9780553391886: Last One Home
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0553391887 ISBN 13: 9780553391886
Verlag: BALLANTINE BOOKS, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An inspiring standalone novel about the enduring bond between sisters, the power of forgiveness, and a second chance at love.

Growing up, Cassie Carter and her sisters, Karen and Nichole, were incredibly close—until one fateful event drove them apart. After high school, Cassie ran away from home to marry the wrong man, throwing away a college scholarship and breaking her parents’ hearts. To make matters worse, Cassie had always been their father’s favorite—a sentiment that weighed heavily on her sisters and made Cassie’s actions even harder to bear.

Now thirty-one, Cassie is back in Washington, living in Seattle with her daughter and hoping to leave her past behind. After ending a difficult marriage, Cassie is back on her own two feet, the pieces of her life slowly but surely coming together. Despite the strides Cassie’s made, she hasn’t been able to make peace with her sisters. Karen, the oldest, is a busy wife and mother, balancing her career with raising her two children. And Nichole, the youngest, is a stay-at-home mom whose husband indulges her every whim. Then one day, Cassie receives a letter from Karen, offering what Cassie thinks may be a chance to reconcile. And as Cassie opens herself up to new possibilities—making amends with her sisters, finding love once more—she realizes the power of compassion, and the promise of a fresh start.

A wonderful novel of perseverance and trust, and an exciting journey through life’s challenges and joys, Last One Home is Debbie Macomber at the height of her talents.

Praise for Last One Home

“Fans of bestselling author Macomber will not be disappointed by this compelling stand-alone novel.”—Library Journal

“Family, forgiveness and second chances are the themes in Macomber’s latest stand-alone novel. No one writes better women’s contemporary fiction, and Last One Home is another wonderful example. Always inspiring and heartwarming, this is a read you will cherish.”—RT Book Reviews

“Tender, real, and full of hope.”—Heroes and Heartbreakers

“Once again, Ms. Macomber has woven a charming tale dealing with facing life’s hard knocks, begging forgiveness, and gaining self-confidence.”—Reader to Reader

“Macomber never disappoints me. . . . She always manages to leave me with a warming of the soul and fuzzy feelings that stays for days.”—Fresh Fiction

“A very heartwarming novel of healing and reconciliation . . . that touches on life’s more serious moments and will leave readers hoping to revisit these flawed but lovable characters in the future.”—Book Reviews & More by Kathy

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Debbie Macomber, the author of Love Letters, Mr. Miracle, Blossom Street Brides, and Rose Harbor in Bloom, is a leading voice in women’s fiction. Nine of her novels have hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller lists, and three of her beloved Christmas novels have been  hit movies on the Hallmark Channel, including Mrs. Miracle and Mr. Miracle. Hallmark also produces the hit original series Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove, based on the author’s Cedar Cove books. She has more than 170 million copies of her books in print worldwide.

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Chapter 1

The impossibly thin woman sitting next to Cassie Carter in the King County Courthouse in Seattle trembled like an oak leaf in a storm. When the judge entered the courtroom and they were asked to rise, Maureen could barely manage to get to her feet. Cassie wrapped her arm around the other woman’s waist and helped her to stand upright. Maureen was skin and bone, so thin Cassie could feel her ribs. She’d been that thin once herself. Like Maureen, she had been beaten down, battered, and emotionally broken.

“You’re doing great,” Cassie whispered. She understood all too well what courage it took for

Maureen to testify against her husband. Cassie had sat in a similar courtroom in Florida, only she’d sat alone. Duke, her husband, had glared at her as she’d slowly walked toward the witness stand, his dark eyes filled with hatred. Eyes that said he would kill her if he got the chance.
He nearly had.

They’d been married only a few months when Duke hit her the first time. He’d had a few beers with friends and come home and found Cassie didn’t yet have dinner ready. To show her how displeased he was, he’d slapped her. Cassie had been stunned. Her father had never laid a hand on her mother or her, nor her two sisters. Horrified, she’d pressed her hand to her cheek, hardly knowing what to think.

That was the first of many such slaps. Afterward he was sorry. He felt horrible that he could do anything to hurt the woman he loved beyond life itself. He’d cover his face and weep, begging her forgiveness. The irony of it was that she, the one who’d been hurt, would rationalize his anger and comfort him. Shocking, really, when she thought about it. Duke hit her and she was the one who apologized.

As the years progressed, the slaps turned to slugs and the slugs into beatings. During the last beating she’d seen that very look in his eyes, the same one he gave her the day she stood in a Florida courtroom.

The look that said her days were numbered. She would pay for what she’d done.

That final time, as Duke’s fists pounded down on her, Cassie had been terrified by the cold hate in her husband’s eyes. Duke would not stop until he killed her. It was as clear as the writing on a highway billboard. In that breathless moment, Cassie knew beyond a doubt that she was about to die. She lost consciousness briefly, and when she came to again she heard him rifling through the kitchen drawers. She knew he was searching for a knife.

Carried by adrenaline, numb with fear, she managed to escape into her daughter’s bedroom and blocked the door by tilting a chair beneath the knob. She grabbed seven--year--old Amiee and fled out the window.

She didn’t take her purse or her identification or any money. And she had no friends, no resources. Just her daughter and the clothes on her back.

Cassie hadn’t needed anything else. The one precious thing that had come out of her marriage had been her daughter. Fleeing to a women’s shelter, Cassie was given housing and assistance.

Duke was arrested and sentenced to a six--month jail term.

Cassie had taken those months to put her life together. And to try to make her way back to the good life she’d left behind. The hardest part hadn’t even been leaving Duke after all—-it was that she didn’t have her family’s support. She was on her own, without her parents, without her sisters. She had to do it alone, and so she had.

“What if the judge doesn’t believe me?” Maureen whispered, her voice trembling to the point that her words were barely discernible.

“He has the police report,” Cassie assured her.

“I .?.?. I don’t know that I can do this.” Maureen started to shake again, even worse than before.

“Lonny doesn’t mean to hurt me .?.?. he can’t help himself. He has a temper, you see, and it gets away from him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He can’t help himself.”

“Maureen, we’ve been through this. It isn’t your fault that your husband hits you. You’ve done nothing wrong.” Cassie recognized the thought process: If only she’d been a better wife, a better housekeeper, a better mother, then Duke wouldn’t be upset. It was her failings that brought on the abuse. Only later, with counseling and patience, did she accept that the blame wasn’t hers.
She had done nothing to deserve the beatings Duke gave her.

“But .?.?.”

“I was married to a man who beat me,” Cassie reminded her. “I thought it was my fault, too. If only I hadn’t put mustard instead of mayo on his ham sandwich he wouldn’t have hit me. I should have remembered. How could I have been so stupid? Maureen, think about it. Would you pound your fist into your daughter’s face for something like that?”

“No, never .?.?. I’d never hit one of my children.”

“I didn’t deserve it, either, and neither did you.”

Maureen stared up at her with wide, blank eyes. At one time Cassie’s eyes had had that same hollowed, hopeless look.

“I’ll be right here,” she promised the other woman. “I’m not going to leave you. Once we’re finished I’ll take you back to the shelter.”

Maureen gripped her hands together in a hold so tight her fingers went white. “I can do this.”

“Yes, you can,” Cassie assured her and gave her thin body a gentle squeeze. “Think of your children.”

Maureen briefly closed her eyes and nodded.

“Lonny is going to jail, if there is any justice,” Cassie assured her.

“But what will I do then?”

“The shelter will help you get a job and find housing.” Cassie had already been through this with Maureen a number of times, but the fragile soul needed to hear it again.

“The paperwork .?.?.”

“I’ll help you fill out the forms, Maureen.”

Cassie understood the other woman’s fears. As easy as it might sound to others, little things like obtaining a driver’s license or completing a job application seemed overwhelming. Duke had refused to allow Cassie to drive. It became a control issue with him. If she had access to a car she might leave him. When they’d married she’d had a license, but it had long since expired and was from a different state. Moving her away from family and friends had been one of the first things he’d done, taking her from Spokane all the way to Florida, where there were supposed to be good jobs. The job had never materialized, but he’d succeeded in getting her far from family, friends, and all that was familiar.

To anyone who hadn’t been the victim of domestic violence, the hesitation to testify, to put the aggressor behind bars, was incomprehensible. Only those who’d walked through this madness understood what courage it took, what fortitude and pure nerve were required to stand up in court and admit what they had endured.

When Maureen was called to the witness stand, Cassie held her breath. She slid to the very edge of the hard wooden seat as the young mother reluctantly stood.

“Don’t look at Lonny,” Cassie advised, giving the other woman’s hand a gentle squeeze as she scooted past. “If you need to, focus on me instead.”

Maureen was deathly pale and her nod was barely noticeable. Her walk from the back of the courtroom all the way to the witness stand seemed to take thirty minutes. Thankfully,...

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Verlag
BALLANTINE BOOKS
Erscheinungsdatum
2015
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553391887
ISBN 13 
9780553391886
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
SC
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/

CL MODESTO LAFUENTE 41
Madrid
Madrid
Spanien

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