I was watching one of my favorite home improvement shows one day, and there was a guest star who ran a custom metalworking shop. He made that cold, impersonal medium into beautiful works of art, and an idea started forming in my head. I remembered going to a local living history museum and a Renaissance festival and being fascinated by the blacksmiths and how the tools of their trade hadn’t changed much in the three hundred years separating their eras. From there, Brian Calhoun’s vintage forge and the challenges it would face operating in this century came to life for me, and the research was some of the most interesting I’ve ever done.
But as good a metalsmith as he was, he needed some help. Lindsay Holland walked onto the stage of this charming little town, and I liked her right away. Sassy, smart and independent, she’s the kind of woman I admire: one who takes the curveballs life gives her and turns them into home runs. Despite the odds stacked against her, she was able to move past her failures and do what was necessary to build a better future. The world can be a tough place to navigate, and it takes serious determination—and faith—to be successful. Lindsay had the first trait all along, and once she discovered the second, she found the strength to make a good life for herself and her daughter.
If you’d like to stop in and see what I’ve been up to, you’ll find me online at miaross.com, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. While you’re there, send me a message in your favorite format. I’d love to hear from you!
Mia Ross
Love one another.
—John 13:34
For the talented artisans and craftspeople
working to keep our history alive.
To Melissa Endlich and the dedicated staff at
Love Inspired. These very talented folks help me
make my books everything they can be.
More thanks to the gang at Seekerville,
a great place to hang out online with readers—and writers.
I’ve been blessed with a wonderful network
of supportive, encouraging family and friends.
You inspire me every day!
Contents
Liberty Creek was the last place on earth she wanted to be.
Lindsay Holland reluctantly dragged her feet up Main Street of the backwater New Hampshire village she’d escaped from five years ago, berating herself for allowing her life to slide so far out of control. As her mind took an unpleasant spiral down memory lane, she resolutely jerked her thoughts out of the past to focus on her immediate—and precarious—present. A long line of bad decisions had landed her here, she reminded herself sternly. Now she was completely out of options, and the only thing she could do was find a job so she could begin digging herself out of the black hole that had engulfed her and swallowed up what had once seemed to her like a promising future.
It was a frigid January morning, and a Monday to boot, neither of which did much to lift her mood. Pausing outside the only place in town that was currently hiring, she couldn’t help smiling at the hand-lettered slab of cardboard hanging in the grimy window of Liberty Creek Forge.
“Office Help Wanted” it had said at one point. Apparently, things were getting more urgent, because someone had crossed out “Wanted” and in bold black marker had written “Desperately Needed.”
Constructed in the 1820s by the founders of the town, the building
