The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5)
Langley Park Series
The Complete Box Set: Books 1-5
Krista Sandor
Candy Castle Books
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
The Road Home: Book One
The Sound of Home: Book Two
The Beginning of Home: Book Three
The Measure of Home: Book Four
The Story of Home: Book Five
Share the Langley Park Love
About the Author
Also by Krista Sandor
Copyright
Second edition published by Candy Castle Books 2019
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents either are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Krista Sandor
Cover Design by Marisa Wesley of Cover Me Darling
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-7330615-4-4
Visit www.kristasandor.com
Dedication
For David
Contents
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
1
Jenna Lewis sat cloaked in the dim light of the hotel bar sipping on a velvety cabernet. The low hum of the business crowd was sprinkled with a few tourist types, their conversations a reassuring stream of sound.
This was her comfort, being surrounded while remaining unseen. Jenna closed her eyes and bent her neck from side to side, trying to loosen the kinks and knots she always felt on this day. She was about to open her eyes, but she couldn’t breathe. Her senses on high alert, she recognized the song playing in the background underneath the buzz of conversation.
The Police.
Every Breath You Take.
Those first five notes had haunted her for years.
Jenna’s body tensed, and she splayed her hands on the granite surface of the bar. Forcing herself to take a deep breath, she tried to calm the panic welling inside her. She hated how these episodes could still catch her off-guard. She opened her eyes to find the bartender, a slight man, watching her with concern.
“Is everything okay, miss?”
“I’m all right. Must be the altitude,” she said, masking the lie with a sip of wine.
“Denver is the Mile High City. Just remember to drink plenty of water,” he said with practiced expertise.
It’s just this day. This damned day.
Jenna took a deep breath and glanced at her phone. Two missed calls from a Kansas City number and one unplayed voicemail message met her gaze.
She turned the phone over and steadied her breath. She rarely had panic attacks anymore. A steady diet of yoga and running had helped reduce these moments when she found herself paralyzed with fear.
You’re all right. You’re not a little girl.
She focused on the mantra, but her eyes betrayed her, and she stared at the phone as if her glare alone could make the calls disappear.
Today was Mother’s Day.
This year, she went out of her way to steer clear of witnessing any family celebrations. A little past nine o’clock in the evening, Jenna had hoped the hotel’s bar would be free of families and children. Blessedly, she was right.
Last year, she made the mistake of visiting the Denver Botanic Gardens on Mother’s Day. She’d been seeking peace and solitude but instead found throngs of mothers and grandmothers taking in the scenery and enjoying each other’s company.
She’d known almost immediately she’d made a horrible mistake by going there. Her heart ached as she watched the displays of love and affection all around her. She turned to leave and escape back to the confines of her cozy bungalow, but before she reached the exit, she spied an empty bench. Like a glutton for punishment, she sat and watched, keeping an eye out for pairs of mothers and daughters.
She’d stayed on that bench watching the garden patrons for the better part of an hour when her gaze was drawn toward two women strolling together, arms linked.
As if under a spell, Jenna stood. She followed the pair away from the exit and into the heart of the gardens.
Jenna took in the ease with which the women spoke to each other, remarking on this flower and that tree. She wanted to link her arm with the older woman and feel her warmth, smell her scent, and know her kindness.
Unable to stop herself, she pictured what her life might have been like had this stranger been her mother. Thoughts of bedtime stories and trips to museums flooded her mind.
She was so lost in her fantasy that she walked right into the younger woman when the pair stopped to remark on an ash tree.
“I’m so very sorry. I guess I got lost in my thoughts,” Jenna said, embarrassed not only by her folly but for the childish dreams she had running through her head.
“This is an easy place to do that. My daughter and I come here every year for Mother’s Day. It was our favorite place to go together when she was a child,” the older woman said as her daughter’s lips curved into a smile filled with affection. “I certainly hope you’ve called your mother today.”
“I lost my mother when I was a teenager,” Jenna replied, caught off guard by the comment.
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that must be like,” the younger woman said, tightening her grip on her mother’s arm.
Jenna’s hands twitched. “I’m so sorry I bumped into you. I hope you both enjoy this lovely day.”
She walked away from the women without waiting for them to respond, desperate to escape the bond of mother and daughter that had bewitched her only moments ago.
Jenna took another sip of her wine as the panic attack subsided, but she needed a distraction. She retrieved her laptop from her bag then looked at the latest reading scores from her school in Denver. It was almost the end of the school year as well as the end of Jenna’s time implementing the Gwyer Reading Program in a high-risk elementary school.
Jenna worked for a pair of professors from her Iowa alma mater, Gwyer College. These educational researchers had created a reading curriculum targeting struggling students in high-risk schools. Jenna would spend two years at the same school working with students, gathering data, and training teachers. After that time, she was sent on to the next location. Over the last ten years, she’d lived in Louisville, St. Paul, Chicago, and Omaha, and was now getting ready to end her stint in Denver.
Jenna loved her work. She loved giving children the gift of reading—a gift no one could ever take away. Jenna believed the ability to read could open a child’s eyes to the bigger world that existed beyond the confines of hardship, pain, or poverty.
She couldn’t remember how many schools she’d attended as a child, but what she did remember was the kindness of her teachers. How many times had she dreamed of a life where she didn’t have
to go home after the school dismissal bell rang?
Too many to count.
As a teacher now herself, Jenna wondered if her teachers had shown her extra kindness because they sensed her pain, just as she was able to sense the most vulnerable among the children she taught.
At thirty-two years old, Jenna’s school days were well behind her, but the dark echoes of her childhood lived in her heart, a part of her just like her blood and bones.
Jenna had learned, like many children raised in chaos, how to smile and say the right things. And how to lie and do it convincingly.
As a child, she learned the lies helped her survive. But by the time she knew lying was wrong, the lies had become such a part of her, such a part of her identity, she found it hard to piece out where the lie ended and the truth began.
Many nights she’d sit at her desk and write out all the lies she could remember telling. She’d write and write and write; then she’d sob because no matter how pretty a picture her lies painted, underneath that thin veneer the canvas was slashed, ugly, and beyond repair.
Then there was the fear. The fear of others knowing the truth, of seeing the damaged girl seep through the veil of her deception. She fought that with distance, with proclamations of having too much work to socialize, and never allowing anyone to know the real Jenna.
She knew when she left a town she left no imprint. There were no friends waving goodbye, no boyfriend she’d promised to call when she made it to the next city. She was like a nomad, there one minute, gone the next.
Many of Jenna’s Gwyer colleagues didn’t last long in the reading intervention program. Moving every two years made it hard to settle down or start a family. Luckily, the prestige of the Gwyer Reading Program opened doors to any teacher wanting a long-term teaching position. Several of her colleagues found themselves in a town they grew to love with people who embraced them and decided to stay on, leaving the Gwyer program to plant roots and start a life.
The bar was quieting down as Jenna read through the latest reading scores when a warm hand settled on her bare shoulder. Turning on her stool, she smiled at the attractive man dressed in uniform, a pilot’s hat perched atop his head.
“I’ve been thinking of this neck. Miss me?” the pilot said, the gentle rolling of his Kentucky accent smooth as a single malt whiskey.
Captain Nick Kincade flew airplanes for UPS. Jenna had met him nearly a decade ago when she was setting up the Gwyer Reading Program in a Louisville public school. They had a one-night stand that turned into an arrangement of sorts. When he was in town, he’d text Jenna, and they’d meet. No flowers on Valentine’s Day or cards on birthdays. Sex and comfortable conversation had been their norm for the last several years.
Nick flew all over the country, and Jenna wasn’t naïve enough to think that she was the only girl waiting for him to breeze into town. He had that all-American blond hair, blue-eyed charm and an easy way about him that made women sit up a little straighter when he entered a room. But that’s not what Jenna liked most about Nick Kincade. What made him most attractive to her was that, while he was a kind man, Nick had no interest in monogamy and no intention of settling down.
“I was wondering what happened to you,” Jenna said, taking the pilot’s hat off his head and placing it on her own.
“Storms got us coming out of Houston. Delayed us about an hour.”
“No packages for me?” Jenna asked with a teasing smile.
“If I told you once, I’ve told you a million times. I am not your personal delivery pilot. But that does sound like the first line of a very, very bad porno.”
Jenna laughed, shaking her head. Then she looked up at his handsome face.
Nick made it easy to forget.
“All done with that?” he asked, nodding toward her drink.
“All done.”
Without another word, Nick picked up her laptop and slipped it into the side pocket of her overnight case. He slung the bag over his shoulder and led Jenna from the bar into the hotel elevator. As soon as the doors shut, he dropped the bag and had Jenna against the wall, kissing her neck. Her hands wrapped around his biceps as she craned her head giving him more room to nip and suck.
When the elevator doors opened on their floor, Jenna gave Nick a teasing smile. “Long flight?”
“You have no idea.”
Nick found the room, opened the door, and placed the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign securely on the doorknob. Whisking her inside and dropping their bags, Nick’s hands made quick work of her pencil skirt and blouse. They kept the lights off as Jenna turned her head toward the window and gazed out at the twinkling lights of downtown Denver. It could be any city, she thought, watching the red and white smears of light from the passing cars below.
She heard Nick shrugging out of his uniform and the unmistakable sound of a condom wrapper being torn open as he positioned himself behind her. Jenna had been on the pill since she was eighteen, but she never trusted anyone enough not to use a condom. While she liked Nick, even after all their years of meeting like this, it had always been just sex, never making love.
They hadn’t even kissed. Jenna’s lips had never met Nick’s, and it was an unspoken rule that he’d always take her from behind, negating the need for eye contact or even the smallest hint of intimacy. They were well suited in the sense that neither of them had anything else to give besides a few fleeting moments of pleasure.
Bracing herself on a chest of drawers, Nick thrust inside her.
“This good?” he asked, his voice thick, one hand gripping her hip while the other massaged her breast.
Letting her head fall back on his chest, she closed her eyes and let herself get lost, at least for a little while, in the rhythm of their bodies.
Jenna blinked as the bright Colorado sun streamed through the window. She rolled over and felt the space once occupied by Nick. It was cold to her touch. She pushed up on her elbows and saw Nick standing in front of the mirror, hair still wet from a shower, buttoning up a crisp dress shirt, his flight bag parked at the ready next to the door.
Jenna gave him a sleepy smile.
“What’s next for you?” Nick asked, reaching for his tie as he watched her through the reflection in the mirror.
Jenna reclined back on the pillows and looked up at the ceiling. “My work in Denver is pretty much done. I’ve got all the data, and the teachers are doing a great job implementing the program. Just a few more days, and then I’m off to Albuquerque for the next two years.”
“Albuquerque, huh? You know UPS flies there, too.”
Jenna smiled. “They do, do they?”
Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at it, noticing the same Kansas City number that had left a message. The message she’d been ignoring since Friday.
Jenna let the call go to voicemail and sat up, looking at her phone. She scrolled to find the message from Friday, pressed play, and listened.
“This call is for Jenna Lewis. My name is Carol Lucas. I’m a social worker at the Rose Brooks Women’s Shelter in Kansas City. I’m calling regarding your mother, Judith.”
Jenna’s pulse quickened. She hadn’t seen or spoken to her mother in more than a decade. A wave of uneasiness washed over her and settled in the pit of her stomach.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this over voicemail, but it’s quite urgent. Your mother was threatening to hurt herself. Threatening to kill herself.”
Jenna took in a sharp breath.
“Your mother was brought to Midwest Medical and Psychiatric Center in Langley Park. She left your name and this number with us at the shelter when she checked in.”
The woman finished the message again giving her name, contact number, and the name of a social worker at the psychiatric center that Jenna could call for more information. And then the recording ended.
Jenna’s hand shook, and she dropped the phone to the floor. Her hand went to her thigh, digging her thumbnail into the soft flesh, trying to stop the flood of emotions threatening to c
ome tumbling out.
Nick rushed over to her. Going down on one knee, he picked up her phone and looked at it. He searched her ashen face. “Jenna, what is it? Who was on the phone?”
Caught between two worlds, Jenna stared at Nick. “It’s my mother. She’s in a psychiatric facility near Kansas City. I have to go there. I have to go home.”
“Jenna, you told me you didn’t have any family. You said your mother was dead, that she passed away when you were a teenager.”
The lies. Her lies.
The fictitious life she’d created to cover up the ugliness of her true reality was starting to unravel like the frayed edge of an old, worn sweater. With one little tug, she’d be exposed to everything her mind had tried so hard to forget.
2
Jenna pulled into a parking space at Midwest Hospital and Psychiatric Center, the nine-hour drive having gone by in a blur of gas stations and roadside rest stops. She’d set her phone’s navigation app to take her directly to the hospital, but she hadn’t thought anything through past getting to Langley Park.
It was late, nearly eight in the evening—too late to go inside. She couldn’t help the utter rush of relief that flooded her system knowing she didn’t have to face her mother quite yet.