Man From Tennessee

Jennifer Greene Man From Tennessee

Dear Reader,

This is a special “anniversary” book for me. It wasn’t the first book I wrote-but it was the first book that was published.

I never dreamed I could make it as a writer back then…and had even less idea how many readers would find me through my stories.

Romances have many universal themes, but this story is about one of my favorites. We’ve all made mistakes. We all likely had a first love…and maybe that wasn’t the man we ended up with. Or the man we even wanted to end up with. But it’s one of those eternal daydreams…the chance to do over a mistake. The chance to win the guy who got away. The chance to remember how you felt, when you first discovered love, when you first fell hard and deep, when you couldn’t eat or sleep or WAIT until you were with your love again.

No one gets that “feeling” every second of their lives. But the best of our romances give us all the chance to remember the wonder of it.

This is the book that started my career…and I’ve been extra thrilled that Carina is enabling readers to see it for the first time-or to revisit an old fantasy. Life has changed a lot since then. So have our books. But some of the themes in our books are exactly the same, and always will be…because love really is one of the true wonders in all our lives.

Hope you like the book! And keep in touch, either on Facebook or through my website (www.jennifergreene.com).

Jennifer Greene

Chapter One

Trisha hadn’t noticed when the rolling emerald hills of Kentucky had become the Tennessee mountains. Her attention was on the hairpin-curved road. Then suddenly she remembered the crisp spring air and the sweet scents of pine and wildflowers in bloom. And the fleeting mists that drifted between the mountain peaks. She recalled the peace, privacy and silence that were the gifts of the mountains. Silently she wished she hadn’t remembered.

“Patricia!”

Trisha glanced swiftly at her mother-in-law. “Oh, you’re awake. Are you feeling better, darling?”

“I would probably feel perfectly fine if I thought I could get your attention for two and a half seconds,” Julia said petulantly. “You’ve been as quiet as a tomb for two days. Obviously you’re still irritated with me.”

For a few seconds Trisha’s sapphire eyes met Julia’s. A strong, independent spirit shone clearly in her mother- in-law’s steel-blue eyes. Julia was a matriarch from a bygone era who could and would put anyone in his place, given the opportunity. But she didn’t have to use her formidable will against Trisha and they both knew it.

“There was no one else I could ask, Patricia. Besides, it isn’t as if I ever asked much of you.”

“I’m not arguing with you, darling,” Trisha said wearily. “We’re nearly there, so please just…let it be.”

“You couldn’t possibly be afraid to see Kern again, could you?”

Trisha’s fingers tensed on the wheel.

“The last time he saw you, you were a waif. And now? Well, breeding will out, I’ve always said. You’ve got aristocrat in your bones-”

“Thank you,” Trisha interrupted dryly. “But what that has to do with anything is beyond me.” She checked her tone abruptly. Julia looked wretched. The steel-blue eyes were surrounded by flesh that was too gray and wrinkles that were too pronounced. The car was cool, yet there was moisture on Julia’s forehead and her hands were limp. Her lip color was a bluish purple. “Sweetheart,” Trisha said quietly, “you want to see Kern, and we’re going to see him. We’ll be there in an hour. Now I want you to relax and stop worrying. There’s no reason-”

“So you keep saying. But there is reason. I told you. If he told me he had a concussion and broken ribs, God knows what really happened! He is my son, Patricia, even if we don’t get along-”

“As in brick wall meeting brick wall,” Trisha murmured under her breath.

Julia’s jaw stiffened, her fingers plucking irritably at the expensive silk material of her skirt. “You could try to see it from my point of view. If he were your son, Patricia, and you knew he was in trouble-”

“The day Kern has trouble he can’t handle you can count on the earth caving in, Julia. If anyone should be doing any worrying in the Lowery family, it’s him for you, not the other way around.” There was really no point in arguing. One didn’t argue with Julia. One either gave in promptly and with good grace, or one donned earmuffs and said no at persistent five-minute intervals, never giving an inch. There had been no stopping Julia once Kern evidently let slip on the telephone that he had been in an accident some weeks before. Knowing her son didn’t want her there was fuel enough for Julia to go to him. And knowing that Trisha had no desire to see her husband after five long years-well, Julia had the gift of being immovably single-minded at times. And with her health as it was, Trisha knew she had no choice.

The road curled like a lariat and suddenly loped out straight, with a waterfall to the left and on the right the froth of a stream that rushed over gilt-edged rocks. The countryside was virgin primitive, lushly sensual at first glance, soft in color and scent and sound. It was all part of a dream she’d wanted to share with Kern once. Instead, Trisha thought fleetingly, there had been the harsh reality of living in it.

“He won’t even recognize you,” Julia murmured. “You’ll be like two strangers meeting again. That’s really why you’re still irritated with me, Trisha, because you’re afraid it will be awkward for you. But you can handle it…” Her voice trailed off at Trisha’s startled expression. “Perhaps we’ll just let that subject be.”

“Perhaps we will!”

Trisha needed no reminder of how much she’d changed in the past five years. The cream silk pantsuit was sophisticated, designed to make the most of her slender figure and ivory skin. Her face was lovely in a fragile, ethereal way. Deep-set eyes were almond shaped, the color of sapphire, and her dark gold hair was thick, swept back to curl on her shoulders. There was no sign at all of the girl she had been five years before, no bundle of nerves, no edge of tears, no telltale sign even to Julia that in any way she dreaded having to meet Kern after all this time. She looked the sophisticated twenty-five-year-old from Grosse Pointe that she was. No one would ever mistake her for a mountain girl.

“I’ve barely seen a house in an hour,” Julia remarked suddenly.

“And we probably won’t, darling, until we reach Kern’s. But you’ll find Grosse Pointe prices at Gatlinburg, I promise you, and that’s only half an hour past Kern’s. It’s a lovely little town.” It was a town set in the valley at the entrance to the Smoky Mountains. She remembered it well. Her palms were damp on the steering wheel, Trisha discovered, and she was disgusted with herself. She was miles, centuries away from the Trisha she had been at twenty, frightened of her own shadow, carting the word love around as if it had a halo that came with it. She had been a bit of fluff just asking to be crushed.

“How much longer?” Julia accused her wearily. “You said we’d be there.”

Trisha shot her mother-in-law a sharp, worried glance. “And we will be. Just a few more minutes, that’s all. Please relax, darling.”

The road twisted past the campgrounds Kern had built. There were campers and trailers parked, although it was early yet, the end of May. Up past the shaded campgrounds the road curled and swirled like a black ribbon with a meandering silver stream on the right. Above were the forest acres bedded with trillium and rhododendron, the scent overpowering on one stretch of the drive. And last was Kern’s place…

No.

Like a knot of cold steel inside, Trisha felt a sudden panic tighten and chill. His kingdom. His corner that captured the real soul of the mountain country, where a century before a man might have died if he hadn’t had the