Barbara Delinsky - Three Wishes

Three Wishes

By Barbara Delinsky

What if wishes really could come true? What would you wish for?

Enticing premise, bestselling author Barbara Delinsky delivers a spellbinding story that will melt even the hardest of hearts. When a surprise October blizzard hits Panama, Vermont, blanketing the sleepy little town with several feet of snow, it creates a scene so tranquil no one suspects the tragedy to come, least of all Bree Miller. Slipping and sliding as she walks home from the diner where she works, she barely has time to notice the runaway truck skidding toward her until it is too late. She awakens in the hospital, remembering little of the accident or the hours thereafter, except for a very bright light, a beatific smile, and a mystical nonvoice granting her three wishes. Tom Gates is the accident's only witness. New to town, he is a bestselling author who turned his back on his family for the sake of fortune and fame. Now, rejected by both family and friends, he is in Panama to rethink his life. Bree becomes his cause. For self-sufficient, independent Bree, life changes dramatically. Suddenly within her grasp are those things she always wanted most--a home, a soul mate, a family. But there is unfinished business: the mother who abandoned Bree when she was an infant, the family Tom misses deeply, the child doctors say Bree can never have. And there are still those three wishes.

But ..are those wishes real? And if they are, at what price?

Barbara Delinsky has written far more than a love story. Three Wishes is a novel of redemption. It speaks of courage, of second chances, of the importance of home and putting down roots. With a wonderful cast of characters in a town that revives the true meaning of community, Three Wishes is about people who take risks to live their dreams. It will move readers to tears even as it makes their spirits soar.

With this novel of rare beauty, Barbara Delinsky restores our faith in the possibility of finding heaven on earth. She succeeds in making us believe... again.

BARBARA DELINSKY is the New York Times best-selling author of sixty-five books, including A Woman's Place and For My Daughters. A master of emotional intensity, she touches the minds and hearts of her readers with intricately woven stories about domestic drama and relationships. Over 20 million copies of her books are in print worldwide, in eighteen different languages. She and her husband, both lifelong New Englanders, have three grown sons.

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JACKET DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATION BY WENDELL MINOR ,,!JTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW WELLS DOYLE IV INTED IN THE U.S.A. COPYRIGHT 6 1997 SIMON & SCHUSTER Also by Barbara Delinsky

A Woman's Place Shades of Grace Together Alone For My Daughters Suddenly More Than Friends The Passions of Chelsea Kane A Woman Betrayed

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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.

Copyright 1997 by Barbara Delinsky

All rights reserved,

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in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon 8c Schuster Inc. Designed by Sam Potts Manufactured in the United States of America 13579 10 8642 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Delinsky, Barbara. Three wishes : a novel By Barbara Delinsky. p. cm. I. Title. PS3554.E4427T48 1997 813'.54--dc21 97-15217 CIP ISBN 0-684-84507-5 A Personal Note from The Author:

I've always been a wish maker. I wish at the sight of evening's first star, on pulling the long end of the turkey wishbone, in secret notes written on birch bark and tossed onto a campfire, and, of course, over birthday candles. Some of my wishes are general and constant, most notably for good health and happiness. Others are more specific. On the occasion of the publication of this book, I offer three of the latter. First, anniversary wishes to Steve; I vote for another thirty years. Second, graduation wishes to Andrew and Jeremy; may you each find deep satisfaction in whatever field you choose to enter. Third, wedding wishes to Jodi and Eric, with the sweetest dreams of good health, happiness, and--I can't resist--true love always. I've made other wishes this year. Thanks to my agent, Amy Berkower, and my editor, Laurie Bernstein, many have already come true. You both know what's left. We'll wish together.

Chapter One

It wasn't the first snow of the season. Panama, Vermont, lay far enough north to have already seen several snow-dusted dawns. But this wasn't dawn, and these flakes didn't dust. From early afternoon right on into evening, they fell heavy and fat and wet. Truckers stopping at the diner complained of the roads growing slick, but the warning carried little weight with locals. They knew that the sun would be back, even an Indian summer before winter set in. Snowfall now was simply frosting on the cake of another wildfire fall, thick flakes silencing the riot of colorful leaves, draping a plump white shawl on the town green's oak

benches, on marigolds that lingeringly lined front walks, on a bicycle propped against an open front gate.

The scene was so peaceful that no one imagined the accident to come, least of all Bree Miller. Winter was her favorite season. There was something about snow that softened the world, made it make-believe for the briefest time, and while she wasn't a woman prone to fancy--would have immediately denied it if accused--she had her private moments.

She didn't bother with a jacket. The memory of summer's heat was all too fresh. Besides, with locals wanting to eat before the weather worsened and with truckers bulking up, the diner had been hopping, so she was plenty warm without.

She slipped out the door, closing it tight on the hum of conversation, the hiss and sizzle of the grill, the sultry twang of Shania Twain. In the sudden hush, she ran lightly down the steps, across the parking lot, then the street. On the far side, she flattened her spine to the crusty trunk of a large maple whose amber leaves hung heavy with snow, and looked back.

The diner was a vision of stainless steel and neon, rich purples and greens bouncing off silver, new and more gallant through a steady fall of snow. Gone were little items on her fix-it list--the scrape Morgan Willis's truck had put on a corner panel, a dent in the front railing, bird droppings off the edge of the roof. What remained was sparkling clean, warm, and inviting, starting with the diner's roadside logo, concentric rings of neon forming a large frying pan with the elegant eruption of FLASH AN' THE PAN from its core. Behind that were golden lamps at each of ten broad windows running the diner's length and, in booths behind those lamps, looking snug and content, the customers.

The diner wasn't Bree's. She just worked there. But she liked looking at it.

Same with Panama. Up the hill, at the spot where East Main leveled into an oval around the town green, snow capped the steel roofs of the row of tall Federals and beyond, white on white, the church steeple. Down the hill, at the spot where the

road dipped past the old train depot, snow hid the stains that years of diesel abuse had left and put a hearty head on the large wood beer stein that marked the Sleepy Creek Brewery.

Panama was ten minutes off the highway on the truck route running from Concord to Montreal. Being neither here nor there was one of its greatest strengths. There were no cookie-cutter subdivisions, no planned developments with architect-designed wraparound porches. Porches had been wrapping around houses in Panama since the days of the Revolution, not for the sake of style but for community. Those porches were as genuine as the people who used them. Add the lack of crime and the low cost of land, and the town's survival was ensured. Bright minds sought haven here and found inspiration. The brewery was but one example. There was also a bread company, workshops producing hand-carved furniture and wooden toys, and a gourmet ice cream factory. Native Panamanians lent stability. Newcomers brought cash.