I Want to Hold Your Hand (42 page)

“You make a good point, even if I can’t picture those products in our store.”

“Leave that part of it to me.”

“Gladly.”

“So we’ve got a plan?”

Elmer raised his mug. “It’s a plan. Let’s go for three.”

 • • • 

Thanks for reading
I Want to Hold Your Hand
! Watch for book three,
I Saw Her Standing There,
Colton and Lucy’s story, in November 2014.

I Saw Her Standing There
is available now for preorder from all major retailers and at
marieforce.com/books/the-green-mountain-series
. Keep reading for chapter 1 of
I Saw Her Standing There.

Now that you’ve finished
I Want to Hold Your Hand
, join the Reader Group at
facebook.com/groups/IWantToHoldYourHand
to discuss Hannah and Nolan’s story. Remember that spoilers are allowed and encouraged in the individual book groups, so don’t join until you’ve read the book. Also join the Green Mountain Reader Group at
facebook.com/groups/GreenMountainSeries
for series news and other updates! No spoilers in the series group please. You can also join my mailing list at
marieforce.com
to be notified about new books, and feel free to contact me at [email protected].

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In preparing to write a book about a war widow, I connected with Cait Needham, who lost her husband, Master Sergeant Robb G. Needham, U.S. Army Reserves (Activated), on September 20, 2006 in Baghdad, Iraq. Cait introduced me to Dee Baily, who lost her husband, Army Spec. William L. Bailey, on May 26, 2007 in Iraq, and Army Lt. Col. Rebecca Eggers, who lost her husband, Army Captain Daniel W. Eggers, on May 29, 2004 in Afghanistan. Each of these brave women generously shared intimate details of their loss and the journey of rebuilding their lives. I’m so grateful to them and thankful for their service and the tremendous sacrifices they, their husbands and families made on behalf of our country. Rebecca was also a huge help with the details of Caleb’s army career and read the book to make sure I got it right. Thank you, Rebecca!

I read and was incredibly moved by
The Letter: My Journey Through Love, Loss and Life
by Marie Tillman, wife of Army Specialist Pat Tillman, who famously left a lucrative professional football career to become an Army Ranger after 9/11. He was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004 and was posthumously promoted to corporal.

I also recommend
Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love
by Matthew Logelin;
Where You Left Me
by Jennifer Gardner Trulson;
I’ll See You Again
by Jackie Hance and Janice Kaplan; and
Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman
by Mary Tillman.

My thanks go to Bob Cupp for his assistance with car-racing details and for providing some real-life fodder for the character of Skeeter.

I’m so fortunate to have an amazing team working with me to help keep things running smoothly at home and at work so I can focus on my books. Thank you to Team HTJB, especially my assistant and right hand, Julie Cupp, as well as Holly Sullivan, Isabel Sullivan, Lisa Cafferty, Nikki Calquhoun and Cheryl Serra.

To the amazing team at Berkley, including my lovely editor, Kate Seaver, as well as Leslie Gelbman, Susan Allison, Erica Martirano, Erin Galloway, Courtney Landi and Katherine Pelz. You all have been so fun to work with as we bring the Abbott family to life.

A very special thank-you to my agent, Kevan Lyon, for all her support and assistance.

To my lovely beta readers Ronlyn Howe, Kara Conrad and Anne Woodall, I appreciate your willingness to make time for me when I need you! You’re the best!

As always, a special thanks to my family, Dan, Emily and Jake, and to my dad, who listens to every detail about the business and provides sage wisdom and advice. I wrote this book during a time of tremendous personal change as I saw my oldest off to college and my youngest off to high school. There’s a tad bit of grief involved with the end of one era and the beginning of another. Writing Hannah and Nolan’s story gave me a productive outlet for all those emotions, and they took me on an amazing journey. Many of you know I was a Navy wife for the first ten years of my married life, and I have huge respect for the sacrifices service members and their spouses make every day.

Big hugs to Brandy and Louie, my fur friends who keep me company while writing, and I know which one of you keeps stealing my stuffed Fred the Moose. Now I just have to catch you in the act!

Finally, my heartfelt gratitude to the readers who’ve loved my books and embraced my characters. You make every day so much fun, and I appreciate each and every one of you.

xoxo,

Marie

Turn the page for a preview of the next book in the Green Mountain series

I SAW HER STANDING THERE

Coming in November 2014 to Berkley Sensation and available now for preorder at all major retailers and
marieforce.com/books/the-green-mountain-series.

C
olton Abbott had never considered himself a particularly private person—that is until he had something big to hide from his loving but overly involved family. His six brothers, three sisters, two parents and one grandfather were
dying
to know how he was spending his weekends lately, and Colton was
loving
that they had no idea. Not the first clue.

A smile split his face as he drove across Northern Vermont, from his home in the Northeast Kingdom town of Butler to Burlington, where his family owned a lake house and where his “secret” girlfriend would be meeting him in a couple of hours. He wanted to get there early and hit the store for supplies so they could relax and enjoy every minute of their time together.

Colton had big plans for this weekend, the sixth one he’d spent completely alone with her. During that time, they’d talked about every subject known to mankind, they’d kissed a lot, fooled around quite a bit and last weekend, they’d even gone so far as to take each other all the way to blissful fulfillment. But they’d yet to have sex.

He intended to fix that this weekend before he lost his mind from wanting more of her. He’d tried to respect her wishes to “take things slow” so they didn’t “get in over their heads” when they lived so far from each other and had so little time to spend together. Of course he’d heard people say for years that long-distance relationships sucked, but until he’d experienced the suckage personally, he’d had no idea just how totally the situation sucked.

It got worse with every weekend they spent together when he was left wanting more and having to wait a full week before he could see her again. They’d been lucky so far. Other than the weekend he’d stayed home for the funeral of his sister Hannah’s dog Homer, they’d had six straight weekends with no other commitments to get in the way of their plans, but he knew reality would interfere eventually. They both had busy lives and families and other obligations that would mess with the idyllic routine they’d slipped into over the last month and a half.

They’d met halfway the other times, and this would be the first time since they met that she’d come to Vermont. Since he wasn’t quite ready to expose her to the austere life he led on his mountain, he’d asked his dad for the keys to the lake house.

And what an odd conversation that had been . . . With time to think about it during the two-hour ride across the state, Colton had the uncomfortable suspicion that the one person he wasn’t fooling with his secret romance was his dear old dad.

Colton had planned his attack stealthily, coming down off the mountain on a rare Thursday to see his dad at the office. Waiting until most of his siblings had left for lunch—except for Hunter, who never seemed to leave the office for any reason except a fire alarm—Colton had sat in his truck and watched his dad step out of the diner and head back across the street to the office above the family-owned Green Mountain Country Store in “downtown” Butler, if you could call Main Street a downtown.

Colton had emerged from his truck and followed Lincoln up the back stairs that led to the offices where he and five of Colton’s siblings ran the store. Colton kept his head down as he walked past Hunter’s office and knocked on his dad’s door.

“Hey,” Lincoln said with obvious pleasure. His father was always happy to see him, which was one of the many things in life Colton could count on. “This is a nice surprise. Come in.”

Colton shook his father’s outstretched hand and took a seat in one of his visitor chairs.

“To what do I owe the honor of a rare midweek visit from the mountain man?”

“I needed a couple of things in town, so I figured I’d stop by.”

“Everything okay up the hill?”

“It’s all good. Quiet and relaxing this time of year, as always.” Colton thought of early summer as the calm that followed the storm of boiling season, during which he produced more than five thousand gallons of the maple syrup that was sold in the store. After eleven years of running the family’s sugaring facility, his life had fallen into a predictable pattern governed by twenty-five thousand syrup-producing trees.

“I’m glad you stopped by. I was going to come up to see you today or tomorrow.”

“How come?”

Lincoln rooted around on his desk, looking for something in the piles of paper and file folders. “Ah, here it is.” He pulled out a light blue page and handed it over to Colton.

As he scanned the announcement of a trade show in New York City, he skimmed the details until he realized what he was reading. “What the hell, Dad?
Pleasure aids and sensual devices?
What’s that got to do with me?” He nearly had a heart attack at the thought of his father thinking he needed such things to move the relationship his father wasn’t supposed to know about forward.

“I’m considering the line for the store, and I’m looking for someone to send to the show. Since this is your off-season, I thought you might be able to make the trip for us.”

While trying to wrap his mind around the idea of “pleasure aids and sensual devices” on sale at their homespun country store, he tried to keep his expression neutral. Though he was slightly appalled at the reason for the mission, the location interested him very much.

In the interest of keeping his big secret a secret, he kept his reaction casual and uninterested. “What do the others have to say about that product line?”

“I haven’t exactly mentioned it to them yet. I figured I’d let you check it out first and see what you think before I bring it to them.”

“Why me?”

“Why not you? Everyone else is up to their eyeballs in work and life stuff, so it seemed to make sense to ask you now that your busy season is over for the time being.” Lincoln shrugged. “But if you’re not up for going—”

“Never said that.” He’d be a fool to pass up a chance to spend a whole week with her. “I’ll do it, but with the caveat that I think this product line has no business in our store.”

“So noted.”

“And I think you’re in for yet another battle royal with your kids over it.”

“I live for a good row with my kids,” Lincoln said with a grin that made his blue eyes twinkle with mirth.

“Don’t I know it,” Colton muttered. The latest row had involved the website designer Lincoln had hired behind the backs of his children, who’d made it clear they had no interest in taking their store online. Then Cameron Murphy had come to town and won the hearts of the entire Abbott family, especially Colton’s older brother Will, who was now madly in love and living with Cam as she designed the website for the store. Lincoln Abbott had a way of getting what he wanted, and Colton and his siblings had learned to be wary of their father’s motivations.

In this case, however, Colton couldn’t care less about his father’s motivations. Not when he was looking at a full week with his lady.

“Talk to Hunter about getting you registered,” Lincoln said, clearly pleased with Colton’s capitulation.

“I will.” Colton folded the flyer into a square, with the images on the inside, and stashed it in his pocket. “Since you now owe me a favor, I was wondering if I could use the lake house this weekend.” When his father gave him an oddly intuitive look, Colton added, “I feel like doing some fishing.”

Lincoln didn’t move or respond for a long, uncomfortable moment.

Colton had begun to sweat under the steely stare his father directed his way.

“Of course, son,” Lincoln finally said, withdrawing a set of keys from his top desk drawer and handing them over. “You remember the code right?”

Since the code was his parents’ wedding anniversary and had been for as long as they’d owned the house, Colton nodded and stood. “Thanks.”

“Have a good time.”

“I will.”

“Are you taking the dogs with you?”

“I thought I would if that’s okay.”

As Lincoln Abbott was the biggest “dog person” Colton had ever known, he wasn’t surprised when his dad said, “Of course it is.”

Now as Colton drove to the lake with his dogs, Elmer and Sarah, asleep in the backseat, he pondered the odd look his father had given him when he asked to use the lake house and wondered what it had meant. He thought about the bizarre conversation with his older brother Hunter, who’d questioned what in the hell their father wanted with pleasure aids and sensual devices in the store, before he begrudgingly registered Colton for the trade show that would take place in New York in two weeks.

Colton had merely shrugged and refused to engage in the war of words that would no doubt take place between his father, the CEO, and his brother, the CFO. Let them duke it out. No way was Colton going to get in the middle of their dispute when he’d been handed a free pass to a week in New York.