Find a Christian store

<< Go Back

The Secret of Willow Inn - Willow Falls Series Book One

By Pat Nichols

Order Now!

As far back as Emily Hayes could remember, her heart yearned for a sister. She directed her earliest requests to Santa Claus, which made Christmas mornings a confusing blend of excitement and disenchantment. Later she bargained with God. He disappointed her too. When she learned where babies came from, she petitioned her mom with promises to keep her room clean and be the best sister in the whole-wide world. Nothing worked. At some point the pleas stopped, but the lingering desire left a hole in her heart.

Thursday morning, she stepped outside the white-columned-home converted to a hospital and traced her ultrasound image with her finger. It wasn’t at all what she’d expected. She pressed her hand to her chest to ease the fluttering sensation, slipped the photo in her jeans pocket, and texted her husband. Have results. Meet me in the park in five.
A cool breeze nipped her cheeks and rustled the new crop of leaves on the mature willow-oaks lining Main Street. She dropped her phone in her purse, pulled her sweater tight, and crossed the two-lane road to the sidewalk fronting a grand estate. White columns extending from a railing supported the roof over the wide, front porch. The home was weeks away from final transformation to the Willow Inn, thanks to her parents' first effort to save their town from a slow, painful death.
The second stood next door—an abandoned four-story brick hotel. All they needed to bring it to life was a boat-load of money. If everything fell into place, their ship would come before they returned home. A bird fluttering to a nest in a tangle of ivy summoned images of new beginnings and eased Emily’s tense shoulders.
She wandered past the hotel to the adjacent lakeside park and settled on the foot-high retaining wall at the water's edge. She gazed across the street at the picturesque, century-old Main Street storefronts. Pepper’s Café’s faded awning flapped in the breeze and triggered memories from her childhood. Picnics in the park with her friends. Hiking with her dad to the waterfall. Begging her mom for a sister.

Order Now!

<< Go Back


Developed by Camna, LLC

This is a service provided by ACFW, but does not in any way endorse any publisher, author, or work herein.