Home For Keeps

Preserving nature. Growing love. Can they do both?

Grace Huber has no interest in taking over the reins of her father’s successful development company. Instead, she’s busy building a dream of her own: a “green” housing community in Wisconsin’s Sparrow Lake. Educator and conservationist Caleb Blackthorne is not only on the same page, the handsome single father tempts goal-oriented Grace to take time out to smell the flowers. But Caleb’s rebellious teenage daughter keeps throwing obstacles in their path. And when Caleb’s long-gone ex-wife shows up, along with rumors of ghostly sightings that threaten the future of Green Meadows, Grace fears she may lose all the things that matter most to her.

Caleb looked at Grace. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t.” She smiled, but he still felt the tension between them. It had been a long day.

“Things might get even messier,” he warned. “I hope you’ll bear with me.”

Grace stepped toward him. “If you’re honest about your intentions, you won’t be able to get rid of me.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” And he drew her closer to kiss her.

Her lips were soft and she wound her arms around his neck. For a moment, the day’s problems and irritations melted away. Grace felt so good in his arms. He wished they never had to return to reality.

Dear Reader,

In Home for Keeps, a couple characters are frustrated by parents who don’t support them in working at what they love in life. Both of us, the coauthors of this story, were warned by our protective parents that making a living in a creative profession was impractical.

Patricia wanted to work in theater...then in television production...then as a romance writer. Because she’d had similar youthful desires, her mother empathized. Even so, she urged Patricia to get a teaching degree so that she always had a job. Patricia didn’t exactly follow that dictum, but she did work in educational television for nearly two decades, even as she wrote romances and became a published author...and eventually, a college-level fiction writing teacher, as well.

Linda wanted to be an artist and a writer. Although nobody else in her family had graduated from college, they urged her to pick up a teaching degree as a backup plan. She started out as a high school art teacher, went on to write romances and then got into teaching writing at the college level. Throughout, she has done artwork and used the creativity she developed in art classes to make life more interesting.

We believe that people should do what they love...and that it never hurts to have a practical option to earn a living. Hopefully, you’ll see something of yourself or someone you love in Grace and Caleb’s story.

Good reading!

Lynn Patrick

LYNN PATRICK is the pseudonym for two best friends who started writing together a few decades ago. Linda is a professor with a reading specialty, and Patricia writes as Patricia Rosemoor. Together they enjoy creating worlds that are lightened by the unexpected, fun and sometimes wonderful vagaries of real life.

Contents

COVER

BACK COVER TEXT

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

EXTRACT

COPYRIGHT

PROLOGUE

JUST AS NELLIE MARTIN opened the kitchen door to empty her garbage, her glasses slipped down to the tip of her nose. Stopping to punch them in place, she jerked when a ball of fur streaked through her legs. Her fifteen-year-old cat had just gotten out! There she went, all twenty pounds of her tottering straight into the dark.

“Olive!” Trying not to panic, Nellie dropped the garbage bag and followed.

She’d moved from a two-story home to a first-floor apartment in Sparrow Lake’s new green community only a week ago, and her cat had never been outside here. Oh, dear, what if she got lost?

Her pulse pounding, Nellie yelled, “Olive, you naughty girl, you come back here!”

How could such a rotund cat move like that? With her arthritic knees complaining, Nellie couldn’t move fast enough to catch up to the old girl. And where did Olive think she was going anyway? The area outside the apartment building was woodsy. Wisps of fog rose from the ground, making it a little scary at night. Imagining a coyote darting from the dark and snatching her beloved pet for dinner, she forced her legs to go faster. Even so, the cat slinked around a tree and then simply disappeared.

“Olive, sweetheart, please!”

Where had she gone? Nellie’s heart was in her throat as she slowed to scan the area. Nothing! Then through the fog, she saw movement.

“There you are,” she muttered, heading in that direction.

But the shape ahead turned into something other than a cat. A pale, floaty figure shot from one tree to another.