It’s a pleasure to be participating in the
tour for SAVING JAKE by Sharon Sala, the third installment in her
Blessings, Georgia series.
Sharon writes a letter to her readers
telling a bit about her series and upcoming release along with an excerpt. In
addition, you can enter to win a copy of the second installment in the series, I’LL STAND BY YOU. Please see the end of
the post for more giveaway details.
There is always hope
After eight years in
the Marines, Jacob Lorde returns to Blessings, Georgia, with no plans other
than to hole up in his empty house and heal what’s left of his soul. But with a
charming next door neighbor and a town full of friendly people, keeping to
himself is easier said than done.
As long as
you can come home
Laurel Payne
understands far too well what Jake is going through, after witnessing her late
husband experience similar problems. She’s in no hurry to jump into another
relationship with a complicated guy, but their attraction is undeniable—and
perhaps exactly what both of them need.
Dear Reader:
I welcome you to Blessings, Georgia, the best
small town in the South.
No, there aren’t any secrets kept here, and yes, everybody
knows your business, but when bad things happen, good people come to your
rescue.
I grew up in a place like that—-a place everyone should live
in at least once in their lives, but since that’s not possible, I’m offering
the next best thing: stories about that way of life—-touching stories, funny
stories, stories that will break your heart on one page and heal it on the
next.
Count
Your Blessings was the novella introducing my readers to the Georgia
landscape.
You
and Only You was the first full-length novel set in Blessings. It’s a
story about the faithfulness of friends and family and what it means to be
Southern to the core, as well as being a sweet love story to enjoy.
I’ll
Stand By You was the second full-length novel. It’s a story about how
people starting life off on the wrong foot can still find a way to live happy
ever after.
Saving
Jake
is the next story, the one you’re holding in your hands. It’s a story that gets
to the heart of what matters in life: redemption, forgiveness, and trust. It’s
a story of the times, and yet timeless in its simplicity.
Pick up one of my stories and take a visit to Blessings with
me.
You just might like it enough to stay.
See you between the pages,
Sharon Sala
Chapter
1
Thomas Wolfe once wrote, “You
can never go home
again.” Jacob Lorde never took the word of a stranger. He was on the way home,
marking the passing of every mile with a war-weary soul. He needed a place to
heal and Blessings, Georgia, the place where he grew up, was calling him.
He’d come back briefly over a year ago to bury his father, and
the calm and peace of the place had stayed with him long after he’d returned to
his unit. Only a couple of months later, an IED on one patrol too many earned
him a long stint in the hospital and brought his time with the army to an end.
Now he was coming home to try and bury the soldier he’d been.
He wanted to be done with war.
He needed peace.
He needed the emotional security that comes with knowing where
he belonged.
He needed that like he needed air to breathe, so when the
Greyhound bus in which he was riding came around the curve and he saw the
city-limit sign of Blessings gleaming in the early morning sunlight, his eyes
blurred with sudden tears. He took the sunglasses from the pocket of his
uniform and slipped them on, then held his breath as the bus began to stop.
The brakes squeaked. They needed oil.
Jake stood slowly, easing the stiffness in a still-healing
leg, walked down the aisle, and then out into a sweet Georgia morning. He took
a deep breath, smelling pine trees on the mountains around him and the scent of
smoke from someone’s fireplace.
He was home.
The driver pulled his duffel bag from the luggage rack beneath
the bus, shook his hand, and got back on board. The rest of the trip home was
on Jake.
***
Ruby Dye had just opened The Curl Up and Dye when
the Greyhound bus rolled through Blessings, belching black smoke from the
exhaust. Because the bus came through Blessings on a regular basis, she never
paid it any attention, but today it began slowing down. When it stopped, she
moved closer to the window, waiting to see who got off, but the only person she
saw was the driver who circled the bus to remove luggage from the carrier
beneath.
A few moments later, the bus drove away in a small cloud of
the same black smoke. It was then Ruby saw the man in uniform reaching down to
get his duffel bag. From this distance she couldn’t tell who it was, but he was
limping slightly as he walked away.
“Welcome home, soldier,” she said softly, and then went back
to work.
***
Jake paused on the sidewalk
and took a deep breath as the early morning air filled his lungs. Enveloped by
the silence, he exhaled slowly as the weariness of the bus ride fell away.
Shifting the duffel bag to rest easier on his shoulder, he headed south. Unless
he caught a ride somewhere between here and home, he had a six-mile hike ahead
of him, but after sitting for so long, he didn’t care.
As he walked through town, it was
somewhat comforting to see everything pretty much looked the same. Granny’s
Country Kitchen still appeared to be the main place to eat. He thought about
stopping there for breakfast, but food wasn’t as urgent a need as it was to see
home.
He continued south down Main, noticing one
thing had changed. The old barbershop was closed. There was a sign in the
window that read: Haircuts Available at The Curl Up and Dye. He smiled,
remembering Ruby Dye and the girls at her shop.
When he noticed a school bus heading out
of town, he guessed the driver was beginning his route and thought of all the
boys and girls hurrying around in their homes right now, getting ready for
school, still innocent of what life could do to their dreams.
Traffic was picking up by the time he reached Ralph’s, the
small quick stop at the edge of town. He’d already had the utilities turned on
at the house a month earlier, had cable set up so he’d have television service,
and had the house cleaned at that time as well. But there wasn’t any food, and
picking up a few things here would be enough to tide him over while he settled
in. The bell over the doorway jingled as he walked in, which made everyone in
the store turn and look.
Jake knew the army uniform he was wearing and the military
duffel bag marked him as a vet and wondered if there was anyone inside who
might give him a ride.
Ralph Sinclair, who had always reminded Jake of Santa Claus
because of his white hair and beard, was behind the counter. “Jake! I heard you
might be coming home. It’s good to see you!”
“Hi, Ralph. It’s good to be here,” Jake said.
He set his duffel bag against the counter, picked up a small
shopping basket, and started moving down the aisles. He was reaching for a
squeeze bottle of mustard when he heard someone call out his name. When he
turned to look and saw Truman Slade standing at the end of the aisle, the first
thought that went through his head was, Well, hell.
Probably the only enemy he had in the entire state, and he was not only out of
prison, but back in Blessings. A muscle jerked in his jaw as he forced himself
not to react.
***
Truman Slade was two hundred and twenty-three
pounds of pure mean, exacerbated by the years he’d spent in prison thanks to
Jake Lorde’s testimony against him. Truman didn’t give a damn that all of that
had happened when Jake was still in high school. All he knew was the kid’s
statement at his trial sent him to prison for eight years. The years and
Truman’s lifestyle had not been kind to him. Even when he was young, his short
legs and big, round face, plus a distinct underbite, had given him a bulldog
look. Now he had the big belly to go with it.
The moment he’d seen Jake Lorde walk in the door, his first
thought had been time for payback.
He walked up to where Jake was standing, pushed himself into Jake’s personal
space, and waited for him to react. He so wanted to whip his ass.
To Truman’s dismay, Jake didn’t
acknowledge his presence. Instead, he calmly reached over Truman’s head for a
loaf of bread, which accentuated how short Truman really was, and how tall Jake
had grown. As he did, his elbow grazed the tip of Truman’s nose, which made
Truman flinch. Jake was acting as if Truman were invisible. When he turned
around and moved a few steps down and put a box of granola in the basket with
the bread and mustard, Truman followed.
“Still afraid of your own shadow?” Truman
whispered, then made a gun with his hand and pointed it at Jake.
Jake stared at Truman until he flushed a
dark, angry red and shoved both hands in his pockets. Jake walked back to his
duffel bag, pulled a big handgun from a side pocket, gave Truman another look,
and then slapped it down on the counter in front of Ralph.
“Hey, Ralph, do you know where I could get ammo for this?”
Truman heard Ralph talking, but he
couldn’t focus on the words, thinking of that look Jake had given him. It was
just beginning to dawn on Truman that war had changed Jake Lorde in a dangerous
way. By the time he tuned back in on what was being said, Jake had shoved the
handgun back into his bag and was at the deli, waiting to get some lunch meat
and cheese sliced to take home.
Truman was leaning against the counter with a smirk on his
face, and when Jake approached with his shopping basket to pay, Truman
purposefully slid his shoe in front of Jake, intending to force him to step
aside. Instead, Jake took the next step right on top of Truman’s shoe and then
stopped.
Truman inhaled sharply. The bastard was standing on his foot!
He started to push Jake off, and then something told him not to lay a hand on
the man. By his own actions, he was momentarily pinned to the floor.
Jake paid, picked up the groceries, shouldered his duffel bag,
and left the store.
Truman groaned beneath his breath when the pressure on his
foot was released and then hobbled out the door and drove toward town. He
needed to put distance between him and Jake Lorde to recoup his swagger.
As for Jake, his head was pounding as he walked out of the
store. The blood raced through his veins the same way it had done at the end of
a deadly exchange of gunfire. Even though the morning air was cool, he could
almost feel the desert heat. Despite his inability to focus, instinct kept him
moving toward home.
***
Laurel Payne was on her way into Blessings to an
early morning cleaning job. She would have to drop her daughter, Bonnie, off at
a friend’s house in town until it was time for them to walk to school. There
were always difficulties arising from being a single parent, and having good
friends to help her out like this made her life a little easier.
She was less than a mile from town when she saw the soldier
walking on the side of the road. Her heart skipped a beat. The sight of a man
in uniform was still a painful reminder of her own husband, Adam, who’d come
home from a war without a single wound and then shot and killed himself only a
few months later.
As for the traveler, she knew who he was even before she got
close enough to see his face. She knew because she’d been the one who’d cleaned
his father’s house weeks earlier. He was not a stranger. He was a few years
older, but she’d known him all her life.
When she passed him, the first thing she
thought was that the neighborly thing to do would be to give him a ride home,
but she didn’t want to reawaken the sleeping demons in her life by befriending
anyone who reminded her of Adam. Then she glanced in the rearview mirror, saw
the slight limp in his stride, and her heart sank. Despite her reservations
about getting involved, she hit the brakes.
“Mommy, what are we doing?” Bonnie asked, as Laurel made a
U-turn in the road.
“I’m going to give Mr. Lorde a ride home,” she said.
Bonnie frowned. “But Mr. Lorde went to heaven already. Did he
come back?”
Laurel sighed. “No, honey. That man we just passed is his
son.”
“Oh,” Bonnie said, but her curiosity was piqued.
***
Jake saw the old pickup coming toward him but paid
it little mind because it was going the wrong way to do him any good. When it
came closer, he noticed a young woman and a child inside, but didn’t recognize
them. He nodded politely as they passed and kept on walking.
When he was a little farther down the road, he heard the
vehicle braking, then turning around, and his first instinct was to brace for
another confrontation. When the pickup caught up with him and stopped, he
didn’t know what to expect.
Laurel rolled down the window and managed
a brief smile.
“Jake Lorde?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m Laurel Payne, your neighbor down the road. Get in and
I’ll take you home.”
Jake breathed an easy sigh of relief. “Thanks,” he said, and
put his things in the truck bed. He saw the little girl in the backseat as he
opened the door and winked at her as he got in.
Bonnie was immediately charmed, partly
because he reminded her of her father, whom she missed, and partly because he
belonged to Mr. Lorde, whom she had adored.
Laurel waited until he settled before she accelerated.
“Welcome home,” she said shyly, and kept her eyes on the road.
“Thank you,” Jake said, trying to figure
out who she was, and then it hit him. “You were Laurel Joyner, right?”
She nodded.
“You said it’s Payne now. By any chance
did you marry Adam Payne? I knew him in high school.”
“Yes, I did,” she said.
“My daddy is dead,” Bonnie announced.
Laurel sighed. “That’s my daughter, Bonnie. She’s a
first-grader this year.”
“Hello, Bonnie. I’m sorry about your daddy, and I’m sorry for
your loss,” he told Laurel.
“Thank you,” Laurel said, but when she wasn’t forthcoming with
any further information, Jake didn’t push the issue.
A few minutes later they drove up on the mailbox at the end of
his driveway. Laurel slowed down, and when she turned off the road and headed
up the driveway, the ruts were so deep that they bounced in the seats all the
way to the house.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Looks like you just pointed out the first repair I need to
put on my list,” Jake said.
She pulled up to the fence surrounding the yard, put the truck
in park, and started to get out.
“No, don’t get out. I can get it all,” Jake said. “I really
appreciate the ride and hope I didn’t make you late to wherever you were
going.”
“We’re fine with the time,” Laurel said. “Have a nice day, and
again, welcome home.”
“Thank you,” Jake said.
Laurel waited while he gathered all of his things from the
back of her truck and then headed for the front door. As soon as he was clear
of her truck, she began backing up to turn around.
When Jake turned to watch her hasty exit, he saw her little
girl on her knees in the backseat watching him. She waved.
He waved back and then they were gone and he had no other
excuses to delay the inevitable. He reached above the door for the key,
unlocked it, and went inside. He set his duffel bag against the wall and then
headed to the kitchen with the groceries.
His footsteps echoed on the old hardwood
floors, and despite the cleaning, the rooms smelled musty. He set the groceries
on the counter and then opened the two windows in the kitchen to start airing
the house. The house might get chilly, but he was choosing fresh air rather
than airless, musty rooms.
Opening the cabinet doors as he put up
food was like turning back time. His mother’s dishes were still stacked in the
same places they had been when he was growing up. A couple of coffee cups were missing,
probably broken from years of use. When he opened a drawer to the left of the
sink and found the notepads and pens they’d used to make lists and saw his
father’s writing on the top page of one pad, a moment of anger swept over him.
His father’s grocery list was still here, but he wasn’t.
He picked up the one on top to begin a
new list of things he was going to need, then took it with him as he walked
through the rooms, making notes of what he needed to buy.
He knew for sure he needed toilet paper, bath powder, and
toothpaste for the bathroom. Laundry soap, stain remover, and cleaning supplies
for the utility room. Light bulbs for the house, and everything it took to
restock a kitchen.
He was passing a window when he saw the school bus go by the
house. He glanced at the clock and smiled. Fifteen minutes to eight—-the same
time he’d always caught the bus. He continued through the house, checking off
things needing repairs. The showerhead was leaking and he’d noticed loose
boards on the front porch when he’d stepped on it.
Several times he thought he heard footsteps in the house and
would turn, expecting to see his father walk into the room with a big
welcome-home grin on his face, and then remember. He made a note to get a Wi-Fi
connection at the house and to set up his email.
It was moving toward noon when he finally closed all of the
windows and turned on the central heat to warm up the house, then grabbed the
keys to his dad’s pickup from a small nail inside one of the upper cabinets and
headed toward the barn. It’s where he’d left the truck after the funeral.
A trio of pigeons roosting in the rafters flew off when he
entered. The red Chevrolet truck was a little dusty but otherwise intact. Jake
unlocked it with the remote and then looked inside. It was just as he’d left
it. He backtracked to the last granary where he’d hidden the battery and put it
back in the vehicle. He checked the oil, the transmission fluid, and the air
pressure in the tires before he was satisfied, then started it up and drove it to
the house and parked beneath the carport.
He was back in the kitchen making a sandwich when he thought
of Laurel Payne again and wondered where she’d been going so early, then
wondered what she did for a living. It had to be tough being a single parent.
He sat down in the living room to eat and turned on the
television to catch local news, only to realize he didn’t recognize any of the
journalists reporting. So some things had changed after all.
The food he’d made was tasteless, but his hunger had been satisfied,
and that was all that mattered. He was thinking about going into town and
setting up his banking, then checking in with the post office to let them know
he was home and to resume delivery.
But then he fell asleep and went back to war.
The
explosion from the IED sounded like the end of the
world, and when Jake came to, he thought he was dead. The pain from his wounds
had yet to register, and he was trying desperately to stand. He couldn’t hear,
he couldn’t see for the smoke and dust, and he couldn’t
feel his legs. This was a blistering disappointment. He thought heaven would be
prettier than this.
Someone
yelled at him. DeSosa! He was telling him not to die, but the way he felt, he
wasn’t making any promises. It wasn’t until the ground began vibrating beneath him and the air was spinning above his head that
he started yelling for help. That was a chopper, and he didn’t want to be left
behind.
Jake woke up in a sweat, his heart pounding and tears in his
eyes.
“Son of a… Ah, God,” he muttered, and bolted off the sofa as
if he’d been launched, trying to get as far away from the dream as possible.
He yanked the front door open and strode onto the porch,
taking in the fresh air in gulps. The sweat on his forehead began to cool as
the tears dried on his cheeks, and he began to pace. The loose boards squeaked,
reminding him of a job still undone. Furious from the dream and frustrated
because the war still haunted his life, he went straight to the toolshed for a
hammer and nails, then back to the house.
Every time the hammer made contact with a nail, it took
everything he had not to duck, because it sounded like gunshots. He was so
focused on getting rid of the nightmare that he didn’t see Laurel Payne driving
home, but she saw him.
***
Laurel was already exhausted
and she still had four loads of laundry to do and supper to cook for her and
Bonnie. She’d actually forgotten about seeing Jacob Lorde this morning until
she drove past the house and saw him on his hands and knees on the porch. She
saw the hammer in his hand and remembered the loose boards when she’d been
there last month to clean the house. It was obvious he wasn’t wasting any time
putting it to rights.
But when she consciously noticed how broad his shoulders were,
she looked away. She didn’t care what he looked like. He didn’t matter in her
world and never would. She had a daughter to raise, and she wanted nothing to
do with another war vet.
Her head was hurting by the time she got home, and climbing
those steep steps into their double-wide trailer seemed like insult adding to
her injury. Once inside, she breathed a sigh of relief at being in her own
home, not someone else’s, and headed for her bedroom.
The first thing she did was take down her hair. It was thick
and a slightly curly auburn that hung well below her shoulders, and sometimes
having it up all day gave her a headache. As soon as it was down, the release
of tension in her body was palpable. She quickly changed her clothes and got to
work.
By the time the school bus stopped to let Bonnie off, Laurel
was taking the last batch of cookies from the oven. She had the third load of
clothes in the washing machine, a load in the dryer, and vegetable soup
simmered on the back burner.
The sound of Bonnie’s footsteps coming up
the steps of their trailer was Laurel’s signal for an emotional shift. Whatever
was bothering her did not belong on her little girl’s radar. She turned toward
the door with a smile. Seconds later, Bonnie came inside in a rush, talking
nonstop.
“Mama, I got a happy face on my new words,
and Lewis threw up on my shoe at lunch. Mrs. Hamilton washed it off but it
still smells funny. I think it got on my sock, too. Milly was mean to me at
recess but I told her she was acting like a baby. Then she cried, which proved
I was right. Can I have a cookie? How long till supper?”
Laurel grinned. “Come
here and give me a kiss. I missed you today.”
Bonnie threw her arms around her mother’s
neck and kissed Laurel’s cheek as she reached for a cookie.
Laurel grinned when she saw the second
cookie in Laurel’s other hand and stopped her long enough to get the stinky
tennis shoes and socks off Laurel’s feet.
“Change out of your school clothes before
you go feed Lavonne, and put on socks with your old shoes. It’s chilly out
today.”
“I will,” Bonnie said. “Can Lavonne have
a cookie, too?”
“No. Chickens don’t need to eat sugar.
Just her regular feed, okay?”
“Okay, Mama,” Bonnie said, and ran
barefoot to her room, her little feet making splat,
splat sounds as she went.
In minutes she was out the back door and running toward the
little chicken coop. Her daddy had built it for Lavonne, and she thought of him
every time she went to feed her pet, but it was getting harder to remember what
he looked like. That scared her a little, but she was afraid to talk to Mama
about it. She heard Mama crying sometimes at night. It was hard being Mama’s
big girl when she still felt little and scared.
When she unlocked the gate to the fence
around the coop and Lavonne came running, it made the sad thoughts go away.
Lavonne was her buddy and had the prettiest black feathers ever. Mama said she
was from a family of chickens called Australorps, but Bonnie disagreed. Lavonne
was from the family of Paynes.
The chicken’s constant clucks sounded a
lot like Bonnie’s chatter as Bonnie scooped up feed and put it in the feeder
inside the coop. When she left the chicken yard to get fresh water, Lavonne was
right beside her, clucking and occasionally pausing to peck the ground.
“What was that?” Bonnie asked. “Did you
get a bug? Good job!” Then she suddenly squatted and pointed her finger in the
grass. “Oooh, look, Lavonne, there’s another one!”
Lavonne was on it in seconds, then
wandered off a few feet while Bonnie carried fresh water back to the coop and
filled the watering station. As soon as she was through with all that, she
pulled a fresh hunk off the bale of straw and loosened it. She was getting
ready to put it in Lavonne’s nest when she saw the egg.
She squealed and dropped the straw then
came out of the chicken coop on the run, screaming, “Mommy, Mommy.”
When Laurel heard Bonnie’s scream her
heart stopped. She dropped the armload of wet clothes back into the washer and
went out the back door on the run.
“What’s wrong?” she cried, as Bonnie ran
into her arms.
Bonnie held out the egg in two hands as if it were pure gold.
“Look, Mama, look! Lavonne laid an egg. Does that mean she’s
all grown up now?”
Laurel was so weak with relief it took a
moment to answer.
“Well, my goodness, I guess it does. Way
to go, Lavonne,” Laurel said.
Bonnie giggled.
“We’re both growing up, aren’t we, Mama?
Here, you take the egg. I’m going to play with Lavonne some more.”
Laurel sighed as she watched Bonnie
running back to the coop. Yes. Her little girl was growing up. She turned
around to go back to the house, carrying the proof of Lavonne’s launch into
hen-hood, and the farther she went, the angrier she became at Adam. By the time
she reached the back steps, she was crying.
“Oh, Adam, just look at what you’re
missing. Why did you have to go and blow your damn head off? We need you. Life
wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
SHARON
SALA has
over ninety-five books in print and has published in five different genres. She
is a seven time RITA finalist, four-time Career Achievement winner from RT
Book Reviews, and five-time winner of the National Reader’s Choice Award.
Writing changed her life, her world, and her fate. She lives in Norman,
Oklahoma.
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Thanks
so much for stopping by today. What is it about small town settings that
appeals to you?
◊ SNOWFALL ON HAVEN POINT by RaeAnne Thayne
