Snow Creek, Michigan
"FORECLOSURE" the notice said, in big black angry letters. It made sense the letters were angry. It was his final notice. There had been three, threatening, but Lucas couldn't do anything about it.
Now, he really couldn't. He had thirty days to vacate and then the property would go up for auction.
"Dad? What does that say?" his five-year-old daughter Catie asked.
"Nothing you need to worry about, pumpkin."
She smoothed out the wrinkles in his forehead. "You got wrinkles."
He sat down with his daughter on his lap and hugged her tight. "Baby, what would you think about moving to a different place?"
"Do we gotta?" she asked, wrinkling her tiny, adorable pint-sized nose. He loved when she did that.
"Yeah. We do." He kissed that nose, making her giggle. Then she frowned.
"Why? This is our house."
"I know. But this new place will be nice too."
"Where is it?"
That was the issue. He didn't know. "You'll see."
"Is it an adventure?"
"Yes. It's a big adventure."
"Okay. Let's have a big adventure."
Lucas put Catie to bed that evening and started packing boxes while talking to his mom on speaker phone.
"Moving? Again, Lucas?"
"It's been a year, Mom. It's not like we are always moving."
"Yes, you are. What does that make it? Four times in four years?" That was true.
"Your point, Mother?"
"Catie needs stability. She needs a real home where she can make friends."
Lucas knew he was a failure, he didn't need his mother to tell him so.
His wife had left him for his best friend when Catie was about a year old. That was the first time they moved. He needed a new start, so he started over somewhere far away from his newly estranged wife and ex-friend. So, he had failed to keep her interested enough in him to keep her vows. Now he was failing to pay his bills on time because he had been laid off from his construction job. He was failing all over the place and apparently, according to Helen Bouchard, he was failing to provide stability for Catie. He was such a winner.
He thought this house would be his for years. He didn't know at the time that he would again fail. A few months before, he had been fired from his job at the lumber company because Catie had gotten sick, and he couldn't be at work for a week, and he had just started his job. Obviously, his daughter came first so it hadn't even been a hard choice. He ran odd jobs here and there, enough to feed her and pay for essentials. Then he couldn't find any more work since it was the dead of winter and anything he was even remotely good at, was seasonal.
He had a degree in horticulture, but no one was doing anything in their yards in the dead of winter in upper Michigan. Except for plowing snow. He didn't have a pickup so that was out of the question.
"Lucas?"
"Sorry, Mother. I need to go."
"Where are you going to move?"
"I don't know yet."
"I do have this big house…."
"I'm sorry. I don't want to live with my mother at the age of thirty-five."
"It would only be temporary…"
"I appreciate the offer. I'll let you know our new address when we have one."
"I love you, son."
"I love you too."
Exactly thirty days later, Lucas and Catie piled into their old car with the u-haul attached to the hitch and drove south toward their new home.
Lucas had been looking at a map and found it. The name said it all. Hope Valley, Tennessee. He didn't believe in signs per se, but Hope Valley sounded promising.
He had applied online for a tiny two-bedroom apartment in downtown Hope Valley and used his savings, which was dwindling fast, to pay first and last month's rent on it.
"Dad? I'm hungry."
"Okay, baby. I'll find us a place to eat."
He found a fast-food place with a dollar menu and ordered Catie hashbrowns and himself a coffee. Then they were on their way again. It was a ten-hour drive, and he really didn't want to arrive in Hope Valley at midnight.
An hour later, "Dad? I gotta go potty." Then she was hungry and then potty again. They arrived in Hope Valley before midnight at least but it was late, so he found a small country inn and got them a room.
The next day, they'd find their apartment and get settled.
The next morning,
Elizabeth Thornton watched as a man and a little girl pulled up to the parking spot in front of the hardware store in town and got out. The u-haul was sticking into the street.
"Not legal, buddy," she muttered from her window seat at Abigail's café.
She kept watching as the man got out of the driver's seat, stretched and yawned and then almost melted when he got his daughter out of the car and kissed her cheeks and forehead. Single fathers captured her heart. Although to be fair, she had no idea if he was single. He did have a nicely trimmed beard, dark hair and eyes and when he grinned at his daughter, those dimples….
Well, they reminded her of her deceased husband, Jack. He had been gone five years now and she still thought very fondly of him. They had only been married six months when he passed, so they hadn't been blessed with children but something about the tiny girl outside made her motherly hormones go crazy. At thirty-five, she knew she didn't have much time left to have children of her own, so she might have to go a different route.
The single father route was nice to think about.
"Who are you staring at?" Julie asked, a teasing tone in her voice as she refilled Elizabeth's coffee cup.
"Not staring."
"Whatever you are doing, who is it?"
"I don't know."
"He's cute." The tone in Julie's voice made her instantly want to claim him as having seen him first. "But not my type," Julie mentioned. "You should go introduce yourself."
"Nah. I need to get to work. See you later?"
"Yeah." Elizabeth walked down the street to Shepherd's Pediatrics and smiled when the bell above the door jingled.
"Carson?"
"Morning, Elizabeth," he said, walking in the waiting area. "We have a busy morning ahead."
"Alright. Let's help some kiddos."
Elizabeth loved her job. She loved kids and loved being a nurse for those kids. She loved working in a smallish city and knowing most people by name. She had known Carson in high school, despite him being about three years older than her. Also, her best friend was Faith, his wife.
The morning flew by, seemingly a flu bug was going through Hope Valley Elementary and lots of Mommy's were bringing their kiddos in to get checked out.
At lunch, they closed for an hour and she and Carson usually walked back to Abigail's Café for a bite, since it was the only place to eat a meal right in town.
Carson smiled at her across the booth as she chowed down on her chicken fingers and French fries. He always teased her that she ate like a five-year-old and she didn't deny it. Somehow, she kept her weight in check, even while eating like that.
"Dad! I want chicky fingers and Frenchy fries," an adorable voice said from nearby.
Elizabeth glanced over and froze. The man was even cuter up close. And his daughter, holy moly. She was angelic.
She noticed when the little one ordered her chicky fingers and frenchy fries, he just ordered a water. Hm. Interesting.
"You should go introduce yourself," Carson said quietly, his eyes on his phone.
"Talking to Faith?"
"Its been a long time, Beth. You deserve to move forward."
"Carson…" she said in her "let it be" tone.
"I have one more thing to say and then I will leave it alone."
"Fine."
"Jack loved you with all of his heart. He was my best friend for years and I know without a doubt, he would want you to be happy."
"I am happy, Carson."
"He would want you to be as happy as you can be. Have a family, if that's what you want. Love someone again."
"You done?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Yep. Faith says hi and she's looking forward to going to the movies with you tomorrow."
"Mmhm. Me too."
Elizabeth's eyes wandered back over to the handsome man and his angel. Now the angel was coloring after having eaten two chicken fingers and a few fries. The man was now eating what was left on her plate.
That explained the water. Why spend money on his own food when he knew his daughter wouldn't finish her own?
She caught a glimpse of his left hand. No ring. Still didn't necessarily mean that he was single but it was a relatively good indication.
The next night, Hope Valley Cinemas
"So you didn't introduce yourself?" Faith asked, eating her popcorn while they waited for the lights to go down.
"I can see it now. Excuse me, sir. I think you're cute and your daughter too. My name is Elizabeth. My friends think I'm lonely. Are you married?"
Faith giggled and tossed a few pieces of popcorn at Elizabeth. "Funny. We just want you to be happy."
"I am!" she said, throwing popcorn back at her friend. "You don't have to be married to be happy, Faith. Just because you and Carson are like Ken and Barbie…."
"Shush. We are not."
"You two are perfect. Blonde, blue eyes, gorgeous. Your babies are going to be just as pretty. You never fight…"
"Sure, we do."
"Fighting about who's prettier doesn't count."
They both laughed and the lights went down.
"I know how much you loved, Jack," Faith whispered. "And I know how much you love kids and always wanted to be a mom."
"I'm thirty-five," she whispered back.
"Not too old but…sometimes, you just need to take a leap and do something for yourself. He obviously moved to town and he has a daughter and word on the street is he is single."
"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" someone from behind them said.
They both looked behind them and glared and then laughed.
"Word on the street? Who says that?" Elizabeth asked.
"I do. He is renting the apartment above Yost hardware."
"Nuff said." Florence Yost was the gossip queen of Hope Valley. She would know if Mr. Cutie Pie were single.
"If you see him again, just go say hi," Faith said and then mimed that she was zipping her lips.
"Fine."
Lucas tucked Catie in that night and dropped onto the couch, exhausted. His phone rang. "Hi, Mom."
"Hi, son. Are you safe?"
"Yes, we are safe. I promise."
"Where did you move?"
"I'll send you the address," he told her.
"Tennessee? Could you move further away from me?" she asked once receiving his text.
"Yeah. I could have moved to Florida, or better yet, Alaska."
"Very funny."
"Mom, I think that I should be able to find a job in my field here. It rarely snows where we are, and I saw a lot of job postings for landscapers online. Maybe I can even open my own business."
"Did you get Catie registered for Kindergarten?"
"Did that this morning. She starts Monday."
"Okay." Her silence spoke volumes.
"Look, Mom. I know that I just am not good at this parenting stuff or this staying in one place stuff or even this being a son stuff…but I'm trying. I want Catie to be happy and maybe somewhere down the line, I can learn to be happy too."
"You are too hard on yourself, Lucas."
No. He was honest. His focus now was to get a job so that they could maybe stay put. He had a feeling that Hope Valley was the place that he'd been searching for, even though he hadn't known it.