Fallling for the Prodigal Son Read Free Page A

her job to help him. If Lucy Wyndham was anything, she was a trooper, a team player, the sort of person who could be counted on to pitch in and do whatever was necessary. Her brain was already drifting into brainstorming mode as she casually flipped to the last section of the marketing plan.
    The last page always detailed her outreach plans for the Kids Kamp, the Inn's summer program for underprivileged kids. The camp was a charitable activity for the Matthew family and as such didn't make any money, but Lucy was always looking for newer, creative ways to locate the kids who needed the camp the most. Burnout and turnover were high among the volunteers and social workers who were the primary source of the camp's referrals. So many kids needed this chance to get out of the city, away from the downward pull of an impoverished neighborhood—but they could be frustratingly elusive.
    I know I was. Lucy had been raised by a single mother in a run-down house in southwestern Virginia. Lucy's mother had tried her best but Lucy hadn't made it easy. When her school sent home a flyer about the Chesapeake Inn's summer camp, Lucy's mother—completely out of any other ideas to turn around her wayward daughter—called the toll-free number.
    It was the best thing she could ever have done for Lucy. Lucy returned from camp a changed girl. She got serious about her studies. After her parent-teacher conference that fall, Lucy's mother wept in relief at her daughter's turnaround. The camp had shown her a world outside the hills and hollows of Lost Cave, Virginia, a world that was quiet and genteel ... and normal, she'd thought. She'd seen families together, relaxing, having fun, enjoying each other's company. That had been a revelation to Lucy. All of the adults she knew were stressed out all the time, and none seemed to much enjoy her company.
    Lucy was hardly alone in the impact the camp had made in her life. The Kids Kamp did so much good for so many kids. When she wrote her annual fundraising appeal in the Inn's winter newsletter, it wasn't a stretch to say that the camp changed kids' lives. So when she turned to the Kids Kamp page in the marketing plan, it took a moment for her brain to register what her eyes were seeing, to pull back from the precipice of brainstorming and replant her feet firmly in reality. There was a thick black X scrawled across the entire page.
    Lucy's heart started racing. She felt lightheaded. She uncrossed her legs to plant both feet firmly on the floor beneath her desk. She pressed her forearms onto her desk until the pressure hurt.
    Breathe, she commanded herself. Just breathe.
    When her shakiness subsided, she snatched up the marketing plan and bolted from her office. She stormed into John Matthew's office three minutes later, prepared to give his son a piece of her mind. And if that didn't work, she'd just give him hell. She was brought up short, though, by the sight of a neatly-dressed man in a crisp white button-down shirt and wire-rimmed glasses sitting behind John Matthew's desk. He was leaning on his elbows, poring over a stack of spreadsheets.
    Lucy began to quietly back out of the office. She had assumed Sterling was using his father's office, but maybe not? This man looked like an accountant, not the slacker son she'd met last night.
    "Can I help you?"
    Too late. She hadn't moved fast enough.

Chapter 3
     
     
    Sterling looked up at the woman standing in his doorway. She was looking more than a little confused. Ah, Lucy Lou. That had been his pet name for her. Not that they'd done much talking as teenagers. Sterling couldn't imagine—still couldn't imagine—that they would have had much to talk about. In fact, he never did know much about her, not even her last name. The fact that she'd been a camper here meant she came from some screwed up background. That could mean almost anything. Parents in jail, on drugs, on the lam. Kids in reform school or on drugs or just general juvenile delinquency. He