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eBook Category: Romance
eBook Description: In matters of the heart, inevitably someone is destined for pain.... When a coal-miner's daughter, spends Christmas vacation with her fiancé and his wealthy family, she convinces herself that she is ready for love and commitment, but if that is true, why is she inexplicably drawn to Hayes' gorgeous cousin Connor? Connor Page, a globe-trotting photographer and restless adventurer, is mending a broken leg over the holidays. For the first time, he finds himself falling hard...for his cousin's ravishing new girlfriend. Thrown together by fate and bound by forbidden desires, they must decide whether to sacrifice honor...or personal happiness.

eBook Publisher: Champagne Books/Chic, Published: 2005
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2005

8 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.7 MB], eReader (PDB) [320 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [318 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [282 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [269 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [315 KB], hiebook (KML) [754 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [397 KB], iSilo (PDB) [260 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [326 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [380 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [407 KB]
Words: 94031
Reading time: 268-376 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
ISBN: 0-9737261-4-8

If nothing else, Mary Lillian Flynn considered herself a realist. 'Lily' might be up to her armpits in love, but at the moment, she was up to her elbows in dishwater. Her only hope was that love lasted longer than soapsuds.

"It's snowing again," her mom announced, pulling Lily abruptly from her thoughts.

Colleen Flynn handed her third-eldest daughter the gravy ladle to rinse and turned to open the oven. Fragrant, timeless aromas filled the large, homey kitchen. Lily inhaled the scent of turkey, sweet potatoes, and fresh baked pies. Heat from the wood burning in the corner stove brought out the fragrance of the pine boughs draped over the archway. A lifetime of memories flooded back, all twenty-four years of them rushing at her in an instant, mostly good, but all of them tinged with a desire for something more.

The essence of her, her mother always said with mixed pride and sorrow, was to seek a better life than a worn-out coal-mining town in West Virginia could offer.

Her mom's voice now drew Lily out of her musings. "Wish your sisters would get here with my grand-babies before the roads get real bad."

"It looked real--I mean, really pretty when I was driving up from Charleston." Within just a few hours back home on the mountain, already Lily caught herself slipping into the lazy West Virginia speech pattern she'd worked through college and beyond to correct. She'd have to mind her words when she left for Florida in a few days or she'd sound like a hick. "It won't seem like Christmas without snow."

Colleen Flynn chuckled. "I'll trade ya. I'll go laze around in that fancy condo for two weeks, and you finish my Christmas list."

"Get Libby to help. All I've seen her do all day is lay around reading True Confessions magazines."

"Libby's tired from working all week."

"Libby's tired from cattin' around half the night with that two-timing, two-bit, used car dealer."

"Leave her be. She's a good girl, down deep," Colleen said, ever protective of her youngest child.

"Mum! If I dated a married man, I'd sure as shootin' hear about it."

"Stay out of it, Lily. What Libby does is her business, not mine, not yours. I'm praying for her."

"A lot of good that'll do."

"Mary Lillian Flynn! I'll allow no such talk in my household."

Lily felt like a ten-year old. She didn't want an argument to spoil her visit home, nor did she understand why her mom had spoken so sharply. Lily pushed her red hair away from her face and watched her mom bustle around the kitchen, wiping counters Lily had already cleaned. "I'm sorry if I upset you. Is something worrying you, Mum?"

Colleen Flynn glanced impatiently at her, then stilled. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. Tryin' ta ruin yer visit scold'n ya. It's your daddy, honey. He's got worse the past couple a weeks. He's snoozin' now, thank goodness, but he's been havin' a mighty hard time breathing."

Like so many coal miners, Lily's daddy suffered from black lung. "Isn't there anything they can do?"

Her mom, Maureen Flynn, resumed wiping counters, shaking her head. "There's a new medicine they want to try, but it's awful expensive."

"Get it. I'll pay for it."

"We couldn't let you do that. You'd be broke in no time." She cleared her throat, scanned the kitchen for anything out of place, and finding nothing, filled the kettle with water and set it on top the wood-burning stove. "Why don't we have a nice cup of tea, and you can tell me about your Florida plans. Laz'n in the sun."

Lily went to the cupboard for cups and saucers, choosing two without chips and wishing she'd bought a new set for Christmas. Maybe if she had some money left over after the Florida trip, she'd send an after-Christmas present. Closing the cabinet door, she picked up her mother's attempt at conversation. "I'm not sure I'll be lazing around much once we get to Florida. From what Hayes tells me, his mother has parties and sight-seeing and lots of things planned."

"That's real nice, honey. You deserve a good time, after how hard ya worked putting yerself through school and landin' a good job. And that promotion already." Her mother wiped her brow. "I better bank that stove. It's getting warm in here. It must be serious between ya, him takin' ya home to meet his mum."

"I'm not sure. I hope so." Though she tried not to give her feelings away, a smile crept onto her face. "Wait till you meet him, Mum. He's so handsome." Lily hugged herself, giggling. "Remember when we were growing up, you kept telling us, someday your prince will come? I think mine has."

"And when might we expect to have the pleasure of meet'n your Prince Charming?"

A frown creased Lily's brow. "Let's wait a bit. See how this trip goes." Her mom pinned her with green eyes that matched Lily's own, and she hastened to explain. "I'm a little nervous, is all, spending two whole weeks with his family. Nervous, hell! I'm scared to death. What if they don't like me?"

"You watch your language. Course they'll like you."

"Yeah, but ... What if I don't fit in? Or say something wrong?"

Hayes's dad, Robert Dexter, owned the mortgage company where she worked, one of six offices on the Eastern seaboard. Robert Dexter and Lily might share a common interest in their work, but the gap between their positions loomed in her mind as wide and deep as the Atlantic Ocean. Just as surely as the sun would set behind the back woods in another couple hours, one slip of her tongue could cost her her job. "And his mum terrifies me. She calls me Lillian. I don't even know what to say to her when we talk on the phone."

"Honey, she's a woman, gist like you and me. She suffered through birthin' same as a million other women, fussed over sick kids, worried about money an' puttin' food on the table."

"Is that all marriage is? Worrying about money and kids?"

"A big part of it, at least for all the women I know. You'll do fine, Mary Lillian. You're gist as good as anyone else and work twice as hard. Ya gotta find the common ground, is all, an' you kin make a friend a anyone. Wasn't you voted most likely to succeed way back in high school?"

"What do a batch of high school seniors know about the real world?" Lily bit her tongue. She didn't want to set her mom off again. She wanted this early Christmas celebration to be special. It might be their last one as a family. If her father's health continued to deteriorate, chances were slim he'd be alive a year from now.

She wasn't entirely sure her mom's words of wisdom extended beyond the base of the mountain, though. Her mom had never worked outside the home, couldn't even drive a car. All her life Colleen Flynn had been content to keep a clean house and raise her four girls as good Catholics, cooking and sewing her only recognized skills. She was a simple woman, sweet and gentle, surely the most generous West Virginia had to offer. No matter how little she had, she'd gladly give it away to someone else in need.

Lily loved her dearly and wanted only to protect her mom from life's hardships. Even if Lily's fears came true and this vacation was a disaster, she'd never admit the truth. Lily was the only one in the whole family who'd left the town, knew the reality that was the modern world. Not everyone in the real world shared common ground. It was like the cover of snow outside, making the whole countryside look so pretty and white. Underneath was still a coal blackened town. Could she have it all and remain true to herself? Was she subjugating her own background to become the person Hayes perceived her to be? Deep down, she feared that if he or anyone else looked too close, they'd discover plain old Lily, the coal miner's daughter.

But, oh, how she loved him. He treated her like a queen and fired her imagination with dreams of all they could accomplish together. Not that wealth mattered that much to her. Even if he lost everything he had, she'd still want to spend the rest of her life with him. Lily smiled, knowing intuitively how desperate Cinderella must have felt at the ball. If only the key to dreams-come-true was trying on a glass slipper.

Her mother got up. "I'll gist get that kettle."

"I'll bet you have some cookies around to go with it." Lily, too, got up. No sooner was her back turned than she heard a strangled sound.

The kettle dropped with a crash.

She turned in time to see her mother grasp her left side before she collapsed.

"Call 911!" Lily yelled.

There was, of course, no emergency service up here on the mountain.