Homecoming at Hickory Ridge

Dana Corbit

All eyes are on Kyle Lancaster. Recently released from prison, he is greeted in town with unease.But not by everyone. Julia Sims is focused on his good heart, his hard work at the Hickory Ridge Community Church and their unexpected attraction. At first, Kyle thinks he's her new pet project: reform the bad boy.Yet he soon discovers how much firsthand knowledge Julia has of family problems, forgiveness and second chances. Maybe he'll get his own second chance in Hickory Ridge…and find a place to call home.

Something about Julia made

Kyle want to trust her.

Maybe it was the fact that her life wasn’t as picture perfect as he’d first assumed. She’d had more than her share of pain, and yet Julia was still content with her life, even grateful for God’s blessings in it. If only he’d learned years ago to be content and appreciative.

If he had any sense at all, he would keep a careful distance. Not only had he filleted himself and spilled his guts to her like a guy who enjoyed sharing, he’d almost taken a greater risk and told her the whole story about his arrest and conviction. What had he expected? That she would have believed his side of the story? No one else had.

Yes, he should be wary of Julia Sims.

DANA CORBIT

started telling “people stories” at about the same time she started forming words. So it came as no surprise when the Indiana native chose a career in journalism. As an award-winning newspaper reporter and features editor, she had the opportunity to share wonderful true-life stories with her readers. She left the workforce to be a homemaker, but the stories came home with her as she discovered the joy of writing fiction. The winner of the 2007 Holt Medallion competition for novel writing, Dana feels blessed to share the stories of her heart with readers.

Dana lives in southeast Michigan, where she balances the make-believe realm of her characters with her equally exciting real-life world as a wife, carpool coordinator for three athletic daughters and food supplier for two disinterested felines.

Homecoming at Hickory Ridge

Dana Corbit

It was fitting to make merry and be glad,

for this your brother was dead, and is alive;

he was lost, and is found.

—Luke 15:32

To my sweet aunt, Sharon Hale. Though the miles

separate us, I hold you close in my heart. You will

always be my ’nother mother.

A special thanks to criminal defense attorney

David Kramer, of the Kramer Law Firm in Novi,

Michigan, for helping me navigate this story’s legal

maze. I so appreciate your help and support.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

Bad habits died hard, that is, if they died at all. Kyle Lancaster understood that intimately after sharing living space with some repeat offenders who made the peccadilloes of his youth seem like child’s play. As he stepped through the door of Hickory Ridge Community Church for the second time that day, Kyle needed no further proof that his bad habit of letting others talk him into crazy plans was alive and well.

He was working as a consultant for a new Michigan prison ministry—now that was an idea he never would have pictured. But then he never would have imagined himself inside a cell, either. And now he would never get the stench or the squashing feel of it out of his memory.

Kyle could understand why the Milford Area Ecumenical Council might want input from a real-life ex-con as it built its program, but he knew full well his brother, Brett, had only suggested him for the job to keep him busy and out of trouble.

Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he needed this job, at least for a while.

Halfway through a double-glass door, he stalled as the early May wind swirled past him into the building. Though he’d endured the meeting with the two ministers this morning, he wasn’