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  Back to You

  Hunter J. Keane

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2019 by Hunter J. Keane

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Back to You

  Perfect for fans of Bella Andre, Susan Mallery, and Melissa Foster, Back to You is a haunting and honest love story about a first love becoming a last love in Starlight Valley.

  Noelle Sutton has just driven hundreds of miles to start over after a family tragedy. Starlight Valley holds a special place in her heart and she is sure it is the perfect place to start a new life. Her niece and nephew are less convinced, especially after finding out they’ll be living on a Christmas tree farm. Noelle tries to remain optimistic, but that’s before she runs into an old flame who still knows how to make sparks fly.

  Evan Gray fell in love with Noelle when he was just thirteen. After a kiss at the school dance, he swore that he had found the woman he was going to marry. For eight years, it looked like he was going to be right. When Evan suffered a severe injury that forced him to give up his dream of being a professional hockey player, he consoled himself with the knowledge that he still had Noelle. Just a few months later, he lost her, too.

  Their love had been a fairy tale with a heart-breaking ending, but life is about to give them a second chance. Noelle didn’t expect to find love in Starlight, but Evan has always been her one true love. She has lost so much already and admitting that she wants to be with Evan means opening her heart again.

  Is she willing to risk future heart-break for a chance to live happily-ever-after with Evan?

  Find out in the new sweet and spicy small-town romance from Hunter J. Keane.

  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 ONE

  A beautiful sunrise lit the horizon in shades of pink and orange. The winding road ahead was covered in a light dusting of fresh snow. At the end of that road, set at the base of a large mountain, Starlight sparkled like a Christmas village.

  I had spent every Christmas of my life in Starlight Valley. First, as a happy child with my family, skipping down the festive streets to take in the lights and drinking hot chocolate in front of the town Christmas tree. Later, after my parents were gone, I came to visit my grandparents during school breaks. In many ways, this was the place I thought of when I thought of home.

  “Are we there yet?”

  The low whine pulled me from my trance. “Almost, Tommy. Can you see it up ahead?”

  “What’s that sparkly stuff?” His little blond head appeared between the two front seats as he leaned forward.

  “That’s Starlight Valley. They leave the lights on all day long, every day of the season.” I smiled at the memories I had under those lights. “You haven’t seen Christmas until you’ve seen it here.”

  “That’s a lot of snow.” The young girl in the passenger’s seat had been quiet for nearly the entire drive. “I don’t like snow.”

  “You’ve never even seen snow, Mad,” I said. At twelve, Madison was just beginning to embrace the adolescent angst. Most of the time, she was a sweet girl with a shy smile. But every once in a while, she tested my patience, and my parenting skills. “I already called about getting you both signed up for skiing classes. In the summer, there are beautiful trails all around the town where you can go horseback riding. I know you always wanted to take lessons, Mad. I think you’ll really enjoy it.”

  I was rambling, like I always did when I was nervous. The kids had been so reluctant to come to Starlight that I was anxious to sell them on it. It was important to me that they eventually love the town as much as I did.

  “We could rent a cabin up in the mountains for New Years. It’s so beautiful up there, surrounded by blankets of snow.” I gestured toward the mountains that loomed just outside the car windows.

  “Didn’t I just say that I don’t like snow?” Madison rolled her eyes at me. She had been doing that so much lately that I worried she was going to sprain her eyes.

  “Well, maybe you’ll change your mind.” I stifled a sigh.

  The decision to pack up the kids and move from New Orleans to Starlight hadn’t been an easy one to make. Uprooting their lives, as well as my own, wasn’t something I had rushed into. It had taken months of struggle and chaos before I’d been able to admit that things just weren’t working in New Orleans. “The winter carnival is coming up. I used to love going to the carnival every year.”

  “I can’t wait to go to the carnival with all my friends,” Madison said with extra sass. “Oh wait, that’s right– I don’t have any friends because you made me leave all of them to move to this stupid town no one has ever heard of.”

  I couldn’t really be mad at her for her bad attitude. When I was Madison’s age, I probably would’ve been just as mad about having my entire life changed so suddenly. I probably would’ve hated me.

  “With your charming personality, I’m sure you’ll make new friends in no time,” I teased. “Tommy, I’ve already signed you up for hockey lessons.”

  “Yes!” He pumped his small, eight-year-old fist into the air. “I’m going to be just like Wayne Gretzky.”

  “How do you ever know who that is?” I said with surprise.

  “Dad.”

  It was amazing how one word could cut so deeply into my soul. I felt an overwhelming rush of grief threatening to bubble over and had to swallow hard to keep down the flood of emotion. “Your dad always wanted to be a hockey player, but he had terrible coordination,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m sure you’ll be much better.”

  The therapists had said it was important to allow the kids to speak about their father, and about their loss. I had to put my own feelings aside and allow them to express themselves. “You know, your dad loved this town. He always said some of his happiest memories were of holidays spent in Starlight.”

  The sparkling city was no longer in the distance. We had reached the exit and I felt a strange tightening of my chest as I decelerated onto the ramp. Some of my hardest memories had also happened in Starlight. After taking a right onto Main Street, we had arrived.

  I recognized nearly every storefront and diner. Even covered in Christmas decorations and twinkling lights, the traditional establishments were impossible not to recognize. As impressive as the décor was during the day, the town would be even more stunning at night.

  We drove the length of the town as I headed for the address that had been texted to my phone. While looking for a place to stay, the options had been limited. Real estate was hard to come by in Starlight as people tended to put down roots and stay for a long time. Rather than cram the kids into a hotel room until something more long-term became available, I had been ecstatic to find a small guest home on the property of a farm. A Christmas tree farm, to be more exact.

  If someone had told me a yea
r ago that I would be taking Tommy and Madison hundreds of miles away from New Orleans to live on a Christmas tree farm, I would have laughed hysterically. If they would have told me I would voluntarily move to a place an hour away from the closest Starbucks, I would have called them insane.

  “I talked to the principal of your new school yesterday and she said you can start after the long holiday weekend.” I had planned it so the kids would have the full week of Thanksgiving to get settled into town before starting school. The timing for starting at a new school wasn’t great, but I hoped the festive mood around town would help soften the blow.

  “Are we really going to live in the middle of nowhere?” Madison said, staring forlornly at the vacant landscape.

  “We’re just around this corner. It’s not as far as it seems. The woman I spoke with said you can actually cut through the property on foot and be in town in less than five minutes.” It was hard for me to sound so optimistic as I was also bothered by the wide-open spaces. For the last fifteen years, I had been able to walk or ride my bike just about anywhere.

  “The pictures of the house looked really nice. You’ll each have your own room.” I felt an unnatural urgency to keep talking. “I know you hated sharing one in New Orleans.”

  “I didn’t mind,” Tommy said happily. “I liked living so close to the aquarium.”

  “You’ll like living on the farm then.” Even I was starting to get sick of my bubbly attitude. “We’ll have to get one of the Christmas trees for our new place. You kids can help me decorate it.”

  “We don’t have any decorations,” Madison grumbled.

  I forced myself to ignore her sour attitude. “We can buy some. There won’t be any problem finding Christmas decorations in Starlight.”

  “This place is awesome,” Tommy said when he spotted an actual reindeer roaming in the front yard of a house. “Does Santa live here?”

  “No, silly. Santa lives at the North Pole.” I continued following the directions along a winding road. At the end of the road, a quaint farm beckoned us forward. I still couldn’t believe that we were about to live on a Christmas tree farm. That seemed like something that people only did in sappy holiday movies.

  We had reached our new home with just a couple hours of daylight left. I was glad that I wouldn’t be trying to find my way around the farm in the dark.

  “We’re here, kids,” I said, driving down the long driveway. “Home sweet home.”

  Several other cars were parked in an open grassy area as their owners shopped for the perfect Christmas tree. I parked as close to the main house as possible since that’s where I’d been instructed to look for Mrs. Miller.

  “You two should probably wait in the car while I get us situated,” I said, but they had already opened their respective car doors. “Or not.”

  “This place is awesome!” Tommy said, eyes wide as he looked at the Christmas trees.

  “It smells,” Madison said, wrinkling her nose.

  “You smell,” Tommy said.

  I sighed. “Alright, enough talk about smells.” Sometimes I couldn’t believe the conversations I found myself having with the kids. It was certainly a different life than my single-woman days. “Can you both just stand here and not touch each other or destroy anything?”

  “No promises,” Madison said with a smirk.

  “You kids are the reason I have wrinkles,” I said as I started toward the house. My journey was cut abruptly short by a gruff voice yelling at me.

  “Excuse me, ma’am. Can I help you?”

  I hated being called ma’am. It was hard enough being a single woman in her mid-thirties with two kids without having someone call you ma’am.

  “No, I’m fine,” I said, turning to wave away the concerned gentleman. “Mrs. Miller is expecting me.”

  “Is she?” The man who had stopped me stepped out from behind a rather large Christmas tree. He was wearing a flannel jacket, jeans, and scuffed work boots, but my eyes weren’t focused on his outfit. I was stuck on his green eyes. They were familiar.

  “Do I know you?” I said stupidly. I hadn’t been back to this town in over fifteen years, so the odds were pretty low that I would know anyone here.

  His eyes narrowed at me and then he slowly grinned. “Noelle Sutton? I don’t believe it.”

  A hundred memories came flooding back to me as I stared into those familiar green eyes. I had never imagined that I would ever see them again. “Evan Gray.”

  “You remember me,” he said with a pleased smile that made my heart flutter.

  “How could I forget?” In my head, I thought– A girl never forgets her first love. From the way that Evan continued to grin at me, I suspected that he knew exactly what I was thinking. “I never expected to see you in town again.”

  “Likewise.” Evan’s smile faded as he stared at me. Not all memories we shared were good memories. “How have you been, Elle?”

  He couldn’t possibly know how loaded that question was. “No one has called me Elle in fifteen years.”

  “That’s your own fault. You’re the one that refused to marry me.” He was smiling, but it was forced.

  “You asked me when we were thirteen, Evan. It wouldn’t have been legal anyway.” Now, it was my turn to fake a nonchalance I didn’t feel.

  “And then again when we were sixteen. And eighteen.” His fake smile was gone. “Dare I ask why you are looking for my Aunt Norma?”

  “Norma Miller is your aunt?” I felt the air leave my lungs. “That can’t be true.”

  “Why would I lie about that?” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and nodded toward the house. “She’ll be in the kitchen baking pies this time of day. You got here just in time.”

  Pies were the last thing on my mind. “She didn’t tell you I was coming?”

  “I just help her run the farm. She doesn’t tell me every detail of her personal life.” Something passed through Evan’s eyes. “She did tell me that a new tenant is moving into the guest house.”

  “I’m Norma’s new tenant.” I couldn’t believe it. It was too much of a coincidence to be true. This certainly wasn’t how things were supposed to play out today.

  Evan shook his head. “That can’t be. She said the tenant was a single mom with two kids.”

  I glanced to where Madison and Tommy were throwing handfuls of dead pine needles at each other. “Those are my kids.”

  “Oh.” His mouth fell open. “I didn’t realize…”

  “We haven’t talked in twelve years, Evan. I didn’t expect you to keep up on the intimate details of my life.” Yet somehow, part of me wanted to ask him why he hadn’t stayed in touch. A decade and a half after we broke up and I was still wondering why. “I need to go find your aunt so I can get the kids settled in before dark. Should I assume I’ll be seeing you around?”

  He gave me a wry grin, the same one that I had swooned over as a teenage girl. Just like back then, my heart fluttered and I felt a strong tingle run through my body as he said, “I can pretty much guarantee it, darling.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  N orma Miller was a sweet old lady with a big smile and an even bigger heart. She fawned over the kids as she escorted us across the yard to our new home.

  “My son and his family lived here for a while, when they were first starting out. It’s a great little home and I’m so excited to have such a sweet family stay here.” She unlocked the door and pushed it open with a flourish. “This whole farm has been in the family for years.”

  “It’s a great piece of land,” I said awkwardly, my first-ever attempt at complimenting someone’s farmland. “Have you always been in the Christmas tree business?”

  “More or less.” She waited as we wiped our shoes clean on the doormat. “My brother and I took over the farm when our parents fell ill about twenty years ago. Ned and his wife did most of the work back then, but they’re gone now. Thank goodness for their son, Evan. He really saved the day when he moved back home to help out.”

&n
bsp; I had just learned more about Evan’s life in those few sentences than I had in the last twelve years. “How long has he been helping?”

  “Oh, I guess it’s been two years now since Ned died. Evan came back not long after that. I tried to tell him that I could sell the farm, but he wouldn’t hear of it.” Norma eyed me carefully. “You know, he’s single. Good looking young man, smart as a whip. He used to be a partner at a law firm in Denver.”

  “Sounds like a catch,” I muttered, blushing furiously as I hurried to change the subject. “How about a tour of the place?”

  “Yes, of course.” She waved a hand in the air. “This is the main living area. Kitchen is right through that doorway. Dining room over there, or you could use that as an office. The three bedrooms are upstairs.”

  “It’s a great little house,” I said, surprised. I had just assumed that the pictures online had been taken with strategic angles and fancy lighting to make the home look nicer than it was in person. That was not the case.

  Norma smiled, delighted. “I’ll leave you to get settled in, but I insist that you come back to the house in an hour for dinner.”

  “Oh, we couldn’t impose like that,” I said.

  “Nonsense. It’s already getting dark and the roads will be icy. You can’t drive to the store tonight. I’ll be making more than enough food and I would love to have the company. I’ve made plenty of apple pie.”

  “Apple pie?” Tommy’s eyes were wide with excitement.

  The decision had been made for me. “I don’t see how we can say no to an offer like that.”

  “Wonderful.” Norma grinned mischievously. “I’ll let Evan know that we are having guests.”

  I should have seen that coming, but it had never crossed my mind that Evan would be at dinner. Norma had already retreated outside, so it was too late to retract my acceptance.

  “Can I pick out my room?” Madison said, the first non-complaint from her mouth in at least two days.