Love's Prayer (The First Street Church Romances Book 1) Read online

  Love’s Prayer

  The First Street Church Romances, Book 1

  Melissa Storm

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Free Gift

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Melissa Storm

  About the Author

  © 2016, Partridge & Pear Press

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; it may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.

  Editor: Stevie Mikayne

  Cover & Graphics Designer: Mallory Rock

  Proofreader: Falcon Storm

  Partridge & Pear Press

  PO Box 72

  Brighton, MI 48116

  To all the people who face the darkness of depression but still manage to find their smiles in the end.

  To Falcon.

  Thank you for picking up your copy of Love’s Prayer. I so hope you love it! As a thank you, I'd like to offer you a free gift. That's right, I've written a short story that's available exclusively to my newsletter subscribers. You'll receive the free story by email as soon as you sign up at www.MelStorm.com/Gift. I hope you'll enjoy both stories. Happy reading!

  Melissa

  Chapter 1

  Ben Davis had once believed in God. He had once believed in miracles, fate, divine intervention, and all the similar lies people told themselves to get through the day. Perhaps if he still believed, he wouldn’t find himself so tempted to stay in bed all day, to never get up—not even to eat—and to eventually die a slow, private death in the only place that still offered him any comfort at all.

  On this day, a Thursday, he spent longer than usual blinking up at the ceiling and wondering if he should just end it all with a swift bullet to the brain. After all, that’s what his older brother Stephen had done roughly five years ago. He’d wandered off into the town square and shot himself clean in the face for all of Sweet Grove to see. People were still talking about it to this day, and those who didn’t speak of it were most definitely thinking of it.

  Like his mother. She waded through the memories, attempting to silence them with the bottle. But even though the liquor often ran out, her grief remained endless, unquenchable.

  Ben wasn’t saddened by the loss of his brother. Even though he sometimes felt as if he should be. No, he was angry—his rage another unquenchable commodity in the Davis household. Stephen had selfishly chosen to end it all. He’d hurled his issues straight at Ben who, ever since that day, had been tasked with paying the mortgage, tending to their mother who had spiraled down the dark path of addiction, and without an outlet to enjoy any of the things he had spent years working toward and hoping for.

  He’d turned down his full-ride scholarship to college because he needed to take care of things here in Sweet Grove—things that only got worse the more his mother was left to grapple with her grief. Recovery remained a summit she just couldn’t reach, no matter how hard she climbed. So he’d turned the university down year after year, and eventually the admissions board had just stopped asking.

  Which left him here today, staring up at the popcorn ceiling above his twin-sized bed, no longer bothering to wonder if life could ever be any different. At 6:12, he placed one foot after another onto the shaggy carpet below and went to clean up for work. At 6:25, he was out the door with a piece of half-cooked toast in one hand and a banana in the other. He had five minutes to make the short walk from the quaint—and “quaint” was putting it kindly—home he shared with his mother to the local market where he worked as a bagger and delivery boy. Yes, even his job title suggested a more temporary arrangement, a job better suited to a boy than the man he had become—although only just barely. And he still worked here.

  “Good morning!” sang his boss Maisie Bryant as he tromped through the sliding glass doors. Each morning she arranged a fresh display of local produce and other seasonal specialties right at the front of the shop. As always, she took great pride in her work.

  Ben hated that his boss was only a couple years older than him. Maisie had managed to escape town long enough to earn a degree before coming back to run her family’s grocery store. While he didn’t know the exact numbers, he could bet that the youngest Bryant child made at least triple what he did for the same day’s work. But that was life for you—or at least for Ben. Never fair, not in the least.

  “Don’t I get a hello?” Maisie teased him as always. Some days he liked her chipper demeanor. This was not one of those days.

  “Hi,” he mumbled. “I’m going to go check the stock. See you in a bit.”

  “Wait,” she called before he could manage to make his escape. “I’ll handle the stock. The staff over at Maple’s called, and they need a delivery first thing. Think you can handle that? The purchase order is on the clock desk.”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  Ben hurried to put the order together and load up the designated Sweet Grove Market truck. A smiling red apple beamed from the side of the cargo hold. He hated that thing, but he did like having the opportunity to drive around a little, let the wind wash over him as he rolled about town. It sure beat walking everywhere, and since it offered his only opportunity to get behind the wheel, he relished every chance he got. Occasionally, Maisie would let him borrow the truck to head into the next town over and lose himself in the sea of unfamiliar faces.

  He’d once loved living in the type of place where everyone knew everyone and everyone looked out for everyone, but he hated how people who had once been his friends had begun to pity him. Ever since Stephen’s death, they couldn’t even look at him without betraying that sadness. Ben had become a reminder of how fragile life could be, of how everything could go to hell in the briefest of moments. And though their words were kind and their smiles were omnipresent, Ben knew better. He knew that he’d become a burden to them all, that his presence brought them sorrow.

  At first he’d tried to redirect them, to speak of something—anything—else, but after a while he just grew tired. It was easier to avoid them than to constantly have to apologize for the blight his terrible, selfish brother had brought onto their town. He’d have left if he could. Rather by vehicle or bullet, it didn’t matter.

  But his mother needed him. And as small and insignificant as it seemed, so did Maisie.

  So he remained, day after day.

  And so began another dark morning for Ben
Davis.

  Summer Smith arrived in Sweet Grove right around that awkward time of day when the sun was starting to set and ended up in her eyes no matter how hard she tried to look away. She loved sunshine, which is why she’d jumped at the chance to attend college in California, but now those four years had reached their conclusion and had left Summer more confused than ever about her future.

  Thank goodness her Auntie Iris needed her to run the Morning Glory shop for the season. She was jetting off on some fancy cruise she’d been saving up for half her adult life. True, that didn’t speak well of the money to be earned operating a small town florist’s, but then again, Summer had never been much taken with flowers anyhow.

  The problem remained that she’d never really been much taken with anything in life. And now that she’d reached that pivotal stage of needing to pick a career and finally set down roots, she was hopelessly lost. Two months, one week, and three days—that’s how much time she had to figure it out. At that point, Auntie Iris would return from her sail around the world and be ready to take back her shop and home. So for the next two months and some-odd days, Summer would be living a borrowed life. Luckily, she’d always liked her Aunt Iris.

  The old spinster greeted her at the door wearing a brightly colored blouse with leaf fronds printed along the neckline, and with freshly dyed hair that still smelled of chemicals. “Oh, there’s my Sunny Summer!” she cooed.

  Summer laughed as her aunt hopped up and down, still holding her tight. The hug probably could have lasted for days if a loud screeching hadn’t erupted from deep within the small ranch house.

  Iris let go of her niece and breezed through the doorway, dragging the smaller of Summer’s suitcases behind her. “Oh, enough, Sunny Sunshine!” she called, leaving Summer to wonder if her aunt affixed Sunny to the start of everyone’s name these days.

  The shrieking continued, growing louder as they made their way back toward the living room. There, in the far corner beside the small stone fireplace, sat a large iron cage with a colorful blur of feathers which screamed its lungs out.

  Iris rushed over and unlatched the cage, then drew out the little bird on a delicately poised finger. “Now that’s not how you make a good first impression. Is it, Sunny?”

  The bird ruffled its feathers like a little marigold flower then shook itself out.

  Iris laughed. “Much better. Now meet Summer.” She puckered her lips and blew a stream of air at the little bird, who made a happy bubble-like noise. Iris then offered the parrot to Summer who took a giant leap back.

  “I-I just… You didn’t say anything about a bird!”

  “Oh, Sunny won’t be any bother. Besides, you’ll be grateful for the company once you’re settled in and looking for a bit of fun.”

  “I tend to prefer the company of humans.”

  “Sunny is the human-est bird you will ever meet. Aren’t you, my baby?” She placed the little Conure on her shoulder and he immediately burrowed below the neckline of her blouse and stuck his head back up through the hole, making Iris look like a strange two-headed monster. Summer had to admit that Sunny was cute. Maybe she and the bird could come to some kind of agreement during their months together.

  Iris—bird in tow—showed Summer around the house, pointing out which plants needed to be watered when and taking extra care when it came to describing the needs of her little feathered friend.

  “Is that it?” Summer asked when the two had settled onto the loveseat following the grand tour.

  “Pretty much. What else do you need to know?”

  “How to run the shop, for one. Also, what am I going to do with myself to keep busy during the nights?”

  “I’ve written everything down in a big binder and left it for you near the cash register. Everything in the shop is clearly marked as well. You’ll use the key with the daisy head to open up shop. Hours are eight to three. And as for how you’ll keep busy…” Her eyes flashed as she bit back a Cheshire cat-sized smile. “Life in a small town is never boring. You’ll see.”

  “But, Auntie Iris, aren’t you worried I’ll mess things up with the shop?”

  Iris waved a hand dismissively. “You’ll figure things out.”

  Summer wasn’t sure whether her aunt was talking about running the shop or about life in general. Either way, Summer sure hoped she was right.

  Chapter 2

  After work that Thursday, Ben headed over to the one place in town where he still felt like himself—or at least the self he had been prior to that fatal gunshot that had ripped his life clean to shreds.

  “Good evening, Ben. I was wondering if we’d see you again this week,” said the librarian Sally Scott with a smile as she glanced up from the big circular desk where she sat reading a thick paperback novel.

  “Would’ve been here all day every day if I could, but this week has been… rough.” He sighed, thinking back to his mother’s blackout on Tuesday and how he’d had to watch her to make sure she continued to breathe as she coughed, choked, and vomited through the night.

  “Well, I’m glad you made it in today.” Sally smiled again and resumed her reading. Ben liked that she never asked too much nor did she constantly apologize about what had happened with Stephen. When they talked, they exchanged pleasantries like this most recent exchange, or they discussed intellectual things—history, science, academia. All the topics that brought Ben back to life at the end of a hard day.

  Sally had never once asked him why he preferred to spend hours in the stacks rather than simply checking out the books to take home. She never pried, never pressed, and in a way that absence of curiosity made her his best friend in all of Sweet Grove. Sad that his criteria for friendship was someone who respected him well enough to leave him be.

  Today he planned to catch up on Tsarist Russia. He liked finding out how the cartoonish antics of their parade of despots somehow eventually led the over-drinked, under-heated country to twentieth-century super power-dom. It somehow gave him hope that greatness could still spring from his life as well. A small hope, but still hope nonetheless.

  He licked his forefinger and turned to the section on Ivan the Terrible, one of the cruelest yet most productive figures in all of the world’s history. But the story of how he beat his daughter-in-law until she miscarried and then killed his own son when he tried to intervene was too much after the week he’d had. How could the ancient history of a far-off land still feel so new, so personal?

  Ivan had destroyed so many things during his reign and ultimately had left his mentally incompetent son Feodor as heir to the Russian throne. Was that because anyone with the strength to challenge Ivan’s terribleness ended up dead at his feet? And did that make Ben himself like poor, disabled Feodor—too stupid and too kind to stand up for himself?

  Oh, it certainly felt that way as he continued to bring his mother the liquor she requested and to clean up after her once the liquid drug had taken its toll. He’d not only put his own pursuit of greatness on hold, he’d completely disbanded it. All so he could stay at home and help his mother destroy herself with her unwillingness to address the grief they both struggled with day in and day out.

  Did that mean he was to blame for what his mother had become? That she may be better off without having him around as an enabler? Still there was no money, which meant the only way out would be by the same road his brother had taken—the one that led straight to hell.

  But this was hell already, wasn’t it? Here he sat reading about the sadistic history of a country that wasn’t even his own to somehow make himself feel better about his life. How far he’d fallen.

  Ben took a deep breath and eased the book shut. Not even the library could offer comfort today. Hopefully a new day and a new topic of research could work to improve his mood, but what if they didn’t? What if he no longer had a single place to which he belonged? What then?

  “Leaving so soon?” Sally asked, this time with a frown.

  “I’m not well,” he said, speaking of his hea
rt more than anything.

  “Oh, well. Feel better!” She waved good-bye and then disappeared down a long row of books.

  If only it were that easy, he thought, kicking at the pebbles that littered the sidewalk as he headed toward the house he shared with his mother. Would she be sober when he arrived? The fact that it no longer even mattered startled him once more. Only twenty-four and already his life had reached its natural end. Would it really be so wrong if he helped speed things up a bit? After all, that’s what his brother had done. And more and more that seemed like the best thing for Ben as well.

  Tomorrow was a new day. But would it wind up being his last? He couldn’t say for certain.

  The next morning, Summer awoke early to drive her aunt to the airport. After a quick good-bye, she returned to Sweet Grove to open up shop for the day. Finding the binder with the instructions her aunt had left out for her had been the easy part. Following them, though? The level of detail made her head hurt.

  And apparently she was expected to bring Sunny Sunshine to the store each morning to help greet customers—transported in his travel cage. Summer groaned. Why couldn’t Aunt Iris have warned her about that ahead of time? As it was, she still couldn’t be sure whether she could so much as touch the tiny bird without receiving a mean nip in the process.

  Well, that would be tomorrow’s problem. Today had already presented enough to keep her busy until closing time rolled around. Like for instance, where and what was the raffia? And how was she supposed to know the difference between an aster and a daisy? Would she actually be expected to prep her own arrangements to sell to customers?

  She wished her aunt would have taken more care in showing her the ropes before jetting off on her dream cruise. Sure, the instructions she had left were ridiculously detailed—practically a novel-sized tome—but Summer had always learned best through talking with others as she tried her own hand at new skills.