Silver Thaw: A Mystic Creek Novel Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE ROMANCES OF CATHERINE ANDERSON

  Walking on Air

  “This feel-good story . . . will bring joy and a feeling of completion.”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  Perfect Timing

  “Uplifting and emotionally riveting. . . . Get ready for one magically heartwarming experience!”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  Coming Up Roses

  “An extraordinary novel. Poignant, moving, rich in character, and deeply emotional. A keeper.”

  —Romantic Times

  Lucky Penny

  “Anderson returns to her historical roots with a stirring, beautifully rendered story of the power of family, love, and trust. Her knack for creating real stories turns her books into ‘keepers’ and her readers into the kind of fans who will eagerly await her next book.”

  —Romantic Times

  Comanche Magic

  “Catherine Anderson is an extraordinary talent. She has a voice that is gritty and tender, realistic and romantic, and always unique.”

  —Elizabeth Lowell

  Here to Stay

  “Another wonderful, very emotional story of the Harrigan family.”

  —Romantic Times

  Indigo Blue

  “A marvelous, moving, poignant, and sensual love story. . . . Ms. Anderson holds her readers spellbound.”

  —Romantic Times

  Early Dawn

  “Never stinting on the harsh reality inherent in the setting, the author tempers the roughness with a powerful love story and remarkable characters. She draws out every emotion and leaves readers with a true understanding of life and love.”

  —Romantic Times

  Comanche Heart

  “Highly sensual and very compelling . . . a truly spectacular read.”

  —Linda Lael Miller

  Star Bright

  “Catherine Anderson brilliantly grabbed my attention right away with a brainy tale of intrigue . . . an emotionally moving and romantic treat that you’re sure to enjoy.”

  —Night Owl Romance (Top Pick)

  Morning Light

  “This is a story not to be missed. Morning Light delivers on all levels and is a fantastic read that will touch readers at the very core of their being.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  Sun Kissed

  “This smart, wholesome tale should appeal to any fan of traditional romance.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Summer Breeze

  “The kind of book that will snare you so completely, you’ll not want to put it down. It engages the intellect and emotions; it’ll make you care. It will also make you smile . . . a lot. And that’s a guarantee.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  My Sunshine

  “With the author’s signature nurturing warmth and emotional depth, this beautifully written romance is a richly rewarding experience for any reader.”

  —Booklist

  Bright Eyes

  “Offbeat family members and genuine familial love give a special lift to this marvelous story. An Anderson book is a guaranteed great read!”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  Blue Skies

  “Readers may need to wipe away tears . . . since few will be able to resist the power of this beautifully emotional, wonderfully romantic love story.”

  —Booklist

  Only by Your Touch

  “Ben Longtree is a marvelous hero whose extraordinary gifts bring a unique and special magic to this warmhearted novel. No one can tug your heartstrings better than Catherine Anderson.”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  Always in My Heart

  “Emotionally involving, family-centered, and relationship oriented, this story is a rewarding read.”

  —Library Journal

  Sweet Nothings

  “Pure reading magic.”

  —Booklist

  Phantom Waltz

  “Anderson departs from traditional romantic stereotypes in this poignant, contemporary tale of a love that transcends all boundaries . . . romantic through and through.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  OTHER NOVELS BY CATHERINE ANDERSON

  “Harrigan Family” Novels

  Morning Light

  Star Bright

  Here to Stay

  Perfect Timing

  Contemporary “Coulter Family” Novels

  Phantom Waltz

  Sweet Nothings

  Blue Skies

  Bright Eyes

  My Sunshine

  Sun Kissed and Sun Kissed Bonus Book

  Historical “Coulter Family” Novels

  Summer Breeze

  Early Dawn

  Lucky Penny

  Historical “Valance Family” Novels

  Walking on Air

  The Comanche Series

  Comanche Moon

  Comanche Heart

  Indigo Blue

  Comanche Magic

  Other Signet Books

  Always in My Heart

  Only by Your Touch

  Coming Up Roses

  Cheyenne Amber

  SIGNET

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © Adeline Catherine Anderson, 2015

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-1-101-61122-7

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Other Novels by Catherine Anderson

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

&
nbsp; This book is dedicated to my great-niece, Nichole Meyerott, her daughter, Rowan, and her wonderful husband, Bryan. When I think of you, I’m always reminded of the wonderful Fourth of July that we shared as a family before Rowan made her debut. What a delight it was later to see Nichole rock her daughter in Grandma Mary’s chair. Through so many generations, the love has endured.

  I would also like to thank Rosie Blake for sharing so much information about her Lincoln ewe, Marble, whose wool froze to the ice and was jerked out when she stood up. From Rosie I learned about sheep jackets and about the lifelong mating of mourning doves. The doves you will meet in this story actually frequented Cinnamon Ridge for several years.

  Much appreciation also goes to Kate Allen, my helper, who researched heavy plastic knives sturdy enough to be used as lethal weapons, watched police pat-down procedures with me online, and knew how people can use credit cards to make cash withdrawals from ATM locations. No matter how crazy it gets at our house, Kate always greets a challenge with good cheer.

  I will also be forever grateful to Julia Ashton, my adoptive sister and personal assistant, who is always there for me, through thick and thin. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

  Last but not least, I want to thank Father James Radloff, who, by example, taught me and so many others how to keep our faith even when it may seem that all hope is lost. He is a phoenix who rose from the ashes to triumph over adversity at Holy Communion Catholic Church in Bend, Oregon.

  Prologue

  A brisk November night breeze lashed the pines and bushes that surrounded Amanda Banning’s front yard. It caught at the strip of pink paper between her upraised fingers and whipped it away, tumbling it into the darkness. Amanda likened releasing the strip to sending messages in a bottle, only hers were sent on the wind, a practice born a month earlier out of isolation and the relentless silence after her six-year-old daughter, Chloe, had gone to bed. Amanda couldn’t afford a television, and the clock radio she’d purchased at Good As New on West Main had lousy reception. Amanda doubted the problem was with the device; rather, she suspected it was that her home was surrounded by too many trees. Occasionally, when atmospheric conditions were just right, she could find a station and enjoy some music that didn’t crackle, but mostly she picked up white noise.

  The nightly silence had grown oppressive, driving home to Amanda just how alone in the world she was. Sending messages on the wind gave her a sense of connection with others, and a way to express her thoughts and yearnings instead of keeping them pent up inside.

  She smiled and pulled her flimsy jacket close to hold the cold at bay. She didn’t really care if anyone read her notes. No one would ever know who wrote them, after all, and that was liberating. She could write anything she wanted, no matter how silly or serious. It helped, writing them. She wasn’t sure why, but it did.

  Tonight her messages had been goofy. She’d recently walked with Chloe into the town of Mystic Creek and gotten a library card, which allowed her to borrow storybooks for her daughter and romance novels for herself. Why she felt drawn to love stories, Amanda didn’t know. She hung on the words written by authors such as Jodi Thomas, Susan Wiggs, Emilie Richards, and countless others. Nearly eight years in a nightmarish marriage should have forever banished romantic notions from her head. Maybe, she reflected, it was true that hope springs eternal in the human breast, because there remained within her a deep, aching need to be loved and cherished.

  So tonight she’d written, I wish I could meet a man as kind and wonderful as the hero in one of the romances I love to read, someone who’d be a fabulous father to my little girl and make both of us feel safe. Normally Amanda wished for far more practical things, like enough money to pay her electric bill, but she was halfway through a story, and she was falling madly in love with a character named Jake. Amanda’s only question was, do men like that really exist? Her rational side always answered that question with an unequivocal no, but she couldn’t deny her yearning to think otherwise. Dumb, dumb, dumb. She’d be better off to believe in Santa Claus and strike the word man from her vocabulary. In her experience, man usually became manhandle.

  Sighing, Amanda looked at the sky, hoping to see stars, but it was too overcast. Probably snow clouds. So far, she hadn’t found a snow shovel at any of the three secondhand shops she’d searched. She and Chloe would have to wade through the white stuff until she found an affordable scoop. Problem: Chloe had no waterproof boots. Why hadn’t she checked out the winter weather in Mystic Creek before she picked this town as their hiding place?

  She shrugged and said aloud, “Because you couldn’t afford bus fare for two to anywhere else, and Mystic Creek defines the term out in the middle of nowhere. Mark will look for you in Olympia, Washington, not central Oregon.”

  Blinking at the sound of her own voice, Amanda went back inside, locked the door, and fastened the chain guard. She didn’t believe the chain would keep out an anemic sparrow, but it might buy her enough time to grab the cast-iron skillet that she kept handy on the kitchen table. She made her rounds of the house, checking to be sure the back entrance and all the windows were locked. In Chloe’s room, she lingered to smooth her sleeping daughter’s dark hair, so very like her own, back from her forehead and bent to press a kiss to her upturned nose.

  Chloe stirred in her sleep and cried, “No, Daddy, no! Leave Mommy alone! Don’t hurt her! Stop!”

  Amanda’s heart twisted. Since she’d left her husband, Mark, Chloe’s nightmares had mostly abated, but every once in a while the child woke up screaming. Amanda sat on the bed and gathered Chloe in her arms. “It’s only a dream, sweetness. Daddy isn’t with us anymore. We’re far, far away from him. He can’t hurt us anymore.”

  Chloe shuddered and hugged Amanda’s neck. “You were on the kitchen floor, and he was kicking you with his boots.”

  Amanda recalled that night, and it troubled her that Chloe was reliving it in her sleep. “It’s okay. I’m fine. We ran away, remember?”

  Chloe pressed close to Amanda’s body. Minutes passed before she drifted off to sleep again. As Amanda tucked Chloe back under the covers, she whispered, “Have sweet dreams, darling. Only beautiful, wonderful dreams.”

  Beautiful dreams. That had become Amanda’s mantra to herself each night before she fell asleep, for she often jerked awake from nightmares, too, her heart pounding and her body drenched with sweat. She was coming to accept that no matter how far she ran, she might never feel safe.

  Moments later, Amanda, still wearing her jacket, huddled on the worn old sofa near the single lamp to read more of her library book. Jake. She grinned as she drew a blanket around her for extra warmth. No man on earth would pick wildflowers and leave little bouquets on a woman’s porch as he had. Get real. But Amanda enjoyed losing herself in the fantasy anyway. It sure beat what she knew about reality.

  Chapter One

  Jeb Sterling swore under his breath as he trudged across his steer pasture, snatching up litter. Small pieces of pink paper decorated the grass, looking like overblown clover blossoms. They were everywhere. Why had someone chosen to toss trash from a car window in front of his place? Jeb took pride in his property and spent hours each summer at the business end of a Weedwacker. His fencing, made of metal pipe that he’d welded together, always sported immaculate white paint. The landscaping he’d done around his house could be featured in Better Homes and Gardens. He did not appreciate some jerk using his land as a garbage dump.

  Stalking around the enclosure, Jeb grumbled aloud as he picked up the pink slips and crushed them in one hand. As he captured the sixth before it fluttered away, his anger changed to bewilderment. What the hell? Somebody had written a note on this one. Smoothing the damp, wrinkled strip, Jeb read aloud, “‘I wonder how much money I need to buy a decent used car. I don’t care if it looks awful as long as it runs. Walking back and forth to work in this cold weather is the pits.’”r />
  Frowning, Jeb collected more pink strips from the pasture, then found a few more on his front lawn, and another in his driveway. He took the lot inside and sat at his custom-made dining room table, which he’d designed to seat twelve, twenty with inserts, similar to tables once common among large farm families.

  Pushing a hank of blondish brown hair off his forehead, he smoothed the notes flat. I wish I could find secondhand winter boots for my little girl. I can’t afford new ones, and my boss says we’ll soon have deep snow. Jeb shook his head. Winter boots for a kid didn’t cost all that much. Or did they? Thirty years old and determined to stop counting birthdays, Jeb remained a bachelor and had no kids. He was not an expert on the cost of children’s apparel. Maybe one of his younger brothers or sisters would get married and start reproducing soon. Then Jeb’s parents might stop bugging him about settling down and providing them with a grandchild.

  Judging by the handwriting, delicate and flowing, Jeb decided the notes had to be from a woman. Most guys he knew did a print-write thing.

  The next note made him grin. I wish I could meet a man as kind and wonderful as the hero in one of the romances I love to read, someone who’d be a fabulous father to my little girl and make both of us feel safe. Jeb guessed this lady liked to read sappy love stories. His smile faded. Why did this woman and her child feel unsafe? And, hello, was he being targeted? He found it difficult to believe these messages had landed on his property by accident. Maybe this gal had seen him working outside and decided he looked like promising husband material.

  No way, sister. Jeb wasn’t that desperate. His mother kept telling him the lady of his dreams would cross paths with him right when he least expected it. But so far that hadn’t happened, and Jeb was coming to accept that it probably never would.

  Just then his dog farted. Jeb groaned and glanced over his shoulder. “Damn, Bozo, turn the air blue, why don’t you?”

  A brindle Fila Brasileiro mastiff, Bozo had a dark brown muzzle and ears, with a gold body that looked as if it had been splattered with different shades of mud. The dog woke from his nap, yawned, and then shook his head, sending strings of drool flying from his flapping jowls to decorate everything within a three-foot radius. When Bozo was younger, Jeb had raced around to clean up the drool immediately, but then he’d read online that once dried, it could be wiped easily from surfaces or vacuumed up.