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  PRAISE FOR

  Women’s Intuition

  “I inhaled Women’s Intuition like a plate of barbecued chicken from the Eastern Shore and cannot wait to tell every woman I know, ‘Honey, you have to read this!’ All novels have characters, but Women’s Intuition has people, the kind you really care about. Quirky, edgy, wonderful people … Christian fiction has waited a long time for a voice like Lisa Samson’s: disarming, honest, funny, painful, triumphant, real.”

  —LIZ CURTIS HIGGS, author of Bad Girls of the Bible and Mad Mary

  “Lisa Samson is one of my favorite authors! Her novels are artfully crafted, and her characters are complex and delightful. Women’s Intuition is a ‘must read’ for anyone who appreciates fiction.”

  —TERRI BLACKSTOCK, author of Cape Refuge and the Newpointe 911 series

  “Lisa Samson has one of the most unique voices in women’s fiction today. Never has that talent been more evident than in Women’s Intuition. Come meet the delightfully quirky Summervilles. You’re going to love them!”

  —ROBIN LEE HATCHER, author of Firstborn

  “Women’s Intuition isn’t just a book; it’s an intimate conversation with friends. Having developed a style all her own—both humorous and touching—Lisa Samson is quickly becoming a world-class novelist.”

  —JACK CAVANAUGH, author of Postmarked Heaven

  “A heartfelt exploration of family relationships, the need to heal old wounds, and the courage it takes to move on.”

  —VINITA HAMPTON WRIGHT, author of Velma Still Cooks in Leeway

  “In Women’s Intuition, Lisa Samson uses outrageous hilarity and insight to gently peel back the layers of dysfunction in one multigenerational family to reveal a treasure at the center. I want more novels like this!”

  —HANNAH ALEXANDER, author of The Healing Touch series

  “Insightful, delightful, mirthful, and thoughtful. Women’s Intuition serves up characters we long to call friends.”

  —NANCY MOSER, author of The Seat Beside Me and The Invitation

  “Lisa Samson takes us on another excursion deep into the heart of sticky family relationships in Women’s Intuition. This gentle story shows how God works under the surface to bring us face to face with the things we fear most—and to bring us out the other side with His healing balm applied to our hurts. This is a story you won’t soon forget.”

  —COLLEEN COBLE, author of Wyoming

  “The women in Lisa Samson’s Women’s Intuition—Lark, Leslie, Flannery, and Prisma—leapt right off the page and into my heart. Delightful and honest reading!”

  —ANGELA E. HUNT, author of The Shadow Women

  “Fresh in style, beautifully realized in character, Women’s Intuition will greatly please Lisa Samson’s faithful following. Another delight from a truly original voice.”

  —JAMES SCOTT BELL, author of The Darwin Conspiracy

  “With characters as crisp and recognizable as Jan Karon’s and with the depth and detail of a T. Davis Bunn, Women’s Intuition is sure to capture the hearts of all who allow themselves to be found inside the strength of Samson’s women.”

  —JANE KIRKPATRICK, award-winning author of All Together in One Place

  “Join a new sisterhood where women grow and survive and sometimes even triumph … all while they drive each other crazy. I love Lisa Samson’s writing, and I can only think of one word for her new book: SUPERB.”

  —STEPHANIE GRACE WHITSON, Christy Award finalist and author of nine inspirational novels

  “Women’s Intuition is an enthralling, introspective journey into the lives and hearts of four unique, vividly drawn women battered by life but never defeated.… Lisa Samson is a spellbinding talent in the field of Christian women’s fiction.”

  —KATHLEEN MORGAN, author of Embrace the Dawn

  “Reading [Women’s Intuition] was like opening a box of fine chocolates. I couldn’t decide whether to gorge myself on the entire story in a single sitting or portion it out to be enjoyed over as many days as I could make it linger.… This is a gem of a story!”

  —JANELLE BURNHAM SCHNEIDER, author of “More Than Tinsel” in Homespun Christmas

  “Lisa Samson shines in Women’s Intuition! A jewel of a novel with multifaceted characters so real that I missed them the minute I turned the last page. In my opinion, Samson is the freshest literary voice in the industry today.”

  —DEBORAH RANEY, award-winning author of Beneath a Southern Sky and After the Rains

  “Lisa Samson’s eye for understanding the mysteries of family life is acutely tuned in Women’s Intuition with characters deftly drawn by her benevolent imagination. Samson offers a village peopled with deliciously flawed characters all revolving through a credible milieu that makes the heart believe that grace and mercy are free for the picking.… Delightful!”

  —PATRICIA HICKMAN, author of Sandpebbles and Katrina’s Wings

  “The characters in Women’s Intuition are so real, so strong, so memorable that I keep hearing snippets of their conversations in my mind, like recalling a chat with a close friend. I find myself wondering how they’re doing, expecting to see them, and being able to ask. If women’s intuition is at the heart of how we naturally think, love, and operate with those closest to us, this book reveals how it’s done.”

  —SANDRA BYRD, author of The Secret Sisters Series, The Hidden Diary Series, Girl Talk, and Inside-Out Beauty Book

  Other books by Lisa Samson

  Indigo Waters

  Fields of Gold

  Crimson Skies

  The Church Ladies

  WOMEN’S INTUITION

  PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS

  12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200

  Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental. Scriptures are paraphrased or quoted from the King James Version.

  Copyright © 2002 by Lisa E. Samson

  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.

  Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Samson, Lisa, 1964-

  Women’s intuition / Lisa Samson.—.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-55314-0

  1. Women—Maryland—Baltimore—Fiction. 2. Parent and adult child—Fiction. 3. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 4. Runaway husbands—Fiction. 5. Baltimore (Md.)—Fiction. 6. Divorced women—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.A46673 W66 2002

  813′.54—dc21

  2002006908

  v3.1

  This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother,

  JOY EBAUER,

  July 23, 19– to August 6, 2002.

  She never told her age, so neither will I.

  Good-bye for now, dear.

  I love you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  June

  Lark

  Leslie

  Flannery

  Lark

  Leslie

  Flannery

  Leslie

  Lark

  Prisma

  Lark

  Flannery

  Leslie

  Flannery

  Lark

  Prisma

  Lark


  Flannery

  Lark

  Leslie

  Lark

  Leslie

  Prisma

  Lark

  Prisma

  Lark

  Leslie

  Prisma

  Flannery

  July

  Flannery

  Leslie

  Lark

  Flannery

  Prisma

  Lark

  Flannery

  Lark

  Leslie

  Lark

  Flannery

  Prisma

  Lark

  Leslie

  Prisma

  Leslie

  Lark

  Flannery

  Lark

  Prisma

  Leslie

  Lark

  Flannery

  Lark

  Leslie

  Lark

  Prisma

  Lark

  Prisma

  Lark

  Flannery

  Lark

  Flannery

  Leslie

  Prisma

  Lark

  Flannery

  Leslie

  August

  Flannery

  Lark

  Leslie

  Lark

  Flannery

  Leslie

  Prisma

  Lark

  Leslie

  Flannery

  Lark

  Prisma

  Flannery

  Lark

  Leslie

  Flannery

  Lark

  Leslie

  Lark

  Prisma

  Flannery

  Leslie

  Prisma

  Lark

  Flannery

  Lark

  Leslie

  Lark

  September

  Flannery

  Lark

  Prisma

  Leslie

  Flannery

  Leslie

  Flannery

  Prisma

  Flannery

  Lark

  Prisma

  Leslie

  Lark

  Flannery

  Lark

  Flannery

  Leslie

  Lark

  Prisma

  Lark

  Leslie

  Lark

  Flannery

  Prisma

  October

  Lark

  Leslie

  Flannery

  November

  Lark

  Prisma

  December

  Newly

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  A lot of writers will tell you that it’s poor form to list family and friends in your acknowledgments. To which I respond, “Oh yeah? This is the one chance I get to be totally me!”

  I’d like to thank two very cool women with great intuition: my editor, Erin Healy, and my agent, Claudia Cross. Thanks for picking me up and strapping the running shoes back on. Lori York, LSCW-C, thanks for reading the manuscript and making a difference on the front lines of heartache every day. Thanks to you, Marty Ehrhardt and Mike Polischeck, for your firsthand info on Hamilton and to you, Loretta Ebauer, for our drives in Guilford, along Greenway Avenue, and into Hamilton.

  My prayer ladies—Celestine, Tanzel, Freida, and Lori—thanks for bringing me daily before the throne. Patty, Jim, Liz, Deb, Colleen, Till, Angie, Nancy, Terri, Robin, Cheryl, and Jane—you all are such a source of encouragement. Eric Wiggin, thanks especially to you. It was a hard year as a writer for me. Your enthusiasm for my work kept me going at times. Jack, what would I do without your friendship and concern?

  Thank you to all my family and friends, but, in particular, to my sister, Lori Chesser, and my friends Jennifer Hagerty, Heather Gillot, Chris Burkett, Marty Ehrhardt, and Karen Mortimer, who make my life as a woman rich. To Gloria Danaher, I’d like to say thank you for being a wonderful example of true womanhood and for your open-door policy! I couldn’t have made it through my mother’s illness without you. To my family—Will, Tyler, Jake, and Gwynnie—what a life we have been blessed to share. Thank you for giving me a broader heart from which to write.

  Thank you, Jesus, for giving me this job to do and equipping me to do it. Your graciousness astounds me daily.

  To my reading sisters who have been so supportive, who love stories with hope and a happy ending, I’m so thankful for you all. Thanks for the e-mails! Write me at [email protected]. Or visit my homegrown Web site, www.lisasamson.com.

  To anybody I’ve forgotten (and that’s the risk of making a big list like this), forgive me! The gray matter ain’t what it used to be.

  June

  Lark

  FLANNERY DESERVES TO KNOW THE TRUTH about her father. One day I’m going to have to tell her. But not tonight. I am worn out.

  It’s a tiredness of years.

  You know how those ladies’ magazines pretend women can do it all and still appear fresh as a sweet-smelling daisy by a clear Swiss spring? Wearing cute loafers, tweed miniskirts, and a camel cashmere twinset, they deposit their kids at soccer in sleek silver cars, green vans with television screens, or gargantuan white SUVs. Drive-through windows constitute meal planning. They see the best doctors because they don’t mind going across town. Malls and boutiques bark their clothing on glitzy, stylistic posters. They instantly rid themselves of the nasty Flair inserts in the Valu-Pak coupon collections I look forward to each month. And they throw them into a recycling bin they bought from some woodsy, catalog-driven company.

  They adroitly embroider their own existence with the silk threads of others’ lives as though the fabric of their day-to-day duties was spun of gossamer and not the heavy mail plates that make up mine.

  Was I ever like that?

  Once upon a time, I suppose.

  Really, though? Perhaps even then my fears festered deep down like mushrooms, and I chose to concentrate on the grass above the soil.

  But one activity I do share with most women is this: I love coming home. I rarely leave it except to go play the organ at the local parish, or run down to the CVS for a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread. The priests at St. Dominic’s laugh at me, and I just let them.

  “If you didn’t come here and play for mass,” Father Charlie says from between his full, sweetheart lips, “you’d be a hermit, Lark.”

  “I’m a good organist, Father. Besides, a lot of holy men were hermits.”

  “That was then, this is now. You need to live a little.”

  Always the same.

  Now, when a priest tells you to live a little, that spells trouble or, at the very least, a musty lifestyle. But I love my little home. My refuge. My relief. Ever since I signed the small mortgage. My very own consolation and sometimes insulation.

  When I lie down, exhausted from trying so hard, I talk to Jesus. Now, I’m very thankful for the Resurrection, because if Christ had remained in that dark tomb, where would I be? I’m not just talking about my eternal destiny, I’m talking day by day. I know how it feels to be forsaken by someone you love more than yourself, and I know the love of Someone who loves you more than His own life.

  I cry out to Him in the nighttime.

  I imagine Him sitting there on the end of my bed and saying, “Come on, Lark. Give me your cares. All of them.”

  As far as I’m concerned, Jesus was the only man who ever walked the face of the earth that a woman could count on.

  Home feels good on nights like tonight, cool and soothing, like freshly washed sheets on freshly shaved legs. I usually read on Friday nights or watch movies with Flannery, but Father Charlie called me earlier and asked me to meet with Marsha Fortenbaugh, our cantor. “I know it’s late, but I’ve got a great new responsive piece for you to do.”

  I gripped the phone. “It’s ten o’clock at night, Father!”

  “I know this is short notice.”

  My heart started racing. “You’re telling
me, Father. You actually want to do it for Saturday evening mass? Tomorrow night? This had better be an easy piece.”

  “Wait till you hear it! And come on, Lark, you’re the best organist we’ve ever had.”

  Which, according to Marsha, who grew up at St. Dominic’s, says absolutely nothing.

  So, feeling the ants of anxiety milling about beneath my skin, I yanked on my black pants and rose-colored blouse, brushed my brown frizz back into a headband, and headed over to the church. I wanted to make them wait for me, but who knew what lurked out on Harford Road this time of night?

  There is no fear in love. There is no fear in love.

  As I entered the sanctuary, I looked down and realized I had run to St. Dominic’s in my slippers.

  Soon people will whisper behind their hands, “There goes the Crazy Woman of Hamilton.” I refuse to get a cat, though, for fear that once I do, more and more will litter my yard, eventually landing me in a mental institution somewhere as the Crazy Cat Woman of Hamilton.

  A bit of pride lingers somewhere down with the mushrooms, I believe.

  So I scanned the sheet of staff paper on the music rack before me and sank into the instrument that has cradled me for years, my fingers easing down onto the keys, pressing forward, lifting up.

  Marsha gripped the lectern with bratwurst fingers supporting more Service Merchandise–type rings than any woman in Hamilton has a right to wear.

  But who cared about rings, because right then, a refrain that proclaimed that all the ends of the earth have seen God’s power streamed like a warm rainbow from the pipes. Father Charlie, running a knobby, ebony hand over his slicked-back, tweed hair, belted it out with his usual African-American gusto, only tone-deaf. Thank goodness Marsha held the microphone.

  Goose bumps stippled my arms and drove away the ants.

  So majestic. So beautiful.

  And such a strong melody.

  Some church songs really wander around. Drives me crazy. But not this one.

  “What do you think?” Father Charlie pushed his Buddy Holly glasses back up on the bridge of his forthright nose. He puffed his black-shirted chest forward, the white square of his collar gleaming like a beacon of priestliness in the night gloom of the church.