Where the Heart Lives Read online

  THE PRESS PRAISES MARA PURL’S

  MILFORD-HAVEN NOVELS

  Book Two – Where the Heart Lives

  “[In] the second Milford-Haven novel, award-winning writer Mara Purl deepens the intrigue in this captivating window into the little battles, victories, successes, and failings of ordinary people in [the] complicated world [of] Milford-Haven.”

  – Midwest Book Review

  Book One – What the Heart Knows

  “Former Days of Our Lives star Purl presents the first novel in her Milford-Haven series, which … features a setting of unadulterated beauty—the small coastal town of Milford-Haven, CA in the prosperous mid-’90s—and a cast of successful, sexy, sometimes quirkily independent characters. … Readers will find details galore … and the novel’s many inner monologues reveal scheming, secretly confused, or flawed personalities. … Milford-Haven offers depictions of daily life, hints of possible future romance, the threat of scandal, and carefully parsed out mystery. … the novel is poised to convince readers to continue with the series.”

  – Publishers Weekly

  “Former Days of Our Lives actress Purl imbues her soap opera finesse into the fictional setting of Milford-Haven, a sleepy California coastal town. This may be Apple Pie, USA, but hearts are on the line, professions are at stake and a possible murder has tainted the landscape. A whirlwind of juicy drama with dangling-carrot closure.”

  – Kirkus Review

  “What the Heart Knows is an upbeat novel … the first book of Milford-Haven. The book opens powerfully … Purl does not use external paraphernalia to bring her characters to life. Multiple love stories, friendships, crushes. … Purl’s characters are well-traveled, educated, and street smart.”

  – ForeWord Magazine

  “… in Mara Purl’s enchanting novel What the Heart Knows … although the picturesque, seaside setting of Milford-Haven plays an important role in the novel, the cast of interesting and eccentric characters is what really draws the reader into the book. Purl skillfully tackles tough environmental issues such as land development and offshore oil drilling through the lives of her characters and the events that unfold. Detailed descriptions of scenic settings, eccentric characters, and tantalizing storylines combine to make this book one that fans of romance will enjoy.”

  – BookWire

  “Mara Purl’s What the Heart Knows is a first class novel by a very talented writer with strong believable characters, a rapid pace delivery of story, and very tight writing that make this novel such a delight to read. I look forward to seeing other titles in this impressive series.”

  – Gary Roen, Nationally Syndicated Bookreviewer

  The Milford-Haven Novel Series

  “In Mara Purl’s books the writing is crisp and clean, the dialogue realistic, the scenes well described. I salute her ingenuity.”

  – Bob Johnson, Former Managing Editor

  The Associated Press

  “Every reader who enjoys book series about small town life has a treat to anticipate in … Mara Purl’s Milford-Haven Novels.”

  – Dee Ann Ray, The Clinton Daily News

  “Mara Purl’s characters have become old friends and I keep expecting one of them to give me a call!”

  – Nanci Cone, Ventura Breeze

  “… an intrigu[ing] cast of diverse characters.”

  – Fred Klein, Santa Barbara News Press

  “You can’t escape the pull of Milford-Haven, the setting for Days of Our Lives actress and award-winning author Mara Purl’s enticing new novel What the Heart Knows. This fictional, coastal California town offers a simpler life. … My kind of romance, this [is a] juicy, take-me-away-from-it-all read … plus, the inviting story makes you think.”

  – Charlotte Hill, Boomer Brief

  “Romance, wisdom and mystery are the topics of What the Heart Knows by award-winning author Mara Purl and resonate with women readers. … [with] a mix of characters you will not forget.”

  – Dad of Divas Book Review

  ENDORSEMENTS FROM OTHER AUTHORS

  “What the Heart Knows is the kind of novel you can curl up with while you enjoy getting to know the different people in the central California town of Milford-Haven. … Mara Purl is a skillful storyteller who has written a charming and tantalizing saga about the ways in which lives can intersect and be forever changed. The first novel in the saga is not-to-be-missed.”

  – Margaret Coel

  New York Times Best-Selling author

  “I found a kinship with … your heart for character … and with your truly fine unveiling of story events.”

  – Jane Kirkpatrick, Author

  Wrangler Award, Willa Award

  “I so admire Mara Purl’s writing style. The pictures she paints are just glorious, her characters and attention to detail inspiring.”

  – Sheri Anderson

  Emmy-winning Head Writer, Days of our Lives

  Author, Salem Secrets Series

  Where the

  Heart Lives

  Also by MARA PURL

  Fiction

  What the Heart Knows

  A Milford-Haven Novel (Book One)

  When Hummers Dream

  A Milford-Haven Story (Prequel to Book One)

  When Whales Watch

  A Milford-Haven Story (Prequel to Book Two)

  Whose Angel Key Ring

  A Milford-Haven Story

  Christmas Angels

  A Milford-Haven Story Collection

  The Milford-Haven Novels

  Early Editions

  Non-Fiction

  Act Right: A Manual

  for the On-Camera Actor

  (with Erin Gray)

  Kenneth Leventhal & Co.:

  A History of the Firm

  S.T.A.R. –Student Theatre & Radio

  High School Curriculum; College Curriculum

  Plays

  Mary Shelley–

  In Her Own Words

  (with Sydney Swire)

  Radio Plays

  S.T.A.R.

  Teleplay

  Milford-Haven, U.S.A.

  (100 episodes)

  Only A Test

  Dracula’s Last Tour

  Green Valley

  S.T.A.R.

  Radio Plays

  Screenplays & Teleplays

  Haven Ten

  (Twenty Trilogies)

  The Meridian Factor

  (with Verne Nobles)

  Welcome to

  Milford-Haven

  (with Katherine

  Doughtie Nolan)

  Guiding Light

  Mara Purl

  Where the

  Heart Lives

  Book Two

  A Milford-Haven Novel

  Bellekeep Books

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental. The names of actual persons are used by permission.

  Where the Heart Lives ©2012 by Mara Purl

  New Edition

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or

  by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and

  retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher,

  except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  For information address: Bellekeep Books

  29 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003

  www.BellekeepBooks.com

  Front Cover – Original Watercolor by Mary Helsaple ©2010

  Front, Back Covers and Jacket design by Tara Goff, Bellekeep Books &

  Kevin Meyer, Amalgamate
d Pixels

  ©2012 by Milford-Haven Enterprises, LLC.

  Copy Editor: Vicki Werkley. Proofreader: Jean Laidig.

  Author photos: Lesley Bohm.

  Milford-Haven PUBLISHING, RECORDING & BROADCASTING HISTORY

  This book is based in part upon the original radio drama Milford-Haven ©1987 by

  Mara Purl, Library of Congress numbers SR188828, SR190790, SR194010; and upon

  the original radio drama Milford-Haven, U.S.A. ©1992 by Mara Purl, Library of

  Congress number SR232-483, which was broadcast by the British Broadcasting

  Company’s BBC Radio 5 Network, and which is also currently in release in audio

  formats as Milford-Haven, U.S.A. ©1992 by Mara Purl. Portions of this material also

  appear on the Milford-Haven Web Site, http://www.MilfordHaven.com

  © by Mara Purl.

  All rights reserved.

  Portions of this work were published in early editions

  Test-Marketing Novelization Edition Copyright © 1998 by Mara Purl

  Library of Congress Txu-846-611

  Closer Than You Think Early Edition Copyright © 2006 by Mara Purl

  Library of Congress TX 6-838-222

  The Library of Congress has cataloged this book as follows:

  Purl, Mara.

  Where the heart lives / Mara Purl.

  p.; cm. -- (A Milford-Haven novel; bk. 2)

  Based in part upon the original radio dramas Milford-Haven and Milford-Haven U.S.A., broadcast by BBC Radio 5 Network.

  Portions also appear on the World Wide Web at http://www.milfordhaven.com and were published in early editions.

  ISBN: 978-1-936878-02-4

  1. Women painters--California--Fiction. 2. California--Fiction. 3. Mystery fiction. I. Title. II. Title: Milford-Haven U.S.A. (Radio program) III. Title: Milford-Haven (Radio program)

  PS3566.U75 W45 2012

  813/.6

  Published in the U.S. by Bellekeep Books, New York

  www.BellekeepBooks.com

  Distributed by Midpoint Trade Books, New York

  www.MidpointTrade.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated

  to the Doobie Brothers,

  for decades of uplifting music, sensitive lyrics,

  great recordings, rousing concerts, and the

  greatness of heart to donate generously

  of their time and resources.

  And to the veterans of wars—

  near and far, recent and long past—

  who have served, and who have waited.

  Acknowledgments

  The New Edition

  Thanks to my new publishers: Eric Kampmann and the entire team at Midpoint Trade Books; Margot Atwell, Patrice Samara, Kara Johnson and Tara Goff at Bellekeep Books. Thanks to my gifted editorial team: Vicki Hessel Werkley, editor; Jean Laidig, proofreader. Thanks to Mary Helsaple for exquisite watercolors for my book covers, and to Kevin Meyer and Amalgamated Pixels for superb cover design and graphics.

  Thanks to my marketing team: Dianemarie and Doug Collins at DM Productions for PR and marketing; Jonatha King for MH Novels list-building and special events; Wendy Wilkinson for national magazine articles; Amber Ludwig and Sky Esser for Internet design and wizardry; Kelly Johnson for Social Media expertise and creativity.

  Thanks to those who provide expertise during my research: to artists Mary Helsaple, Caren Pearson for inspiration and depth of detail; to Dr. Laurance Doyle for astronomical specifics; to Pilulaw Khus for Chumash wisdom and for her book Earth Wisdom co-written with Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez; to Dr. Lou Blanck for Central Coast geology; to Carole Adams and Harrison Gruman for lighthouse history at Piedras Blancas; and to Eric Castrobran and Kim Castrobran of the USCG for lighthouse history at Point Vicente; to Joan and Jeff Stanford of Stanford Inn; to staff at the Feline Conservation Center in Rosamund, California.

  Thanks to the Doobie Brothers for appearing in the original radio drama in 1992. Especially I thank dear friends John McFee, the late Keith Knudsen and the late Cornelius Bumpus, whose music will always be a joy, and who first invited me backstage. Thanks to John McFee and Marcy McFee, both of whom were original cast members of Milford-Haven; and to John whose musicianship led to the development of the character “Notes.”

  Thanks to the Doobies and to their manager Bruce Cohn for allowing me to include them in the novel, and for arranging our recent backstage video. The concerts mentioned in this book are fictionalized. They were inspired by the many concerts I’ve enjoyed and by the first real Doobies reunion concert, organized by Keith Knudsen and Shad Meshad as a benefit for the Vietnam Veterans Aid Foundation (now the National Veterans Foundation). The songs and albums mentioned in the story are real.

  Thanks to dear friends in Cambria who’ve supported Milford-Haven for many years with such enthusiasm, including Elaine Evans, Kathe Tanner, Susan Berry, Simon Wilder, Freedom Barry, and Jim Buckley. Thanks to Verne Nobles for vision and commitment to the Milford-Haven Television project.

  Thanks for special events: to dynamic organizations in several parts of the country for working with me to produce the community-based Milford-Haven Socie-Teas® (Possibili-Teas, Generosi-Teas, Hospitali-Teas, Creativi-Teas, and our list continues!) and to Unique Soap Boutique for the wonderful Days Of Our Lives events. Thanks in particular to the charities with whom I’ve worked on special events over the past year: Unity Shoppe (Santa Barbara); Haven House (Los Angeles); Lake Forest Women’s Club literacy program (Chicago); Bethany House (Cincinnati); American Heart Association (Colorado Springs).

  Thanks for book mentoring: Judith Briles, Marcella Smith, Peggy McColl, and Ellen Reid. Thanks for organization support: WWW (Women Writing the West), CLAS (California Literary Arts Society), IBPA (Independent Book Publishing Association), the Author’s Guild and Author U.

  Thanks to all at Haven Books for helping to create the original platform. Thanks to my mentor Louis L’Amour, who believed in my project and told me to keep going with it.

  And most important of all—thanks to you, my readers! I’m thrilled to welcome those of you who are new to my books. And I extend a special heartfelt thanks to the core group of readers who began with the novels’ early editions. I appreciate your steadfast support during my publishing journey.

  The Radio Drama

  Milford-Haven had its first air date in 1987, and my thanks go to KOTR in Cambria, California, our first radio home. In its next incarnation Milford-Haven, U.S.A. was broadcast on the BBC, thanks to Ms. Pat Ewing, Director of Radio 5—a maverick network that launched a maverick show, and celebrated with us when we reached 4.5 million listeners.

  Before there were any shows to broadcast, there were the cast members, and my thanks go to both the original cast of Milford-Haven and to the cast of Milford-Haven, U.S.A., seasoned professionals who brought my characters so vividly to life that their work is inextricably woven into the fabric of the characters themselves.

  Before there were cast members to record, there had to be a studio, and my thanks go to Engineer Bill Berkuta whose Afterhours Recording Company became our studio home, a workshop in which we created one hundred episodes of the first show and sixty of the second, and where we now create audio books of the novels.

  Thanks to the late great David L. Krebs, our Foley master, a gifted sound artist who created our aural reality. Thanks to Marilyn Harris and Mark Wolfram, who composed the haunting Milford-Haven theme and all the music cues that support the emotional ebb and flow of the story. Thanks to Warren Talcott for the intriguing Milford-Haven poster, and to Caren Pearson for the compelling Milford-Haven logo art—each of which gave our town its visual reality.

  Before I created my own soap opera, there was Days of Our Lives and my thanks go to the producers, writers, directors and fellow cast members with whom I worked, and from whom I learned so much.

  And before there was a Milford-Haven, there was
a young woman who had always lived in cities—Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles. I spent a summer performing in a play at Jim and Olga Buckley’s Pewter Plough Playhouse in Cambria, and became fascinated with the life in and of a small town. With Elaine Traxel Evans’s help, I immersed myself in this new culture—admittedly seeing it through the eyes of an environmentalist—and began to realize that it was not only a local drama that was being played out in its quiet streets, but a universal one as well.

  Listeners in the U.S. and in the U.K. agreed, writing to me about their own lives, their own towns, and the commonality of the situations we face globally. My thanks go to my listeners everywhere. Several years later the link with listeners was to be vividly demonstrated when the original Milford Haven in Wales embraced me as an honorary citizen and showed me those same streets, those same dramas, uncannily alike in the multi-cultural parallel universes we all inhabit. Thanks to Bruce Henrickson of the Belhaven House Hotel. Special thanks to Jim and Anne Hughes, who shared my vision even before we met, who welcomed me into their home, and with whom I continue to forge a unique town-to-town relationship.

  My thanks go to my family and friends—helpful, discerning and, above all, supportive—Ray Purl, Marshie Purl, Linda Purl, Larry Norfleet, Erin Gray, Miranda Kenrick, Vickie and Bob Zoellner.

  And finally my thanks go to my characters, among whom are—Jack, Zack, Miranda, Cornelius, Samantha, Rune, Meredith, Kevin, Joseph, Sally, Tony, Zelda, Notes, Susan and Cynthia, who are building, buying, painting, observing, planning, rehearsing, advising, cogitating, dominating, dishing, traveling, conniving, playing, sneaking and seducing, respectively.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome back to Milford-Haven! And if this is your first visit—it is my pleasure to introduce you to my favorite little town and to its many residents, all of whom are described in the Cast of Characters at the back of the book.

  The first step in plotting your way to a delicious getaway might be opening a map. For pure escape, might you choose a place that would give you a chance to wander through a pristine pine forest or sink your toes into untrodden sand, invite you to browse through shops, tempt you to have a home-cooked meal or enjoy a cup of tea overlooking the ocean?