All That It Takes (A McKenzie Family Romance) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Nicole Deese

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233 pages

English

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"[A] charming fish-out-of-water tale. . . . Fans of Rachel Hauck should take a look."--Publishers Weekly on All That Really Matters When the ever-cautious Val Locklier moves cross-country with her son for a secure job, everything she'd planned unravels within the first week. After Val reluctantly agrees to rent an apartment from her best friend's brother, an unexpected chance at an elite filmmakers' mentorship ignites fresh hope for a dream career. But as Val's community begins to expand, so do her insecurities, especially those heightened by her growing attraction to a certain friendly landlord. Pastor Miles McKenzie returns home from a short-term mission trip to discover that not only does he have an intriguing new tenant living upstairs, he's also been reassigned to a local ministry on life support. Disillusioned and restless, he distracts himself by throwing his energy into a host of new projects--not the least of which is pursuing Val--without stopping to consider the future. As Val struggles to stop hiding behind the camera and Miles wrestles with shattered expectations, they'll find that authentic love and sacrifice must go hand in hand."An exceptional inspirational love story."--Booklist

Sujets

Romance

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	05 avril 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493435951
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0408€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Half Title Page
Books by Nicole Deese
Before I Called You Mine
All That Really Matters
All That It Takes
Heartwood from The Kissing Tree: Four Novellas Rooted in Timeless Love
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2022 by Nicole Deese
Published by Bethany House Publishers
Minneapolis, Minnesota
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2022
Ebook corrections 11.08.2022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-3595-1
Scripture in chapters 10 and 13 is from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture in chapters 11 and 18 is from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016
Emojis are from the open-source library OpenMoji (https://openmoji.org/) under the Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Jennifer Parker
Represented by Kirkland Media Management
Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.
Dedication
For Connilyn
Thank you for the million yesses you’ve given me throughout the years: the countless rapid-fire brainstorm texts, the mid-deadline support interventions, the after-midnight theological discussions, and the beautifully authentic heart-to-heart chats about the things that matter most. You, my friend, are irreplaceable.
I love you.
Contents
Cover
Half Title Page
Books by Nicole Deese
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
1
2
3
4
5
6
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35
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
Epigraph

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
C. S. L EWIS, M ERE C HRISTIANITY
1
Val
As the door to our new life swung open and my ten-year-old son rushed across the threshold to explore the second-story apartment, the you-break-it , you-buy-it policy flashed across my mind like a hazard warning. Because this wasn’t just any rental property we were considering today. No, this one happened to be owned by my best friend’s twin brother—a complication I hadn’t anticipated when I’d agreed to take a job that would move us a thousand miles from the only place we’d ever called home.
“Hey, Tucker, slow down a bit, okay? This isn’t our house,” I called out as my son disappeared into one of the two bedrooms I could see from my stance near the front door.
Molly moved to stand beside me, studying my profile like a paid-by-the-hour detective as my gaze trailed over the sparsely furnished open-concept floor plan for the first time. I worked to keep my expression light, pleasant even. After all, it wasn’t her fault that I still mourned the loss of the idyllic townhouse I’d researched online for hours before securing it with a deposit last month. Nor was it her fault that the same idyllic townhouse had been sold for cash only five days ago by the owners who’d emailed me a simple we’re sorry for the inconvenience along with a bank receipt of my returned deposit check.
“I know it’s not totally comparable to the townhouse you loved on Garden Street, but I’ve always thought of this upstairs apartment as classically cute with a side of quirkiness. But there’s no pressure to say yes. The decision is yours to make, Val.” Molly spoke in the same cautiously bright tone she’d been using with me ever since the night I called her distressed over not being able to find another rental in my price range before our move date from Skagway, Alaska, to Spokane, Washington. But before I could even suggest a delay to our moving timeline, Molly had cut in with an invitation for us to stay with her and Silas, in their guest room, “for however long it takes to find the perfect home for you and Tuck.” And though her offer was kind and generous, I could read the undercurrent of low-level panic between the words she wasn’t giving voice to: If you don’t come now, you likely never will.
And I wasn’t sure she would have been wrong.
“I’d offer to show you around,” she said, with a sweeping arm gesture, “but I’m guessing you’d rather take a self-guided tour?”
I smiled up at her. “You really don’t mind if I wander on my own for a minute?”
“Not at all.” She waved me on. “I know how you like time to think. Just pretend I’m not here, okay? Unless you have a question about something—then I’ll gladly reappear.” She perched on the arm of a long green sofa and slipped her phone out of her purse, likely scanning through a lengthy list of missed notifications. Of the many hats Molly wore, property manager wasn’t a common one. But seeing as her brother, Miles, was currently out of the country on business, she’d taken on the temporary role as his stand-in landlord until his return. Whenever that was.
“Thanks. I won’t take long.”
As much as I enjoyed Molly’s positivity and enthusiasm, I needed to think logically about this important next step without being influenced by her good intentions. Accepting the marketing position she’d offered me at her latest business-with-a-worthy- cause was one thing, but selecting my first home with Tucker was something else entirely. When I’d said yes to this job, I’d promised him somewhere special, somewhere worth the tearful good-bye to his grandparents and the subsequent long-distance relationships to come for us all. Somewhere worthy of uprooting our entire lives for. A familiar wave of nausea swelled inside me as the doubts crept in once again.
I pressed a tight fist to the tender joint in my left hip. My muscles were extra stiff from travel—and likely from a night spent wrestling through anxieties not even a promising salary could rectify completely. Because while my new job would provide enough financial freedom to secure a path independent of my parents and the souvenir shop they’d owned for decades, the workload itself wouldn’t provide much in the way of a creative challenge. It was that compromise I’d weighed out for months before finally accepting Molly’s offer.
I released a tension-filled breath and took in the freshly mopped faux-wood floors and the cozy kitchen nestled just beyond a wooden vintage dining table set for four. I peeked down the hallway and into each bedroom and bathroom, opening the closets and cupboards. The compact footprint of the apartment as a whole didn’t bother me, considering our living quarters had been half this size in my parents’ house.
Returning to the dining area, my gaze landed on the view beyond the sliding glass doors that led to a small deck: acres of springtime wildflowers, dewy green grass, and a coniferous forest surrounded by foothills. It certainly wasn’t difficult to imagine my son smack-dab in the middle of it.
“It really is beautiful out here,” I said, heading over to the large picture window that spanned nearly the entire length of the exterior wall of the living room. “Peaceful.”
Molly stood from the sofa and made her way over to me. “Pretty sure I used those exact same adjectives on our drive out here.”
“Did you?” I teased through a grin.
She nudged me. “You know I did. And you also know that Silas would be thrilled to teach Tucker more about the game of darts if you decide you’d rather pass on this and wait for something else to open up in your price range. You can stay with us for as long as you need.”
But while dart games with Silas might be fun for a few evenings, I had nightmares of Tucker lassoing Molly’s mosaic lampshade from Paris or bowling with the frosted glass orbs she kept in a decorative vase. The Whittaker household was not what one would call kid friendly . Plus, Silas and Molly hadn’t even hit the three-month mark on their nuptials. The last thing any of us needed was an accidental privacy breach on the newlyweds. We would all benefit from my saying yes to a place sooner rather than later.
“I truly appreciate how accommodating you’ve been to us—”
“Are you kidding me? No.” Molly’s shoulder-length blond hair swished and curved around her neck as if she were filming a product review for dry shampoo. Yet her days as a high-profile beauty influencer had downshifted dramatically since partnering with Silas at his residential youth program last year. It was through their combined efforts at The Bridge Youth Home that the vision for Basics First, a one-for-one specialty online boutique store intended to benefit aged-out foster teens, was birthed. For every dollar spent at the boutique, one dollar would be donated toward supply backpacks for teens transitioning into independence. In time, Molly hoped the online platform I’d helped them create would branch into a brick-and-mortar store, but for now, our focus was on the grand opening next week. I’d been told the production warehouse was nearly up and ready.
“You’re the one who’s been i