The Saga of Lovelace Lane--Valentine's Serial--Lenora Worth

Hello. Today we're starting a new Valentine's inspired serial for you to enjoy while we put the finishing touches on a new look for our blog. More on that later but this story will give you a hint of things to come! Enjoy over the next couple of weeks!

The Saga of Lovelace Lane

Chapter One—Lenora Worth

“I’ve inherited what?”

Rose Redmond stared across at the lawyer who’d tracked her down in the basement. The other employees who worked with Rose at the quaint historic library situated in a crumbling old building by the San Francisco Bay rarely came down into the basement. Too old and musty, too creepy and cold. Too much history to go through.

Rose loved it. History was her life, her career, her salvation.

“As I told you in the many phone messages I left you, Miss Redmond,” the gray-haired lawyer said in a fussy tone, “your grandfather Valentin Redmond has left you the town of Lacelace, Virginia, population five-hundred and twenty-two. But you need to get back there immediately. The estate executor needs to discuss some important matters with you.”

Rose sank down on the old rickety stool where she sat for hours on end reading over old documents and lovingly turning the pages of ancient tombs. “The whole town? I now own the whole town?”

“Yes,” the frazzled man said. “But from what I hear, someone wants to buy it right away and save you a lot of trouble.”

“Who would want to do that?” she asked, thinking she could use a big chunk of cash. But this was the worst time for her to have to head back to Virginia. She missed her grandfather terribly but he’d died months ago and she had big plans and a big promotion to work toward.

“I have no idea. But Mason Grant, the executor of your estate, says it’s urgent that you return. The buyer wants to bulldoze Love Inspired Lane—the main street in town—and turn it into a condo complex and modern-type village.”

Rose pushed at the haphazard mousy brown bun she always wore at work and shoved her black-framed glasses closer to her eyes. “Why am I just now hearing about a will?”

The man looked uncomfortable. “According to Mr. Grant, the will went missing. He found it in the most improbable spot.”

A missing will? Someone wanting to destroy the place where she’d spent all of her summers until she’d gone away to college, the place where she’d met that boy long ago on the stone path following the lake? The boy she’d spent a few precious hours with before she’d left without ever knowing his name.

“I have a big project coming up,” she said. “I can’t possibly go to Virginia now.”

But in her heart, Rose knew she had to go. Grandfather deserved that much at least. And … she had to wonder if the boy she’d left behind would still be standing there, waiting for her.

----

Mason Grant stood by the lake waters, wondering for the thousandth time about her. The beautiful young girl he’d bumped into—literally—on that early fall day so long ago. Fifteen years maybe. He’d been close to eighteen. And she must have been sixteen?

Long russet brown hair and the bluest of eyes. Eyes that gazed at him as if she’d known him for all eternity. And he’d felt the same.

He’d just arrived with his family that day. Lonely and brooding over having to leave New York, he’d vowed to go away to law school and never look back. And then he’d spotted her. Now, here he stood, trapped in time. A small town lawyer who loved this place and couldn’t leave it. But if he didn’t hear from the hard-to-find Rose Redmond soon, he’d have to take drastic measures to fight the corporation that threatened to mow down the quaint village.

Did the woman even know what a treasure she’d inherited?

He prayed the people he’d hired had found the right Rose Redmond. And he hoped she’d arrive before it was too late.