Thomas Bailey Aldrich:
The Story of a Bad Boy - Taschenbuch
2007, ISBN: c905f542e7b3a909f0739a2887e0bb2f
Silhouette. Very Good. 4.21 x 1.18 x 6.62 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 2007. 448 pages. <br>Home for Christmas After years spent abroad, repo rter Jason Law returned home determi… Mehr…
Silhouette. Very Good. 4.21 x 1.18 x 6.62 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 2007. 448 pages. <br>Home for Christmas After years spent abroad, repo rter Jason Law returned home determined to win back the girl he l eft behind. It would take all his skills-and then some-to win Fai th back. But this time, nothing would stand in his way-it was tim e faith was rewarded. All I Want for Christmas Identical twin b oys Zeke and Zach wanted only one gift from Santa this year: a ne w mom! But convincing their love-wary dad that their music teache r, Miss Davis, was his destiny and part of Santa's plan wasn't as easy as they'd hoped-. Gabriel's Angel All Gabriel Bradley wan ted was solitude. But when Laura ended up at his remote cabin dur ing a blizzard, desperate, alone and on the run, the modern-day S crooge couldn't turn her away. For she brought him the gift of pa ssion, life, hope-if he had the courage to reach for it. Editori al Reviews About the Author Nora Roberts is the bestselling auth or of more than two hundred romance novels. She was the first aut hor to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fa me. Since her first bestseller in 1991, Nora's books have spent m ore than two hundred weeks in the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list. There are more than five hundred million copies of her books in print, published in over thirty-four count ries. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. S o much can change in ten years. He was prepared for it. All durin g the flight from London and the long, winding drive north from B oston to Quiet Valley, New Hampshire, population 326-or it had be en ten years before when Jason Law had last been there-he'd thoug ht of how different things would be. A decade, even for a forgott en little town in New England was bound to bring changes. There w ould have been deaths and births. Houses and shops would have cha nged hands. Some of them might not be there at all. Not for the first time since Jason had decided to visit his hometown did he f eel foolish. After all, it was very likely he wouldn't even be re cognized. He'd left a thin, defiant twenty-year-old in a scruffy pair of jeans. He was coming back a man who'd learned how to repl ace defiance with arrogance and succeed. His frame was still lean , but it fitted nicely into clothes tailored on Savile Row and Se venth Avenue. Ten years had changed him from a desperate boy dete rmined to make his mark to an outwardly complacent man who had. W hat ten years hadn't changed, was what was inside. He was still l ooking for roots, for his place. That was why he was heading back to Quiet Valley. The road still twisted and turned through the woods, up the mountains and down again, as it had when he'd heade d in the opposite direction on a Greyhound. Snow covered the grou nd, smooth here, bumpy there where it was heaped over rocks. In t he sunlight trees shimmered with it. Had he missed it? He'd spent one winter in snow up to his waist in the Andes. He'd spent anot her sweltering in Africa. The years ran together, but oddly enoug h, Jason could remember every place he'd spent Christmas over the last ten years, though he'd never celebrated the holiday. The ro ad narrowed and swept into a wide curve. He could see the mountai ns, covered with pines and dusted with white. Yes, he'd missed it . Sun bounced off the mounds of snow. He adjusted his dark glass es and slowed down, then on impulse, stopped. When he stepped fro m the car his breath came in streams of smoke. His skin tingled w ith the cold but he didn't button his coat or reach in his pocket s for his gloves. He needed to feel it. Breathing in the thin, ic y air was like breathing in thousands of tiny needles. Jason walk ed the few feet to the top of the ridge and looked down on Quiet Valley. He'd been born there, raised there. He'd learned of grie f there-and he'd fallen in love. Even from the distance he could see her house-her parents' house, Jason reminded himself and felt the old, familiar surge of fury. She'd be living somewhere else now, with her husband, with her children. When he discovered tha t his hands were balled into fists he carefully relaxed them. Cha nneling emotion was a skill he'd turned into an art over the past decade. If he could do it in his work, reporting on famine, war, and suffering, he could do it for himself. His feelings for Fait h had been a boy's feelings. He was a man now, and she, like Quie t Valley, was only part of his childhood. He'd traveled more than five thousand miles just to prove it. Turning away, he got back in the car and started down the mountain. From the distance, Qui et Valley had looked like a Currier and Ives painting, all white and snug between mountain and forest. As he drew closer, it becam e less idyllic and more approachable. The tired paint showed here and there on some of the outlying houses. Fences bowed under sno w. He saw a few new houses in what had once been open fields. Cha nge. He reminded himself he'd expected it. Smoke puffed out of c himneys. Dogs and children raced in the snow. A check of his watc h showed him it was half past three. School was out, and he'd bee n traveling for fifteen hours. The smart thing to do was to see i f the Valley Inn was still in operation and get a room. A smile p layed around his mouth as he wondered if old Mr. Beantree still r an the place. He couldn't count the times Beantree had told him h e'd never amount to anything but trouble. He had a Pulitzer and a n Overseas Press Award to prove differently. Houses were grouped closer together now, and he recognized them. The Bedford place, Tim Hawkin's house, the Widow Marchant's. He slowed again as he p assed the widow's tidy blue clapboard. She hadn't changed the col or, he noticed and felt foolishly pleased. And the old spruce in the front yard was already covered with bright-red ribbons. She' d been kind to him. Jason hadn't forgotten how she had fixed hot chocolate and listened to him for hours when he'd told her of the travels he wanted to make, the places he dreamed of seeing. She' d been in her seventies when he'd left, but of tough New England stock. He thought he might still find her in her kitchen patientl y fueling the wood stove and listening to her Rachmaninoff. The streets of the town were clear and tidy. New Englanders were a pr actical lot, and Jason thought, as sturdy as the bedrock they'd p lanted themselves on. The town had not changed as he'd anticipate d. Railings Hardware still sat on the corner off Main and the pos t office still occupied a brick building no bigger than a garage. The same red garland was strung from lamppost to lamppost as it had been all through his youth during each holiday season. Childr en were building a snowman in front of the Litner place. But whos e children? Jason wondered. He scanned the red mufflers and brigh t boots knowing any of them might be Faith's. The fury came back and he looked away. The sign on the Valley Inn had been repainte d, but nothing else about the three-story square stone building w as different. The walkway had been scraped clean and smoke billow ed out of both chimneys. He found himself driving beyond it. Ther e was something else to do first, something he'd already known he would have to do. He could have turned at the corner, driven a b lock and seen the house where he grew up. But he didn't. Near th e end of Main would be a tidy white house, bigger than most of th e others with two big bay windows and a wide front porch. Tom Mon roe had brought his bride there. A reporter of Jason's caliber kn ew how to ferret out such information. Perhaps Faith had put up t he lace curtains she'd always wanted at the windows. Tom would ha ve bought her the pretty china tea sets she'd longed for. He'd ha ve given her exactly what she'd wanted. Jason would have given he r a suitcase and a motel room in countless cities. She'd made her choice. After ten years he discovered it was no easier to accep t. Still, he forced himself to be calm as he pulled up to the cur b. He and Faith had been friends once, lovers briefly. He'd had o ther lovers since, and she had a husband. But he could still reme mber her as she'd looked at eighteen, lovely, soft, eager. She ha d wanted to go with him, but he wouldn't let her. She had promise d to wait, but she hadn't. He took a deep breath as he climbed fr om the car. The house was lovely. In the big bay window that fac ed the street was a Christmas tree, cluttered and green in the da ylight. At night it would glitter like magic. He could be sure of it because Faith had always believed so strongly in magic. Stan ding on the sidewalk he found himself dealing with fear. He'd cov ered wars and interviewed terrorists but he'd never felt the stom ach-churning fear that he did now, standing on a narrow snow-brus hed sidewalk facing a pristine white house with holly bushes by t he door. He could turn around, he reminded himself. Drive back to the inn or simply out of town again. There was no need to see he r again. She was out of his life. Then he saw the lace curtains a t the window and the old resentment stirred, every bit as strong as fear. As he started down the walk a girl raced around the sid e of the house just ahead of a well-aimed snowball. She dived, ro lled and evaded. In an instant, she was up again and hurling one of her own. Bull's-eye, Jimmy Harding! With a whoop, she turned to run and barreled into Jason. Sorry. With snow covering her fro m head to foot, she looked up and grinned. Jason felt the world s pin backward. She was the image of her mother. The sable hair pe eked out of her cap and fell untidily to her shoulders. The small , triangular face was dominated by big blue eyes that seemed to h old jokes all of their own. But it was the smile, the one that sa id, isn't this fun? that caught him by the throat. Shaken, he ste pped back while the girl dusted herself off and studied him. I'v e never seen you before. He slipped his hands into his pockets. But I've seen you, he thought. No. Do you live here? Yeah, but t he shop's around the side. A snowball landed with a plop at her f eet. She lifted a brow in a sophisticated manner. That's Jimmy, s he said in the tone of a woman barely tolerating a suitor. His ai m's lousy. The shop's around the side, she repeated as she bent t o ball more snow. Just walk right in. She raced off holding a ba ll in each hand. Jason figured Jimmy was in for a surprise. Fait h's daughter. He hadn't asked her name and nearly called her back . It didn't matter, he told himself. He'd only be in town a few d ays before he took the next assignment. Just passing through, he thought. Just cleaning the slate. He backtracked to walk around the side of the house. Though he couldn't imagine what sort of sh op Tom could have, he thought it might be best to see him first. He almost relished it. The little workshop he'd half expected tu rned out to be a miniature of a Victorian cottage. The sleigh out in front held two life-size dolls dressed in top hats and bonnet s, cloaks and top boots. Above the door was a fancy hand-painted sign that read Doll House. To the accompaniment of bells, Jason p ushed the door open. I'll be right with you. Hearing her voice again was like stepping back and finding no solid ground. But he' d deal with it, Jason told himself. He'd deal with it because he had to. Slipping off his glasses, he tucked them into his pocket and looked around. Child-size furniture was set around the room in the manner of a cozy parlor. Dolls of every shape and size and style occupied chairs, stools, shelves and cabinets. In front of an elf-size fireplac... </div ., Silhouette, 2007, 3, MP3 Audio CD. The Story of a Bad Boy Chapter One--In Which I Introduce Myself This is the story of a bad boy. Well, not such a very bad, but a pretty bad boy; and I ought to know, for I am, or rather I was, that boy myself. Lest the title should mislead the reader, I hasten to assure him here that I have no dark confessions to make. I call my story the story of a bad boy, partly to distinguish myself from those faultless young gentlemen who generally figure in narratives of this kind, and partly because I really was not a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an amiable, impulsive lad, blessed with fine digestive powers, and no hypocrite. I didn't want to be an angel and with the angels stand; I didn't think the missionary tracts presented to me by the Rev. Wibird Hawkins were half so nice as Robinson Crusoe; and I didn't send my little pocket-money to the natives of the Feejee Islands, but spent it royally in peppermint-drops and taffy candy. In short, I was a real human boy, such as you may meet anywhere in New England, and no more like the impossible boy in a storybook than a sound orange is like one that has been sucked dry. But let us begin at the beginning. Whenever a new scholar came to our school, I used to confront him at recess with the following words: “My name's Tom Bailey; what's your name?” If the name struck me favorably, I shook hands with the new pupil cordially; but if it didn't, I would turn on my heel, for I was particular on this point. Such names as Higgins, Wiggins, and Spriggins were deadly affronts to my ear; while Langdon, Wallace, Blake, and the like, were passwords to my confidence and esteem., 0<
