Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Epilogue

      Letter to Reader

      Questions for Discussion

      Prologue

      Heather stuck her nose into the elaborate bouquet and inhaled deeply, but not even the beauty of the flowers or their heady aroma could dispel the anesthetic odor of a hospital, however well-appointed the room. Decorated in jewel tones with dark cherry furnishings, the spacious suite where her father had taken up residence and endured test after test had become a place of tension and worry for her and the remainder of the Hamilton family.

      She closed her eyes and sent a silent prayer heavenward. Gracious Lord God, please don’t let it be serious.

      She had uttered or thought the words so often over these past few difficult days that they had become a private litany, and still she could not quite fathom the idea that Wallace Hamilton might actually be seriously ill.

      Tall and urbanely handsome, with his thick silver hair, dark eyes and long, patrician face, he had always seemed larger than life. At fifty-nine, Wallace was still a force to be reckoned with, not only within the Hamilton family but also within the publishing world, at least that part of it centered here in Tennessee.

      Now his expensive, expertly tailored suits had given way to silk pajamas and his lean, fit frame had begun to appear gaunt. Yet Heather could not believe that he wouldn’t soon rise, button on one of his famously pristine white shirts, knot his silk tie and stride off to once again control Hamilton Media, the family company that he’d built into a small empire from the weekly newspaper established by his grandfather.

      Her mother, Nora, entered the sitting room from the bedchamber beyond, pulling the heavy door closed behind her. Petite and elegant, Nora looked more like Heather’s sister than her mother, despite the silver threading the shoulder-length gold of her hair and the new shadows around her enormous hazel eyes.

      While Heather herself looked older than her twenty-seven years, her mother could easily pass for forty rather than fifty-five. Heather accepted without question the fact that she had not inherited her mother’s pale beauty. It was more important to her that she take after her mother in other ways, because there was no one in the world whom she admired more than Nora Hamilton.

      Her mother might appear tiny and elfin, but she possessed a backbone of steel and a fiercely protective nature, which any mother of six required. She routinely placed herself between the world and her family, shielding them all with prayer, showering them with love and guiding them with pragmatic wisdom. She could not, however, protect them from illness. Only God, in His infinite mercy, could do that.

      Today they would learn whether Wallace had been spared the worst or if God would allow the specter of death to hover over him.

      Nora folded her arms and looked around the room at her grown children, hugging herself tight. “The doctors are with your father now. He wanted to hear the news alone. They’ll be out to speak to us next.”

      “It’s going to be all right, Mom,” Amy, Heather’s older sister, said from the sofa.

      Melissa, the youngest, promptly rose from her seat on the arm of the sofa and shoved her hand into the pocket of her frayed jeans, asking, “Anyone want a cola?”

      “You just finished a cola,” Timothy, the second-oldest brother, pointed out, pushing away from the wall and bringing his hands to his hips.

      Tim was the Hamilton most like Wallace. As vice president of Hamilton Media, he had little time or patience for anything that took him away from the business except family. Unfortunately, he seemed to resent that their oldest