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  Praise for JUDY BAER

  “I can totally see why author Judy Baer’s books are award winners and bestsellers! Million Dollar Dilemma is a fabulously rockin’ inspirational romance. Fans of inspirational, chick-lit and contemporary romance will enjoy this book.”

  —CataRomance Reviews

  “Million Dollar Dilemma is a million-dollar treasure you must read!”

  —Armchair Interviews

  “Million Dollar Dilemma is sophisticated in structure and story, but sweet and accessible.”

  —NBC10.com

  “Whitney Blake…becomes not just a fictional character, but a ‘girlfriend’—so much so that readers might have to remember they can’t meet her for a cup of coffee. This is…real life, good and bad…subtle nuggets of wisdom.…Experiencing life with Whitney does offer a sense of camaraderie…fun twists and witty lines…Baer’s writing is fresh and imaginative as she seamlessly weaves diary entries into a story many will relate to and enjoy.”

  —Christian Retailing on The Whitney Chronicles

  “Just like Bridget [Jones]…chick-lit readers will appreciate all the components of a girl-friendly fantasy read. Quirky characters…flashes of genuine humor keep even the poignant segments…from becoming too heavy.…the results are genuinely enjoyable.”

  —Publishers Weekly on The Whitney Chronicles

  “Bridget Jones’s Diary for evangelicals.…This is romance…and it’s often amusing. Baer [brings] poignancy to the plight of the good girl who is growing older.”

  —Booklist on The Whitney Chronicles

  “The Whitney Chronicles is a wonderful new addition to the genre and a refreshing look at a life of faith and commitment to God. The story is not preachy, and it is a true glimpse of the everyday lives of regular people who walk God’s path with not only determination, but the courage to stumble once in a while. The Whitney Chronicles is a wonderful novel that isn’t afraid to present spirituality and faith in factual and realistic scenes, and I highly recommend this book as a leader of a new generation in romance.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “The Whitney Chronicles is chick-lit fun for the Christian set—and anyone else looking for a breezy, heartfelt read!”

  —Kristin Billerbeck, bestselling author of A Girl’s Best Friend

  “When Whitney Blake grabbed a Snickers bar, I knew she was my kind of girl. In The Whitney Chronicles, Judy Baer nailed the chick-lit voice and created a delightful, quirky cast of characters. She’s now on my very short list of great chick-lit writers.”

  —Colleen Coble, author of Dangerous Depths

  JUDY BAER

  NORAH’S ARK

  For Sandy Dehn—our walk and talks are precious to me

  and your faith and wisdom are a shining beacon.

  Thank you for being my friend.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  Questions for Discussion

  Chapter One

  WELCOME TO NORAH’S ARK

  HAVE YOU HUGGED YOUR IGUANA TODAY?

  Norah Kent, owner-operator of Norah’s Ark Pet Store and Doggie B and B—Bed and Biscuit

  I stood back and studied the sign I’d placed in the window. Creative marketing for a pet store has its own unique challenges. It’s hard to know, really, if an iguana will lend itself the same “isn’t that cute” factor as my Cuddle A Puppy Tonight! campaign had. It would help if I had an extra dime to spend on professional advice, but I usually have at least a hundred and fifty extra mouths to feed and that adds up. Granted, the fish and birds don’t take much, but the mastiff puppies I’m currently housing make up for it.

  “New Monday-morning promotion, Norah? What will it be next, Grin At Your Guppy or Tickle Your Toad?”

  I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Joe Collier from the Java Jockey, the coffee shop and hangout across the street from my pet store.

  “What do you think?”

  “Makes me think I’d rather hug you.”

  “Get a grip, Joe, this is important business.” I didn’t turn around to look at him because I knew he was serious and didn’t want to encourage him. Joe’s been pursuing me ever since the day my menagerie and I moved into the storefront near him two years ago.

  I left a perfectly nice, secure, decent-paying job managing a veterinary clinic and being a veterinarian’s assistant to pursue a dream of owning my own business, and not even hunky, persistent Joe is going to derail me now.

  “When are you going ease up, Norah? Norah’s Ark has as much walk-in traffic as my coffee shop. You do as much business as anyone on the street.”

  I turned around to look at him. Joe is six feet two inches tall, has curly black hair, pale blue eyes and the best muscles a lifetime membership at the sweatiest gym in town money can buy. He always wears a white, long-sleeved shirt with the cuffs rolled up his forearms, jeans and loafers without socks. That’s no easy feat in Minnesota during the winter, but Joe’s a guy for all seasons.

  “There’s no time for a small business owner to ‘ease up.’ You know that.” I waved my arm, gesturing at the rows of businesses housed in quaint, former Victorian homes flanking both sides of Pond Street. Pond Street was named, tongue in cheek, because it runs directly into Lake Zachary, one of the largest, most populated and popular boating lakes in the city. In fact, every street in Shoreside runs directly toward the lake, like spokes on a bicycle. The avenues, which would normally run in the opposite direction, are more in an every-man-for-himself pattern. The slightly rolling terrain and difficulty of finding one’s way around town only made it more appealing to people. Over the years, Shoreside has become an exclusive and trendy—if confusing—place to live.

  “None of us would be here if we ‘eased up.’” The summer traffic here is great but winters can be slow. We have to work when the sun shines—literally.

  “So just slip out for a couple hours this Saturday night and I’ll introduce you to this great Italian restaurant I know. Think of it as an opportunity to pay tribute to my maternal ancestors. What do you say?”

  Joe has a smile so beguiling that it can melt ice cubes. If I don’t give myself some space to think, I succumb to it every time.

  “I’ll let you know later.”

  “Not much later, I hope,” he teased. “I have a whole list of other beautiful women to ask out if you turn me down.” His dimples dimped—or whatever it is dimples do—but I still resisted. “I’ll tell you after I close the store tonight, okay?”

  “You’re a hard sell, Norah. Maybe that’s why I like you.” He chucked me under the chin as he does my dog Bentley, a mixed breed Staffordshire terrier, beagl
e and who-knows-what-else, and sauntered back to the coffee shop.

  If he thinks my hard-to-get persona is attractive, that means that saying “no” is only going to fuel his fire. I’ll have to think of a new tactic to keep him at bay.

  It’s not that I don’t like Joe. I do. Almost too much. The problem is that I’m just not ready for Joe. He wants a serious girlfriend, someone with marriage potential who is ready to settle down, and I’m not that girl—yet. Sometimes I worry that he might not be willing to wait.

  Still, I love owning my own business and being independent and I want to have that experience for a while longer. I’m a throw-myself-into-something-with-total-abandon kind of girl. When I marry, I’ll be the most enthusiastic wife and homemaker ever, but right now I am focused on the shop. Besides, although I’ve never admitted it to another living soul, I’m waiting for bells to chime, to feel the poke of Cupid’s arrow as it lands in my backside or sense a shimmery-all-over feeling that I imagine I’ll have when I fall in love. It’s my personal secret. Everyone thinks I’m a sensible realist. Hah! Nothing could be further from the truth.

  I decided to leave the iguana sign up for a day or two to test the response and was about to reenter the store when Auntie Lou came out the front door of her store to sweep the sidewalk. Surreptitiously, I watched as she tidied up the front of Auntie Lou’s Antiques. Her name is actually Louella Brown and her age is—well, somewhere over a hundred and fifty, I think. Auntie Lou is the oldest antique in her shop, cute as a bug and wrinkled as a raisin. She also dyes her hair a fire-engine red-orange that makes Lucille Ball’s and Carrot Top’s tresses look anemic. This morning her distinctive hair was tucked under a cloche hat and she wasn’t wearing her upper plate so she looked especially raisinlike. Still, I found her smile appealing when she waved me over for a visit.

  “How’s my pretty today?” Auntie Lou asked. She always says that. When she does, I immediately flash back to Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. If I had a dog named Toto, I’d grab him and run.

  “Great, how are you?”

  “Arthur kept pestering me all night and Ruma-tiz, too. Those boys are pure trouble.”

  Translation: her arthritis and rheumatism are acting up again.

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Oh, to be young and pretty like you!” Auntie Lou reached out and touched a strand of my long, dark hair, which is currently in one of its wilder stages.

  I inherited my naturally curly hair from my mother who, no matter how hard she tries, can’t get those kinks and waves to settle down. Mom’s blond and beautiful and has settled for an upswept do that tames it fairly well. I, on the other hand, have let my dark hair grow as long as it will and usually harness it in to a whale spout sort of ponytail that erupts from the top of my head and hangs to somewhere between my shoulder blades. People—especially kids—always want to touch my hair to see if it’s real.

  My mom also has remarkable gray-green eyes which, happily, I also inherited. As a child, I would look into her eyes and feel as if I could actually see her tender heart enshrouded in that smoky gray-green haze. My dad says I have the same eyes, “only more so.” He insists I actually wear my heart on my sleeve and it’s my entire soul that is on display in my eyes. It’s an interesting concept but I try not to think about it. I’m not sure there’s a good mascara sold to enhance one’s soul.

  I am a big softy. This much is true. I’m a total pushover for children, the elderly and anyone who is an underdog or down on his luck. I am also a complete and total sucker for anything with four feet, fur, gills, wings, claws, tails or webbed feet. I volunteer as a willing midwife to anything that gives birth in litters, broods or batches. I love tame and wild, pedigreed and mutt alike. I’ve been this way since the first time I grabbed our golden retriever Oscar by the tail as a tiny child and he licked my face instead of giving me the reprimanding nip I deserved.

  My parents still remind me of the Christmases I’d cry when I saw a doll under the tree instead of stuffed animals and the bucket of oats and toddler swimming pool I kept filled with fresh water in the backyard “just in case a pony came by.” I rode the back of our velvet floral print couch like it was a bucking bronco until my plastic toy spurs shredded the pillows and I was banished to pretending to ride a horse around the backyard. I must have looked deranged, now that I think of it, whooping and slapping myself on the butt to make myself go faster. Good thing I didn’t own a riding crop or whip.

  My dad is a veterinarian and my mom a nurse, so there was usually something with wings or paws bandaged up and living at our house while it mended. In fact, I assumed that everyone had a pet snake until I took mine to my friend’s house to show her mother how pretty he looked now that he’d shed his old skin. That, I was quick to discover, was a very bad assumption. She did forgive me, however, as soon as the paramedic revived her.

  Anyway, I’m a softy for all the unique characters on Pond Street, too.

  “You got a good mouser over there?” Auntie Lou inquired. “I’m in need of a shop cat, a working feline. How much will it cost me?”

  “Not much. I’ll drive you to the animal shelter tonight and we’ll find something perfect for you. I think a calico kitten would be a great accessory for your antiques. He’d sleep on that soft cushion on the platform rocker in the window….”

  “How do you make a living, Norah? I want to buy a cat from you.”

  “Let’s adopt a kitten and I’ll sell you a kitten bed, food, toys, catnip and a scratching post instead.”

  Auntie Lou shook her head helplessly.

  “And I’ll make you sign a paper saying you’ll buy him a lifetime supply of food from my store, if that will make you happy.”

  “Done, you silly child.” Auntie Lou patted me on the cheek and turned to reenter her shop.

  I like to consider myself an adoption agency, not a pet store. I place animals in homes. I spend time with prospective pet owners helping them decide what type of pet is best for them and then help them find the perfect one. I’ve even considered adding “pet consultant” behind my name. Dad says I’m nuts, but I actually make a great living selling all the pet accessories people need for their perfect pet. I have a very loyal following—all people as nutty about animals as I am. I also run the Doggie B and B—Bed and Biscuit—out of the back of the shop for loyal customers who want to travel and have their pets in a safe and familiar place. The business keeps growing, especially now that I include all pets, not just dogs, and have begun serving homemade birthday cakes to those who celebrate their special day away from family. Once a customer caught me and his beagle wearing paper birthday hats and howling out an eardrum-splitting rendition of “Happy Birthday To You.” Needless to say, I got a huge tip and a lifetime fan. Only animal people understand these things.

  Of course, I do have the usual pet store animals in my store—at least two of everything just like Genesis 7:8. “Of clean animals and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.” Except the rabbits, of course. I always start with just two, but, well, they are rabbits after all. Anyway, if it was good enough for God and Noah, it’s good enough for me.

  I’ve been a Christian since I was ten years old. As a child, I was drawn to all the verses of the Bible that refer to God’s four-legged creatures. Even the most lowly, a donkey, for instance, held significance for Christ. When He rode into the city of Jerusalem, he didn’t do so on a chariot. Instead, he came humbly, a serene, peace-desiring king on a donkey’s unbroken colt. “Go into the village ahead of you…you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden: untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it….’” The commonplace becomes exceptional when God is involved.

  Everyone, it seemed, was having a difficult time staying indoors on a beautiful day like this. Next out of her store was
Lilly Culpepper, our local fashion maven. Lilly and I moved onto Pond Street and opened our little shops within a few weeks of each other and have ridden the up-and-down rollercoaster ride of small business ownership together ever since.

  She runs a funky clothing store called The Fashion Diva next to Norah’s Ark and is a walking advertisement for the things she sells in her shop. Today she wore a long, red Santa Fe–style crinkle-pleated skirt, a short boxy sweatshirt the color of old mushrooms, high-heeled black boots and a gray felt fedora. And it looked good. I wonder how many hopeful shoppers leave her store with similar outfits hoping that they’ll look like Lilly when they get home and put their new clothes on. And I wonder how many of those shoppers realized that at home, those same clothes look like the pile of wrinkled, mismatched laundry they already have lying on their closet floors.

  What Lilly doesn’t—and can’t—sell is her style. She looks good even in a gunny sack and a pair of galoshes. I know this for sure because one year we went to a costume party as a sack of potatoes and potato fork. She looked great and I looked like I’d been wrapped in brown crepe paper and had a set of pronged antlers strapped to my head. Next time I get to be the vegetable.

  “Joe asking you out again?” she greeted me with no preamble. Though she came nearer, she didn’t walk toward me. Lilly doesn’t walk, Lilly sweeps.

  Anyway, as she swept toward me, I said, “Good morning to you, too.”

  “If you’d say the word, he’d get down on bended knee and ask for your hand in marriage.”