Romance: New Beginnings (Young Adult and Adult Romance, Christian Christmas Fiction book as a Love Story) (Second Chances Trilogy 3) (3 page)

Chapter 4

Castle Peaks, Montana …

“So, Jackson, what do you think of our plans so far?” Sara asked the young man sitting across from her. The Mercer-Brownell Foundation was all set up and ready to go – on paper. All they were waiting on now was for the ground to unfreeze so construction could begin. Well, that and for the proper staff to be located.

She and Trent had been back in Montana for only a few days when the resumes had started pouring in. She’d placed the ad on two internet sites that catered to medical professionals before rushing to California to be with her sister and niece while they checked her niece for leukemia. Thankfully, the tests had come back negative, and she and Trent had flown back home to take care of their own responsibilities.

Sara had never imagined there would be so many people who wanted to move to Montana. Especially some so well qualified. That’s where Jackson Myers came in.

As a board certified cancer specialist, he had also trained extensively with several naturopathic and holistic medicine practitioners in ways to minimize pain, slow cancer growth, and heal the whole body. He was young, not afraid to think out of the box, and had jumped at the chance to interview for the position of Lead Physician.

“I have to tell you, Sara,” Jackson said, shaking his head at how unbelievably lucky he felt to be given this interview, “I would love to work here. And that probably doesn’t adequately express how excited I am about this project. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted to do, all in one place.”

Sara smiled at his enthusiasm and then asked, “So tell me a little bit about Jackson Myers. Not the stuff on your resume, but about you. I’d like to know more about the man who’s going to be heading up the medical side of things. Where did you grow up? Siblings? Girlfriends? Hobbies?”

Jackson looked at her with his mouth open and then shook his head and asked, “Really? I thought …”

Sara nodded, “The job is yours if you want it. But we’re a tight knit little group up here, and I’d like to get a feel for who you are as a person.”

“That’s it? You get to make the decision all by yourself?” Jackson asked, impressed but also cautious.

“Bill trusts my judgment. You are exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

Jackson grinned and then settled back in his seat. “I accept. Just in case after I tell you about myself, you decide to take the offer back. I accept the position.”

Sara laughed with him and then waved her hand for him to get on with the storytelling.

“Well, let’s see. I grew up in a small town on the Oregon coast. There were only a few thousand people in the town, so I understand how tightly intertwined lives can get. Anyway, I played basketball all through high school, and dated the head cheerleader.” Jackson broke off as sad memories filled his head. He’d dated the head cheerleader and they’d been planning to get married right after graduation. Just before the start of the fourth quarter, she had moved. No notice. No messages. Her mother had loaded up her and her younger sister, leaving in the middle of the night and no one had ever heard from them again.

He’d been heartbroken, and that event had forever changed his life. He’d never forgotten his first girlfriend. His first love! He’d spent the entire summer after graduation trying to track her down, but it was as if she’d never existed.

Her mother had arranged for her mail to be forwarded, and the house they had been renting sat vacant until the landlord finally had their belongings hauled off. His parents had been supportive, his dad had even hired a private investigator to try to determine what had happened to them, but each lead had turned up empty.

It wasn’t until the end of that horrible summer, when the reality of his relationship with his girlfriend had surfaced. Jackson had gone to the next town over with some friends and they had run into a group of basketball players from a rival school.

When several of the young men had made disparaging comments about his missing girlfriend, Jackson had seen red and thrown the first punch. A huge fight had ensued, resulting in all of the boys spending the night in the local jail. No charges had been filed and they had all been released the next morning.

The boys had taken great pleasure in telling Jackson how his girlfriend had been secretly dating the star player of their team, and how they had seen her making out with him on more than one occasion. Jackson had ben furious. He and Michelle had agreed to save themselves for marriage, and while they had shared a few kisses here and there, he had always respected her decision.

When his own teammates had reluctantly admitted they’d suspected she was cheating on him, he’d felt his entire world tip on its axis. He’d loved Michelle and thought she’d felt the same way about him. He’d been duped, and since that time, had been very hesitant to give his trust, in any type of relationship. Friend or romantic.

Bringing himself back to the present, he looked up and saw Sara watching him, “Those thoughts didn’t seem very pleasant.”

“They weren’t. Sorry about that. My senior year of high school didn’t quite end the way I would have wanted it to. My girlfriend disappeared one night with her mother and sister; I never saw or heard from her again. It was probably the darkest time in my life.”
She doesn’t need to know the rest. What point would it serve?

Sara was thoughtful before she asked, “You’ve never gotten married?”

“No. I left for college at the end of that summer and then there was med school, and internships…”

Sara smiled at him gently, “You can stop. I get it. I hope that one day you find what you need to complete you. But until then, I can’t wait for you to set up shop here. The construction should be completed by the end of the summer, but I’d love for you to move up here before then.

“I’d love to have a professional eye on things as the facility is put together. I know what I like from an aesthetic perspective, but I’m afraid I have no idea of what might be needed from the medical side of things.”

Jackson nodded and then said, “I could probably be back up here whenever you think is good. I’ve already given my two weeks’ notice at my previous work, so I only have to pack up my stuff.”

“That sounds really good. Could you be here by the first of March?” Sara looked at his resume, not remembering exactly where he was currently living. When she saw San Diego, she smiled at him, “You live in San Diego?”

Jackson nodded, “Yes. Well, a suburb outside San Diego. I’ve been there for the last eighteen months learning more about Chinese holistic medicine, acupuncture, herbal remedies…”

“Acupressure?” Sara asked, wondering just how far his training had gone.

“Why, yes. Although, I’ve never had an opportunity to use that particular treatment on a patient.”

“Well, you should. In fact, that’s actually how this foundation came together.” Sara proceeded to give him the condensed version of helping her mother and then Miriam Mercer. Jackson listened attentively for all of two minutes and then he took a piece of paper and started to take notes.

“That is very interesting. I would love to watch your technique…”

“Oh, but I’m not trained or anything. That’s why I need someone like you to make sure everything’s being done correctly.”

“Sara, the first thing I learned about natural medicine is listen to yourself. It sounds like you did a fine job of helping both your mother and Mrs. Mercer; don’t ever lose sight of that. Sometimes all of the medical knowledge in the world doesn’t do one bit of good for the patient.”

Sara listened to his passionate speech and then nodded her head in acceptance, “Thank you for that.”

“You bet. Now to answer your question…”

Sara waved his answer off, “You know what? Forget it. I’ll get to know you just like you’ll get to know all of us. One day at a time.” She stood up and held out her hand, pleased when Jackson followed her lead and did the same.

“Welcome aboard. Now, I believe Bill is planning a little get together for dinner this evening. If you don’t mind tagging along while I run a few errands before I pick up my husband, you’re welcome to ride with us.”

Jackson smiled and nodded, “That sounds good. Maybe you can answer some questions about the town…”

Sara started shaking her head, “No. Not me. I arrived here a week before Christmas. Now Trent, my husband, he can probably answer any question you have. As for me, I still feel like a visitor most of the time.”

Jackson was looking shocked, “You moved here just before Christmas?”

Sara grabbed her purse and headed for the door, “Come along. I fill you in on the way.”

Chapter 5

San Diego, California, later that same day…

“Samuel?” Jane called, having arrived at his beachfront home, and already played fetch with Lucky down on the beach for ten minutes.

“In here,” called the voice she was quickly coming to love the sound of. She wandered through the house to find Samuel standing on a ladder, replacing a burned out light bulb in his office.

She waited until he was finished before speaking, “I see you’re hard at work.”

“Always. How was your day?” Samuel asked, climbing down from the ladder and giving her a brief kiss.

“Great! The chefs I selected are fabulous. We all seem to get along really well for only having worked together for a week now.”

“Why are you so surprised? You’re one of the easiest people I know to get along with,” Samuel told her, taking her hand and leading her back into the living area. He opened the screen door, letting Lucky inside and laughing when the dog promptly lay down at his feet.

He dutifully bent over and scratched the offered tummy, saying, “You are spoiled rotten!” Rising back to his feet, he was surprised to see a look of doubt on Jane’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Well…I’ve been thinking…I don’t know that many people here yet.” She obviously had something on her mind, so Samuel was quiet and just let her say what she wanted to say – in her own timing. “I don’t want to get married here!”

Jane cringed as she heard the words leave her mouth and saw the stunned look on Samuel’s face. She hurried to make sure he didn’t misunderstand her, “It’s not that I don’t want to still get married, I just don’t want to get married in California.”

Samuel had thought his heart would crumble when he’d first heard her say she didn’t want to get married. But as her words registered, he kicked himself for not having thought about her feelings earlier, “No problem. I can marry you anywhere. California. Castle Peaks. Shoot, if you want to fly to Timbuktu and get married, I’ll do what I can to make it happen.”

“Timbuktu? Really?” Jane asked with a hopeful tone to her voice as she teased him.

“Well, maybe not Timbuktu. I don’t know if you can even get married there, but if you want to go home to Castle…”

Jane shook her head with a smile, “Home is here now. But all of the people I would want to be at my wedding are in Montana. Well, except for you and Grace and Dani.”

Samuel pulled her into this chest and rested his chin on her head, “Jane, if you want to get married in Castle Peaks, then that’s what we’ll do. But make it soon, okay?”

“Afraid I might find someone else?” Jane teased.

“Well, I saw you looking at the gorillas the last time we went to the zoo. That guy with the silver hair going down his back seemed to have caught your eye.”

Jane laughed and pushed away from him, “Don’t you know it. Dani and I have a thing for the apes. Which reminds me, we had quite the excitement while you were up in Los Angeles. Grace’s neighbor has a litter of the cutest puppies.”

“Wow! Her neighbor is a dog?” Samuel teased her.

“No! Her neighbor has a dog with nine of the cutest puppies I’ve ever seen.”

“Nine?! Wow! That’s a lot of puppies. What breed are they?” Samuel pulled the steaks he had been marinating in the fridge out and began preparing them for the grill.

“Golden retrievers. Just like Lucky. Anyway, they managed to dig their way under the fence and Dani found one of them. Before Grace or I knew it, she had brought the puppy into the house, named it Arianna, and was hiding it in her closet.”

“She didn’t? That little minx. How long was the puppy in there before you all found it?”

“Only a few minutes. Dani wouldn’t leave it alone. She had this little tent made inside her closet, and was willing to forego the butterfly house to keep it hidden. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a girl puppy and she had to change the name to Max.”

“Max, huh? So Grace is letting her keep it?” Samuel questioned.

Jane laughed, “No. The puppies aren’t fully weaned yet, but I will be very surprised if Dani doesn’t end up with at least one of them. The neighbor also has a nine-year old little girl named Emily, who seems to have taken a liking to Dani.”

“Does she like to play dress up and have tea parties?” Samuel asked hopefully. Daniella had been trying for weeks to convince him to play dress up with her, but each time, Samuel had managed to elude her plastic earrings and tiaras.

“You are going to have to give in one of these days and play with her. She’ll think you don’t like her if you don’t.” Jane scolded him, taking the potatoes from the oven and preparing to scrape the insides out.

“Yeah, well I think Michael has everything well under control for us both. I’ll just leave the wearing of the jewelry to him.” Samuel headed towards the grill, not waiting for Jane to reply back.

Jane shook her head and then scraped the potatoes into a bowl. She added sour cream, bacon, cheese, garlic powder, salt and pepper and then mixed it all up. Once she was satisfied that it was seasoned to her liking, she spooned the mixture back into the potato shells and popped them back into the oven.

Since Samuel hadn’t come back inside, she wandered out onto the deck to find him almost to the beach where Lucky danced around with her stick.
That dog never tires of the game!
When he looked back up at the house, she waved at him and then watched him throw the stick down the beach half a dozen times.

She checked the steaks, turning them twice before he rejoined her on the deck. He was rubbing his shoulder and she smiled at him, “Arm sore?”

“Yeah. I need to find her a smaller stick; one that doesn’t weigh as much.” Currently Lucky’s stick was almost three-feet long, all the bark had been removed, and it was worn smooth from being handled so much.

“Why don’t you just throw a ball for her?” Jane asked, thinking about the tennis balls she used to throw for the family dog when she was a little girl.

“Because she eats them.”

Jane looked at him with a look of disbelief on her face, “Really? Like, chews them up and ingests them?”

“Yeah, sometimes. She bites on them until she punctures them with her teeth. Once that happens, the ball doesn’t even last a day before I find it lying in pieces all over the house. Most of the time, she loses interest in them after they fall apart, but there have been a couple of times where I only found half of the ball. I have to assume she ate the rest of it.”

Lucky chose that moment to come up onto the deck, stick in mouth, and tail beating a rhythm on the side of the deck. Jane scratched behind the dog’s ears, “Silly mutt. You’re supposed to chase the ball, not eat it.”

The timer on the oven went off and Jane hurried to remove the potatoes from the oven, while Samuel brought their steak in from the grill. They ate and discussed the other aspects of their day, before the conversation turned back to their upcoming wedding.

“I guess I should probably call Trent and make sure he doesn’t mind us having the wedding in Castle Peaks.”

“You know both he and Sara are going to be thrilled to host the wedding. In fact, why don’t you give them a call right now? Otherwise, you’ll worry about it all night.”

Jane blushed, knowing that Samuel was right, “Okay. But he’s going to want to know when we want to have it.”

“Well, grab a calendar and let’s figure this out. It shouldn’t be too hard. Grace and Daniella will want to come so it probably needs to be during their two-weeks off in March. Julian and Trevor’s trials aren’t set till later in April, so I can take some time off whenever we want during the month of March.”

After spending several minutes looking at the calendar, they settled on March fifteenth, provided Castle Peaks could accommodate their wedding that week. Samuel could already see the worry beginning, and grabbed the phone, dialing Trent before Jane could protest.

“Hello?”

“Trent, Samuel.”

“Hey, how’s California?”

“Warm and sunny. Wish you were here?” Samuel asked, having played this game with Trent often over the years.

“Now why would I want to give up shoveling snow for hours upon hours, just to have to apply sunscreen to my lily white body and lay in the sun all day?”

“I saw you all were going to get some more snow up there.”

“You would have heard correctly. We got ten inches last night, and it’s been snowing all day. The only people still happy about the snow are the skiers and ski resort owners. I, and the rest of Montana, are ready for spring about now.”

Samuel chuckled before saying, “I’m going to put you on speaker phone so Jane and I can both talk and hear.” Samuel looked at her with a no after pushing the right button.

“Trent?”

“Jane, how’s the new kitchen working out?”

“Trent, it’s so cool. And I would love to tell you all about it, but that’s not why we’re calling. Samuel and I have been talking, and I really don’t want to get married here in California where I don’t know very many people. I was wondering if you thought it would be possible for us to come to Castle Peaks for the ceremony.”

“Really? You want to get married here? That sounds fantastic. Sara will be excited when she hears that.”

“Is she there?” Jane asked.

“Not right now. She’s meeting with Bill and the new medical director of the foundation tonight.”

“She hired someone?” Samuel asked. “That was quick.”

“I agree, but once you meet this young man, you’ll understand how she made her decision so quickly. When were you guys wanting to have the ceremony?”

“March fifteenth. Grace and Daniella will be able to travel that week without missing work or school.”

“That sounds good. Why don’t I talk to Pastor Jameson in the morning and make sure that date works for him? I can let you know what he says and you all can make your plans from there.”

“Thanks Trent.”

“Don’t thank me, Jane. This is as much your home as it is mine. You know mom and dad probably won’t be home by then, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to wait until the fall. They’ll understand why I didn’t wait.”

“Yes, they will. Okay, I’ll talk to everyone and then have Sara call you tomorrow. She can coordinate whatever you need on this end.”

“Great! Talk to you tomorrow!” Jane pushed the button to end the call, smiling in happiness as she looked at Samuel.

“Now that’s what I like to see,” he commented, using a finger to trace her smiling lips. “You happy!”

“You make me happy.” Jane nipped his finger playfully and then collapsed back against the couch cushions. “If you had asked me three months ago if I could ever see myself this happy again, I would have said ‘No’ and laughed at you.”

“I would have been right there with you. It’s amazing how quickly things can change.”

“That it is. Would you change anything, if you could?” Samuel asked, watching Jane’s eyes.

“No. Would you?” Jane asked, looking right back at him.

“Yes, the amount of time it took for us to get to this place. I feel like we wasted a bunch of years, being unhappy, when all we needed to do was take a step out of our comfort zones and have a little faith.”

Jane considered his statement and then shook her head, “It wouldn’t have been the same. Three years ago. Five years ago. Even one year ago, we weren’t the same people.”

“Probably not. This is one of those instances where you’re not supposed to analyze things too much, isn’t it?”

Jane smiled up at him and then kissed him tenderly on the lips, “Yes. It doesn’t really matter how long it took us to get here, the important thing is that we arrived.”

“Good point! Now, how about we take a walk along the beach before you head home?”

“That sounds really nice. I missed you the last few days. How did things go up in court?”

Samuel led her down the deck stairs to the beach and then tossed Lucky’s stick down the beach. “Good. We managed to get a different judge assigned to the case and it looks like Trevor and Julian will be spending quite a bit of time in solitary confinement while they await their trials.”

“That’s got to set your mind at ease somewhat,” she said, watching Lucky come running back with the stick.

“Yeah! With that out of the way, I can focus on finally making you my wife.” They walked down the beach a little further before they turned and headed back. After walking her to her car, Samuel kissed her tenderly, murmuring in her ear, “Drive safely. I love you.”

“I love you too. I can’t wait to marry you,” Jane told him, finding it harder than ever to leave him at the end of the day. Only a few more weeks and then they would be married, starting their lives together and making new memories.