Remember to Forget Read online

  8. Even though they are usually law-abiding citizens, the proprietors of the inn, Bart and Wren Johannsen, “bend the laws” to allow Maggie to work at the inn (paying her instead with room and board, since she doesn’t have the proper identification to fill out tax forms, etc.). What do you think of their decision? How is it reflected in Scripture? (For a hint, see Romans 7:5–6 and 1 Corinthians 6:12.)

  9. Business hasn’t been good at Wren’s Nest, but Maggie thinks up ideas to bring in new business. Soon people are coming in and recommending the inn to their friends. If you believe in Jesus, how might you “recommend” your faith to your friends? How might you bring people into “the nest”?

  10. Although Wren is instrumental in helping Maggie find her new life, her own life has been far from perfect. She, and many others who helped Maggie along the way, have experienced times of tragedy, sin, and doubt. Yet because of those times, they have great compassion and concern for those in need.

  All of us are flawed. How can you help others find new life in Christ in spite of—or perhaps because of—your flaws? Tell about a real-life experience with this if you can.

  11. When Jackson Linder shows an interest in having Maggie work for him, Trevor expresses concern and jealousy. Do you think concern and jealousy are good qualities, bad qualities, or a combination of both?

  In Exodus 34:14, God says he is jealous for your affection and devotion. How does that make you feel? How might it affect your day-to-day actions?

  12. After Maggie confesses her lies to Trevor, she wonders how he can possibly love her, knowing the way she was . . . not to mention everything she’s done. But Trevor tells her that he doesn’t even see those things when he looks at her. He tells her she’s not the same person she used to be.

  How does this experience between Maggie and Trevor mirror our relationship with God through Christ? (Read Psalm 103:11–13 and Romans 4:4–8.)

  13. Just when Maggie has decided to forget about New York and embrace her new life in Clayburn, Kevin Bryson comes back to attempt to take her back to New York. All the while Kevin is trying to haul her toward his car and is pursuing her to harm her, Maggie is unaware that Trevor is watching over her. He is simply waiting for her to call out to him to rescue her.

  Read Acts 2:20–21 and Romans 10:13. In what ways have you experienced evil pursuing you? How have you experienced God’s protection in times of crisis (whether you were aware of it at the time or not until later)? Tell the story.

  14. Maggie falls into the river, and Trevor rescues her there. She comes up out of the water in Trevor’s arms, knowing that she is now free from Kevin’s hold on her and free from the trappings of her old life. She is safe in Trevor’s arms. What might this experience in the river symbolize? Have you undergone this type of experience yourself? Where the old you became the new, transformed you? If so, share what happened.

  15. When Trevor tells Maggie, “I don’t really know who Maggie is. It’s Meg I love,” how do you think she felt? (Read Revelation 2:17 and 3:5.) What does this tell you about what Christ does to you when you “come clean” with Him? What happens to your past? (See again Psalm 103:11–12 and 2 Corinthians 5:17.) What things do you need to “remember to forget” about your past life so you can move forward as a new creation—a new person with a new name, loved and accepted by Christ?

  Go to the next page for an excerpt from

  Yesterday’s Embers

  by Deborah Raney

  Prologue

  Thanksgiving Day

  You sure you guys’ll be okay?” Doug Devore leaned over the sofa to give his wife a kiss.

  Kaye turned her head away and his lips landed on her left ear. She wrinkled her nose and put a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, but you better not kiss me. My luck, I’m probably already contagious.” She looked down at six-year-old Rachel, asleep in the crook of her arm.

  The car horn tooted from the garage and Sarah appeared in the kitchen doorway. “C’mon, Daddy! Hurry up! Landon’s bein’ bossy and Kayeleigh says she’s gonna walk to Grandma’s if you don’t get the lead out.”

  “You tell Landon to cut it out, and tell Kayeleigh to hold her horses and quit sassing.” He gave Kaye what he hoped was a desperate frown. “You sure you don’t want me to stay home with you?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t even think about it, buster.” She turned her pretty face to the hearth, where the first fire of the season crackled like brittle leaves underfoot. “But, hey, thanks for the fire.”

  Oh, what he wouldn’t give to call Kaye’s mother and bow out of Thanksgiving for all of them. Just sit here by the fire with a good book, watch the game later without Kaye’s brothers giving their obnoxious play-by-play. But that would never fly. Kaye’s mom had no doubt been cooking for days. Besides, if he stayed home, Thanksgiving dinner was likely to be a sleeve of stale saltines and a can of Campbell’s tomato soup that he heated up himself.

  With visions of the usual dinner-table mayhem, Harley in her high chair flinging soup all over the kitchen—and Kaye too sick to supervise—he reconsidered. “I’ll bring a couple of plates home for you two.”

  “Uh-huh . . . that’s what I thought.” Kaye laughed and he knew she’d read his mind.

  He reached down to brush a wisp of hair off Rachel’s forehead. “Man . . . She feels hot.”

  His wife gave a knowing nod. “I don’t think this little angel is going to be eating anything anytime soon.”

  Kaye had been up all night with Rachel while Doug managed to play possum through the sounds of his daughter’s retching. A twinge of guilt nipped at his conscience now.

  Kaye tugged on his sleeve. “Make sure Harley wears a hat if the kids take her outside.”

  “I will.” He grabbed his jacket off the back of a kitchen chair and started for the garage.

  “Hey, you . . .”

  He turned back at the sound of Kaye’s voice.

  She winked. “I like lots of whipped cream on my pumpkin pie.”

  The door to the garage opened again and Sadie, Sarah’s twin, popped her head in. “Da-aad, hurry up. Harley’s fussin’ . . .”

  He gave Kaye a hopeful grin. “You sure you don’t want me to stay?”

  Kaye pulled Rachel closer and cocked an eyebrow at him. “And clean up vomit?”

  He stuffed his arm through the sleeve of his coat. “I’m going, I’m going.” Talk about the lesser of evils . . .

  His wife’s soft laughter followed him out the door.

  Chapter One

  December 2

  The parade of taillights smoldered crimson through the patchy fog hovering over Old Highway 40. Mickey Valdez tapped the brakes with the toe of her black dress pumps, trying to stay a respectable distance from the car in front of her.

  They’d left the church almost twenty minutes ago and the procession was still barely two miles outside Clayburn’s city limits. The line of cars snaked up the hill—if you could call the road’s rolling incline that—and ahead of her, the red glow of brake lights dotted the highway flickering off and on like so many fireflies. Cresting the rise, Mickey could barely make out the rows of pewtercolored gravestones poking through the mist beyond the wrought iron gates of the Coyote County Cemetery.

  She smoothed the skirt of her black crepe dress and tried to focus her thoughts on maneuvering the car. But when the first hearse turned onto the cemetery’s gravel drive in front of her, she lost it. Her sobs came like dry heaves, producing no tears, and for once she was glad to be in the car alone.

  The line of cars came almost to a standstill as the second hearse crept through the gates.

  The twin black Lincolns pulled to the side of the gravel lane, parking one behind the other near the plots where two fresh graves scarred the prairie. The drivers emerged from the hearses, walked in unison to the rear of their cars, and opened the curtained back doors. Mickey looked away. She couldn’t look at those two caskets again.

  When it came her turn to drive over the culvert under the high
arch of the iron gates, she wanted desperately to keep on driving. To head west and never turn back. But Pete Truesdell stood in her way, directing traffic into the fenced-in graveyard. Mickey almost didn’t recognized Pete. He sported a rumpled navy double-breasted suit instead of his usual coveralls. How he could see through the tears gushing down his cheeks, Mickey didn’t know.

  Her heart broke for the old man. He must be related to the family somehow. Seemed like everybody in Clayburn was related to at least one other family in town. Everybody but the Valdezes.

  Pete waved her through, halting the car behind her with his other hand.

  Maybe if she just sat in the car until the procession left the cemetery . . . She didn’t want to walk across the uneven sod. Didn’t want to risk the kids seeing her, risk breaking down in front of them. What would she say? What could anybody say to make what happened be all right?

  She wondered if Doug DeVore found any comfort in the knowledge that his wife and daughter had left this earth together.

  But on Thanksgiving Day? What was God thinking ?

  She’d never gotten to know Kaye DeVore. Not really. She always seemed so happy-go-lucky. She and Mickey exchanged pleasantries whenever Kaye dropped the kids off at the day care, but it was usually Doug who delivered the children each morning and came for them at night. The DeVore kids were always the last to get picked up. But Mickey had never minded staying late, waiting for Doug or Kaye to come. She loved those kids.

  Especially Rachel. Sweet, angel-faced Rachel, whose eyes always seemed to hold a wisdom beyond her years. Now Mickey made herself look at the tiny white coffin the pallbearers lifted from the second hearse. But she couldn’t make it seem real that the sunny six-year-old was gone.

  How Doug could hold up under this tragedy was more than Mickey could imagine. She dreaded facing him whenever he brought the other kids back to the day care center.

  Maybe he wouldn’t. She’d heard that Kaye’s mother was planning to move in and help Doug, at least for a while. Thank goodness for that. Six kids—She corrected herself. Only five now. But five kids had to be a handful for anyone. The DeVores had gone on vacation in the middle of April last year, and the day care center had been deathly quiet without Rachel and her lively twin sisters and little Harley. It would be deathly quiet now.

  Deathly. Even though she was alone in the car, Mickey cringed at her choice of words.

  She jolted at the sound of someone tapping on the hood of her car, and looked up to see Pete motioning her through the gates. She put the car in gear and inched over the bumpy culvert. There was no turning back now.

  DEBORAH RANEY dreamed of writing a book since the summer she read all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books and discovered that a little Kansas farm girl could, indeed, grow up to be a writer. After a happy twenty-year detour as a stay-at-home wife and mom, Deb began her writing career. Her first novel, A Vow to Cherish, was awarded a Silver Angel for Excellence in Media and inspired the acclaimed World Wide Pictures film of the same title. Since then, her books have won the RITA Award, the HOLT Medallion, the National Readers’ Choice Award, as well as being a finalist for the Christy Award. Deb enjoys speaking and teaching at writers’ conferences across the country. She and her husband, artist Ken Raney, make their home in their native Kansas and love the small-town life that is the setting for many of Deb’s novels. The Raneys enjoy gardening, teaching young married couples in their church, watching their teenage daughter’s ball games, and traveling to visit three grown children and a precious little grandson who lives much too far away.

  Deborah loves hearing from her readers. To e-mail her or to learn more about her books, please visit deborahraney.com or write to Deborah in care of Howard Books, 3117 North 7th Street, West Monroe, Louisiana 71291.

  Cover Images by: LaCoppola-Meier, Photonica, GettyImages; and Chrys Howard Cover Design: Terry Dugan Design

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Howard eBook.

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  Published by Howard Books, a division of Simon & Schuster

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  Remember to Forget © 2007 by Deborah Raney

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Howard Subsidiary Rights Department, Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Raney, Deborah.

  Remember to forget / Deborah Raney.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 10: 1-58229-643-X; ISBN 13: 978-1-58229-643-2

  ISBN-13: 978-1-476-73783-6 (eBook)

  I. Title.

  PS3568.A562R46 2007

  813’.54—dc22

  2006052569

  HOWARD and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Edited by Ramona Cramer Tucker

  Interior design by Tennille Paden

  Cover design by Terry Dugan

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher.

  Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982, 1988 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.