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    Good Neighbors
    Good Neighbors
    Good Neighbors
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    Good Neighbors

    By Sheila Roberts

    3/5

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    About this ebook


    More Than Words: Bestselling authors & Real–life heroines

    Each year, the Harlequin More Than Words award is given to three women who have worked hard to change people's lives for the better. Inspired by their accomplishments, three bestselling authors have written stories to honor these real–life heroines.

    In Good Neighbors, Meredith Lange hopes that she and her son can start over in Icicle Falls, Washington. Her family's cabin is the only thing she's got left after settling her late husband's gambling debts. But on the first night in her new home, Jed Banks shows up, claiming to be the cabin's rightful owner. Then her son, Leo, starts getting into trouble at school.

    Jed offers to help Leo adjust to life in Icicle Falls. His charitable organization, Youth Power, pairs up troubled kids with a responsible teen mentor. But how can Meredith accept Jed's help? He may be a devoted advocate for young people and a very attractive man, but he's also trying to take away her home...

    Look for all three ebooks inspired by real–life heroines: Good Neighbors by Sheila Roberts, Just Joe by Carla Cassidy and Light This Candle by Cindy Dees. Visit the Harlequin More Than Words website at www.HarlequinMoreThanWords.com or your favorite ebook retailer to download these free novellas today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers Australia
    Release dateSep 1, 2013
    ISBN9781488727665
    Good Neighbors

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    Reviews for Good Neighbors

    3/5

    13 ratings1 review

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    • 2/5
      Epitomizes what is wrong with novellas.
      Too shallow, too trite, too quick. Just too many things wrong.

      There was nothing horrible about it; there was just nothing good about it, either.


      More of a promo piece for a teen program.

      There were also formatting issues, misspelled words and run together words.

    Book preview

    Good Neighbors - Sheila Roberts

    CHAPTER ONE

    Meredith Lange picked up the picture of her husband, George, and her, and examined it in the August sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. To pack or not to pack, that was the question. She decided not to and tossed it in the garbage. It would be silly to keep a picture of her Prince Charming who’d turned out to be Prince Poop.

    How perfect her life had seemed when George Lange first swooped into it. Just goes to show, you can’t trust perfection. Not in a man, anyway.

    George had it all. Good looks, charm and a great sense of humor, and she fell hard for him. In addition to being a great guy, he’d come with an added bonus, several actually—a house on Lake Washington (primo Seattle real estate), a boat, a truck, a Mercedes and a fat bank account. At least that was what she’d thought. For a single mom who’d worked hard to put herself through nursing school, this was like discovering El Dorado.

    Fool’s gold, more like. For all his glitzy facade, George had a tiny problem, one that involved racehorses, casinos, lotto, you name it. Ironic, considering the fact that he earned his living as a financial advisor.

    She’d discovered his addiction when their savings did a nosedive. When he decided he wanted to sell the boat. And the truck. Oh, and put the house on the market. They really didn’t need this much house for the three of them.

    Tell that to Leo, she’d argued. Her son, twelve at the time, had loved water-skiing behind that boat, loved having his friends over to watch movies in the media room in the house that was suddenly too much for them. And she’d loved seeing her son enjoy a lifestyle grander than either she or his maternal grandparents had ever been able to give him.

    Most of all, though, Leo had loved having a dad. He’d been three when she and George got serious, about the age when it was getting hard to explain why he didn’t have a daddy like his friends, not even a father to stay with on weekends or holidays. Your daddy was a bum, little more than a sperm donor, was nothing Meredith had been ready to tell him. Just as now she wasn’t ready to tell him that his stepdaddy had been an out-of-control gambler and every penny they’d made from the sale of the house had gone to pay off debts, and that was why they were moving to their vacation cabin on the edge of Icicle Falls. It was the only place they could afford.

    She was paying the price for nobly protecting her husband’s memory. With the move imminent, Leo was barely talking to her. As if it was her fault George had medicated his pain with bourbon and wrapped his (still unsold) Mercedes around a tree. As if it was her fault they had to downsize. Dealing with the bank and their various creditors, on top of the loss of her husband, had made the last year a nightmare. Now she was dealing with her son’s anger over the loss of their house and their upcoming move, and that was almost as bad.

    Children always blame the parent they’re with. If you were divorced, it would be your fault, her mother had said.

    But we weren’t divorced, she’d retorted. Broke, yes, but not divorced. They’d have gone for counseling, worked things out somehow. Angry as she’d been at George, she’d still loved him. She still did now, even though there were times she wished she could exhume his body simply so she could slap him. Damn the man. And how was it her fault he was dead?

    She sighed and fished the picture out of the waste can and wrapped it in newspaper.

    Leo appeared in the bedroom doorway. Can I go over to David’s house?

    Mark it on the calendar. Today her son was speaking to her. Never mind that this was only because he had to.

    He wasn’t the happy, loving boy he’d been a year ago, but she couldn’t blame him. His world had been tipped upside down and he, like her, was simply trying to hang on.

    There he stood in her doorway. He reminded her of a young lion with a mane of tawny hair and light brown eyes. He was gangly, all legs and arms, still needing to grow into his feet. The other day his voice had cracked. How long before he shot up, filled out and then moved out? Hadn’t he been a baby just yesterday?

    Sure. Be back by dinner, though. Okay?

    They said I can stay for dinner, he said, and hurried off down the hall before she could dare suggest that staying for dinner was up for discussion.

    Have fun, she called after him, to show she was a good sport. She fell onto the bed and sighed. Good sportsmanship was overrated.

    Her phone rang. It was her mother’s cell phone. Mom, a girl’s best friend.

    I got some more boxes for you, her mother said. Should I bring them over?

    Thanks. I’ve almost filled the ones we got last week. Surprising how many boxes she was filling, considering how much she’d lost.

    I’ll drop them by on my way home with the groceries, Mom said.

    Or I can come over there and pick them up. Maybe if she played her cards right, she’d get invited to stay for dinner, too. Leo’s gone to his friend David’s and won’t be home until this evening.

    Well, then you should eat with us, Mom said. Your father’s making his infamous fish sandwiches.

    Which meant her mother had made coleslaw and there would be Pepsi in the fridge. Sounds good. I need a break. Meredith needed a break from more than packing. She needed a break from life. But since that wasn’t an option, she’d settle for a breather and a fish sandwich.

    They’d just finished dinner when Leo called, asking if he could stay at his friend’s house a a little longer. A rousing game of backyard badminton was about to begin with David and his brother and father.

    She’d be taking him away from his friends soon enough. Sure, she said. I’m at Grammy’s. I’ll get you on my way home. Not that he needed to be driven home. David only lived two blocks away. But she wanted to pick up her son, wanted to remind herself by that one small act that he still needed her, that they were still a team.

    I can walk, Mom.

    She could tell by his tone of voice that she’d insulted him. The sun wouldn’t set until well after he was safely home. She gave up on the team-spirit thing. Okay. You can stay until eight, but then I want you home. She could hear his friends in the background, calling for him to hurry up and get off the phone.

    Okay. Bye, he said, little-boy enthusiasm back in his voice.

    Meredith ended the call with a sigh. I hate that I’m taking him away from his friends.

    He’ll make new ones, said her mother.

    Kids are resilient, her father added. He’ll be okay.

    We’re more worried about you, Mom put in.

    Oh, you know me. I always get back up again, Meredith said with an easy shrug. Except that this time she didn’t want to get up. She wanted to stay down. On the couch, with a box of Sweet Dreams chocolates. "And thanks to you two, I have a place where I

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