Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Noelle Salazar’s new release: The Lies We Leave Behind
For readers of Madeline Martin and Beatriz Williams, this sweeping story follows a fearless nurse who must leave love behind when duty calls her back to the front.
Somewhere in the Pacific, 1943. Kate Campbell is a nurse who bravely flies back and forth from the front to rescue wounded soldiers, amid long days, harsh conditions and often dangerous weather. Driven by a deep personal need to help in the war effort, she is conflicted when an injury results in her reassignment to the relative comfort of the English countryside.
Love has never been part of her plan, but despite herself, she falls for an officer with three bullet wounds, startling blue eyes and a wicked sense of humor. For the first time, Kate sees a future far from the horrors of war and hate. But before she can pursue it, a secret from her past calls her to duty, and she’ll have to travel back into danger one more time to rescue a part of herself she’d left behind. But will she make it back? And will that future still be waiting for her if she does?
Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from The Lies We Leave Behind
William
Seattle, 2003
While the women discussed who was taking what where and when, I threw on my favorite worn-in cardigan and ambled down the hallway, my slippers scuffing across the hardwood floor as my gaze skimmed over the family photos lining the walls, the most recent at the start, the oldest at the far end. Memory Lane, Olivia had dubbed it. On these walls, one could document nearly our entire life together as a couple, starting from the night we met, thanks to a mutual friend having a camera on hand. We met moments before the flash went off, and then spent the rest of the night talking tentatively, both of us carrying pain we could hardly bear, but not wanting it to rule our lives.
Olivia was a salve. Funny, kind, and determined to not let herself dwell in the past. And I was a distraction. Maybe not what she was used to, but someone she came to rely on, trust, and eventually fall in love with. We often told those who asked that we saved each other. Right time. Right moment. Right person.
I stopped for a moment in the doorway of her office. It had always amused me that such a sunshiny woman did her work in a space so dark. But she’d insisted on the deep blue wall color, the plush plum velvet couch, and dark wood desk.
“I need to be in a cave,” she’d said. “I need to sink down and disappear into my stories. Light and bright will just distract me.”
Sometimes I’d join her, slipping quietly from my office across the hall while she typed away, her glasses perched on her nose as she leaned toward the screen to peer at some word or sentence. I’d sit in the corner of the couch, a book or sketchpad in hand, and be a few dozen pages in before she noticed she wasn’t alone. Rather than be startled though, she’d just grin, give a happy little sigh, and get back to work.
My eyes took in the familiar sights of the room that was hers and hers alone. This was where one came to find the real Olivia. This was the room where all her barriers came down. Where she didn’t pretend to be anyone but herself. Not wife, not mom, not even New York Times bestselling author Olivia Mitchell. She was just her. Silly and ruthless and perfect.
“This is where I let the kid in me out to play,” I’d overheard her tell a friend once as they perused the comics she’d clipped from the newspaper and tacked to a bulletin board. Three stuffed doggies took up the corner of the couch opposite the one I always sat in, dolls she’d found while traveling sat on shelves along with numerous other knickknacks and images she’d found funny or quaint or inspiring and had stuck here and there all over the room.
I sagged against the doorframe. It seemed impossible that it had been a year. A year and six days exactly since she’d said my name, held my hand, or brushed her fingertips across my cheek. A year and six days since those warm brown eyes had closed to me for good, taking with them her opinions on what glasses looked good on this old face, the hand that reached for that last bite of toast I may or may not have wanted but would always give to her regardless, and her side of every story we were ever part of together.
I sighed and turned, staring into my own office where a large box of photos sat on top of the trunk I used for a coffee table, a catch-all, and a footrest.
I’d been circumnavigating the box for a week, and steering clear of the room altogether if I could help it. It wasn’t hard, the only work I did anymore was consultations, and I could do my daily allotment of word games from anywhere in the house with the shiny silver laptop Olivia had bought me two Christmases ago. At one point I’d even shut the door. But I’d always loved how the light that poured in from Olivia’s office met with the light that poured in from mine, meeting in the middle of the hallway. Shutting my door had cut off the joining of our lights, making me feel lonelier than I already did, so I’d opened it again, leaving me with no choice but to just keep ignoring the large box of photos of my wife at all her many author events through the years. I’d been tasked with going through them. Disposing of some, keeping others, and gathering a pile to send off to her publisher.
I took a seat on the sofa and slid the box toward me, glancing down at the old trunk it sat on and running my hand over its smooth surface.
Olivia was the only person, aside from myself, to ever see the contents of the trunk I’d hauled stateside from Europe. It had been covered up, shoved into the shadows, forgotten and found again, and then finally placed in this very spot several years ago by my late wife who’d claimed it was an important part of my story, and she hoped one day I’d share it with our daughter and granddaughter. But like so many others who had served, sharing that part of my life was the last thing I wanted to do, and so it had stayed locked, its contents unseen and unspoken about.
The night Olivia had seen its contents was the one time early in our relationship that I’d stood her up for dinner. Rather than accept such treatment, she’d driven to my house, marched up the muddy front path, and banged on my door, ready to give me a piece of her mind. But when she’d seen the state of me, drunk and red-eyed from crying, she’d immediately dropped her purse to the floor, slipped off her mud-splattered heels, and led me to the couch where the trunk sat open, what was inside on full display.
She took a beer from my fridge, sat beside me, and asked careful questions about the comrades standing beside me in one photo after another. After a while, I felt a glimmer of hope for my future. This woman wasn’t daunted by my pain, my sorrow, or the photo of a pretty young blonde woman staring into the lens of my borrowed camera with obvious love in her eyes. She’d run a gentle finger over a sprig of dried bluebells she’d found pressed within the pages of a book. She’d smiled gently, understanding my agony. She knew what it was to have loved and lost.
After she’d finished her drink, she’d helped me place the memories back inside the trunk, lock it up, and set fresh cans of beer and two bowls of spaghetti I cooked for us on top. I never opened the trunk again, and she never asked. But a few weeks later I woke in her bed to find her watching me. Hesitantly, she handed me a small velvet bag.
“What is it?” I’d asked, watching her cheeks redden.
“I hope it’s okay,” she said. “I just thought…” She shrugged and bit her lower lip. “It’s okay to remember.”
I gave her a quizzical look and then untied the string and turned the bag over, watching as a small but heavy dome of glass fell into my palm. Inside it were the bluebells.
“William?” she said after a minute during which I’d sat in silence. “Are you… You’re mad. I’m so sorry. I just thought—”
I’d met her eyes, my own filled with tears, and reached for her hand.
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”
Over the years, that little bit of glass had found itself in the silliest places. A plant pot, an Easter basket, a candy dish, beneath the Christmas tree, out in the yard, brought there by our old dog Charmer. It once went on vacation with us to Hawaii, a road trip down the Oregon coast, and had even made it into the pages of one of Olivia’s early books.
And now it was in my granddaughter’s hands as she stood in the doorway of my office, watching me.
“Were the flowers special to Gran for some reason?” she asked, smoothing a long, slender finger over the top of the clear dome of glass. “I just realized I’ve never seen bluebells anywhere else in the house. Did you pick them for her?”
“No,” I said, reaching my hand out and smiling as she handed it over. “And this wasn’t hers. It’s mine.”
Her mouth opened as if to ask more, but I cut her off, the scent of food wafting down the hall toward us.
“Your mom cooking?”
“Lasagna. You won’t go hungry for at least another week.”
“Thank god. I was starting to worry.”
We laughed. Every week Lizzie came over and made a week’s worth of food, claiming it was an accident.
“How does one accidentally make enough food for a small squadron?” I’d ask, but she’d just shrug and get back to work.
The doorbell rang then and Emma pushed off the doorframe.
“I’ll get it,” she said. “Probably the guys coming to pick up the books.”
As she wandered off down the hall, I slid the glass sphere into the pocket of my sweater and pulled the lid off the box of photos.
“Here goes nothing,” I said to myself as I grabbed the first envelope.
The photographs inside were from one of her last in-person events. There she was sitting on a tall stool, one of her author friends beside her on another stool, microphones in their hands. There she was signing books. Laughing with a reader. Giving the photographer a silly smile as she posed with a wall of her books the bookstore hosting her had thoughtfully displayed. There she was with me, her head resting against my chest, me proud as anything as I held her latest novel up. Her and Lizzie. Her and Emma. Her and—
“Grandpa?”
I startled, not because I was surprised by the voice, but because of what she’d called me. Emma didn’t call me Grandpa unless something was amiss.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, meeting her eyes and noting the little crease between her brows.
“There’s someone at the door for you. A woman.”
I sat for a moment more, watching her, and then got to my feet. As I passed her in the doorway, she reached out and squeezed my hand.
“Love you, kiddo,” I said, kissing her forehead.
“Love you, Old Man.”
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I grasped the glass piece I’d forgotten was there and then reached for the handle of the front door and pulled it open, finding myself staring at a face that looked strangely familiar, though I was positive I’d never seen the woman before.
And then I noticed her eyes. A shade of pale blue reminiscent of another time, long ago.
Neither of us said anything for a long moment, and then I chuckled, embarrassed at myself and my lack of manners.
“I’m sorry,” I said and shook my head. “Can I help you?”
A breeze lifted her shoulder-length blond hair, blowing it gently around slender shoulders. My breath caught as a memory tried to force its way forward.
“It is for me to apologize,” the woman said in a rich French accent, her voice low and husky. “I am sorry to intrude at dinnertime. But…are you William Mitchell?”
“I am,” I said, looking for a name tag or a bag of some sort with whatever product name she was trying to sell me emblazoned on it. But there was nothing. Just a large but tasteful handbag hanging from her shoulder.
“My name is Selene Michel. I am wondering if you knew a woman named Gisela Holländer?”
I frowned and shook my head.
“No. I’m sorry. I’ve never heard that name.”
She seemed to expect this, nodding, her eyes searching mine as she took in a deep breath, let it out, and then said a name I hadn’t heard in nearly six decades.
“And what about Kate Campbell?”
A million tiny moments flashed through my mind, a song long forgotten playing its tune in my head. I looked down at the bluebells in my hand that I hadn’t realized I’d removed from my pocket, and then back at the woman.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes. That’s a name I’ve heard before.”Excerpted from THE LIES WE LEAVE BEHIND by Noelle Salazar. Copyright © 2024 by Noelle Salazar. Published by MIRA Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Excerpt. ©Noelle Salazar. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
Giveaway: One print copy of THE LIES WE LEAVE BEHIND (US only)
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Meet the Author:
Noelle Salazar was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, where she’s been a Navy recruit, a medical assistant, an NFL cheerleader, and always a storyteller. When she’s not writing, she can be found dodging raindrops and daydreaming of her next book. Her first novel, The Flight Girls, was an instant bestseller, a Forbes, Woman’s World & Hypable book of the month and a BookBub Top Recommended book from readers. Noelle lives in Bothell, Washington, with her husband and two children.
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