The Heart Will Lead You Home Read online

  Prologue

  Lizzie Benford was getting married in two weeks. What should have been the happiest moment in her life was turning into the biggest nightmare this side of Elm Street. It wasn’t that she didn’t like weddings. She did. She had officiated over at least twenty six of her Barbie and Ken doll weddings growing up. Not to mention that she had written in her diary at the age of ten the way her dream wedding would proceed. At the moment, her diary wedding and the real one couldn’t have been more black and white.

  Maybe it was the caterer calling her fives times a day with various culinary questions. Or possibly it was the rental company calling to say that half the chairs they had reserved for the date were now green rather than white thanks to mildew problems in the warehouse. There also happened to be that one other issue she kept trying to nudge to the back of her brain. She repeated to herself like a mantra that the issue was small, and prayed that if she said it enough it really would be true. Somehow she was starting to have serious doubts on that matter.

  Every time she mentally rehearsed walking down the aisle all the scenery was picture perfect, the audience was smiling at her as she walked closer to the alter, and she would look at the end of the aisle to her husband to be… and that’s when the image came to a screeching halt. At the end of the first pew waiting for her there was always another man standing in the place where Josh, her fiancé, should stand. Someone she had sworn to herself she would forget, but in the eleven years Lizzie had been trying, she never had quite accomplished the goal.

  Lizzie felt her stomach pitch and reel and start all over again as she dug into her oversized, imitation Prada purse and dug out the extra large bottle of Pepto Bismol she stashed there. Her stomach had been doing that a lot lately and Lizzie had eventually learned to chalk it up to pre-wedding jitters. Still, though, she wondered if consuming half a bottle a day constituted some sort of a dependence problem.

  She chunked the bottle onto the passenger seat of her ancient VW bug where she could reach it again on short notice. At least the view outside the old battle scarred vehicle was nice, she thought in an attempt to console herself, even if it was treacherously bleak inside.

  Well, it wasn’t really that bleak- not if you considered the fact that in two weeks she would be marrying Josh Turner, the most high profile corporate accountant in the south east, and moving off to the high life in Nashville, Tennessee. By comparison, Nashville certainly couldn’t hold a candle to her hometown, Edenville, with all its small town charm and memories that would stay with her a lifetime. At least in Nashville, though, she could settle in and open her family medicine practice.

  One of the first arguments she and Josh had after their engagement was where they would live. She had desperately wanted to return to Edenville, but Josh was adamant that they live in Nashville. She could be a family doctor anywhere, he had explained, but he needed a big city for his career. Lizzie had reluctantly agreed.

  Since high school her life had always been on a straight and focused plan: Get into a top university with a full scholarship, earn top honors, and be accepted to a top medical school. Yep, she was a certified geek with a capital G, and had been the teacher’s pet to boot. With the exception that she was to have been married by the age of twenty-four and she was now almost thirty and just now getting her wedding dress fitted, she was right on track. Granted, there had been a few minor bumps along the way, but still, she had gone straight from high school to college and from there immediately on to medical school. At least she was getting married, which was more than a lot of women could say.

  What did it matter in the grand scheme of things if she was about to marry someone who only marginally thrilled her sexually and made her want to scream he was so incessantly nice all the time? To Lizzie it seemed that a few alterations in her dreams for life were a small price to pay for getting a husband who would provide her a beautiful family and a calm, predictable, steady life.

  Lizzie crested one of the larger rolling hills that lead into the small, southern town where she had grown up and watched as the sun started to sink behind the white-washed steeple of the town’s only church.

  It was Baptist, of course.

  For the first time in her life she ignored the posted speed limit sign she had so dutifully followed in the past and made her way through the town. Of course, town- such as it was- consisted of a short strip of stores at most two blocks long, with a pair of flimsy flashing traffic lights that hovered over the dual pedestrian crosswalks that led from one side of Main Street to the other.

  She kissed her hand and blew the kiss out the window when the old VW passed the town’s sign, and had to smile to herself when she read it.

  Welcome to Edenville

  “Our little slice of heaven!”

  It hadn’t been so many years ago when she would have rolled her eyes and made gagging noises at the sign. But now… well, now, that was a different story. Now it meant she was home. The tension that had been her constant companion over the past few months eased a notch, and Lizzie took a deep breath.

  At the other end of town, a white wooden fence flanked the drive leading back to her family’s house. As if there was anyone in town who didn’t know where everyone else lived, a white wooden sign in front of the fence announced: Welcome to the Benford’s.

  The drive was long, and like most drives in this small country town, unpaved. As if meaning to keep the house a surprise until the last minute, large Cherry trees ran along the fence using their bushy foliage as a screen against the view of the house. But at last, the trees fell away and opened some fifty yards before the house to reveal a rather large, two-story wooden house painted white with green shutters accenting the windows.

  A red barn stood off to the side in back of the house, and where the fence line picked back up a small pasture sat in the distance. It was home, Lizzie’s home, and her lips turned up in a smile at the thought.

  Just for good measure she took another swig of pink liquid as she coasted to a stop and waited for her pitiful vehicle to sputter, moan and finally backfire before shutting down in the grass parking area of her parents’ backyard. Ah, the things she had learned to put up with as a starving medical student.

  Lizzie pushed her sunglasses up into the wildly curling mass of long black hair and watched through the bug splattered windshield as her spitting image poked her head out the screened porch door and smiled. “Lizzie?”

  When Lizzie stepped from the Bug, lifting her arms in a shrug, her sister let out a screech that would have made a blue whale proud and took off running across the porch. “Lizzie!” She let herself go in a flying leap off the edge of the porch and landed on top of Lizzie, sending them sprawling in a mass of dark curly hair and long, lean limbs onto the ground.

  “Land sakes, Mary Catherine,” Lizzie laughed as she pushed her sister off her, “next time at least give me a little warning before you tackle me.”

  “Tackle you?” Her younger sister playfully pinched her arm. Although Mary Catherine was only twenty-seven, she still acted like a five year old at heart. “Better not let daddy find out you’ve gone soft. He’s only got two weeks to toughen you back up again.”

  “Who’s gone soft?” Lizzie looked up to find her parents hugging each other on the top step of the porch, watching them as they lay sprawled over the grass.

  “Daddy!”

  “Come here, girl, and let me get a look at you.” He made a big show of cupping her chin, turning her head this way and that before he tilted her head back down and stared long and hard into Lizzie’s deep emerald green eyes. “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Looks good to me. What d’ya think, Faith?”

  Her mother laughed. “Oh, stop it, Ed. Leave my baby alone, she’
s had a long drive.” Lizzie let her mother fuss over her, and then stepped into the warmth of her arms, breathing in that scent of clean linens and fresh cut roses only her mother possessed. “Now come on in, darling and you can help MC set the table while I finish making the gravy for the mashed potatoes. Ed, honey, don’t forget to help unload the car,”

  The smell of cornbread and chicken frying on the stove that hit her as she entered the house should have been a welcome expectation, but it made Lizzie’s stomach flip instead. A fleeting thought of racing back to her car and snatching the Pepto Bismol for support ran through her mind, but she forced it and her flipping stomach into submission.

  “Mmm, smells great, Mom. Are you still cooking like this all the time? No wonder Dad’s grown a little flabby around the middle.

  She stirred the pot of butterbeans. “Your father loves his country cooking. I’ve tried to cut back, and I even tried a few ‘light’ meals but Mrs. Ramsey informed me at church a few months back that he’s been sneaking down to the cafeteria over in Clarkston to get his weekly helping of fried green tomatoes.” Faith tapped the stirring spoon on the edge of the pot and set it on the counter as she turned to Lizzie. “I figure if he’s gonna go to all that trouble to eat his food, then it might as well be from a good source and full of my love.”

  Lizzie giggled. “Good plan, Mama. Way to show him who’s boss!” Lizzie stripped off the lightweight rain jacket she’d been wearing when she drove down from Atlanta, and hung it on the coat rack that stood in the corner of the room near the refrigerator, listening to her mother hum as she checked the progress of the chicken.

  She loved her mother with everything she had in her just the same way she loved this family. Her mother’s singing had always been her calm in the midst of any storm. Even now she could feel another layer of tension easing away as she closed her eyes and listened to Faith’s soothing melody.

  “Grab a seat and help me butter some bread, Lizzie-bean.”

  It warmed Lizzie to see that nothing much had changed with her family since the last time she had been home. Her mother was still the trim and petite little brunette, bumbling about the house and working avidly in the garden, while her father was still the wonderful man she always remembered. His hair had silvered a little over the years, and his belly had gained a good layer of flesh, but he still had those adorable dimples when he smiled and his features were attractive. They matched well, her mother and him, and Lizzie was thankful that she had never had to worry a single day in her life about divorce or affairs or any of the other crazy, terrible things so many other children had to worry about with their parents.

  When it was time for dinner, Ed Benford took his seat at the head of the family table, rubbed his hands together, and then held them out to join in the ring of hands they always formed when they blessed the food the Lord provided them each meal. It was a tradition in their home that had started the day Ed and Faith joined in marriage, and one that would continue on in their children’s families as well. It was more than a simple act in this family; it meant values, it meant tradition, it meant home.

  A vast spread of Southern cooking sat square in the center of the large family table perched comfortably in the middle of the large kitchen. Macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, butter beans, fried chicken, sliced tomatoes, fried okra, and fried cornbread; all prepared by Faith, were served up onto large white dinner dishes and passed around the table. Before the first platter had been passed, the table had erupted into loud chatter and conversation.

  “Lizzie, Mary Catherine and I were in town today,” Lizzie rolled her eyes under closed lids. Her mother talked as if town were something other than a two-block strip of buildings no more than a quarter of a mile down the road. “We stopped in Mrs. McIntire’s alteration’s shop and she said that the dress is ready for the final fitting. Isn’t that exciting? I told her you and Mary Catherine would come by first thing tomorrow morning and try it on.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful! Have the bride’s maid dresses been fitted yet?”

  “Well, Grace called yesterday and said she wouldn’t try the dress on until you got home to assure her the color of the dress wasn’t pink. She said she couldn’t bear it if you made her wear pink with her flame red hair. I know,” she said as she watched her daughter’s face, “I tried to tell her just to try it on, but she insisted. I told her you’d pick her up and take her with you to get fitted together.”

  Back to old stomping ground, again, she could see.

  “Pick her up? Mama, I’m not picking her up. The shop isn’t even far enough away to drive to, and she lives in the closest house to town. It would take me longer to drive down her driveway than it would for her to walk the fifty steps from her front door to the shop.”

  “Still, I think it’d be nice if you picked her up.”

  Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief when her father piped up and stole away her chance to respond. “Well, Doc,” Ed Benford interjected. “I want to know when this fiancé of yours is getting in to town.” He smiled warmly at his oldest daughter, his round, portly face glowing with adoration. Lizzie had always been determined to make something of her life. He had proudly informed the whole town at the town meeting the day his daughter had been accepted to medical school.

  Lizzie swallowed a bite of tomato then said, “Josh told me he had some things to finish up at home, so he’s supposed to arrive in town next Monday to help finish up the decorating and last minute details.”

  “Ah, good. Well tell him to bring his gun and we’ll head out to the back property and shoot some skeet while he’s here.”

  “Daddy, he doesn’t own a gun, remember?”

  Her father stared at her blankly, as if he was trying his best to recall that particularly blasphemous bit of information, before he smiled blandly and said, “Oh, right. Well, that’s not a problem, he can just borrow one of mine.”

  Lizzie set her fork down and gingerly patted him on the shoulder in hopes that it would somehow defray the blow she was about to deliver. “No, no, daddy,” She said in a little croak. “He’s… afraid of guns.”

  Her father exploded. “Well what I want to know is what in Sam Hill business does a man have in growing up in the South if he can’t even shoot a gun without being a little ninny?” His face began to redden and his nostrils began to flare, and Lizzie was definitely afraid that if he didn’t calm down she’d be personally escorting him to the hospital for a heart attack.

  “Now, Ed, you need to calm down. The doctor said you had a problem with that pressure of yours. Lizzie, do something about your father. Maybe you can explain to him better than I can. Lord knows, I’ve tried all I can to make him listen to reason.”

  Exactly what her mother thought she could do was beyond her. Her sister, she noted, was snickering behind the butter bean laden fork she had strategically placed over her mouth. Lizzie pushed her mostly uneaten plate of food away from her and threw her napkin over the remains so her father wouldn’t be tempted to finish it off for her. She quickly racked her brain for something to say that would change the subject.

  “So, where’s Skipper Junior? I didn’t see him when I came in.”

  “Oh, didn’t you hear, Lizzie,” MC said from across the table. “Mrs. Hooper opened up a grooming salon just off of Main. Hooper’s Puppy Paradise- that’s what she’s calling it. Anyway, SJ’s there getting all fixed up for the big day.”

  “What!”

  “I know,” Faith added. “MC and I thought it was outrageous but Ed insisted. He’ll be back tomorrow after his full body make-over.”

  Lizzie closed her eyes, praying this was another nightmare she’d wake up from any minute. “Lord.”

  “Don’t bring Him into this,” her father said sternly. “Heaven knows that dog needed some strong deodorizing if he was supposed to be present at the reception.”

  “But dad…”

  Her mother must have sensed the tension because she suddenly changed the subject. “Honey, did I tell you that
Granny dropped by earlier today and brought us a pound cake.”

  Eloise “Granny” Thornton was eighty two and the resident grandmother of everyone in town. Not that she actually was their grandmother, but Lizzie knew she liked to mother everyone and so she became their adopted grandma so to speak. And despite her age, the seemed to hold more energy than half the young kids in town and she insisted on walking everywhere she went. Granny said it kept her body kicking when she forced it to work on a regular basis.

  “Granny made a pound cake? Yum, I always did love her cooking.”

  “Me, too,” chimed in Mary Catherine. “Let’s have some for dessert.”

  And so they did. By the time they were finished, only a quarter of the cake remained and Lizzie didn’t even want to think about what her waistline was going to look like as a result. Lizzie couldn’t help but stifle a yawn. She was beat from her day on the road, and all that warm country cooking was doing it’s best to send her into a grease laden deep sleep.

  She smiled over at her mother. “Dinner was great, mama, but I’m beat.”

  “Well, come on, and I’ll walk with you upstairs. I want to show you want I did to your room.” She smiled and patted her daughter’s arm as they walked to the bedroom. “I left all your stuff the same, honey, but I hope you don’t mind that I painted the room a few weeks ago.” Her mother flipped on the overhead light and yanked the cord to set the ceiling fan into motion. The cord lazily clicked against the glass fixture as the blades whirred to life. “And I added a few new framed prints in your bathroom.”

  “Thanks, mama. It looks nice.” Lizzie glanced around, her fingers itching to touch all the links to her past. She had so little time to capture every last detail of Edenville before she moved away, and suddenly she wanted to be alone to absorb it all. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m tired from driving all day. I’m going to turn in early.”

  Her mother smiled. “Not at all, sweet pea. Sleep well.” She kissed her on the forehead and shut the door on her way out.