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  Praise for

  Scrap Everything

  “How can you not love a book about smart, savvy women organizing the chaos of their lives into perfect sense? I recommend Scrap Everything to anyone who needs a fresh perspective on God’s ways.”

  —LOIS RICHER, author of Identity: Undercover

  “In this engaging book about relationships, particularly the friendships of women, Leslie Gould takes a different look at the meaning of sacrificial love. Scrap Everything is a touching story that not only entertains; it challenges you to think twice about what it means to love your neighbor.”

  —ANN TATLOCK, Christy Award–winning novelist

  “Scrap Everything is a captivating tale combining friendship, sacrificial love, and personal growth. The characters are both real and endearing. As a military wife and scrapbooker, I loved reading about people whose experiences and interests parallel my own. I look forward to reading more of Leslie Gould’s writing!”

  —JANELLE CLARE SCHNEIDER, coauthor of Homespun Christmas

  SCRAP EVERYTHING

  PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS

  12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200

  Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

  A division of Random House Inc.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by Leslie Gould

  Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, www.alivecommunications.com.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  WATERBROOK and its deer design logo are registered trademarks of WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gould, Leslie, 1962–

  Scrap everything : a novel / Leslie Gould. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-49961-5

  1. Female friendship—Fiction. 2. Scrapbooks—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3607.O89S37 2006

  813′6—dc22

  2006014997

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  You are her daughters if you do what is right

  and do not give way to fear.

  1 PETER 3:6

  Just shoot us.” Mark flicked his blond bangs away from his eyes. Elise Shelton aimed her camera at her husband, Ted, and their two sons. The boys groaned in unison as they stood in front of the empty house outside of Fort Carson, Colorado.

  “Get it over with,” Michael begged.

  Elise snapped the shutter. “Just a couple more.” She took ten steps to the left to get a better angle of the house.

  “You always make us take pictures when we leave a place.” Mark crossed his arms.

  “I want to remember that we lived here.” She couldn’t believe the things that she had already forgotten during their years in the army. In another two decades she might totally forget that they’d ever lived in Colorado if it weren’t for these photos.

  “Why is it always about what you want?”

  “What do you mean? All I want are these photos. Everything else I do is for you,” Elise said, aware of the hurt in her voice.

  Mark scowled. Dark-haired Michael, who was a year younger and a head shorter than Mark, grinned, showing a mouth full of metal. “One more.” She held up her index finger. “Mark, keep your eyes open.” They were both going into the eighth grade, but no one mistook them for twins. She clicked the camera again.

  “These pictures will just end up in boxes like all the rest.” Mark headed toward the driveway.

  “Every one of those boxes is organized,” Elise said, still holding the camera to her eye.

  “We know they’re organized.” Ted kissed her forehead and bounded up the steps to the front door. “Just like everything else in our lives.” He turned the doorknob. “It’s locked.”

  “I already checked.” Elise followed him with the camera. Thanks to the army, he was nearly as slim as when they married. She raised the viewfinder to his head. His dark hair was beginning to gray at the temples. He turned toward her and grinned, and she snapped the shutter.

  Ted pulled his baseball cap from his back pocket. “Onward, ho! Let’s move out the wagons.”

  “Wagon,” Mark said. He opened the back door of the Volvo. Ted stopped beside his old red Toyota 4Runner.

  Elise never thought to take a photo when they arrived at a new house; too many other things distracted her. In two days they would be in Forest Falls, Oregon, Ted’s hometown. It was temporary—one last, ten-month stop so the boys could spend time with their grandfather—then on to Seattle where they would settle for good. It was their plan. Well, her plan anyway.

  “Wagon and 4Runner, ho,” Ted called out.

  “Stop trying to be funny.” Mark covered his ears. Michael scooped his football off the lawn as if he were recovering a fumble and scurried around to the passenger side of his dad’s vehicle.

  “Forest Falls. The best little town in the world.” Ted reached out for Elise’s hand. “You’re going to love living there. You’ll never want to leave.”

  She pulled away.

  “I don’t want to live in Grandpa’s stupid little town any longer than I have to.” Mark slammed the car door.

  “Mark,” Elise chided as she ducked into the car.

  “It’s true, Mom. You feel the same way.”

  Elise clenched the steering wheel, and her lower back tightened against the leather seat—the pain as familiar to her as the stress that caused it. She said nothing.

  Michael climbed into the front seat of the Toyota. He would chatter for miles and miles, talking Ted’s ear off; Mark would sleep un
til noon, letting Elise enjoy the quiet. Ted turned onto I-25 North, and Elise followed. Pikes Peak towered to her left, and the morning light sifted through the clouds that crowned the mountain. The cool air would soon give way to sweltering heat. They sped through Colorado Springs. Their army days were over. The tension in her back eased. They had made it. Ted had come out alive. The boys were mostly intact.

  She was that much closer to finally getting what she wanted.

  Rebekah Graham twisted her long, auburn hair into a ponytail as she ran down the porch steps of her century-old farmhouse two at a time. “Hey, Pepper,” she called out to her twelve-year-old daughter.

  “Mom, this old horse is too slow.” Pepper sat tall on the palomino. “I want to ride Sky.” She blew a wisp of pale blond hair from her face.

  “Not yet, sweet pea.” Rebekah wedged her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “You know how Dad feels about you riding that wild thing.”

  “Dad worries too much.” Pepper pulled back on the reins, stopping the old palomino.

  “Why don’t we ride up into the forest? It’s cooler there.” Rebekah breathed in the sweet smell of warm alfalfa and manure as she balanced on the middle rung of the corral.

  “If I can ride Sky.” Pepper grinned. “Just kidding. I’m kind of tired. Maybe later.”

  “Are you feeling okay?” Rebekah climbed over the fence and landed on both feet in the corral.

  Pepper rolled her eyes. “Now you sound like Dad.”

  Rebekah grabbed the palomino’s halter and walked backward, leading the horse around the corral. “Let’s see if we can get the old girl moving.”

  “How about if we scrapbook this afternoon?” Pepper suggested.

  “We could do that.” Rebekah began to jog.

  “Or we could go swimming.” Pepper’s words bounced out of her mouth.

  “Maybe Reid would go with us.” Rebekah’s thirteen-year-old son definitely wouldn’t ride or scrapbook.

  “He’ll want to stay home on the computer.” Pepper leaned back in the saddle. “He’s so boring.”

  The three other horses congregated under the shade of the oak tree on the far side of the pasture. Sky, the three-year-old Appaloosa, stamped the ground. Rebekah slowed to a walk and headed toward the gate. The fresh air, the riding, and the chores had made Pepper strong, so strong that Rebekah was ready to consider getting a part-time job or maybe opening a business. She let go of the palomino’s halter.

  “Let’s ride this evening.” Pepper pulled the reins to the right.

  Rebekah slapped the horse’s rump. “Sounds good. We’ll take the trail to the falls.”

  Elise fumbled for the switch to turn on the Volvo’s high beams, a sure sign that she had become a city girl. She slowed for a turn. An oncoming car startled her, and she flicked the dimmer. For the last month, she had driven to Salem once a week to shop. “What’s wrong with the stores in Forest Falls?” Ted had asked each time.

  It wasn’t just that the shops were small; it was more that the people in them smiled too much. Ted was something of a small-town celebrity, thanks to his dad’s bragging, and people expected Elise to be as outgoing as her husband and father-in-law.

  Tonight she simply had to get out of the house. The boys came home from football practice poking at each other nonstop, and by the time she finished the dishes, she was desperate to escape. Grocery shopping, even though she needed only a few things, was the best excuse she could muster.

  The lights of the car bounced off the evergreen trees. Something moved along the right side of the road. Was it a person? She flicked on the bright lights, and the form disappeared. A split second later a powerful animal leaped in front of her car. She slammed on the brakes, screeching the tires. The creature landed elegantly on the pavement in front of her and then sprang again. Elise pumped the brakes. Shaking, she clenched the steering wheel as the animal—a cat—disappeared into the forest.

  A huge cat. A ferocious, graceful, gigantic cat. It had to be a cougar. Elise shivered. She was less than five miles from town, at the most. What kind of town had cougars dashing in front of cars? Another few minutes of running at that speed, and the cougar would be in downtown Forest Falls or at the boys’ school. She accelerated the car. There were no cougars in Seattle.

  She dimmed her lights and slowed at the city limits. The town was quaint with its old architecture—mostly Victorian and Queen Anne houses—and lovely gardens. The downtown area had brick facade buildings. Ted claimed that tourists actually traveled to Forest Falls on purpose.

  She stopped at the four-way in the heart of town. The old hardware store had a new sign: The Scrap Shack. She continued through town, turned left on Cascade Street, crossed over the bridge, and turned into the driveway of their rental. It was a newer home that lacked the charm of the town’s original houses, but it didn’t matter. She could stand anything for ten months.

  Ted met her in the garage. “I was getting worried.” He opened the hatch. “I thought you would be home before dark.”

  “I almost hit a cougar.”

  “Are you sure?” Ted repacked the groceries in the bags and grabbed all three at once. “There were cougars around here when I was a kid but probably not anymore.”

  “There’s at least one.” Elise slammed the hatch.

  “Maybe it was a big barn cat.” Ted grinned.

  Elise smiled at his teasing and took the middle bag from his arms, led the way into the kitchen, and slid the bag onto the counter. “What’s this?” She picked up a fluorescent yellow flier.

  “The new store in town is having a get-together. I thought you might want to go.” Ted pulled out a carton of eggs. “They’re broken.”

  At least the car wasn’t broken. Elise read the flier out loud. “Learn to Scrapbook. Tomorrow! 10 a.m. Free!” She hated exclamation marks and italics.

  “Doesn’t that sound great? You could make some friends.” Ted dumped the eggs into the garbage.

  Elise rolled her shoulders. She had met more friends over the last twenty years than she could count. She didn’t need any more temporary friends.

  “You could do a football scrapbook for the boys.” Ted washed egg off the jar of strawberry jam.

  “I’d better go check the back of the car.” Elise ran a dishcloth under the faucet. She didn’t want to find dried egg on the carpet in the morning.

  Ted wore a gray army T-shirt and black shorts and jogged in place on the front porch. He quickly opened the screen door for Elise as she grabbed her jacket. “Thanks for being willing to go to the scrapbooking deal,” he said. “You’ll enjoy it.”

  He was so eager for her to make friends. “When are you going to get a job?” she teased.

  “I have an interview at the Salem Hospital at one.” He reached for her hand, a playful gleam in his eyes. “If I get the job, I’ll be on call. Will you be able to live without me?”

  They started walking to town, hand in hand. “I’ll look forward to the few hours by myself!” she told him, but they both knew she didn’t mean it. Since their boys had started back to school, the two of them had gone to Portland for a day of bookstore hopping, hiked in the coast range, and cuddled on the couch while reading to each other. They had a list of outings planned—a sort of second honeymoon, thanks to his army retirement checks.

  “Maybe you’ll meet someone at the scrapbook shop who goes to Dad’s church.” Ted picked up the pace. He and the boys had gone to church twice in the last month without her. “Or maybe you’ll meet one of our neighbors or another mom.”

  She had avoided neighbors, other moms, and church. It wasn’t that she didn’t need those things; she did. Just not here, not here in Forest Falls. It wasn’t that she didn’t need God; she did. But what was the use of getting involved in one more church for such a short time?

  They crossed over the Forest Creek Bridge and into downtown. Ted raised his knees high for a few steps. Elise slowed. If Ted weren’t with her, she would walk on by the shop. “We’re late,”
she said. The round clock in the jewelry store window read 10:05.

  “Barely. Besides, we’re here.” Ted stopped. “Didn’t some of the army wives in Colorado scrapbook?”

  Elise nodded in agreement. One of them talked about it nonstop at the officers’ wives’ meetings; she had said it was the fastest growing hobby in America. “I don’t have time for this, Ted.” Elise kicked a pebble, careful not to scuff her black loafer.

  Ted nudged her playfully. “I’m only going to work part-time. It’s not like you’ll have to do everything around the house. You’ll have lots of time to spare.”

  “I’d rather read a book.” Elise crossed her arms over her handbag. Is this how the boys felt on the first day of school, year after year?

  Ted opened the door and kissed her on the lips. “Elise, give the other women a chance to get to know you.”

  She stepped into the building. Light from two stories of windows bathed the brick interior. “Scrapbooking has a long and vivid history!” came a voice from above.

  Elise climbed the wooden stairs and paused at the top. A woman with long, auburn hair stood with her hands clasped. “Scrapbooking can be traced back to the seventeenth century in Germany.” The woman was shapely and tall, probably six feet, or at least close. She wore an orange button-down-the-front shirt over a brown tank top, jeans, and—Elise frowned as she looked down—cowboy boots. “Both Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain were avid scrapbookers!” This perky woman must have made the flier; she spoke in italics and exclamation points too. “Twain—Samuel Clemens—had fifty-seven different scrapbook designs that he sold through Montgomery Ward catalogs.”

  Thank goodness the rest of the world remembers him for his literature. Elise grimaced. She was doing that negative thing she did when she felt stressed. It’s just a group of women, she thought. Small-town women.

  Miss Perky spread her arms wide. “The peak decade for scrapbooking in the past was 1880 to 1890, although during the 1920s, many girls kept journals that included clippings and mementos.”

  Elise’s grandmother had kept a scrapbook filled with graduation, wedding, and birth announcements, all from the Seattle Times society page.