He had been slow to build a relationship with the Daltons, particularly Hank. West was easy, since he already knew and liked the man. The other brothers and McKenna... It was coming along.
But this was the first time that he’d consented to go to something at their house. Because it had felt right. Because it was Christmas. And he was just ready. Ready to set aside whatever ill will he had felt toward Hank. Any anger he had left inside of him at Tammy.
Because he had discovered something else over this past year. That life could expand and grow in infinite, wonderful ways when you quit putting it in a box. That there could be joy so deep and real you hadn’t known it could exist, so long as you quit holding on to anger.
He was ready to test the limits of that joy.
“Well, then, I guess we better go inside,” he said.
“Just a second,” Rose said, suddenly tugging on his hand and stopping him from walking forward.
“Why? You’re the one that said we had to go inside.”
“I know. And I wasn’t going to say anything to you, not until tomorrow. But...I have to tell you.”
“You have to tell me what?”
“I hope you’re going to be happy.”
“You have to tell me now.”
“You’re going to be a father.”
That word echoed inside of him. Father. Something he’d never had, and even now that he was building a relationship with Hank... It still wouldn’t ever be the same.
But he was going to be a father.
He was.
“It’s a miracle,” he whispered. “It really is.”
“Are you happy?”
He picked Rose up off the ground and spun her in the snow. When he set her back down, his eye caught the necklace she wore around her neck. The one he had given her last Christmas. The one that had been his mother’s.
He reached out and touched it, then touched her face. “Rose Heath, you make me happier than I ever thought I could be.”
And he knew that from now on Christmas would forever be this moment.
This moment with his wife, the woman he loved more than anything else. This moment when he had found out he would be a father.
The greatest gift of all, because Rose had taken something dark and full of guilt and shame, and had turned it into the most beautiful moment he could’ve ever asked for.
She had taken his grief and turned it into joy.
She had taken guilt and turned it into love.
She had taken a broken man and made him whole.
He wrapped her in his arms, and he kissed her. “I will love you forever, Rosie.”
She smiled. “Forever is a long time.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s the thing. It’s forever.”
When Lark Ashwood returns home to Bear Creek, Oregon, she is determined to realise her dreams of setting up a craft café. She’s equally determined to avoid the history she’s been running from – especially when it comes in the irresistible shape of local garage owner Ben Thompson. But as Lark embarks on a quilting circle with her mom and two sisters, she soon realises that the key to her future lies in unlocking the past...
Read on for a sneak preview of Maisey Yates’s emotionally compelling new novel for HQN
Confessions from the Quilting Circle
Confessions from the Quilting Circle
by Maisey Yates
one
March 4th, 1944
The dress is perfect. Candlelight satin and antique lace. I can’t wait for you to see it. I can’t wait to walk down the aisle toward you. If only we could set a date. If only we had some idea of when the war will be over.
Love, Dot
Present day—
Lark
Unfinished.
The word whispered through the room like a ghost. Over the faded, floral wallpaper, down to the scarred wooden floor. And to the precariously stacked boxes and bins of fabrics, yarn skeins, canvases and other artistic miscellany.
Lark Ashwood had to wonder if her grandmother had left them this way on purpose. Unfinished business here on earth, in the form of quilts, sweaters and paintings, to keep her spirit hanging around after she was gone.
It would be like her. Adeline Dowell did everything with just a little extra.
From her glossy red hair—which stayed that color till the day she died—to her matching cherry glasses and lipstick. She always had an armful of bangles, a beer in her hand and an ashtray full of cigarettes. She never smelled like smoke. She smelled like spearmint gum, Aqua Net and Avon perfume.
She had taught Lark that it was okay to be a little bit of extra.
A smile curved her lips as she looked around the attic space again. “Oh, Gram...this is really a mess.”
She had the sense that was intentional too. In death, as in life, her grandmother wouldn’t simply fade away.
Neat attics, well-ordered affairs and pre-death estate sales designed to decrease the clutter a family would have to go through later were for other women. Quieter women who didn’t want to be a bother.
Adeline Dowell lived to be a bother. To expand to fill a space, not shrinking down to accommodate anyone.
Lark might not consistently achieve the level of excess Gram had, but she considered it a goal.
“Lark? Are you up there?”
She heard her mom’s voice carrying up the staircase. “Yes!” She shouted back down. “I’m...trying to make sense of this.”
She heard footsteps behind her and saw her mom standing there, gray hair neat, arms folded in. “You don’t have to. We can get someone to come in and sort it out.”
“And what? Take it all to a thrift store?” Lark asked.
Her mom’s expression shifted slightly, just enough to convey about six emotions with no wasted effort. Emotional economy was Mary Ashwood’s forte. As contained and practical as Addie had been excessive. “Honey, I think most of this would be bound for the dump.”
“Mom, this is great stuff.”
“I don’t have room in my house for sentiment.”
“It’s not about sentiment.
