Book Tour Featuring *When the Heart Brings You Home* by Robin Maderich @xpressotours #giveaway

Of all her siblings, Emma had possessed the strongest reason to leave Connor Falls, and that reason still existed. She didn’t talk about what had happened much, even with her friends. She was supposed to be over it, given time’s passage. She did speak to Sophie about old feelings on occasion, a fact which made it all the more strange to find her sister using the one carrot to lure Emma’s return to Connor Falls that Sophie knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.

Sophie had a secret. 

Despite all Emma’s speculation and prodding, Sophie refused to spill on the phone. She didn’t want anyone else to know either. Not yet. She had made Emma promise not to even mention the possibility of news. As if. Emma didn’t go calling family members to gossip, or even to check up on them. Not often, anyway. They usually ended up calling her when sufficient time had passed to warrant a conversation. They all joked about how much Emma hated the phone. 

And yet she kept her cell glued to her side at all times. Work, she always told herself. Only she didn’t have that excuse anymore. 

Emma reached into the car door pocket and pulled out the water bottle she’d been swigging from for the past three hours. She drank sparingly, chill liquid running down her throat. With a glance in the mirror before changing lanes, Emma spotted the cardboard boxes filling her back seat. More crammed the trunk. Her printer and laptop were belted in on the passenger seat beside her. Winter boots, in case she needed them in a hurry, lay on the floor beneath the glove box alongside a backpack filled with her immediate needs.

Emma had her own secret, one that would never have led her back to Connor Falls if she could have helped it. But then Sophie had called. 

This was going to be some Christmas.