Small-Town Girl

Small-Town Girl
C.J. Carmichael

Will a small-town solution work for a big-city girl?After her son is seriously injured in a car accident, Julie Matthew wants two things: for him to regain his health and for her family to return to normal. What a shock when she learns that Russell, her husband, sees normal as a rut. His solution? To move their family from Vancouver back to the tiny rural town in Saskatchewan where he grew up.It's for the sake of their child, he claims, and a guilty conscience leads Julie, who loves big cities, to go along with his plan. But once in Chatsworth, she begins to suspect that Russell has his own interests at heart. Especially after she sees him and his former girlfriend together at the school where they'll both be teaching.And that's not the only surprise her husband has for her!

“I think we need to move.”

Julie froze, certain she hadn’t heard correctly. “Russell?”

“I know how much you love Vancouver, love this house. And you’ve done a beautiful job with it. But we’re in a rut.”

“Russell, this house is perfect—and I’m not talking about the bloody furniture or the color on the walls, for heaven’s sake. We’re close to Ben’s school, and his friends…. And what about the ten thousand we just spent on landscaping?”

She considered Russell’s long commute to work. “Do you want to move closer to the university? Is that it?”

“No. Farther. Much farther.” Russell cleared the plates from the table and rinsed them for the dishwasher.

Julie sat, waiting for him to tell her exactly what he had in mind. Finally he returned to the table. Gripping the back of the chair, he took a fortifying breath.

“I’ve been tossing the idea around for years now. Ben’s accident is only the catalyst.”

Cold dread pinned Julie to her chair. Years, Russell had said. Yet he’d never even hinted he wasn’t happy living here.

Then he added, “I’d like us to move back to the farm town I grew up in….”

Dear Reader,

We’ve all suffered personal tragedies, the sort that can turn your entire world upside down. You see people walking to work, stopping for coffee, mailing a letter, and wonder, Why are they bothering? Don’t they realize how unimportant it all is?

That’s how I felt as a young teenager when my brother was seriously injured in a farming accident. With my other brother and two sisters, I sat in front of the TV at my grandma’s house while my parents waited at the hospital. Disney was playing—it must have been a Sunday night. I remember staring at the set and wondering how Donald Duck could be up to his usual antics when my brother was so desperately hurt. I felt lost and scared. All I wanted was for life to go back to the way it had been that morning at breakfast, before any of the men had gone out to the fields.

In Small-Town Girl, that’s how Julie Matthew feels, too, when her son is gravely injured by a drunk driver. She wishes she could turn back the clock to the moment her phone rang that morning. She wishes she could change the answer she’d given, the decision she’d made so quickly.

But of course she can’t. And so our story begins….

C.J. Carmichael

Small-Town Girl

C.J. Carmichael

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

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

For around-the-clock advice (mostly pertaining to my stories) I thank my brother-in-law, Dr. Gordon Bird

For my brother David

CONTENTS

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

AT THE TIME, THE MEETING had seemed very important to Julie Matthew, senior editor of West Coast Homes. She frowned when the magazine’s administrative assistant opened the boardroom door and beckoned to her.

“I’m rather busy, Gina.” She’d just put up her first overhead on projected advertising revenue. “I don’t suppose this could wait?”

Gina shook her head, her expression grim.