Hope Springs Read online

  Acclaim for Kim Cash Tate

  “Tate expertly crafts an intriguing narrative that explores unrequited love, true faith, and the complicated politics of change in the Christian church . . . [An] affecting tale about forgiveness and following God’s call.”

  —Publishers Weekly review of Hope Springs

  “Kim Cash Tate draws us into a world where the dreams, desires, missteps and matters of the heart we discover there mirror our own. She is a master at crafting characters who make you forget you’re reading fiction. By the end of Hope Springs, you’ll feel as if you’re cheering on members of your extended family.”

  —Stacy Hawkins Adams, best-selling author of Coming Home and The Someday List

  “Tate’s amazing ability to connect with the reader on both personal and spiritual levels elevates this novel far above the rest. Those looking for hope and encouragement will find it on the pages of this superb book.”

  —Romantic Times TOP PICK for Cherished

  “As I read Kim’s book Cherished the word that came back to me over and over again is grace. Kim has the gift of being able to tell a story so vividly that you forget that the characters she portrays are fictitious and you experience deep empathy for them. You will find yourself in this story. More than that you will discover for the first time or rediscover how deeply you are loved, valued and cherished by God.”

  —Sheila Walsh, author of Sweet Sanctuary

  “The author skillfully ties the concept of sexual purity, whether married or single, to the idea of faithfulness on a spiritual level . . . Tate avoids the unrealistic ‘happily ever after’ ending while still offering a message of faith, hope, and love. Readers will not be disappointed . . .”

  —Crosswalk.com review of Faithful

  “Tate has an amazing ability to put difficult but realistic emotions on paper and show the reader the redeeming love of God in the process.”

  —Romantic Times review of Faithful, 4½ stars

  “Kim Cash Tate’s enjoyable novel is true to both the realities of life and the hope found through faith in Jesus. Romance meets real life with a godly heart. Hooray!”

  —Stasi Eldredge, best-selling author of Captivating, regarding Faithful

  “Three friends. Two husbands. One Romeo. All are shaken to the core as author Kim Cash Tate peels away layers of lies and self-deception to reveal the rotten core of infidelity and its tragic consequences. But this novel is also about hope and healing as her well-drawn characters discover the freedom of being FAITHFUL.”

  —Neta Jackson, author of the Yada Yada House of Hope novels, regarding Faithful

  “Faithful by Kim Cash Tate is not only beautifully written, it is a novel that changes you, that makes you question your heart and attitudes. I can’t recommend it highly enough!”

  —Colleen Coble, best-selling author of Lonestar Homecoming

  “Good fiction has to grab me, knock me around, and make me care about what is happening to the characters. But great fiction inspires me. Kim Cash Tate accomplishes it all in Faithful.”

  —Marilyn Meberg, Women of Faith speaker and author of Tell Me Everything

  Hope

  Springs

  Also by

  KIM CASH TATE

  Faithful

  Cherished

  Hope

  Springs

  KIM CASH TATE

  Copyright © 2012 by Kimberly Cash Tate

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Author is represented by the literary agency of The B&B Media Group, Inc., 109 S. Main, Corsicana, Texas, 75110. www.tbbmedia.com.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tate, Kimberly Cash.

  Hope Springs / Kimberly Cash Tate.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59554-997-6 (trade paper)

  I. Title.

  PS3620.A885H67 2012

  813’.6--dc23

  2012007533

  Printed in the United States of America

  12 13 14 15 16 17 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For every soul that’s learning to let go

  Sanders Family Tree

  CONTENTS

  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

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wednesday, December 23

  Stephanie Sanders London sulked with all the fervor she could muster as she and Lindell rode the escalator up to security in St. Louis’s Lambert International Airport. She stared vaguely at the moving stairway, lips pursed, sighing displeasure with rhythmic regularity.

  Lindell looked over at her. “Steph, I thought it was settled.” He had the nerve to look amused. “We said we were done talking about it.”

  Her eyes floated to the rafters. “You didn’t hear me say a word.”

  “Oh, cool. Glad I was mistaken.”

  “I’m just sayin’, though, Lindell”—she hit his shoulder—“and stop laughing because I wasn’t saying a word before but I am now.” She adjusted the purse on her shoulder. “I don’t see why you’re acting like we have to go. I’m the one who came up with the idea for this trip, so I should have the right to change my—”

  She paused just off the escalator, gaping at the security line that snaked up and down the cordoned rows, spilling into the general walkway, past the Starbucks, ending with
an older woman who’d set her bag on the ground and folded her arms.

  “That’s it. It’s a sign. I’m out.”

  She turned on her heel toward the down escalator, and Lindell pulled her back.

  “Where are you going?”

  “H-o-m-e.”

  Lindell looped his hand through her arm and walked her forward as he wheeled their luggage. “It’s two days before Christmas,” he said. “We knew the lines would be long. That’s why we left early.”

  Stephanie trudged beside him, shaking her head. “What on earth possessed me to suggest traveling for Christmas?”

  “To spend time with your family.”

  “I can spend time with my family here, like I do every Christmas.”

  They joined the back of the line, behind two families who had gotten behind the older woman.

  “Exactly. But Pastor Lyles preached that sermon about doing something different this Christmas, taking the focus off of ourselves. And what did you say?” He leaned over, his ear tuned.

  “At the time I said it might be nice to visit my Grandma Geri, since Daddy said she wasn’t feeling too well and I haven’t been down there in a long while.”

  Lindell nodded. “And it was a great idea!”

  “Yeah, well, the sermon wore off.” She shuffled forward with the others. “I don’t want to do anything different for Christmas. There’ll be a lot of people staying at her house, and I don’t even know them that well—”

  “It’s family, Steph.”

  “I stopped going to the reunions and all that after high school because a weekend getaway in Hope Springs, North Carolina, wasn’t exactly my idea of a happening time. Nor is Christmas in Hope Springs.” She sighed. “I mean, Daddy’s not even going, and it’s his mother.”

  “Steph, come on . . . your folks were just there in the summer, and they’re going back soon. You know they can’t miss Chase’s first Christmas.” He donned a wry smile. “Guess they want to see Cyd and Cedric too.”

  Stephanie allowed a chuckle. “You’ve got that right. Chase is the main attraction.” Stephanie’s older sister, Cyd, had had a baby in the spring, the first grandchild. “Little spoiled self. And I won’t get to see him open the presents I bought him.”

  “I’m looking forward to getting to know this side of your family. At our wedding I barely got the right names attached to the right faces.”

  “Shoot, me too. How about this?” She looked hopefully at her husband. “We could rebook the trip for spring, after you get back from Haiti. And I can get Cyd and Cedric to come and bring the baby.” She should’ve thought of that at first. Cyd knew this side of the family much better than she.

  Lindell shook his head. “It’ll be crazy at work when I get back.” Lindell was a doctor and was headed to Haiti for a month on a medical mission trip. He kissed her nose. “We’re going. Today. It’ll be awesome.”

  The line inched along, Stephanie retreating into her thoughts. That was another thing, this mission trip. She was happy for Lindell. He’d been excited about it the moment it surfaced and had asked if she’d like to help in an orphanage while he worked with the mobile clinic. But it just wasn’t her, so she declined. As the trip got closer, though, and his team had more and more meetings to prepare, she wondered why it wasn’t her.

  Well. She knew why. She wasn’t the servant type. What she really wondered was whether that could ever change. And she surprised herself by sending up a prayer for it to change. And to know whether her life had some kind of purpose . . . besides shopping. Which she loved. But still.

  Stephanie sighed, thinking how excited she’d gotten about Pastor Lyles’s Christmas message. Seemed to tie in with her prayers. Visiting Grandma Geri sure sounded like a servanty thing to do. But now the whole thing seemed weird. What would they even talk about? Thank God other family would be—

  Stephanie heard her ringtone and dug out her phone.

  “Checking up on me?” Stephanie said.

  Her dad chuckled. “Now why would I need to do that?”

  “Oh, you might’ve wondered what was going on after that message I left this morning.”

  “You mean the one asking me to call Lindell and assure him that my family would understand if you changed your travel plans?”

  Stephanie sneaked a peek at her husband. She lowered her voice a little. “Wouldn’t have hurt to call him, you know.”

  “I did call him.”

  “Then why am I at the airport?”

  “I told him you were his responsibility now, and I’m happy to let him handle you all on his own.”

  She could hear the grin in her dad’s voice and couldn’t help but smile herself. “Oh yeah? Then why are you calling?”

  “I forgot to tell you there’s a big funeral in Hope Springs this afternoon. And I really need you to go.”

  “Aw, Daddy, now I’m supposed to go to a funeral? You know I don’t like funerals. They’re so . . . creepy.”

  “They’re nobody’s favorite thing, Steph, but Jim Dillon was like family. You remember Jim, lived next door to Grandma Geri?”

  “The pastor? You grew up with him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but I was older. He was tight with my younger brother, Wood.” Bruce sighed. “Total shock. Momma found him slumped over the kitchen table from a heart attack. I looked into making a quick trip, but last-minute flights were either booked or too expensive. So I’m hoping you’ll represent.”

  Stephanie groaned.

  Her dad added, “But I do feel bad I forgot to tell you, because I know you didn’t pack for a funeral.”

  “Oh, that’s not an issue. I always pack some of everything.”

  Lindell nodded big, pretending to labor in pulling their luggage forward. Stephanie pinched him.

  “All right, Daddy, I’ll go.” She sighed. Was this another servanty thing? Shoot, after this trip, she’d be servant certified.

  “Thanks, sweetheart. And by the way, did you decide to stay at Momma’s or a hotel?”

  She’d been leaning toward a hotel a few miles away in Rocky Mount, but her dad had encouraged her to stay at her grandmother’s.

  “Not sure yet,” she said. “I’ve got until six o’clock this evening to cancel the hotel reservation.”

  “A lot of bonding happens late at night at the house, you know,” her father said.

  Stephanie quirked a brow. “Is that supposed to be an argument in favor or against?”

  “Don’t be surprised when you have a great time, Steph,” her dad said. “Give everyone our love.”

  Lindell was looking at the itinerary.

  “What time do we arrive?” Stephanie asked, dropping her phone back into her purse.

  “Eleven fifty.” He tucked the paper away as they moved forward, showing their IDs and boarding passes to the security guard. They headed to the shortest X-ray line.

  “So we get the rental car in Raleigh and drive straight to your grandmother’s?” Lindell asked. “How far is it?”

  “Uh . . . I meant to print out directions.” Stephanie reached for a bin for the liquids she’d stored in a baggie. “Something like forty minutes, I think. We’ll get a map when we get there.”

  “Cool. Hope Springs, here we come!”

  She pumped her arms in a rah-rah motion. “Awesome!”

  Lindell grinned. “See, you’re getting the spirit.”

  She cut her eyes at him as she placed her purse on the security belt.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Janelle Evans rode a seesaw of emotion the entire road trip south. Should she be going to Hope Springs for Christmas? Would it have been better to stay home?

  The mile marker winged past: hope springs 10 miles. This was her home away from home. She’d spent weeks of summer down here as a kid, attended almost every Sanders family reunion, celebrated countless Easters and Christmases. But once she’d had her own kids, they’d begun building their own Christmas traditions at home.

  She and her husband, David, used to pile the fa
mily in the car the day after Thanksgiving to get the tree. They’d make apple cider and decorate not just the tree but the whole house, inside and out. And on Christmas morning, David would lead the family in a special Christmas devotion before the kids tore into their gifts.

  But now David was gone and Janelle languished at this time of year especially, not feeling the joy, not wanting to decorate, preferring to bury herself under her bedcovers until the season passed. To the dismay of her family, she’d done that the past two Christmases—and planned to do it again.

  But she’d gotten word that Grandma Geri was under the weather. Then Pastor Jim, a lifelong family friend, died unexpectedly. That gave her mom and her cousin Libby all the extra fodder they needed.

  “You should be with your family for Christmas anyway,” they said. “Now even more so.”

  Janelle packed up the kids, left a house with a single symbol of Christmas—an artificial tabletop tree—and started the drive from Maryland to North Carolina, her first such trip since David’s death.

  She squinted at the highway exit sign approaching. As many times as she’d been here, why did she always get confused at this point? Did she take the first exit into Hope Springs or the second?

  “Baby, it’s the second. How is it that I always remember, and I haven’t been coming down here half as long as you?”

  A shiver shot through Janelle, and she was suddenly trembling. This was exactly why she’d stayed away. It was hard enough wading through the painful memories surrounding home, church, and school. Now she’d have to relive the loss here. She sighed, casting a quick glance over her shoulder at the kids. In many ways, this would be harder. These were the people closest to her, and David had come to love visits to Hope Springs as much as she. Everywhere she turned, there’d be a stab of memory, like that stupid highway sign.

  She veered off on the second exit and drove a couple miles down a stretch of lonely road. A handful of isolated houses came into view, then that familiar sign: Welcome to Hope Springs—Population 1200. The exit was one thing, the town another. She knew these streets like the back of her hand. Not that there were very many of them.