Second Honeymoon

Second Honeymoon
Laura Abbot

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Meg with a baby carriage.Once upon a time, Meg and Scott Harper had it all. But then life got in the way, and they lost sight of what was important. Each other.Now twenty years have passed, and they seem to be just going through the motions. Is it finally time to call it quits? But before they can make that decision, they are confronted with a crisis…one they can only get through together.

“What are you suggesting? That we cut right to the divorce?”

Scott nodded. “One incision. Swift. Neat.”

Like hammer blows his words penetrated Meg’s consciousness. Her throat clogged with sudden tears, and she struggled to keep her voice even. “Is that what you want, Scott?”

Head down, he marched another thirty yards, then stopped and whirled to face her. “Want? I’ll tell you what I want. I want the girl I married.”

Anger replaced shock. “What’s that supposed to mean? Am I so awful?”

“You’re not awful.” His shoulders sagged, and he ran a hand tiredly through his hair. “You’re just…different. Meg, we started out with big dreams, and, hey, we’ve even achieved a lot of them.”

“But apparently they didn’t buy happiness.”

“That doesn’t mean they can’t, does it?”

“That’s up to you,” she said.

Laying his hand on her shoulder, he sought her eyes with his. “No, Meg. It takes two of us. But is there any us left?”

Dear Reader,

In most of my previous books, setting has been an important element. I’ve enjoyed researching various areas of the country and discovering how my characters not only belong in their particular environments but are molded by them.

This story, however, could take place anywhere in suburban America. The landscape is not one made up of mountains and rivers or rolling farmland. Rather, it is the territory of family.

Often when we think of romance, we envision the thrill of attraction and courtship or dewy-eyed newlyweds walking dreamily into an everlasting sunset. Yet the most enduring love stories are not always pretty. Sometimes it is not until a relationship is tested in the crucible of real-life crises that a genuine, lasting understanding of love and commitment is forged. This, then, is a love story that unfolds in the most important place of all—within a marriage.

In Second Honeymoon, Meg and Scott Harper are not unlike many of us who face the challenges of work commitments, child rearing, social obligations, community involvement and responsibility for extended family. As life grows more complicated, Scott buries himself in work, Meg devotes herself to their children and, along the way, they forget that marriage is a lifelong effort and that love can never be taken for granted. Bur where there is a spark, there can be fire. I hope you’ll enjoy discovering how Scott and Meg learn to tend the flame.

Laura Abbot

P.S. I enjoy hearing reader comments. You may write me at P.O. Box 373, Eureka Springs, AR 72632, or access the Superromance authors’ Web site, www.SuperAuthors.com.

Second Honeymoon

Laura Abbot

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

For my tolerant, accepting and loving daughters-in-law,

Lailan and Lynne.

Thank you for being such blessings to me and our family.

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Early September

WHEN THE AUDITORIUM LIGHTS flickered, Meg Harper twisted around in her seat, scanning the latecomers straggling in the door. Where was Scott? He’d promised her. Promised their son. She glanced at her watch. Two more minutes.

The seat beside her remained conspicuously empty, but what else was new? She watched other children’s parents—other children’s fathers—scurry to find seats before the program began. Meg faced the front again, her eyes darting to the stage where in a few moments Justin would lead the Pledge of Allegiance. Her manicured nails bit into the flesh of her palms. She didn’t ask much of her husband, but Scott should be here supporting his son, and later accompanying her to the classrooms for the middle-school open house.

She craned her neck toward the door again. Her tennis partner, Jannie Farrell, and her lanky, absentminded husband, Ron, scuttled in just as the lights dimmed, leaving behind a deserted lobby. Meg’s jaw tightened in anticipation of Scott’s apology. Sorry, babe, something came up at the last minute. As if his son were a mere afterthought to some business deal. In all honesty, she hadn’t expected Scott to show up. But that didn’t make her disappointment any less painful or quell the childhood memories of all the times she’d searched the audience for the father she knew would never come, the father buried in the cemetery on the hill.

The balding principal stepped up to the podium, greeted the assembled parents and uttered the usual platitudes about the school year getting off to a great start. When he finished, he introduced Justin, who strutted with his athlete’s swagger toward the microphone, his baggy khakis bunching at his ankles, pretty much obscuring the new Nikes he’d insisted on wearing. “Please stand and join me in the Pledge,” he croaked into the mike.

As the crowd stood, Meg moved to the left for a clear view of her son, his spiked black hair, so like Scott’s, gleaming in the spotlight; his tall, skinny body braced at attention. He looked angelic, a far cry from the mouthy thirteen-year-old who, only an hour ago, had resisted wearing the freshly-ironed dress shirt she’d laid out for him. He’d held it up as if it were some odious life-form. “This is nerdy! I suppose you think I’m wearing a tie, too.” After a brief battle, they’d achieved a compromise. The shirt, yes. The tie, no.

Yet watching him now, seriously intoning the Pledge of Allegiance, she could almost believe that one day he’d grow into a responsible young adult.