Lowcountry Love
Lowcountry Love
The Church Dogs of Charleston #2
Melissa Storm
© 2019, Melissa Storm
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Editor: Megan Harris
Cover & Graphics Designer: Mallory Rock
Proofreader: Falcon Storm & Jasmine Jordan
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Partridge & Pear Press
PO Box 72
Brighton, MI 48116
Contents
About this Book
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
What’s Next?
Sneak Peek of Lowcountry Legacy
More from Melissa Storm
Meet the Author
Acknowledgments
To Sky Princess and Mila:
My own personal Chihuahua loves
About this Book
Some folks are born with a silver spoon jutting right out of their mouths. Others are a bit more like Miss Harmony King. That poor thing bounced in and out of so many foster homes growing up, that even my head spun circles trying to keep track of them all.
Once Harmony hit eighteen, though, she disappeared from Charleston altogether. Fast forward nearly a decade, and now she’s back, bent over a pew, and praying like her life depends on it. I’d reckon that just maybe it does.
Of course, I don’t know why this young woman left our town, and I don’t know why she’s come back now—but one thing I do know beyond the shadow of a doubt is that God meant for us to find each other again.
So I told Harmony the story of the special Chihuahuas born in our church’s nativity scene last Christmas Eve, and that our Muffin, in particular, wanted to help her if she’d let him. Yes, our church dogs have worked miracles before, and by the grace of the Almighty, I think they might just be about to perform another…
LOWCOUNTRY LOVE is a touching and poignant story from a New York Times bestselling author that will warm your heart, bless your soul, and leave you smiling.
Author’s Note
Home is such a tricky concept. Some people never feel as if they belong in their surroundings while others feel as if they can never leave that special place they’ve made all their own.
Oh, I definitely had my Harmony period growing up. I hated the small Michigan town I grew up in and could not wait to leave it behind for bigger and better things. Only each time I ventured out toward the big city, I found myself running back for the state that had always fit me perfectly, just like a… mitten.
Like Harmony, the real person I was running from was myself. Sometimes it’s easier to look outside and say, “This is the reason I’m not happy. This is the reason I can’t find peace.”
It’s only when we learn to look within, to our hearts, to God, that we can truly find where we’re meant to be.
And despite my adolescent wanderings, I’m proud to say that I’ve settled with my Alaskan husband in my home state of Michigan and just can’t picture myself anywhere else in the world.
Sometimes we run so fast, we don’t realize we’re moving in a circle… but that’s exactly what happened to me, and thankfully I love where I’ve ended up. I love that I’m raising my daughter close enough to my old haunts to take her for a visit. I love that my roots run deep and my home state has become a part of who I am.
Don’t get me wrong, I also love visiting Charleston, Anchorage, and Sweet Grove in the books I write, and I visit so many more in those I read as well. But to me, Michigan will always be home, will always have my heart.
How has your hometown defined the person you’ve become?
Whether you are a product of your upbringing or turned out the exact opposite of how you were raised, take a moment to be grateful for its role in helping you turn into the person you were meant to be.
They call it home sweet home for a reason.
And even when it’s more bitter than sweet, there truly is no place like home.
Prologue
Pastor Adam
Some say that whenever it snows in Charleston, God is giving a miracle to His most favorite of places. I tried to remember that as the cold reaching fingers of the wind poked and prodded my cheeks, nose, and everything else not already covered up by my scratchy winter getup.
But the more I tried to be optimistic about the shocking turn in the weather forecast, the harder that miraculous snow swirled. Soon it had bleached out the entire sky so that it was hard to tell where earth ended and the heavens began. We had a veritable snow storm on our hands just in time for the celebration of His birth.
I mumbled a quick prayer that those traveling tonight would remain safe and hugged my threadbare coat tighter around my shoulders. Head down, I fought against the wind, marching ever closer toward my destination.
Leave it to me to get so caught up in my Christmas Eve sermon that I’d forget my cell phone right there on the pulpit! Lucky thing I did, though, because as I finally reached the front doors of the sanctuary, I discovered a most disturbing sight.
Our locally famous nativity scene had been on the fritz all week, but now the angels’ glowing halos had plum run out of power, casting the entire display into darkness. And on Christmas Eve, no less.
Ignoring the cold, which had found its way straight up underneath my clothes, I stepped closer to investigate the source of our power outage. Last summer old Mrs. Clementine had taken it upon herself to plant a little garden right outside the church. How could I say no to her request when she said all the food from our newly christened vegetable patch would be donated to feed the hungry?
And so with more than a little trepidation, I said yes, and unfortunately so did every little critter within a twenty mile radius. Even with the crops resting for the winter, I had no doubt that one of Mrs. Clementine’s rabbit friends had tried to make a home of Christ’s manger—and a snack of His power cords.
Upon closer inspection, I found that—yes, just as I’d suspected—a tiny ball of brown fluff had nestled into the nativity right there between Mary, Joseph, and the kindly shepherds who’d come to pay their respects.
Darn varmints!
Well, that’s what I wanted to think, but then I stopped myself. These poor creatures hadn’t expected the sudden snowfall either. They just wanted to get warm, and maybe God had sent me back to offer assistance on His behalf.
My toes began to go numb, but I tried to ignore that tingly sharpness as I stepped in for a closer look at the trembling animal.
Imagine my surprise when I found not just one creature, but five!
Right there next to the little Lord Jesus lay a mother dog and her four newborn pups. How they’d managed to survive this long was truly by the grace of God.
I didn’t want to leave them, but I couldn’t carry them all at once either. At least not on my own. After retrieving the box that our latest batch of hymnals had arrived packed inside, I stripped off my scarf and made a little nest. Then one by one, I lifted the mama and her puppies into the cardboard carrier and brought them into our church to get warm.
My lungs could scarcely take in a single breath of air until I made sure that each pup was alive and well. Only by the glory of God each of these tiny newborns moved just enough to show me they were okay. You must understand these dogs were hardly bigger than my own thumb. They could have easily been mistaken for rat pups if not for that brave mama dog.
A quick search on my newly retrieved phone confirmed that these were not just any dogs. They were the most diminutive of all dog breeds.
I didn’t even stop to question why the Almighty had sent me five Chihuahuas in need as an early gift for His birthday. I didn’t have to, because right then I knew beyond the shadow of any doubt these dogs were meant to find us. Surviving that cold Christmas Eve outdoors was only the first of many miracles that mama dog and her pups would bring to our congregation…
Chapter 1
Harmony
Thirteen months later
Harmony King had been running for a long time. At first, she was always running toward something—more specifically, toward freedom. Growing up in the foster care system would not be how she’d chosen to start life, and she definitely wouldn’t have elected to remain a slave to that system until her eighteenth birthday finally set her loose.
But that’s exactly what had happened, anyway.
All those years as a little girl with no home to call her own, she longed to live life her own way, to be the master of her own fate. Somehow, though, she’d only managed to continue her lifestyle of drifting from one place to the next without feeling any real connection.
It made her wonder: was she born broken, or had that just happened along the way?
Because, no question about it, something was majorly wrong with her.
That was part of why she’d returned to Charleston. As much as she’d fought to escape the Holy City as a teen, truth be told, it was the only place she’d even come close to belonging.
Her homes had shuffled about faster than a magician preparing his cards, but a kindly agent at Child Protection Services had fought to keep her in the same schools growing up. It was the only constant she’d had up until that point.
When she could, she would sneak away to the Eternal Grace Church and listen to the pastor regale his congregation with tales of fortitude, forgiveness, charity. Jesus had been a poor wanderer, too—and Harmony liked that. It made him relatable, although when she’d mentioned this to her foster mother at the time she’d earned a cold, hard slap on the cheek and her fastest reassignment to date.
This experience strained her relationship with the church, but she still managed to attend services at least once per month by scraping together any spare change she could find to purchase a bus ticket that would deliver her to the service and hopefully, one day, salvation.
Sometimes she’d even pretend the pastor was her long-lost father and that one day they’d realize their relation and hug each other, sobbing big, ol’ tears for all the time they’d already lost. But Harmony knew this was just a dream. She knew nothing of her birth father other than that he could have been any number of men. Her mother, who had been the very worst kind of junkie, died when Harmony was just four. But sometimes, if she clenched her eyes shut real tight, she could call up the memory of her mother’s face.
And some other times she’d wish her mother had died much earlier. Because if she had, baby Harmony would surely have been adopted. Angry, dramatic four-year-old Harmony had tempted no one into taking such an action.
Of course, she often wished that she’d never been born, but then immediately prayed for forgiveness to the Almighty. As far as she was concerned, God had put her on this earth for a reason, and it was her failing—not His—that she hadn’t figured it out yet.
Most recently she’d been living in Alabama, but when she’d lost her job and gotten evicted by her landlord, she knew her time was up in that particular locale.
It was always her tongue that got her into trouble. Harmony could put the fear of God into just about anybody, which had been a necessary skill to fight off the unwanted advances of foster brothers and fathers, along with a fair-sized collection of schoolyard bullies, too. But it was also a skill she couldn’t control even now. If someone made her angry, they were going to hear about it—and with colorful language to boot.
She was sure God didn’t mind. The two of them had an understanding when it came to these things, but Harmony still wished she could learn a bit of discretion. It certainly would make her life easier. At least a little bit, anyway.
There was little she could depend on in this world, but God always came through in some way or another.
That was another reason she’d returned to Charleston now—to the church where she’d first discovered her faith, to the pastor she’d liked to imagine was her father, to the only place she’d really stayed long enough to form some good memories along with the bad.
And, oh, did she need those good memories now. She needed answers, too. Some kind of direction she’d yet to find in her nearly twenty-eight years.
Harmony dipped her head in reverence as she stepped into the sanctuary of Eternal Grace. After a quick glance around to confirm that she was alone, she did the only thing left to do. She dropped to her knees and prayed like her life depended on it. Dear God. I need you. I’m so afraid…
Chapter 2
Harmony
Harmony prayed so long and so fervently that she all but lost track of time. When at last she lifted her bowed head, opened her eyes, and swiped at the tears that had flown freely down her face, she saw that she was no longer alone in the sanctuary.
“God’s got ya,” the same pastor she remembered from her youth said with a kindly smile and a quick nod. “Whatever it is, He knows, and He’ll take care of you, too.”
“Th-th-thank you,” she stuttered. The embarrassment of being caught mid-prayer sent a sudden flash of warmth straight to her cheeks.
The pastor sank down a few seats away from Harmony and folded his hands in his lap. “Miss Harmony, it has been quite some time.”