Season of Miracles Shepherd Moon wishing on a Star blind Faith a Christmas Serenade

Rhianna Campbell slowed the rental car as she entered the town limits for Shepherd, New York, population 642. A smile, the first one in hours, curved the corners of her mouth. Shepherd was undergoing a population boom. When she'd moved away ten years before, the official census was 598. The tiny hamlet nestled in the picturesque Hudson Valley was frozen in time. There were no malls or multiplex movie theaters. How, she mused, was a town able to survive without at least one Wal-Mart or fast-food restaurant? During one of their biannual reunions, her parents told her that a fast-food chain executive had tried to bribe several town officials to get their approval to erect a fast-food burger outlet in Shepherd, but the lifelong residents went to the county's district attorney with the scheme. The general consensus was that as long as Campy's remained open for business, another eating establishment had as much chance of opening in Shepherd as a snowball in hell. Grief had sent Rhianna fleeing from her hometown, and now a family emergency had brought her back. Turning off the county road, she continued along an unlit winding stretch of roadway until the two-story brick building that housed the Hudson Valley Communities Hospital came into view. She maneuvered into a space in the visitors lot and shifted into park. It took a full minute before she was able to shut off the engine and get out of the car. Vivid memories of speeding to the hospital after receiving a call at her parents' restaurant that Errol Sutherland and his parents had been transported to the hospital after their car skidded off an icy road, crashing into a tree and exploding on impact, came flooding back. Rhianna knew the moment she walked into the hospital and met Emery Sutherland's pain-filled gaze that he'd lost his parents and identical twin brother. She had lost her high school sweetheart, fiancÉ, and a part of herself on that cold and snowy Christmas Eve. Turning up the collar of her lightweight jacket, Rhianna quickened her pace as she walked toward the entrance. She was chilled to the bone. Living in southern California had thinned her blood. Bright lights, antiseptic smells, and the soft squishing sound of rubber soles on highly polished tiles greeted her as she made her way to the information desk. A clerk gave her a pass, her father's room number, and a stern warning that visiting hours would end in fifteen minutes. Rhianna stepped into an elevator and took it to the second floor. Less than a minute later she walked into her father's room. Anna Campbell rose from a chair beside her husband's bed. "You came." Rhianna nodded as she closed the distance between her and her mother. Wrapping her arms around the older woman's waist, she kissed her cheek. "Mom, you know I had to come." Anna eased back, smiling up at her only child. She and Reid reunited with their daughter twice a year, but each time she saw Rhianna, she had changed. Now she'd cut her shoulder-length curly hair into a pixie style that flattered her delicate features and made her look a lot younger than thirty-three. Her daughter's looks were striking: tall, slender, high cheekbones, slightly slanting dark brown eyes, short buttonlike nose, and a lush mouth that made most people-- men in particular--give her a second look. The California sun had darkened her taupe-brown skin. Rhianna glanced over at Reid Campbell, his chest rising and falling in a slow, measured rhythm. The beeping sounds from the machines monitoring his vitals and his ragged breathing through the tube in his mouth reverberated throughout the small private room. She released Anna and walked over to the bed. Abrasions on his forehead, his right cheek, and chin marred his handsome face, while his right arm was immobilized over his chest by a sling. "Daddy, what did you do to yourself?" she whispered, as she leaned down and kissed his thinning gray hair.Alers, Rochelle is the author of 'Season of Miracles Shepherd Moon wishing on a Star blind Faith a Christmas Serenade', published 2006 under ISBN 9781583148136 and ISBN 1583148132.