Twenty Wishes Read online

  Praise for Debbie Macomber’s Twenty Wishes

  “Even the most hard-hearted readers will find themselves rooting for the women in this hopeful story while surreptitiously wiping away tears and making their own lists of wishes.”

  —Booklist

  “It’s impossible not to cheer for Macomber’s characters, and there’s a story in this book for women of every age. When it comes to creating a special place and memorable, honorable characters, nobody does it better than Macomber.”

  —BookPage

  “Macomber’s assured storytelling and affirming narrative is as welcoming as your favorite easy chair.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  A “heart-felt, thought-provoking return to Blossom Street.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Twenty Wishes is a heartwarming story of friends and a second chance at love. Reading a Debbie Macomber book is like wrapping yourself in a warm, cozy blanket.”

  —BookLoons

  “Twenty Wishes is an emotionally gripping novel…not a book to be missed.”

  —Romance Junkies.com

  “Debbie committed…her heart to paper, and the result is spectacular.”

  —Books2Mention

  “Macomber’s latest is completely delightful…. By turns humorous, sad and optimistic, it’s a wonderful book to curl up with at any time.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Also by Debbie Macomber

  Blossom Street Books

  THE SHOP ON BLOSSOM STREET

  A GOOD YARN

  SUSANNAH’S GARDEN

  BACK ON BLOSSOM STREET

  TWENTY WISHES

  SUMMER ON BLOSSOM STREET

  Cedar Cove Series

  16 LIGHTHOUSE ROAD

  204 ROSEWOOD LANE

  311 PELICAN COURT

  44 CRANBERRY POINT

  50 HARBOR STREET

  HEARTS DIVIDED

  “5-B Poppy Lane”

  6 RAINIER DRIVE

  74 SEASIDE AVENUE

  8 SANDPIPER WAY

  A CEDAR COVE CHRISTMAS

  92 PACIFIC BOULEVARD

  The Manning Family

  THE MANNING SISTERS

  THE MANNING BRIDES

  THE MANNING GROOMS

  Christmas Books

  CAN THIS BE CHRISTMAS?

  SHIRLEY, GOODNESS AND MERCY

  THE SNOW BRIDE

  THE CHRISTMAS BASKET

  WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES

  THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT CHRISTMAS

  CHRISTMAS LETTERS

  WHERE ANGELS GO

  (A Shirley, Goodness and Mercy title)

  THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS

  Also by Debbie Macomber

  Dakota Series

  DAKOTA BORN

  DAKOTA HOME

  ALWAYS DAKOTA

  Heart of Texas Series

  VOLUME 1

  (Lonesome Cowboy and Texas Two-Step)

  VOLUME 2

  (Caroline’s Child and Dr. Texas)

  VOLUME 3

  (Nell’s Cowboy and Lone Star Baby)

  PROMISE, TEXAS

  RETURN TO PROMISE

  Midnight Sons Series

  VOLUME 1

  (Brides for Brothers and The Marriage Risk)

  VOLUME 2

  (Daddy’s Little Helper and Because of the Baby)

  VOLUME 3

  (Falling for Him, Ending in Marriage and Midnight Sons and Daughters)

  THIS MATTER OF MARRIAGE

  MONTANA

  MOON OVER WATER

  THURSDAYS AT EIGHT

  BETWEEN FRIENDS

  CHANGING HABITS

  DEBBIE MACOMBER

  Twenty Wishes

  To

  June Scobee Rodgers

  My dear friend

  An inspiration

  And a joy

  April 2009

  Dear Friends,

  When we were children, my cousins and I often lay on the grass during those warm summer nights, gazing up at the heavens and wishing upon a star. It seems the child in us never really goes away, does it? I was reminded of this some time ago, when I met a reader named Arliene Zeigler at an autographing and she told me about her list of wishes. They weren’t resolutions, decisions or even goals. They were simply wishes. Some of them were places she wanted to go, people she longed to meet and experiences she hoped to have.

  Don’t we all have wishes in one form or another? Secret desires we rarely talk about because they might sound silly? As I started to write Twenty Wishes, I made up a completely new list of my own. I want to cuddle with my husband and reminisce about the years we’ve been together. I’d like to blow bubbles with my grandchildren and chase butterflies. I want to sing on Broadway. Okay, that’s carrying it a bit far, but one can dream….

  I hope you enjoy spending a few hours with Anne Marie, her friends (especially the widows) and everyone else on Blossom Street. Alix has the coffee brewing over at the French Café and Susannah’s setting out flowers on the sidewalk outside Susannah’s Garden. I see that Whiskers has curled up in the display window at A Good Yarn, and Lydia has turned over the Open sign. The door at Blossom Street Books is open, too, so come on in!

  Hearing from my readers is one of my joys as an author. You can contact me through my Web site at www.DebbieMacomber.com or at P.O. Box 1458, Port Orchard, WA 98366.

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  It was six o’clock on Valentine’s Day, an hour that should have marked the beginning of a celebration—the way it had when she and Robert were married. When Robert was alive. But tonight, on the most romantic day of the year, thirty-eight-year-old Anne Marie Roche was alone. Turning over the closed sign on the door of Blossom Street Books, she glanced at the Valentine’s display with its cutout hearts and pink balloons and the collection of romance novels she didn’t read anymore. Then she looked outside. Streetlights flickered on as evening settled over the Seattle neighborhood.

  The truth was, Anne Marie hated her life. Well, okay, hate was putting it too strongly. After all, she was healthy, reasonably young and reasonably attractive, financially solvent, and she owned the most popular bookstore in the area. But she didn’t have anyone to love, anyone who loved her. She was no longer part of something larger than herself. Every morning when she woke, she found the other side of the bed empty and she didn’t think she’d ever get accustomed to that desolate feeling.

  Her husband had died nine months ago. So, technically, she was a widow, although she and Robert had been separated. But they saw each other regularly and were working on a reconciliation.

  Then, suddenly, it was all over, all hope gone. Just when they were on the verge of reuniting, her husband had a massive heart attack. He’d collapsed at the office and died even before the paramedics could arrive.

  Anne Marie’s mother had
warned her about the risks of marrying an older man, but fifteen years wasn’t that much older. Robert, charismatic and handsome, had been in his mid-forties when they met. They’d been happy together, well matched in every way but one.

  Anne Marie wanted a baby.

  Robert hadn’t.

  He’d had a family—two children—with his first wife, Pamela, and wasn’t interested in starting a second one. When she’d married him, Anne Marie had agreed to his stipulation. At the time it hadn’t seemed important. She was madly in love with Robert—and then two years ago it hit her. This longing, this need for a baby, grew more and more intense, and Robert’s refusal became more adamant. His solution had been to buy her a dog she’d named Baxter. Much as she loved her Yorkie, her feelings hadn’t changed. She’d still wanted a baby.

  The situation wasn’t helped by Melissa, Robert’s twenty-four-year-old daughter, who disliked Anne Marie and always had. Over the years Anne Marie had made many attempts to ease the tension between them, all of which failed. Fortunately she had a good relationship with Brandon, Robert’s son, who was five years older than his sister.

  When problems arose in Anne Marie and Robert’s marriage, Melissa hadn’t been able to disguise her glee. Her stepdaughter seemed absolutely delighted when Robert moved out the autumn before last, seven months before his death.

  Anne Marie didn’t know what she’d done to warrant such passionate loathing, other than to fall in love with Melissa’s father. She supposed the girl’s ardent hope that her parents would one day remarry was responsible for her bitterness. Every child wanted his or her family intact. And Melissa was a young teen when Anne Marie married Robert—a hard age made harder by the family’s circumstances. Anne Marie didn’t blame Robert’s daughter, but his marriage to Pamela had been dead long before she entered the picture. Still, try as she might, Anne Marie had never been able to find common ground with Melissa. In fact, she hadn’t heard from her since the funeral.

  Anne Marie opened the shop door as Elise Beaumont approached. Elise’s husband, Maverick, had recently passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. In her mid-sixties, she was a retired librarian who’d reconnected with her husband after nearly thirty years apart, only to lose him again after less than three. She was a slight, gray-haired woman who’d become almost gaunt, but the sternness of her features was softened by the sadness in her eyes. A frequent patron of the bookstore, she and Anne Marie had become friends during the months of Maverick’s decline. In many ways his death was a release, yet Anne Marie understood how difficult it was to let go of someone you loved.

  “I was hoping you’d come,” Anne Marie told her with a quick hug. She’d closed the store two hours early, giving Steve Handley, her usual Thursday-night assistant, a free evening for his own Valentine celebration.

  Elise slipped off her coat and draped it over the back of an overstuffed chair. “I didn’t think I would and then I decided that being with the other widows was exactly what I needed tonight.”

  The widows.

  They’d met in a book group Anne Marie had organized at the store. After Robert died, she’d suggested reading Lolly Winston’s Good Grief, a novel about a young woman adjusting to widowhood. It was through the group that Anne Marie had met Lillie Higgins and Barbie Foster. Colette Blake had joined, too. She’d been a widow who’d rented the apartment above A Good Yarn, Lydia Goetz’s yarn store. Colette had married again the previous year.

  Although the larger group had read and discussed other books, the widows had gravitated together and begun to meet on their own. Their sessions were often informal gatherings over coffee at the nearby French Café or a glass of wine upstairs at Anne Marie’s.

  Lillie and Barbie were a unique pair of widows, mother and daughter. They’d lost their husbands in a private plane crash three years earlier. Anne Marie remembered reading about the Learjet incident in the paper; both pilots and their two passengers had been killed in a freak accident on landing in Seattle. Lillie’s husband and son-in-law were executives at a perfume company and often took business trips together.

  Lillie Higgins was close to Elise’s age, but that was all they shared. Actually, it was difficult to tell exactly how old Lillie was. She looked barely fifty, but with a forty-year-old daughter, she had to be in her mid-sixties. Petite and delicate, she was one of those rare women who never seemed to age. Her wardrobe consisted of ultra-expensive knits and gold jewelry. Anne Marie had the impression that if Lillie wanted, she could purchase this bookstore ten times over.

  Her daughter, Barbie Foster, was a lot like her mother and aptly named, at least as far as appearances went. She had long blond hair that never seemed to get mussed, gorgeous crystal-blue eyes, a flawless figure. It was hard to believe she had eighteen-year-old twin sons who were college freshmen; Anne Marie would bet that most people assumed she was their sister rather than their mother. If Anne Marie didn’t like Barbie so much, it would be easy to resent her for being so…perfect.

  “Thanks for closing early tonight. I’d much rather be here than spend another evening alone,” Elise said, breaking into Anne Marie’s thoughts.

  There was that word again.

  Alone.

  Despite her own misgivings about Valentine’s Day, Anne Marie tried to smile. She gestured toward the rear of the store. “I’ve got the bubble wrap and everything set up in the back room.”

  The previous month, as they discussed an Elizabeth Buchan novel, the subject of Valentine’s Day had come up. Anne Marie learned from her friends that this was perhaps the most painful holiday for widows. That was when their small group decided to plan their own celebration. Only instead of romantic love and marriage, they’d celebrate friendship. They’d defy the world’s pitying glances and toast each other’s past loves and future hopes.

  Elise managed a quivering smile as she peered into the back of the store. “Bubble wrap?”

  “I have tons,” Anne Marie informed her. “You can’t imagine how many shippers use it.”

  “But why is it on the floor?”

  “Well…” It seemed silly now that Anne Marie was trying to explain. “I always have this insatiable urge to pop it, so I thought we could do it together—by walking on it.”

  “You want us to step on bubble wrap?” Elise asked, sounding confused.

  “Think of it as our own Valentine’s dance and fireworks in one.”

  “But fireworks are for Independence Day or maybe New Year’s.”

  “That’s the point,” Anne Marie said bracingly. “New beginnings.”

  “And we’ll drink champagne, too?”

  “You bet. I’ve got a couple bottles of the real stuff, Veuve Clicquot.”

  “Veuve means widow, you know. The widow Clicquot’s bubbly—what else could we possibly drink?”

  The door opened, and Lillie and Barbie entered in a cloud of some elegant scent. As soon as they were inside, Anne Marie locked the shop.

  “Party time,” Lillie said, handing Anne Marie a white box filled with pastries.

  “I brought chocolate,” Barbie announced, holding up a box of dark Belgian chocolates. She wore a red pantsuit with a wide black belt that emphasized her petite waist. Was there no justice in this world? The woman had the figure of a goddess and she ate chocolate?

  “I read that dark chocolate and red wine have all kinds of natural benefits,” Elise said.

  Anne Marie had read that, too.

  Lillie shook her head in mock astonishment. “First wine and now chocolate. Life is good.”

  Leading the way to the back room, Anne Marie dimmed the lights in the front of the shop. Beside the champagne and flutes, she’d arranged a crystal vase of red roses; they’d been a gift from Susannah’s Garden, the flower shop next door. All the retailers on Blossom Street were friends. Hearing about the small party, Alix Turner from the French Café had dropped off a tray of cheese, crackers and seedless green grapes, which Anne Marie had placed on her work table, now covered with a lacy cloth. Lydia ha
d insisted they use it for their celebration. It was so beautiful it reawakened Anne Marie’s desire to learn to knit.

  She wished she could see her friends’ gifts as more than expressions of sympathy, but her state of mind made that impossible. Still, because of the other widows, for their sake as well as her own, she was determined to try.

  “This is going to be fun,” Elise said, telling them why Anne Marie had spread out the bubble wrap.

  “What a wonderful idea!” Barbie exclaimed.

  “Shall I pour?” Anne Marie asked, ignoring the sense of oppression she couldn’t seem to escape. It had been present for months and she’d thought life would be better by now. Perhaps she needed counseling. One thing was certain; she needed something.

  “By all means,” Lillie said, motioning toward the champagne.

  Anne Marie opened the bottle and filled the four glasses and then they toasted one another, clicking the rims of the flutes.

  “To love,” Elise said. “To Maverick.” Her voice broke.

  “To chocolate!” Barbie made a silly face, perhaps to draw attention away from Elise’s tears.

  “And the Widow’s champagne,” Lillie threw in.

  Anne Marie remained silent.

  Although it’d been nine months, her grief didn’t seem to diminish or become any easier to bear. She worked too much, ate too little and grieved for all the might-have-beens. It was more than the fact that the man she’d loved was dead. With his death, she was forced to give up the dream of all she’d hoped her marriage would be. A true companionship—and the foundation of a family. Even if she were to fall in love again, which seemed unlikely, a pregnancy past the age of forty was risky. The dream of having her own child had died with Robert.

  The four sipped their champagne in silence, each caught up in her own memories. Anne Marie saw the sorrow on Elise’s face, the contemplative look on Lillie’s, Barbie’s half smile.

  “Will we be removing our shoes in order to pop the bubble wrap?” Lillie asked a moment later.

  “Mom has this thing about walking around in stocking feet,” Barbie said, glancing at her mother. “She doesn’t approve.”

  “It just wasn’t done in our household,” Lillie murmured.