Prologue
Written by Corinne Michaels
Present day…
“Mom! Can you help me bring down this box?” I yell as I’m hauling yet another box from the attic of my parents’ house.
I love them, but they sure love to keep everything.
“Give me a second, I’m making lunch!” she calls back.
Liam enters the attic, sweat trickling down his face and groans. “I’ve been through BUDs and countless schools with some of the toughest instructors and they have nothing on your mother.”
I laugh and shrug. He’s not wrong. My mother is crazy, brilliant, and likes things in order, exactly like me. Lord knows it doesn’t come from my father who can’t organize a thing. “She had to manage my father.”
“And you. You’re a handful.”
He’s stupid, amazing, but stupid. “You should talk.”
“Oh, I know I’m a mess, but what does it say about you?”
“Me?”
He grins. “You married me.”
“That I did. God help me. And I let you knock me up.”
Liam looks at my belly. “How is the baby?”
“Good,” I reassure him. Each trip he asks and tries to tell me how I need to take it easy. Not sure how much easier I can take it when I don’t move.
I reach down into the box, noting it’s yet another box of old books. “She has so many old books up here. I’m not sure why she has kept them all.”
“Because she’s also a hoarder.”
“She’s not a hoarder.”
He lifts up some VHS tapes from a box. “No? And what, my love, is she watching these on?”
I get up and walk over to another section of very old appliances and show him the VCR. “This?”
“So she likes old things that probably don’t work?”
“She likes my father.”
He laughs. “And what about you? Is this a glimpse into our married life?”
I walk over to my extremely attractive husband, wishing I could wrap my arms around him fully, but my belly stops us. “Maybe. Would you hate me if it was?”
His grin is playful. “I could never hate you.”
“Good to know.”
“However, I will tell you there is not a single part of me that’s excited about you turning our house into this.”
“Noted.” I lean up and kiss him. “Now, move boxes while I keep sorting.”
He walks me back over to the chair I was in for the last two hours and stretch. I’m only seven months pregnant, but you’d swear I was nine. I’m so big and uncomfortable. Liam didn’t give me hell about this because my parents are moving to Virginia Beach to help with the kids while he goes back into the field in a few months.
Liam hefts another box up into his strong arms. “You know, I pictured our honeymoon a bit more . . . romantic.”
“I’m sure you did, but Arkansas has its charms.”
“It does?”
“Well, it has my parents and they’re watching Aara each morning so we can sleep in.”
He raises one brow. “And they say married life changes couples.”
I stick my tongue out to which he replies with blowing me a kiss before walking downstairs.
I sort the box of books into different piles. Some will be donated, others tossed, and Mom says she wants to keep anything with a love story.
A lot of these books are covered in dust, clearly not touched or read in a long time, but, I know how my mother is about books so I take my time.
As I start to dig deeper into box number five, I come across a black leather-bound book with nothing on the spine.
It’s old. Extremely old and there’s no title page. I flip another, being extra cautious because the pages feel like they could turn to dust if I rub them too hard.
I turn another and notice it’s not a book, but it’s a diary.
The name written on the page is Naomi Gilcrest.
Now I’m intrigued.
It’s definitely not my mother’s writing so I start to read.
Just as I lean back my mother pops her head in. “Natalie?”
“Mom, look what I found.”
She walks over, looking at it. “Ah, I see you found your great, great, great, great, great grandmother Naomi’s journal.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
Mom chuckles. “I know, and I may be off and need to add a few more onto that, but you get the point. It’s old and Naomi’s diary is . . . well, great.”
“You’ve read it?”
She nods. “Your father’s grandma gave it to me when we had just started dating. She said her,” she pauses and then shakes her head. “However many grandmothers back it was for her had an amazing story. She told me about how detailed and intriguing her story was.”
“Really?”
My mother’s smile is bright. “Oh, filled with mystery and drama, like all the good ones are.”
“Why haven’t you ever told me about this?”
“I forgot it was up here, honestly. You know, if I remember, her life was quite a bit like yours in some ways.”
I scrunch my nose. “Drama with other women and a bad ex?”
Mom laughs. “Well, yes, but I mean her love story. Naomi was a woman that struggled through life. She didn’t have it easy, especially when it came to men.”
“We must not be the same then since I have Liam.”
“Yes, love, you do, but you didn’t always, and neither did she. Her first husband, Arthur, wasn’t great and left her a widow.”
I smile, touching the cover of the book lovingly. “So she was strong at a time that women were considered weak.”
“From all that I remember, yes. She then . . . well, you know Lee, now that I think of it, she’s a lot like you overall. Not just your story but also who you are and all you’ve endured.”
I open the book again, touching the ink from so long ago. “Then she must have been fantastic.”
“She probably was.”
“I’d like to read it,” I tell her.
She looks around. “Why don’t you head down now and get some lunch. Maybe you want to take a . . . nap.” Mom winks. “You know, with that diary . . .”
I catch on and shake my head. “Is that what you did when you napped when I was little?”
“Darling, when you have a good book, you’ll do just about anything to finish it. I napped, took very long showers, and did a lot of time at the grocery store to get reading in.”
All her secrets being exposed. “Well, then I may just do that now. I’d like to learn about her struggles.”
Mom kisses my cheek. “And let me know if her love story was as happy as yours in the end.”
I think about my husband and smile. “I will, but there’s only one Liam and he’s mine.”
But I’d like to see if Naomi had anything like my love story.
Chapter One
November 1828, Milton Cottage, Dorset, England
Mrs. Naomi Gilcrest studied the minuscule radish in her hand and shaking her head, tucked it into her apron. Although it was nearing the end of October, only a handful of her crops were coming to fruition.