16 Lighthouse Road

Make time for friends. Make time forDebbie Macomber.

CEDAR COVE 16 LIGHTHOUSE ROAD 204 ROSEWOOD AVENUE 311 PELICAN COURT

BLOSSOM STREET THE SHOP ON BLOSSOM STREET A GOOD YARN OLD BOYFRIENDS WEDNESDAYS AT FOUR TWENTY WISHES

THURSDAYS AT EIGHT

Dear friends,

Welcome to Cedar Cove, Washington. I hope you enjoy meeting my new friends. And I hope that once you do, you’ll feel as comfortable with Olivia, Grace, Charlotte, Cecilia, Jack, Ian, Seth and all the others as you would your own next-door neighbours. You see, they’re mine. Well… not exactly. Cedar Cove is based on my own home town of Port Orchard, Washington, but the characters and their stories are figments of my imagination. However, anyone who’s walked the streets of Port Orchard will recognise buildings and events I’ve described. The library, the new city hall, even the seagull-calling contest, are part and parcel of life in Port Orchard.

So please sit back and enjoy a bit of romance, a bit of mystery with a little wisdom thrown in. Sit back and acquaint yourself with a whole community of new friends. I know they’re all anxious to introduce themselves to you!

PS I love to hear from readers. You can reach me at PO Box 1458, Port Orchard, WA 98366, USA or through my website at www.debbiemacomber.com.

Debbie Macomber

www.mirabooks.co.uk

In memory of

Rita Adler 26th December, 1950 – 12th December, 2000 We miss you.

One

Cecilia Randall had heard of people who, if granted one wish, would choose to live their lives over again. Not her. She’d be perfectly content to blot just one twelve-month period from her twenty-two years.

The past twelve months.

Last January, shortly after New Year’s, she’d met Ian Jacob Randall, a Navy man, a submariner. She’d fallen in love with him and done something completely irresponsible—she’d gotten pregnant. Then she’d complicated the whole situation by marrying him.

That was mistake number three and from there, her errors in judgment had escalated. She hadn’t been stupid so much as naïve and in love and—worst of all— romantic. The Navy, and life, had cured her of that fast enough.

Their baby girl had been born premature while Ian was at sea, and it became immediately apparent that she had a defective heart. By the time Ian returned home, Allison Marie had already been laid to rest. It was Cecilia who’d stood alone in the unrelenting rain of the Pacific Northwest while her baby’s tiny casket was lowered into the cold, muddy earth. She’d been forced to make life-and-death decisions without the counsel of family or the comfort of her husband.

Her mother lived on the East Coast and, because of a snowstorm, had been unable to fly into Washington State. Her father was as supportive as he knew how to be—which was damn little. His idea of “being there for her” consisted of giving Cecilia a sympathy card and writing a few lines about how sorry he was for her loss. Cecilia had spent countless days and nights by their daughter’s empty crib, alternately weeping and in shock. Other Navy wives had tried to console her, but Cecilia wasn’t comfortable with strangers. She’d rejected their help and their friendship. And because she’d been in Cedar Cove for such a short time, she hadn’t made any close friends in the community, either. As a result, she’d borne her grief alone.

When Ian did return, he’d blamed Navy procedures for his delay. He’d tried to explain, but by then Cecilia was tired of it all. Only one reality had any meaning: her daughter was dead. Her husband didn’t know and couldn’t possibly understand what she’d endured in his absence. Since he was on a nuclear submarine, all transmissions during his tour of duty were limited to fifty-word “family grams.” Nothing could have been done, anyway; the submarine was below the polar ice cap at the time. She did write to tell him about Allison’s birth and then her death. She’d written out her grief in these brief messages, not caring that they’d be closely scrutinized by Navy personnel. But Ian’s commanding officer had seen fit to postpone relaying the information until the completion of the ten-week tour. I didn’t know, Ian had repeatedly insisted. Surely she couldn’t hold him responsible. But she did. Unfair though it might be, Cecilia couldn’t forgive him.

Now all she wanted was out. Out of her marriage, out of this emotional morass of guilt and regret, just out. The simplest form of escape was to divorce Ian.

Sitting in the hallway near the courtroom, she felt more determined than ever to terminate her marriage. With one swift strike of a judge’s gavel, she could put an end to the nightmare of the past year. Eventually she would forget she’d ever met Ian Randall. Allan Harris, Cecilia’s attorney, entered the foyer outside the Kitsap County courtroom. She watched as he glanced around until he saw her. He raised his hand in a brief greeting, then walked over to where she sat on the hard wooden bench and claimed the empty space beside her.

“Tell me again what’s going to happen,” she said, needing the assurance that her life would return to at least an approximation of what it had been a year ago.