Books by Fern Michaels

  Fearless

  Spirit of the Season

  Deep Harbor

  Fate & Fortune

  Sweet Vengeance

  Holly and Ivy

  Fancy Dancer

  No Safe Secret

  Wishes for Christmas

  About Face

  Perfect Match

  A Family Affair

  Forget Me Not

  The Blossom Sisters

  Balancing Act

  Tuesday’s Child

  Betrayal

  Southern Comfort

  To Taste the Wine

  Sins of the Flesh

  Sins of Omission

  Return to Sender

  Mr. and Miss Anonymous

  Up Close and Personal

  Fool Me Once

  Picture Perfect

  The Future Scrolls

  Kentucky Sunrise

  Kentucky Heat

  Kentucky Rich

  Plain Jane

  Charming Lily

  What You Wish For

  The Guest List

  Listen to Your Heart

  Celebration

  Yesterday

  Finders Keepers

  Annie’s Rainbow

  Sara’s Song

  Vegas Sunrise

  Vegas Heat

  Vegas Rich

  Whitefire

  Wish List

  Dear Emily

  Christmas at Timberwoods

  The Sisterhood Novels:

  Bitter Pill

  Truth and Justice

  Cut and Run

  Safe and Sound

  Need to Know

  Crash and Burn

  Point Blank

  In Plain Sight

  Eyes Only

  Kiss and Tell

  Blindsided

  Gotcha!

  Home Free

  Déjà Vu

  Cross Roads

  Game Over

  Deadly Deals

  Vanishing Act

  Razor Sharp

  Under the Radar

  Final Justice

  Collateral Damage

  Fast Track

  Hokus Pokus

  Hide and Seek

  Free Fall

  Lethal Justice

  Sweet Revenge

  The Jury

  Vendetta

  Payback

  Weekend Warriors

  The Men of the Sisterhood

  Novels:

  Hot Shot

  Truth or Dare

  High Stakes

  Fast and Loose

  Double Down

  The Godmothers Series:

  Far and Away

  Classified

  Breaking News

  Deadline

  Late Edition

  Exclusive

  The Scoop

  E-Book Exclusives:

  Desperate Measures

  Seasons of Her Life

  To Have and To Hold

  Serendipity

  Captive Innocence

  Captive Embraces

  Captive Passions

  Captive Secrets

  Captive Splendors

  Cinders to Satin

  For All Their Lives

  Texas Heat

  Texas Rich

  Texas Fury

  Texas Sunrise

  Anthologies:

  Home Sweet Home

  A Snowy Little Christmas

  Coming Home for Christmas

  A Season to Celebrate

  Mistletoe Magic

  Winter Wishes

  The Most Wonderful Time

  When the Snow Falls

  Secret Santa

  A Winter Wonderland

  I’ll Be Home for Christmas

  Making Spirits Bright

  Holiday Magic

  Snow Angels

  Silver Bells

  Comfort and Joy

  Sugar and Spice

  Let it Snow

  A Gift of Joy

  Five Golden Rings

  Deck the Halls

  Jingle All the Way

  FERN MICHAELS

  THE BRIGHTEST STAR

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  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

  Epilogue

  Ruby’s Yeast Rolls

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Fern Michaels. Fern Michaels is a registered trademark of KAP 5, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020937023

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-2619-3

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: October 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2620-9 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-2620-0 (ebook)

  Prologue

  October 2016

  Santa Maria Island, Florida

  Lauren Montgomery opened her second box of tissues and sneezed into the cushiest brand she’d found at the drugstore; she’d been dealing with a nightmare of a cold for the past three days. All the snowbirds must be bringing extra germs with them this year, she thought. She hadn’t felt this rotten in ages. Probably not since she was four, fell off the slide, and broke her collarbone. “No, this is worse,” she said to herself as she poured another glass of orange juice.

  Taking her glass outside, she sat at the small table and chairs on the balcony of her beachside condo overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. It was early, yet the beach was already filled with tourists toting beach chairs, brightly colored umbrellas, and the bags of paraphernalia one required to spend a gorgeous winter’s day on a Florida beach.

  Lauren had just finished writing a biography on one of the hottest stars of social media, Albert Grossman, CEO and founder of Shout Out. If she had to be honest with herself, she hadn’t been taking good care of herself during these past two months as she finished work on the manuscript. She put heart and soul into her work and, in doing so, often neglected her own well-being. Lauren told herself that as soon as she was over this cold, she’d get back into a stable routine. She enjoyed tinkering in the kitchen. She’d make pots of homemade chicken-noodle soup and freeze them, just in case. This was the start of the cold and flu season, so it couldn’t hurt to be a bit more prepared.

  She downed the last of her juice and went inside. Lauren liked the relaxed lifestyle that came with living on the beach and was grateful she didn’t have to deal with snowstorms and other such weather-related issues that sent the snowbirds flocking to the Sunshine State every winter. Her life was peaceful, and she liked it that way.

  She thought about Eric, and their relationship, which had gone sour. With a wry smile, she knew she’d done the right thing when she broke it off with him. He wasn’t the one for her, and she was okay with that. At thirty-two, she knew the years were passing her by, and she did want to settle down one day, get married, and have a family. But no way was she going to settle for just “so-so” in a relationship. She’d rather be alone than with someone she did not love with all her heart and all her soul.

  Deciding a hot shower was in order, she put her juice glass in the dishwasher. She was sitting on the side of the tub in the master bathroom about to turn on the water when her cell phone rang.

  This was a critical time in the publication of Albert Grossman’s biography. It could be her editor needing some sort of change or other.

  She answered with a cheerful, “Hello.”

  The voice on the other end was familiar. There was no “Hello,” no “How are you, honey.” Not from her mom. Her mother never stopped to think how her words affected someone, anyone, even her one and only daughter. Nope. Good old mom just went full bore. “Lauren, it’s your dad. He’s been diagnosed with a rare disorder. I need your help right now,” her mother blurted shrilly. “I need you to come home. Now!”

  Jolted back to Fallen Springs, North Carolina, Lauren knew her time on the beach had just ended.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Mom.”

  The next phase of her life had just begun.

  Chapter 1

  Black Friday, 2019

  Lauren Montgomery’s eyes blurred as she viewed the day’s final sales
figures. Try as she might, there was no way she could deny the results. She’d added, subtracted, and multiplied the numbers a dozen different ways and could come to no other conclusion: this was it. If sales didn’t improve in December, there would be no choice. Razzle Dazzle Décor would have to file for bankruptcy.

  Razzle Dazzle Décor had first opened its doors way back in 1935 when her great-grandfather, Alfred Montgomery, was a mere twenty-two years old. At the time, it was called the Montgomery General Store. Centrally located on the main street of Fallen Springs, North Carolina, West King Street, MGS, as it had been called by the locals, started out as just what its name implied. It generally supplied a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and everything in between. From potbellied stoves to Big Chief tablets, as her father and grandfather used to say. Anything one would have generally needed to run a household at the time.

  During the sixties, as big-box stores started to fulfill shoppers’ every need, the prospects for basic general stores essentially disappeared. So her grandfather, Alfred Montgomery Jr., decided to shift focus and begin to sell holiday décor, which led to an abundance of Christmas decorations that “sold like hotcakes.” As the years passed, holiday items comprised most of their inventory, hence the name change to Razzle Dazzle Décor.

  Lauren could hear her grandfather and father saying, “I’m razzled and dazzled every time I walk through these doors.” Both were still alive but no longer active in the day-to-day operations of the store. Her grandfather was now living in a fancy-dancy assisted-living facility, and her father had been diagnosed with a severe form of crippling arthritis at age fifty-eight. The past three years had taken its toll on both her father and her mother, who was her husband’s constant caregiver. Lauren didn’t know how her mother managed, but she knew that something had to change, and soon, or her parents’ source of income would dry up. She felt sure that they had some sort of retirement plan. What she did not know is whether or not that plan included the loss of income from Razzle Dazzle. She needed to know the specifics of their personal finances but dreaded telling them why she needed to know. Maybe she could find a way around the problem with the store.

  One last time, she went over what should have been record sales for the day, since it was, after all, Black Friday, and again, the numbers just didn’t come close to where they should have been. Disgusted, she tossed the calculator aside and looked at her watch, a Rolex given to her by her father when she’d sold her first biography. It was almost midnight, and her parents would be asleep when she got home.

  She had been thirty-two when she moved from Florida back to Fallen Springs after her father was diagnosed with severe rheumatoid arthritis. It had never been in her life plan to return to Fallen Springs, but family was more important than living in her beachside condo. She sold her place quickly, making an indecent profit, which allowed her to give up her work as a biographer and run the family store. She had written four biographies of giants in the business world, all of which had been best sellers, something she was quite proud of.

  It had been over three years since she’d done any writing at all because everything that running the store entailed required her full attention. Perhaps she could have made time for another book if a publisher had asked her to write one, but no one had come begging for another, so Lauren worked from sunrise to sunset to keep her family’s retail legacy alive.

  And I am doing a crappy job, she thought. A few locals had come in to browse, but the resulting sales came nowhere near the amount needed to remain solvent. They’d sold four wreaths she’d taken on consignment from her mother’s craft group. Most of that money went back to the crafters. Other than that, she had sold one artificial tree and a few boxes of handblown ornaments, to make her Black Friday truly a dark day.

  Lauren turned the store lights off with the remote on her desk that had been included when she’d purchased them during an after-Christmas sale last year at one of the big-box stores in Asheville, then did a quick walk through the aisles in order to tidy up. Red, green, and white twinkle lights framed the storefront window, where an artfully arranged pile of decorated boxes lay just so around the faux-fir tree, which had ornaments from the store tucked neatly inside and around the branches, the price tags discreetly hidden. The uniqueness of their stock should have brought shoppers from across the state, as it had done in the past, but, sadly, that pipe dream fizzled out as fast as the gas logs in the fake fireplace, where handmade red-and-gold stockings, again from her mother’s crafting group, hung from the mantel. If she were a stranger and happened upon a store as Christmassy as this, she would’ve spent a good portion of today perusing the shelves, but she’d grown up with beautiful, unique items such as these, and it was all in a day’s work to her and her parents.

  She often wondered if her choice of colleges had something to do with the fact that Florida just didn’t seem like a place where one would surround oneself with Christmas things. She’d been wrong on that front, too. Floridians took advantage of the warm weather and overdecorated their front yards and lanais. Hot-pink flamingos wearing red Santa hats were seen on lawns, and sometimes even on rooftops. Santa’s sleigh was pulled by seahorses, dolphins, and, now and then, gators, in honor, she supposed, of her alma mater. Sand replaced snow. In Florida, hot toddies were replaced by frozen margaritas, totally the opposite of what she’d been used to. Her college choice had been so long ago, she truly didn’t remember when the idea to attend the University of Florida had hit her. Lauren had always returned to Fallen Springs for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and a few other times throughout the year.

  When she returned to her birthplace, she’d adapted as well as any grown woman could have, and so far, she had no regrets.

  Until today.

  She’d been sliding through the days, weeks, and months as though there would be plenty of time to think about the store’s finances, and now, here she was. It was the busiest shopping day of the year, and all she had were a few sales from locals who had yet to buy into the online-shopping craze.

  And that was the problem. She’d realized it long before her return to Fallen Springs. Brick-and-mortar stores are in a race for survival, she’d explained to her father and grandfather. They needed to step up their game if they were to survive. Open up an online version of Razzle Dazzle Décor. Or at least join a website where people from across the globe would be able to purchase what they had for sale.

  Again and again, her father wouldn’t hear of it. He gave her his usual spiel about the business, how it had been handed down from one generation to the next. It had provided for many and would continue to do so. “End of story,” he always added.

  Not just story, she thought. End of business.

  She left through the back door, locking up behind her, then rummaged through her purse for her car keys. She unlocked the door with the key fob and slid behind the wheel of her ten-year-old Honda. Turning the key in the ignition, she almost cried when all she heard was a clicking sound.

  “Damn,” she said loudly. “This car needs a tune-up, and I can’t . . .”

  Even run the family business properly.

  Those were her thoughts as she pulled the latch on the hood. She left her purse on the passenger seat, then raised the hood, using the metal rod to ensure it stayed up.

  She tugged on the battery cables, but they seemed okay. She used the light on her outdated iPhone to see if there was anything loose or out of place. “Like I would know if there were.”

  No way was she calling her mother at this hour of night. Fallen Springs’ closest garage, Jimmy’s, had closed hours ago, and besides, even if they were open, they wouldn’t be able to do anything until tomorrow, maybe not even then. It was a holiday weekend, and most normal people were snuggled in bed beneath a warm blanket after a day of shopping online in the comfort of their own homes. Which is precisely where she would be, if given the choice. Sighing, she knew she didn’t have the luxury of a choice at that moment. Her only option was to go back inside the store and spend the rest of her night on the sagging sofa in the office.