Coming Home (The Morgans)
Read Coming Home (The Morgans) Online
Authors: Savanna Grey
Table of Contents
By Savanna Grey
Copyright © 2013 Savanna Grey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system – except in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews – without the written permission of publisher or author, except where permitted by law.
Published by Savanna Grey
Cover art by
Book Designs by Dee
Photos used to design cover were legally obtained from Colourbox.com
A Note From Savanna:
I am so very excited to share Victoria’s and Drue’s story with you. Their sweet struggle between love of friends and family is so heart-warming. The strength of a small town community is priceless as Victoria discovers.
I hope you enjoy their journey as much I did writing it. Even I was surprised by a few twists and turns the story ended up taking.
I would be remiss to not thank several people who helped bring my first book to fruition.
First, to my husband, children and extended family for encouraging me to finally put pen to paper, I love you all so very much. A special thank you to my mother for that extra push. Without that conversation, this never would have come to fruition.
To Deanna Hatmaker of
Book Designs By Dee,
thank you for bringing Victoria and Drue to life with the cover art. It’s really them. Author Janice Baker has been a lifeline throughout this entire process.
For endless nights of reading, editing, encouraging and constructively keeping me on track, I thank Barbara Durley for being my voice of reason.
To my readers, thank you for your support. I love to hear from you. Please visit me at:
Website:
www.authorsavannagrey.com
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/authorsavannagrey
Twitter: @AuthorGrey
Email:
[email protected]
Leaves rustled and rolled across the dying grass as the wind tussled Tori’s auburn curls into her face. Victoria Winslow would normally have admired the scenery. Mid-October in Illinois with all its changing colors and cooler weather was one of Tori’s favorite times of year. Today, though, she paid no mind to her surroundings. Two weeks ago she had stood in this same place as her beloved grandmother had been laid to rest. Tears streamed down her face unnoticed as emotions and memories swamped her.
She was alone now. Truly alone. She felt the threat of the dark depression try to creep in, but she couldn’t allow it. She feared if she did, she would not escape it. She was stronger than that. Her grandmother Millie would not want that.
Tori had adored her grandmother and grandfather, who had passed two years before her grandmother. They were truly the only parents she had known. Tori’s parents had been killed in a car accident when she was just five-years-old. Her grandparents had taken her, raised her and loved her from that day on.
With both of them now gone, Tori was at a loss.
She laid the flowers she had been crushing so tightly to her chest on the grave. “Well, as grandma always said – The Lord never gives you more than he knows you can handle. He must think I am an awfully strong person, Grandma, because all I want to do right now is curl up into a ball and pretend that you aren’t really gone.”
The wind picked up just then and felt like an embrace around Tori. She smiled. “Yeah, I know. Self-pity gets you nowhere.”
Tori blew a kiss at the headstone and lovingly stroked it. “I’ll talk to you soon. I’ve got a lot of things to do and decisions to make now, don’t I?”
Everything had been left to Tori – the house, the land, and all its belonging. Now she had to decide what to do with it.
Did she keep it or did she sell it? That is what she had to decide.
She had just over a month to decide and to get things settled before she had to return to work in Chicago. Her publishing firm where she was
an editor had given her a leave of absence until after Thanksgiving to get it all figured out.
As she folded herself back into the car and headed for home, butterflies settled in her stomach at the thought of being home for a solid month. It had been six years since she had lived here and six years since graduation night when everything had changed. She wouldn’t think about that right now, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to bury those memories for long.
The Winslow property sat just on the outskirts of the small town of Oak Creek, population 1,500. As Tori crossed the railroad tracks she had walked along many times as a child down to Oak Creek, the house came into view. The two-story farmhouse with wrap-around porch sat in the middle of five acres, surrounded by lush farmland. The property bordered the Morgan farm.
A warm smile crossed Tori’s face as she looked down the road to the Morgan’s home, which was about a mile down from hers.
Kevin Morgan had been her best friend since Kindergarten, and at age twenty-four he still was. They had started school together. Tori still remembered that fateful day that began a life-long friendship.
Tony Miller was a first
grade bully that liked to pick on little girls. Tori had been his target that day on the school bus. He had sat behind her and was determined to make her cry by pulling her braids and teasing her. Kevin was right there to defend her. He put Tony in his place and was Tori’s bus partner and friend from that day on.
Tori and Kevin had shared everything growing up. She could not count how many endless nights they had spent up on the hill at the Morgan farm under the massive oak tree overlooking their property. The whispers of the wind knew the many secrets, joys and frustrations of two child-hood friends. They had been inseparable. Everyone assumed a romance would develop, but it hadn’t.
Kevin
was truly the brother she had never had. They loved each other like family. Even after they graduated and went off to college, Kevin to University of Illinois and Tori to Arizona State, they stayed in close contact by email and phone.
There wasn’t much that Kevin didn’t know about with one exception. Tori’s smile faltered just a little at the thought of Kevin’s brother, Drue. She took a deep breath to calm the flutters in her stomach. No. It couldn’t be flutters after so many years. It had to be hunger.
Drue was two years Kevin and Tori’s senior and had walked on water as far as the teenage Tori had been concerned.
He and Kevin were so different from each other in personality, but no one could mistake them for not being brothers. Both were tall, broad-shouldered boys – well, men now – with dark chestnut hair that brought out the emerald green of their eyes. Their stares had the capability of losing you in their depths. Tori remembered when Drue would get angry with them for pestering him around the farm or sneaking up on him when he was with his latest girlfriend. His eyes would turn the deepest pools of emerald green she had ever seen.
Both boys had been taught from an early age by their father to work hard and be responsible. Kevin was the happy-go-lucky one of the bunch. He was always so carefree and mischievous. Drue was much different. He was always so serious and quiet. He would constantly reprimand Kevin and her for wasting so much time doing nothing but daydreaming up on that hill.
Of course, they in turn would always reply by telling him to “Lighten Up, big Brother.”
Drue would always just grunt and go on to the next chore.
Ironic how opposites attract, thought Tori. She had secretly adored him for years. No one knew, not even Kevin. That was until the night of hers and Kevin’s graduation party.
The Winslow’s and the Morgan’s were proud of their children and didn’t mind letting everyone know it. So, when she and Kevin graduated, they threw a big barnyard shindig as her grandpa always called it.
Tori still remembered how the Morgan’s barn looked with the lights strung, the band playing and practically the whole town was there to celebrate.
She painfully remembered watching Drue dance with what seemed like every girl in town. Tori had not lacked for boyfriends herself, but she only had eyes for Drue.
He had come home for Kevin’s graduation and was on summer break from his sophomore year at college. Time had done nothing to lessen the feelings Tori had for Drue. This frustrated and angered her. She just couldn’t understand why she could not get over Drue Morgan.
Why couldn’t she have fallen for Kevin? Cupid had such a sick sense of humor.
Her anger and frustration drove her that night. The memory burned her cheeks.
Her jealous
y and need had taken such root watching Drue, she could stand it no more.
She had fled the barn for much needed air before her lungs exploded from the pent up pressure. She was leaning up against the barn bent over trying to drag in big gulps of air when out of nowhere and to her dismay, Drue was at her side.
“Victoria, what’s wrong? Are you alright?”
He had always called her by her given name, never Tori like everyone else.
He had touched her so gently and his voice held what seemed like such concern that when Tori looked up and straight into his sea green eyes, she couldn’t stop herself. She kissed him. Really kissed him.
Tori had to laugh, shaking herself out of the past. More like threw herself at him.
Once Drue recovered from the shock, he removed himself from Tori’s embrace and proceeded to give her one heck of a lecture.
“What in God’s name is the matter with you?” he demanded.
“I’ve never seen you act like this. Is this what has become of you the past two years? Do you make a habit of throwing yourself at any available male? You should be grateful that it’s me standing here and not someone willing to take what you just offered for Christ’s sake!” he thundered.
She had run back to her house a mile up the road and had not spoken to Drue really since then.
Oh, they had seen one another at family gatherings and holidays but never been alone. It was always the required pleasantries but nothing more. The tension was always there between them.
Tori had vowed that day she would put Drue Morgan behind her, and she had, hadn’t she?
“Enough of that train of thought,” Tori told herself.
She wasn’t eighteen
anymore and life had moved on. She was looking forward to spending some time with Kevin and catching up. He had been so supportive through her grandmother’s death. So had Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. She didn’t know what she would do without them.
She looked up at her home and thought how quiet and lonely it was going to be. She wasn’t quite ready for that.
She kept her car headed up the road to the Morgan’s. She would stop in on Kevin first before she got settled.