Christmas Town

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Epigraph

Dedication

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

Dear Reader

Copyright

Joella looked down shyly. “Thank you. My voice is just one of the gifts I’ve been given.”

Like her smile, Jordan thought, and her eyes. “And what are my gifts?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe the chance to come home and make things easier for a whole town full of people.”

Jordan realized then that he’d made a mistake. He’d let things stray to a far too personal footing with this woman who represented the entire town which he had no choice but to betray and destroy. He felt awash in emotions—no, not emotions, he reminded himself, just a little minor attraction for a beautiful woman.

He had to tell her his real reason for coming back to town. That would surely erase any inclinations toward romance their moonlit walk might have given birth to.

Peggy Gilchrist makes her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. But her first love is the small towns of Alabama, where she grew up, and Georgia, where her family also lived for a while. Her ancestors farmed and taught in one-room schoolhouses, founded rural churches and delivered mail on horseback. The family homestead was built in 1812 and was a historic landmark in Alabama. Some of Peggy’s favorite memories are of family gatherings at the house and at nearby Liberty Hill Church, where all-day gospel singings were held monthly.

Peggy has written more than twenty novels, but this is her first inspirational romance.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

—Matthew 6:19-21

Dedicated with love and gratitude to Lynne and Dianne, who taught me faith by example.

All 122 pairs of eyes in the basement fellowship hall of the church watched in riveted silence as the black Lincoln glided down Main Street The only pair of eyes that held even a tiny spark of hope was the honey-flecked brown pair belonging to Joella Ratchford.

When the imposing automobile was out of sight, all eyes returned to the institutional green room whose walls were decorated with construction-paper cutouts of turkeys and Pilgrims.

“Looks like the executioner has arrived,” someone muttered.

“We can’t give up,” Joella said as forcefully as she could manage, although forcefulness wasn’t her strong suit.

Joella looked for reassurance to white-haired Reverend Hatfield Martin, who had been there for Joella during all of the toughest times of her life. He smiled his reassuring smile—the one that always seemed to say she wasn’t alone in whatever difficulty life was dishing up. Then she looked around her at the roomful of mill workers, most of whom she had known all her life. Some had wandered back to the circle of metal folding chairs, some remained beside the windows. All were dear to her.

Most of them weren’t smiling, reassuringly or otherwise. Joella could see in their faces that they had already resigned themselves to an unwelcome future.

“Come on, everybody,” she said, her tone close to pleading. “Don’t any of you believe it when Reverend Martin says the Lord will provide?”

Only a few people would return her gaze. Joella wanted to cry. She had grown up in Bethlehem, South Carolina. Her father had worked for Scoville Mill as long as she could remember, until his death three years ago. Every person in this room was like a member of Joella’s extended family. Surrogate aunts and uncles, cousins by marriage, best friends she’d played summer softball with. People she loved, all of them. Even the ones who got on her last good nerve sometimes, for that was the way with family.

Bethlehem was home, and Joella felt the loneliness of being the only one in town still willing to fight for it.

“Shoot-fire, Joella,” Eben Ford finally said. “What’re we supposed to do? The Scovilles are outta money. That means the mill’s outta money. The whole town’s outta money.”

“We’re all as good as homeless,” came Rutta Story’s thin, creaky voice. Mumbling, grumbling voices joined Rutta’s statement of doom.

“There’s the retirement fund,” Joella protested over the rumble, but no one listened. Weakly, knowing nobody heard, she finished, “At least we’ve got that to fall back on.”

“Joella’s right,” Reverend Martin said, standing to capture the attention of the room. “The Scovilles may fail us. But the Lord never will. Faith will see us through this.”