The Finding Emma Collection (Books 1-5)
FINDING EMMA SERIES
A collection of all the stories in the series
Steena Holmes
Copyright © 2020 by Steena Holmes
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Before You Begin Reading
Want a free read?
FINDING EMMA
ABOUT THE BOOK
IF I ASK…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
DID YOU KNOW…
DEAR JACK
BEFORE YOU START READING
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
DID YOU KNOW…
EMMA’S SECRET
ABOUT THE BOOK
WHY I WROTE EMMA’S SECRET
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
DID YOU KNOW…
DOTTIE’S MEMORIES
ABOUT THE BOOK
Dear Reader
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
MEGAN’S HOPE
Dear Reader
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Afterword
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Also by Steena Holmes
Before You Begin Reading
I put this collection together for two simple reasons: to give you easy access to all the books in the series and to donate the proceeds from each sale to The Missing Children Society of Canada, an organization dedicated to reuniting families.
I have been able to include the first 5 chapters of FINDING EMMA and EMMA’S SECRET with permission from my publisher - I’ve also added easy links for you to click and download the full novels from Amazon.
This series is special to me.
I wrote it in the beginning of my writing career and I knew from the beginning it was special. If you are one of those readers who have been with me since the beginning - thank you!
Finding Emma wasn’t just my breakout novel - it is the ‘novel of my heart’. It’s a personal story of a mother’s love to her daughters. The girls in these books were created by my own daughters, with their names, personalities, favorite toys and favorite cookies.
I hope you will enjoy!
Want a free read?
I have two books that I offer those who sign up for my mailing list. Interested? CLICK HERE.
AN UNLIKELY RENEWAL OF LOVE under my STEENA MARIE name.
STILLWATER SHORES is the first story in my STILLWATER BAY series.
I hope you enjoy the reads! I send out emails on Fridays with my #fridayreads suggestions and then when I have a new release.
FINDING EMMA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 Steena Holmes
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Amazon Publishing
P.O. Box 400818, Las Vegas, NV 89140 ISBN-13: 9781477800119
ISBN-10: 1477800115
“Excerpts from FINDING EMMA and EMMA’S SECRET, reprinted under a license arrangement originating with Amazon Publishing, www.apub.com”
ABOUT THE BOOK
A mother’s near-obsessive devotion to her missing daughter threatens to destroy more than one family.
Megan is the harried but happy stay-at-home mother of three little girls living in a small town. Her life implodes when her youngest daughter, Emma, disappears on her third birthday.
Two years later, Megan is preparing to commemorate Emma’s birthday and the anniversary of her kidnapping, compelled to keep her name alive in the minds of her community and her family. Her commitment to Emma, however, borderlines on obsession as she follows the families of little girls who look like the daughter she lost.
Her obsession with finding Emma has distanced Megan from both friends and family. Her two older daughters are resentful of her relentless and fruitless search for their sister, and her husband pleads with her to accept that Emma is gone so that the family can move on with their lives.
Meanwhile, in the same small town, Jack is beginning to question his wife’s secrecy about their adored granddaughter, Emmie. As Dottie slips into dementia and becomes increasingly protective over Emmie, he can’t help but wonder if there could be a dark secret that Dottie is keeping from him.
Jack and Megan’s worlds finally intersect at the town carnival, when Megan snaps a photograph of a little girl on her grandfather’s shoulders.
INCLUDED ARE THE FIRST 5 CHAPTERS.
IF I ASK…
If I ask my readers what their first book or favorite book of mine is…they will say it’s FINDING EMMA.
I hope you enjoy these first 5 chapters of the novel. If this is the first time you’re reading FINDING EMMA…enjoy and be prepared to fall in love with a little girl, her grandfather and a mother who will do everything to find her daughter.
TURN THE PAGE TO START READING…
One
A child’s scream shattered the peaceful silence of the Sunday afternoon.
Megan shot up from the blanket on the lawn, her heart hammering as she scanned the street in front of her. She groaned as two of her daughters squirted each other in a water-gun fight as they came up the walkway. She’d dozed off. Again. The late nights working on Peter’s books had to stop. Yesterday, she’d woken up to find her third daughter, Emma, across the street at the neighbors’, crawled halfway into their doghouse.
She glanced down at Emma, her youngest child, playing with a dandelion on the blanket. Thank God, she was still there. The three-year-old gazed in rapture at the sky.
“Red balloon, Momma?”
Megan twirled her fingers in Emma’s tight curls.
“Later, honey.”
“Red, Momma. Red balloons.” Emma gestured toward
the sky with her pudgy fingers. Megan turned her head and noticed the explosion of color that filled the air. Red, yellow, and blue balloons danced with the breeze, sweeping across the sky.
The annual carnival was here, just in time for the end-of- school celebration their small town always held. It was also Emma’s birthday. Megan wished for time to stand still. Her baby was growing too fast.
“Mom, can we have a popsicle?” Hannah shook drop- lets of water over Megan’s bare legs. She gasped at the cold- ness. Laughing, Megan jumped up and backed away from her soaked daughter only to find a giggling Emma clutched around her leg.
“Don’t you come any closer.” Megan had a hard time keeping the smile off her face before a sparkle of mischief lit up Hannah’s blue eyes as she lunged across the blanket. Laughing, Megan scooped up Emma, ran toward the front door and closed the screen in Hannah’s face. Alexis crossed the driveway, stepping over Megan’s gladioli and aimed the almost-empty water gun at her older sister.
“Alexis Marie Taylor, if you douse your sister in more water, she’ll get your half of the popsicle,” Megan warned. Alexis’s eyes widened as she dropped the water gun on the grass and bounded across to the porch before placing her arms around Hannah’s shoulders.
“Would I do that?” Alexis tilted her head and beamed the most innocent smile Megan had ever seen.
Megan snorted. “No monkey business you two, or Emma and I will eat your popsicles. Got it?” Megan narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. Who knew? Maybe the serious look would work.
“Come in and get dried off. Your dad should be home soon.” She opened the screen door for the girls then locked it. The past couple of days Emma had snuck outside behind Megan’s back to catch some butterflies. Or try to at least.
For dinner, they were going downtown to watch the parade and eat corn dogs, candied apples, and cotton candy at the carnival. The girls were so excited. Peter had even promised the girls he’d win them each a stuffed teddy bear and Megan couldn’t wait to show Emma the clowns.
“Why don’t we play a game of hopscotch while we wait for your dad?” Megan called after the girls as they ran up the stairs to change. She loved being a mother, even though having three girls so close in age exhausted her. Being a mom fulfilled her in more ways than she had thought possible.
“Hey, Em? How about we make some more lemonade? This time we’ll do less sugar.” She’d let the girls make it just after lunch and Alexis had almost dumped the whole container of sugar in the bowl.
The phone rang just as footsteps pounded down the stairs.
“Just going out to grab my headband,” Hannah yelled.
“Lock the door when you come back in,” Megan called out just as the screen door slammed.
With the phone balanced between her shoulder and ear, Megan opened the fridge and rooted inside for the filtered water jug. She groaned when she realized it was empty, having forgotten to fill it after pouring a glass earlier. The automated message informed her that the Sears catalog order was in. She frowned. She hadn’t ordered anything.
When the automated voice repeated its message, Megan grabbed her daily calendar and flipped through the last few weeks to see if she’d written down anything. Weird. There was nothing in her notes.
A quick glance at the clock after hanging up the phone confirmed Peter should be home any minute.
“All right, pumpkin, let’s go change your Pull-Up and get ready to watch the parade. Just wait till you see the clowns . . .” Megan turned toward Emma only to find herself talking to an empty room.
“Emma?” Megan walked into the living room fully expecting to find Emma in there, playing with the new ponies Peter had given her that morning.
The room was empty.
She retraced her steps and headed out to the hallway. “Emma, are you upstairs? Girls, is your sister with you?”
Megan took a step, gripped the railing, and waited to hear Emma’s running footsteps. She didn’t remember hearing the slam of the screen door when Hannah came back in.
“Not here,” Hannah called out.
Startled, Megan took her foot off the step, glanced around, and looked at the screen door. “Hannah, did you lock the door like I told you to?” She fought to keep the panic out of her voice as she ran across the hallway to the open door.
Megan couldn’t breathe.
Unlocked.
“Emma!” Megan ran outside calling her baby’s name.
She stopped in the middle of the driveway and scanned the area. Nothing. She wasn’t chasing butterflies, pulling flowers out of the garden, or playing with dandelions. She wasn’t anywhere.
Megan screamed as loud as she could and tears started to stream down her face.
Emma was gone.
Two
Two Years Later
If looks could kill, her daughter would be a goddess whose stare withered Megan into dust in the hallway. All from the glance of a ten-year-old.
“Why, Mom? Why won’t you let us walk?” Alexis half turned on the stairs, hands on her hips as she challenged a rule they had created two years ago.
Megan closed her eyes and pinched the top of her nose. Drops of water from the end of her high ponytail dripped down the back of her neck. She’d rushed through her shower.
“Alexis, you know why,” she said. Her head throbbed. Great. It was only eight in the morning and she already had a headache.
“But you let us walk home . . .” Alexis followed her.
“Yes, with an adult. Not alone. Sorry, but you are not walking to school by yourself. Honestly, Alex. Why do you have to push this? And today of all days.” With last night’s attempted abduction plastered all over the news there was no way another one of her daughters would be kidnapped. Not this time.
The afternoon Safe Walks program she’d started was going well, but she couldn’t round up enough volunteers to help in the mornings. She hoped by next year she would. Until then, she would continue to drive her daughter to school. It was the least she could do.
“What’s the big deal? Dad trusts us enough to walk home.”
Megan swallowed the pills and leaned against the counter. “I’m not Dad.”
The look of defiance on her daughter’s face dissolved before she walked out of the kitchen and headed back up the stairs. Megan shook her head.
“Stop arguing and just get ready,” she called over her shoulder. The thud of Alexis’s feet as they stomped up the stairs sounded along the hardwood floor.
“And change into a pair of pants without holes in the knees,” she said before Alexis had the chance to slam her door.
Megan grabbed her glass of water and headed into Peter’s office.
His desk was a mess. Books were piled up in one corner, stacks of bills and house appraisals in the other. His laptop had been moved to the edge of his desk so he could read the morning news. Peter sat there, his fingers splayed through his hair.
“Did you know about this?” He leaned back in his chair and held up the front page for her to see.
The headline captured her attention: Missing. A ball of steel dropped in Megan’s stomach. Oh God, please let that little girl be okay. Her heart raced at the thought of another family having to experience their nightmare.
She pulled the paper toward her when she realized the picture wasn’t of the little girl plastered all over the evening news, but of Emma.
Her baby.
“Always remembered, always loved. Emma Taylor will turn five years old today. As a town, we pray for her safe return.”
“I had no idea.” Megan’s hand shook as she scanned the article and read about the attempted abduction beneath a recap about Emma. She handed the paper back to Peter who folded it up and let it drop to the floor.
“I was thinking we could play hooky and spend the day together. Maybe go for a drive along the beach?” Peter pulled her into his lap and
ran his hand along her jawline before he cupped the back of her neck and brought her close.
Megan pulled away. “I have that assembly later this afternoon I need to get ready for.”
She watched the light in Peter’s eyes dim. “But, I could always pick up some coffee. . .”
Peter eyed her chest and winked. “Is there anything else on the menu with the coffee?”
Megan leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on his lips.
“Maybe,” she said, her voice transformed into a husky whisper. She pulled away only to be tugged back down. This time Peter didn’t settle for a small kiss. When his lips met hers, he didn’t hold back. He made sure she knew what he wanted on the menu. Megan sighed. It had been so long . . .