Shameless Sweetheart

By Roxanne Snopek

Sometimes doing the right thing can hurt those you love the most.

Nathan Starr has lived an honorable life. He married a good woman, raised a family, turned their struggling farm into a thriving business and founded a town in the process. But now, watching his children and grandchildren, he fears the next generations of Sweetheart, Montana, never learned about love.

Free-spirited Pansy Oppenheimer aches for her dear friend Nate. Although he stayed behind while she traveled the world, together they know this town and its secrets better than anyone. No one wishes a bright future for the Starrs of Sweetheart more than they do. Little does anyone know that they harbor a secret of their own…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tule Publishing
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943963089

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Dedication

The talented team at Tule Publishing, who gave us free rein with this new series, the brilliant Sinclair Sawhney for being, well, brilliant and the authors with whom I was lucky enough to create this lovely world: Paula Altenburg, Joan Kilby and Jeannie Watt. You guys are awesome!

Dear Reader,

I’ve always been the sort of person who looks at others and thinks I wonder what went on in their past to make them the people they are today. The mystery of people fascinates me because nothing is ever simple. And in writing this novella, I had an opportunity to dip into the lives of two immensely complicated and fascinating people. Though they only appear briefly in the novels that follow, their character and love is part of the bedrock on which the world of Sweetheart is founded.

So here’s to Nate and Pansy. I hope you enjoy their company as much as I have!

–Roxanne

Chapter One

Spring, 2006

Starr Cherry Orchard

The cherry orchards on the banks of Flathead Lake under a moonlit sky were a place of magic and romance. Boys and girls, sitting side by side, the air thick with words unsaid, kisses not yet risked, every breath, every moment so intense. So precious.

But on grad bonfire night, this same tiny portion of the Starr Cherry Orchard was less a place of magic and romance and more of a raucous pit of raging hormones.

The high school never had a shortage of chaperones for the event, but problems only began after the adults left at the appointed hour, supposedly shutting down the festivities.

I’m too old and frail for this, said Pansy Oppenheimer, tucking her cardigan around her thin but sturdy shoulders. She stood on a gentle rise overlooking the mass of bodies dancing in the firelight below. She wasn’t the least bit frail and she’d never be too old for this.

And they aren’t nearly old enough. Nathan Starr patted the lawn chair beside him. I told you you didn’t need to come tonight.

Nate had the timeless, rugged Jack Palance appeal, but she still pestered him to join her in her endless walking about town, worried about his heart health. And though Nate had once compared her to Christie Brinkley in comfortable clothes – a compliment she tucked away like a debutante’s treasured nosegay from her first dance – Pansy described herself as having the musculature, cardiovascular system and enthusiasm of a young goat.

I’ll quit when you quit, she told him.

He snorted and passed her a Thermos of hot tea.

Unburdened by motherhood herself, Pansy happily took an interest in all the young people of her town and made a point of following the various events and dramas that played out around her. And Nathan Starr’s family had always held a special place in her heart.

Can’t let you wander around alone up here in the dark, she replied. You’d break a hip or something.

Nate had taken to overseeing these goings-on back when he’d still been running the Starr Cherry Orchard and had a naturally vested interest in it not being burned to the ground. Though he’d long since handed the business over to his son, old habits died hard.

Everyone knew that the after party was the real party. So, once a year, when the teachers set down the mantle of responsibility with a sigh of relief that their part was over, and parents locked up and went to bed, insistent in their belief that their kids weren’t the type to sneak out at night, Pansy and Nate took over.

I put a box of condoms on the table beside the ice buckets, said Pansy.

She waited for the inhale. Nate didn’t disappoint.

If Robert finds them during the harvest, he said, he’ll have a heart attack. I hope you can live with that.

Pansy loved Robert, of course, but it was her steadfast opinion that Nate’s oldest son had been born with a rough-barked cherry branch protruding from his nether cheeks.

She shrugged. It’s not the first time these trees have witnessed shenanigans by those on the cusp of adulthood. He’ll survive.

A low, raunchy chuckle rumbled up in her. Oh, there’d been shenanigans, all right.

Will and Brett will see to it that there’s no evidence left behind, anyway, said Nate.

Too bad. A little dose of reality would be good for Robert.

Are they both working the harvest?

Nate nodded.

Robert’s son, Will, and Brett, son of Nate’s youngest boy Hal, were currently being groomed to take over the orchard. Pansy, a strident liberated woman ahead of her time, who’d once railed that Nate’s twin daughters Jane and Cathy hadn’t even been considered as potential heirs to the cherry throne, didn’t bother asking if the granddaughters were in the running.

Is it by choice? she asked. Do the boys want the orchard?

That’s their problem, answered Nate with the wisdom of being a generation removed.

A comfortable silence descended between them, broken only by the catcalls, shouts and relentless music drifting up from below. The more things changed, she thought, the more they stayed the same.

Pansy – Aunt Pan as the younger ones liked to call her – surveyed the bodies sitting cross-legged on the ground, the planes of their faces dancing orange in the flickering light. So full of promise, so much anticipation and idealism. Jane’s only child, Jessica, and Cathy’s oldest daughter, Carrie, were among the celebrants and Pansy’s heart ached with vicarious pride.

Their lives lay ahead of them like a fresh, open road and a full tank of gas. Who knew what they might accomplish?

Then she frowned and stood up.

Jessica Palmer! she called. Unless you’re being examined for poison ivy, the shirt stays down.

The girl either didn’t hear, or was doing a dang good job of making it look that way. She had a wild streak and the poor boy she was with had no idea the world of heartbreak she was undoubtedly setting him up for.