Smitten
Smitten
Also by
Colleen Coble
The Lonestar novels
Lonestar Sanctuary
Lonestar Secrets
Lonestar Homecoming
Lonestar Angel
The Mercy Falls series
The Lightkeeper’s Daughter
The Lightkeeper’s Bride
The Lightkeeper’s Ball
The Rock Harbor series
Without a Trace
Beyond a Doubt
Into the Deep
Cry in the Night
The Aloha Reef series
Distant Echoes
Black Sands
Dangerous Depths
Alaska Twilight
Fire Dancer
Midnight Sea
Abomination
Anathema
Also by
Kristin Billerbeck
Split Ends
The Ashley
Stockingdale Series
What a Girl Wants
She’s Out of Control
With This Ring,
I’m Confused
The Spa Girls Series
She’s All That
A Girl’s Best Friend
Calm, Cool,
and Adjusted
Also by
Diann Hunt
Bittersweet Surrender
(available as ebook only)
Be Sweet
For Better or For Worse
Hot Tropics & Cold Feet
RV There Yet
?
Hot Flashes & Cold Cream
Also by
Denise Hunter
The Big Sky
Romance series
A Cowboy’s Touch
The Accidental Bride
Nantucket
Love Stories
Driftwood Lane
Seaside Letters
The Convenient Groom
Surrender Bay
Sweetwater Gap
Colleen Coble,
Kristin Billerbeck, Diann Hunt
& Denise Hunter
Smitten
Love is on the way
© 2011 by Kristin Billerbeck, Colleen Coble, Diann Hunt, and Denise Hunter
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected]
Scripture quotations are taken from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved; and HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION
®
. © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Kristin Billerbeck is represented by the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920,
www.alivecommunications.com
.
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smitten / Colleen Coble.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4016-8494-5 (trade paper)
1. Love stories, American. 2. Christian fiction, American. I. Coble, Colleen.
PS648.L6S54 2011
813’.08508--dc23
2011035671
Printed in the United States of America
11 12 13 14 15 QG 5 4 3 2 1
D
EAR FRIENDS
,
H
ave you ever noticed that life’s biggest blessings are often unexpected? That’s how it was with both our budding friendship and the origination of
Smitten
.
In the mid-1990s, God began linking us together, first Colleen and Kristin, and a year or so later, Denise. Bonded by our fledgling writing careers, we attended writing conferences, connected daily via e-mail, and eventually wrote a few romantic novella collections together. Our relationship deepened and became the kind of friendship we knew could only be a God thing.
Years later, our careers budding just as our friendship had, God brought us Diann. The lonely business of writing was lonely no more—it was a party for four! Diann frequently teased us about being “left out” of our previous novella collections, as if she were our group’s third wheel, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The fact was, we fit together like pieces of a heavenly puzzle.
Although our genres took us down slightly different paths, we were constantly connected by love and support—the kind that got us through bouts with cancer, family crises, and all the other storms that came our way.
When the opportunity arose to collaborate on a collection, we were ecstatic. Do what we loved with the people we loved? How could we turn that down? Besides, it was Diann’s dream, and we (including Thomas Nelson) couldn’t have been more eager to grant it.
Hours of brainstorming and hundreds of e-mails later,
Smitten
was born—a story that follows a fledgling town and four friends as each finds her true love. To make things simpler (not to mention more fun), we endowed our heroines with a healthy dose of our own personalities, so as you meet them you’ll also be meeting “us.” (We hope you’ll like us.
)
In many ways, this collection is a celebration of our friendship, a celebration of enduring love, and a celebration of God’s unexpected blessings, all wrapped in one simple book. It’s our greatest hope that you, our readers, will feel a part of it all as you join us on our journey to Smitten.
Love,
Colleen, Kristin,
Diann, and Denise
C
ONTENTS
R
EESE’S
T
IPS TO
M
OTIVATE
Y
OURSELF TO
E
XERCISE
J
ULIA’S
C
RANBERRY
E
XFOLIATING
M
ASK
Colleen Coble
N
atalie Mansfield’s heart swelled as she stood on the perimeter of the town square and watched her niece and the other children decorate the town for Easter. A gigantic smile stretched across five-year-old Mia’s face as her Sunday school teacher lifted her to place the lavender wreath at the top of the clock.