Finding Home

Finding Home
Marie Ferrarella

CONSIDER CAREFULLY BEFORE THAT FIRST CALL TO THE LOCAL CONTRACTOR:Can your marriage take it?Stacey Sommers certainly hoped so…but it was looking a little questionable. After the stunning news that her uncle had passed away and left her his dog (aptly named Dog) and a quarter of a million dollars, her penny-pinching, fiscally responsible husband was practically gloating at how their already amply funded golden years would be further enhanced.They'd saved for that rainy day, and now it was here–literally with their 1950s-style house falling down around their ears. Was it better to live for now or be a gazillionaire at your funeral? Stacey wanted to remodel; Brad wanted to save. What was a woman to do?Make the call. After all, it was her money. Then watch, as the walls came tumbling down, how things started to rearrange themselves….

“My goal isn’t a new house.”

“I love this house, Brad. This is my house. Our house. This is where all my memories are.” As Stacey spoke, emotions swept through her, intensifying every word she said. “This is where we started out together. Where Julie and Jim became tiny people instead of just babies. I love this house,” she told him again with feeling.

Stacey searched his face to see if she’d gotten through. But there was no indication that she had.

He shook his head. “Then why change it?”

It wasn’t changing, it was improving, but she had a feeling that comparison would be lost on him, too. “Because like everything else, the house needs a face-lift.”

He glared at her. “You sure that a quarter of a million will cover everything you want done?”

Stacey had no idea what possessed her to glibly answer, “If not, it’ll be a start.” But it felt good to say it.

Marie Ferrarella

Marie Ferrarella wrote her very first story at age eleven on an old manual Remington typewriter her mother bought for her for seventeen dollars at a pawn shop. The keys stuck and she had to pound on them in order to produce anything. The instruments of production have changed, but she’s been pounding on keys ever since. To date, she’s written over 150 novels and there appears to be no end in sight. As long as there are keyboards and readers, she intends to go on writing until the day she meets the Big Editor in the Sky.

Finding Home

Marie Ferrarella

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

From the Author

Dear Reader,

Welcome to my life.

All right, Finding Home is a slightly fictionalized version seeing as how I didn’t marry a doctor and my daughter isn’t in medical school and my son isn’t a musician. But I did live through the horror of having several rooms remodeled and I did have a husband who handed me lists every morning to review with a not-so-happy construction person.

Anyone who’s ever had remodeling done and remained married after the contractor and crew have left knows what sort of a triumphant feeling that is. Remodeling is definitely in the same realm as trial by fire. It tests the limits of your patience and your love. When it’s all over, you come out the other end stronger, more confident, with a reorganized sense of priorities. Either that, or in a straitjacket.

So, consider carefully before you make that first call to the local contractor. Can your marriage take it? If you’re afraid to find out, just move. In the long run, it might be safer. But definitely not more interesting.

Affectionately,

Marie Ferrarella

To Katherine Orr, with many thanks.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26