Author P. C. Zick is an award-winning writer for her essays, columns, editorials, articles, and fiction.
Mountain Miracles
Smoky Mountain Romance Book 3
Author: P. C. Zick
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When Sissy Jones moves to the Smoky Mountains, she's determined to follow her dream of owning a business by opening a coffee shop, right next door to a new paper starting up at the same time. The handsome publisher, David Bellwood, and Sissy discover an irresistible attraction to one another, but first, they must deal with mothers who aren't always as they seem.
After her mother has a stroke, Sissy must take care of her, and David must find out the truth behind his Cherokee mother's disappearance when he was five. When Sissy tries to help David, he views her assistance as interference as he fights for his legacy.
As both of them seek the comfort of family they’ve never known, they struggle to forgive, allowing the attraction to turn into something more.
Excerpt from Mountain Miracles
Chapter One
SISSY JONES LEARNED ALMOST IMMEDIATELY that she’d been duped into moving to the small North Carolina town in the Smoky Mountains.
“You’ll love the place where I grew up,” Becca Cole had said. “And a friend of mine has an adorable house he’s dying to sell.”
Sissy’s first mistake. She had trusted Becca when she should have known better.
Now here she was in the small town where the nearest city was a two-hour drive. She came to forget the breakup with her boyfriend and to escape her mother’s grip. Instead of escaping, she’d landed right smack in the middle of a place filled with lovers and happy families. It only reminded her that she had neither of those things. It was bad enough when Stu decided his career as a rising country singer was more important than their two-year relationship, but when her mother started harping about Sissy’s inability to keep a man, she knew it was time to leave. Becca’s offer appeared as the perfect solution.
She’d left a good, although boring, job in Nashville. But at least that job had put her MBA degree to good use as the general manager of the Radisson. But here in Murphy, North Carolina, she’d had to revert to something she’d done during her college years at the University of Memphis. She was dealing cards at the new casino on the outskirts of town.
No, she never should have believed Becca when she said, “Move to the mountains with me. We’ll have a blast.”
Sissy had barely signed the mortgage papers on the house when Becca bailed and headed to New Orleans with her new boyfriend. Fortunately, the few people she did know in town, such as Becca’s ex-husband George, sympathized. But Sissy would survive. She hoped Becca’s son Jed understood why she’d left him in the care of his father. It was probably for the best. George was an excellent dad, but still the kid must wonder why his mother had left him so abruptly.
As Sissy dressed for the wedding she was attending later in the day, she smiled to think of her new friends. She’d known George back in Nashville when he’d been Stu’s agent. When Becca and he divorced, he moved back to his hometown and ran the music scene at a local bar. Now he was engaged to Lacy, the woman who had been evicted when Sissy bought the house. The previous owner, Lacy’s landlord, didn’t know he wanted to sell the house until Becca convinced him to kick his loyal and long-time renter out into the street. But Becca’s plan to break up George and Lacy backfired, and now Sissy was making a new life for herself.
She’d only met the groom and bride, Nick and Molly, once, but they’d welcomed her into their circle, simply because of her connection to George. When Lacy and the others realized she’d been tricked by Becca, they immediately opened their hearts to her, which came as a relief even though she didn’t quite believe her good fortune. When Becca fled town she hadn’t even bothered saying good-bye, which made Sissy very happy.
Her phone beeped. We’re on our way, Lacy texted. Sissy found her sandals under the couch and slipped into them. She felt a little weird about Lacy picking her up at her former home, but Lacy had assured her, it had all worked out for the best. She moved to the cabin the new bride was vacating, and Lacy seemed very happy about the whole thing. Lacy had assured Sissy that Becca had arranged the whole thing out of jealousy. Sissy questioned her own gullibility in believing that Becca had once been a friend.
She ran outside when George and Lacy pulled into the driveway.
“It’s such a beautiful day for a wedding,” she gushed when she settled in the backseat, next to George’s son Jed. “Somebody must have ordered this day.”
“I’m betting on Fran,” Lacy said, speaking of the mother of the groom. “She’s a mighty powerful woman who likes to have her way.”
“I like Fran,” Sissy said.
“Join the Fran Fan Club,” George said. “She’s nearly adopted Jed as her grandson.”
“She said I could call her Franma,” Jed said. “That’s what Gracie and me are going to call her. You know instead of Grandma.”
“That’s a very good name,” Sissy said, smiling at the young boy dressed in a white shirt and pressed jeans. “You look very handsome today, Jed.”
He blushed and smiled slightly. Jed was a good kid who’d been hurt too much in his short life. Sissy had babysat for him often back in Nashville after George left Becca, who’d taken to the single life quickly. Sissy sat up a little straighter when the realization hit her that Becca resembled her mother. It was a good thing for Jed that George had full custody.
“Are you ready to meet the rest of Murphy?” Lacy asked, turning around slightly. “I bet there will be one hundred folks at the wedding today.”
“I won’t remember names, but I’m ready.” Maybe she’d meet some other single folks so she didn’t feel like an extra at these group gatherings. She’d been invited to a couple of events, and everyone was paired off, or so it seemed to Sissy.
“We’re going to Gracie’s new house,” Jed said. “She’s my best friend.”
Sissy tried to remember how Gracie, who Jed had already mentioned twice, fit into the picture with the others. “I’m sorry, but my head is swimming with all the new names and faces. Who’s Gracie again?”
Lacy laughed. “I’m sure it’s like putting together a puzzle. Don’t worry, it will all fit together soon enough. Gracie is Molly’s daughter. She’s a year older than Jed, but they’ve become very close since Jed moved here.”
“I almost forgot,” George said. “Did either of you hear that we’re going to get a newspaper right here in town? Some guy from Atlanta wants to make it a paper for the town, not the surrounding counties.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Lacy asked.
“Who else? Don and Kathy Sampson, Murphy’s town criers.”
They all laughed. Even Sissy knew the couple was notorious for knowing everyone’s business in town—personal and otherwise. She sat with them at the bar at Misty Mountain one night, and she learned everyone’s business, not that it mattered. No way could she put all the names with faces, most she’d never even met.
“They might be nosy, but they’re usually accurate,” Lacy said. “Now, Sissy, have you given any more thought to opening the coffee shop?”
“I have. I’ve made thinking about it a full-time job. Actually, I started drawing up a business plan last night. And I gave the casino notice. Tomorrow will be my last day dealing cards.”
“A business plan?” Lacy asked. “That sounds very serious and professional. Have you started a business before?”
“Sissy has an MBA,” George said. “But she doesn’t like to flaunt her brains.”
“I didn’t know that,” Lacy said. “I mean about the degree and all.”
“I haven’t started a business because I’ve always worked for others. Starting my own business brings everything I’ve done so far all together.”
“How did you end up dealing at the casino?” Lacy asked.
“I worked as a dealer when I was getting my MBA, so I decided I’d get a job at the casino here, until I figured out what I really wanted to do.”
“You don’t like the job?” George asked. “I always thought it might be a hoot to work at the casino.”
“I don’t like the hours or the smoke. And a lot of the time, I don’t like the customers. So I guess I’d have to say on the whole that, no, I don’t like it very much at all.”
“They offered me a job booking music for the bar in the hotel,” George said. “But I won’t have to go there very often, if I take it on.”
“That sounds infinitely better than dealing,” Sissy said. “I can’t wait to be done with it and own my own business, something I’ve wanted since I was a kid.”
It was true. As a kid, she played grocery store with all the neighbor kids, but she wasn’t the housewife shopping for groceries. She always managed the store and made the other kids play the role of housewife.
“Did you ever think of opening something in Nashville?” Lacy asked.
“I wanted to when I graduated, but it was too expensive. I had a small inheritance from my grandmother when I turned twenty-one, but it wouldn’t have covered much of anything in the city.”
“It will be a lot less expensive here,” George asked. “Do you have a place in mind?”
“There’s a storefront for rent downtown. It’s small and narrow, but it could be perfect for a coffee and maybe some sweets.”
“I’d like a coffee shop close to Misty Mountain,” Lacy said. “Or at least another choice than just going to the same old place.”
“I hope it doesn’t upset folks to have two coffee shops downtown,” Sissy said. “I know the other place does different things, and they’re open in the evenings with music. I plan to only be open through lunch, but open by six in the morning.”
“Now that would be different,” George said. “Even during the season, nothing opens up downtown until after eight, even the coffee shop.”
Sissy noticed that right away, but she surmised it was the difference between living in a small town and a larger city. She’d adjust, but she still thought some folks might like coffee first thing. Even if it wasn’t busy until later, it would give her time to get organized.
“I guess I’d better think about advertising, too, now that you’ve mentioned the new paper. Most of the world is getting away from print media, but I bet here in Murphy folks still read the papers for the ads.”
“And the police blotter,” George said. Lacy playfully hit his arm. The intimacy of it gave Sissy a jolt.
“I wonder if the guy starting the newspaper is single,” Lacy said.
“Why would you wonder about that?” George asked. “Are you in the market for a new guy?”
“No, I’ve got my hands full with you. I was thinking about Sissy. We need to fix her up on a date.”
George groaned, and Sissy laughed. Lacy must have been reading her mind.
“He’s probably married or gay,” Sissy said. “That’s what they say about all the good ones, and since Stu and I broke up, I can confirm it’s true.”
Author Genre: Literature & Fiction
Website: P. C. Zick
Author's Blog: Living Lightly
Twitter: @PCZick
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Author Description: P.C. Zick describes herself as a storyteller no matter what she writes. And she writes in a variety of genres, including romance, contemporary fiction, and nonfiction. She's won various awards for her essays, columns, editorials, articles, and fiction.
The three novels in her Florida Fiction Series contain stories of Florida and its people and environment, which she credits as giving her a rich base for her storytelling. "Florida's quirky and abundant wildlife—both human and animal—supply my fiction with tales almost too weird to be believable."
Her contemporary romances in the Behind the Love trilogy are also set in Florida. Her most recent works are set in the Smoky Mountains. All of her books are stand-alone reads, even if they appear in a series.
Her novels contain elements of romance with strong female characters, handsome heroes, and descriptive settings. She believes in living lightly upon this earth with love, laughter, and passion, and through her fiction, she imparts this philosophy in an entertaining manner with an obvious love for her characters, plot, and themes.
Author's Book List
Love on the Wind
- The RemingtonsSix years of traveling for her television series has left host Kiley Nelson longing for a place to call her own. Spending a weekend at her girlfriend’s beach house is the perfect reprieve, especially when she purchases property to finally settle down. But her peaceful escape is shaken when she smashes into a car containing the sinfully sexy and infuriated passenger, Jeff Hammond, who immediately melts her heart.
Jeff, staying at his friend’s Montauk home to relax after a trying week of building a home for a spoiled diva, doesn’t count on sharing his weekend with the flaky, yet incredibly sexy, Kiley. He agrees to build her house, despite the tug on his heart as Kiley turns him on in every delicious way.
Passionate weekends and shared dreams begin to shape the house they start to build together. As their relationship deepens, so do the wounds from past hurts, rousing ghosts from Jeff’s traumatic past. When a summer storm rolls in at the nearly complete house, they’re forced to deal with the past before it shakes and cracks the very foundation they’ve built.
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Behind the Curtain
- Behind the Love TrilogyWhen Lisa Williams returns to her hometown of Victory, Florida, with a producer of reality TV shows, not everyone is happy to see her, particularly her sister, Susie. Lisa finds herself at odds with everyone in town, even her close friend Tommy who tries to understand and support her dreams of becoming a star. When Tommy is assigned to cover the show's filming as a reporter for the Tampa Tribune, he finds himself at odds with Lisa who he's beginning to think of as more than a friend. Sally Jean returns to the Behind the Love series as Lisa's best friend. But the show threatens to tear them apart as well when the producer wants to make Sally Jean the star rather than Lisa. As Lisa finds herself losing everyone in her life, Tommy struggles to remain her friend, hoping she'll realize that her actor boyfriend Jet isn't any good for her. If he can convince her of that, perhaps he'll stand a chance at winning her fragile heart.
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Minty's Kiss
When Molly retreats to North Carolina with Gracie, her ten-year-old daughter, she's surprised to find her childhood crush, Nick, still living in the area. Months before her retreat, Molly’s husband announces he’s leaving to sail around the world with his best friend. She divorces him and takes Gracie and Harold, her seventeen-year-old cat, to the Smoky Mountains where she spent many happy childhood vacations.
The morning after her arrival, Nick shows up on her porch, and he is even more handsome than she remembered. She feels the flush of her adolescent crush heating up. But first, they must find Harold after he runs out the cabin door and into the woods.
When Nick discovers Harold lying dead at the base of the tree where Molly always went to read as a child, they bury him. A broken-hearted Gracie and Molly return to the cabin and discover a gray furry kitty under the porch. Gracie names him Minty.
Gracie refuses to believe her father won’t come back for them, so she resents Nick spending time with her mother and tries her best to pull them apart. Can a small kitty named Minty help Gracie accept the love developing between Nick and Molly in time for her first Christmas in the mountains of North Carolina?
Minty’s Kiss is a sweet romantic novella, filled with holiday cheer brought to life by an adorable kitten.
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Third Base
When Adriana Moretti meets baseball star Tomas Vegas, she's surprised by his kindness. While Tomas puts all his energy into winning the World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he's thrown off his game by the brilliant and beautiful Adriana, who owns a multi-million dollar business she started with her late husband. She’s determined to carry on his legacy, but she doesn’t expect to fall for the handsome Puerto Rican Tomas. His supermodel ex-girlfriend and Adriana’s tightly-knit Italian family threaten to tear them apart, which causes Tomas to disappoint his team and Adriana to ignore her business. The more they’re pulled apart, the more they yearn to be together.
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Behind the Bar
- Behind the Love TrilogySusie and Reggie return to the Behind the Love Trilogy as the main characters in this romance. Susie and Reggie have been together since high school. When they watch good friends Dean and Leah find happiness, they both know something in their relationship must change. Susie believes that means marriage; she didn't expect it to be Reggie deciding they needed a break from one another.
While on break, a handsome publisher comes back to Victory to sweep Susie off her feet, while the voluptuous Sally Jean works her charms on Reggie. Meanwhile, the Victory Tavern owned by Reggie grows into a star attraction for the town. Dean and Leah help, and Susie’s sister Lisa returns home and provides Susie some much needed answers to the questions about their father. Reggie nearly loses everything in a bet that jeopardizes the Tavern.
Secrets revealed bring more questions. When Reggie realizes Susie is the woman he loves, Susie must decide if she can ever trust him again.
Before either of them can move forward to a life together, they must realize their past does not define them.
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Behind the Altar
- Behind the Love TrilogyLeah Bryant’s life satisfies all her needs. Her engagement to Jacob Davis, minister of the Sunshine Church, gives her the security she requires after living on the streets during her teenage years. She runs a food kitchen out of the church for homeless vets who are living on the banks of Deer River.
All is perfect until the day her future mother-in-law Geraldine tells her the church is shutting down the kitchen, and Dean”"Jacob’s brother”"rides his Harley into her heart. Leah’s world begins to crumble as she falls into Dean’s muscular and tattooed arms and discovers the passion she's never known.
??? Homeless vets, deranged mothers, and a tattoo artist collide in this story of true love.
Dean, who’s been away from his home for ten years, finds himself irresistibly drawn in by Leah’s natural beauty and genuine goodness. As they fight to stay away from one another, Leah and Dean keep finding ways to be together. The more they fight the attraction, the harder it is to stay apart.
??? Will Leah go ahead and marry Jacob despite Dean’s haunting her every thought?
??? Will Dean exact the revenge he came home to hand out?
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Odyssey to Myself
- World Travel Guide and MemoirTake a trip to Casablanca and Marrakech, Tuscany and Venice, Bocas del Toro and Panama City, and Santiago, Chile
Odyssey to Myself is a world travel guide for trips to Morocco, Italy, Panama, Chile, and down Route 66 in the United States. The compilation of essays show Muslim women dressed in hijabs and working in Casablanca. Moroccan history and food provide a colorful backdrop as the author explores her place in the world.
Take a trip to Casablanca, Marrakech, Tuscany, Bocas del Toro, and Santiago as P.C. Zick writes about her experiences traveling outside the confines of her small world. Observations about life and culture bring to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the ancient alleyways of Fes, the masters of Italy, and the strategic location of Panama. The people of Morocco, Italy, Panama, and Chile come to life through the experiences of the author as she absorbs the cultures so different from her own.
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A Lethal Legacy
A fascinating study of human expectations, failings, and redemption
A Lethal Legacy takes the reader on a journey through Ed Townsend’s twisted family legacy. He complicates the familial connection even more when he falls prey to the siren of his much younger cousin Kristina, who is beyond saving as she plots to get her fair share of the Townsend family legacy. Ed’s best friend and cousin, Gary, struggles as he marries women he doesn’t love all because he knows his father will never accept his homosexuality. It takes divorce, disease, and murder for Ed to realize that acceptance only comes from within once he is ready to face the truth.
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Native Lands
- Florida Fiction SeriesNature and Love Disrupted Always Find a Way Back
Murder, Sex, and Deceptions Threaten the Existence of a Tribe of Native Americans and Their Beloved Everglades
When their environment is torn apart by a conglomerate of international interests, a tribe of native Floridians thought to be extinct rise up and form their own oddly matched conglomerate, and with the assistance of nature, attempt to halt the destruction of the natural world they treasure. Cultural boundaries established centuries ago are erased as love and nature seek the balance lost in the battle for power and control of the last of the Florida frontier.
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Trails in the Sand
- Florida Fiction SeriesA Family Saga Filled with Love Triangles, Sea Turtles, and an Oil Spill
When environmental writer Caroline Carlisle sets off to report on endangered sea turtles during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the last thing she expects is to uncover secrets - secrets that threaten to destroy her family, unless she can heal the hurts from a lifetime of lies. To make matters worse, Caroline's love for her late sister's husband, Simon, creates an uproar in a southern family already set on a collision course with its past.
Using real-life events as the backdrop, Trails in the Sand explores the fight to restore balance and peace, in nature and in a family, as both spiral toward disaster. Through it all, the ancient sea turtle serves a reminder that life moves forward despite the best efforts to destroy it.
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Tortoise Stew
- Florida Fiction SeriesSmall town politics take center stage in this novel about the development of Florida at any cost. Kelly Sands is a reporter covering some of the more controversial and contentious issues in the fictional north Florida town of Calloway. Dead armadillos and gopher tortoise carcasses are left as calling cards to those opposing the development as commission meetings erupt into all-out warfare. With the murder of one commissioner and the suicide of his wife, Kelly begins an investigation that threatens to topple the carefully laid plans of the developers and politicians to bring a movie studio and landing strip within the city limits of the small town. When a young girl is killed by a semi-truck from Monster Mart, the environmentalists become even more vocal against the developers' plans. Chaos reigns as both sides raise voices and fists in one cacophonous uproar until saner heads bring justice to all.
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Live from the Road
- Route 66 FictionEnlightenment on Route 66 - Humorous, Painful, Rewarding
Live from the Road takes the reader on an often humorous, yet harrowing, journey as Meg Newton and Sally Sutton seek a change in the mundane routine of their lives. Joined by their daughters, they set off on a journey of salvation enhanced by the glories of the Mother Road.
Along the way, they are joined by a Chicago bluesman, a Pakistani liquor storeowner from Illinois, a Marine from Missouri, a gun-toting momma from Oklahoma, and a motel clerk from New Mexico.
Death, divorce, and deception help to reveal the inner journey taking place under the blazing desert sun as a Route 66 motel owner reads the Bhagavad-Gita and an eagle provides the sign they've all been seeking.
Enlightenment comes tiptoeing in at dawn in a Tucumcari laundromat, while singing karaoke at a bar in Gallup, New Mexico, and during dinner at the Roadkill Cafe in Seligman, Arizona.
The trip isn't always easy as laughter turns to tears and back again. However, the four women's lives will never be the same after the road leads them to their hearts - the true destination for these road warriors.
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