzu vines loomed above them like green monsters.
A few feet away, Cassie Bright and her little sister worked side by side, their blond hair damp with sweat. Sean Halloran was bent over the brambles farther down the tracks. He looked lost in a T-shirt his brother had outgrown.
Sean straightened and squared his skinny shoulders. “No slacking off, Gantt,” he hollered. “Lazy bum.”
Laura swatted a mosquito on her arm and tried to think of a smart
comeback. She gave up and shrugged. Sean went back to work, laughing, but he couldn’t fool her. She knew what he lived with.
Sweat trickled down her neck. She was sick of the heat, the scratches, the bug bites. There were snakes too. She tried not to think about the snakes.
Cassie stopped working to examine her fingers, stained purple with juice. “Ugh. I hate blackberries.”
“I hate snakes worse,” Laura said, thinking of Sean’s father. The Halloran boys called him by his first name—Dale—to show their disrespect. Never to his face, though. They wouldn’t dare.
Cassie moved closer between long-reaching canes that bristled with wicked little thorns. “Guess what?” she said quietly. “The Cheevers heard the Peeping Tom last night. He was pitching pebbles at their windows.”
“Why do you act like it’s good news? It’s creepy.”
“Yeah, but this town could use a little excitement. My dad says it’s Slattery.”
Laura shivered in spite of the heat. A sloppy, skinny man, Slattery lived in a run-down duplex just down the road. Nobody knew his first name.
“How would your dad know who it is?” she asked.
“He has a friend who’s a deputy, remember? He tells us all kinds of stuff.”
Laura dropped a handful of ripe berries into her bucket. “Your dad’s friend should spend less time talking and more time catching bad guys.”
“You’re scared. Scared of a silly prowler.”
“No, I’m not. My daddy has his guns.”
“Bet you won’t be so brave when the Peeping Tom’s at your window. He—oh!” Cassie shrieked and giggled. “Mr. Gantt, you spooked me. Sneaking up like that.”
Laura hadn’t noticed her father either, but there he was. A curlicue of wood shavings clung to his shirt, and the humidity made his sandy-blond hair frizz where it escaped from under his baseball cap. He didn’t seem to be in one of his moods, but she wasn’t sure until he tipped his cap, his eyes twinkling.
“My apologies, Miss Cassie,” he said. “I didn’t aim to scare anybody. Looks like you’ve got that department covered, though.” He wrapped his arm around Laura’s shoulders. “Hey, sweetheart. Are you managing to comport yourself like a lady?”
“Always.” Laura leaned into his sun-warmed shirt and that familiar smell of sawdust. “You don’t have to keep checking on us. We’re not babies.”
“Even when you’re a grown woman, you’ll be my baby girl. No matter what.”
Out of nowhere, a heavy sadness settled on her. Whether it was about his troubles or Sean’s, it made her feel like a grown woman already. A grown woman who didn’t mind being called her father’s baby girl.
“And you’ll always be my dad,” she said. “No matter what.”
He smiled and gave her ponytail a gentle tug. Then he nodded toward Cassie’s sister. “Tigger’s still a baby even if she doesn’t think so,” he said quietly. “Y’all keeping an eye on her?”
Laura and Cassie glanced at each other and swiveled their eyes back to him. “Yes sir,” they said in unison.
He turned toward Sean. “Young Mr. Halloran. It’s good to see you, son.”
“It’s good to see you too, sir.” Sean spoke with so much respect that she half expected him to salute his hero. Her father, Elliott Gantt.
“I understand your brother enlisted,” her dad said.