Текст книги "The Man Must Marry"

Автор книги: Джанет Чапмен

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

refused, saying they wouldn’t sterilize a woman my age who hadn’t had any children yet.”

“DoesShelby know? And Emmett?”

“Nobody knows.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“I never said anything when the will was read, because not having children was my decision—not Abram’s and not anyone else’s.” Her lower lip quivered, and her eyes filled with tears again. “I knew that if I loved my own child even half as much as I love Jennifer and something happened to it, I would…I would…”

“Shh,” he crooned, touching his nose to hers. “Everything’s going to be okay, Willa. You’re not alone anymore.” He pulled back just enough to see her eyes. “Remember that a burden shared is reduced by half? I have really broad shoulders, honey, and I can carry as much of your burden as you need me to, for as long as you need.”

“And if the tubal ligation worked? Warren Cobb will still get Tidewater.”

Sam let out a deep sigh, cupping his ribs at the sharp pain it caused. “Emmett assures me there’s a loophole in Bram’s will. We’ll put an end to this mess. And then we’ll get married because we love each other.”

“You’re willing to spend your life childless if this test comes back negative?”

“I’m not after your eggs, woman,” he said with a chuckle, again having to cradle his ribs. “It’s you I want.”

She actually smiled at that, and he thought she tried to roll her eyes. “You’ve been hanging around Phil Grindle way too much.” She turned suddenly serious again. “I suppose I might marry you,” she whispered. “If you get me out of that stupid bequest first, so everyone, especially the seniors, will know we’re doing it out of love.”

“Deal.”

“And if you agree to help me restructure Kent Caskets so I actually get to run it.”

“I can do that.”

“And you pay Craig Watson the seven hundred forty-three dollars I owe him.”

“And sixty-four cents,” he said. “Consider it done.”

“And you send Barry Cobb packing.”

“Happy to.”

“And you stop this feud between the seniors.”

“I’ll lock them in a room and let them duke it out.” He placed a finger over her lips. “And just what will

you be doing while I’m running around putting out all the fires you’ve set?”

“And you help me straighten out Jen’s thinking,” she continued past his finger, apparently on a roll. Sam sighed. “Is your list much longer? Because I think I have to sit down,” he said, grabbing the rail on her gurney and eyeing his wheelchair across the room.

“We’re having a baby, folks!” Dr. Zeus said as he came through the door, followed by a small parade of people. “Two positives equal a few thousand diapers and twenty years of saving for college.” He took one look at Sam and laughed. “It’s about time that sedative kicked in. Malcolm said he gave you enough to knock out a horse.” He rolled the wheelchair up behind Sam. “Okay, people, let’s get this show on the road. It’s opening day of spring hunting, and I’ve got a plump little turkey in the orchard behind my house with my name on it.”

“Turkey?” Sam said, collapsing into the chair with a laugh. “I’ve always been more partial to partridge, myself.”

Epilogue

Rosebriar, four months later

Sam sat straddling thegranite bench facing Bram’s and Grammy Rose’s graves, his arms wrapped around Willa and his hands resting on her slightly rounded belly. They’d come to the cemetery to escape the chaos that had arrived at Rosebriar last night, and they’d been sitting in blessed silence for the last ten minutes, gazing at the bouquet of roses they’d set in front of the massive gravestone. “A penny for your thoughts,” Sam said, caressing Willa’s belly through her coat.

“I’m worried about Ben,” she said with a sigh. “He’s been acting strange ever since we got here four days ago. He seems preoccupied.” She titled her head back to look up at him. “Do you think taking over Tidewater has been too much for him, now that you’re living inMaine ?”

Though there hadn’t been any need to use it, since Willa had married him two weeks after their accident and she definitely was pregnant, the loophole to secure Tidewater had turned out to be so simple Sam was still kicking himself for not seeing it sooner. The three grandsons had had the power for years to override Bram’s vote any time they wanted. Even if Warren Cobb had gotten hold of their grandfather’s shares of Tidewater, if Sam and Ben and Jesse had combined their own shares, they would have had complete control of the company.

That spoke volumes about how much Bram had trusted them and how they’d never once thought about combining their votes against him.

“Too much for Ben?” Sam kissed her nose, then snuggled her in the warmth of his embrace. “He loves the challenge of stepping into Bram’s shoes. No, I believe something else is bothering him. Emerson told me Ben started acting funny about a week ago, around the time he received a letter. Emerson said it came here to the house, which is unusual, since Ben gets most of his mail at the office. The letter didn’t have a return address, but Emerson did see it was postmarked fromMaine .”

“Maine?” she repeated, tilting her head back to look at him again. “From Keelstone Cove?” She smiled.

“Maybe Ben turned the head of someone in town when he came up on one of his visits.” She gasped. “I bet it’sDoris ’s granddaughter! She couldn’t take her eyes off Ben at our wedding.”

“Emerson said it was from Medicine Gore, a small town in the northwestern mountains, not far from the Canadian border.”

“Who does Ben know in Medicine Gore?”

Sam shrugged. “He spent his summer between high school and college in those mountains. He was a volunteer for the Sierra Club, doing environmental research on a dam being built up there. Maybe the letter is from someone he met back then.” He rubbed his cheek against hers. “I remember Ben came home really bummed out. He wouldn’t talk about it, but we all thought he’d fallen for a girl and she had broken his heart. It took him almost a year to start dating again.”

Willa kissed his cheek. “Maybe she realized her mistake and finally worked up the nerve to write to him.”

Sam snorted. “She’s out of luck, then. Ben’s too enamored with Tidewater right now to rekindle an old flame.”

“But he’s obviously bothered by it.”

“He’ll get over it. So,” he said, “remind me again why having Keelstone Enterprises’ board meeting at Rosebriar was such a brilliant idea?”

“Because we needed to get our seniors on neutral ground.” She turned on the bench to face him. “I swear, if they all don’t start getting along, we’re firing every last one of them and finding some teenagers to make up our board of directors. Even two-year-olds would get along better than they do. Bringing them down here is our last resort—and their last chance.”

It had been Sam’s idea to combine Kent Caskets and his lobster-cake business—which they were calling Sinclair Foods until everyone could agree on a name—under the mother company of Keelstone Enterprises. They’d assembled a board of directors of both groups of seniors in hopes that it would finally bring them together, but his plan wasn’t working. Sam was starting to believe the old saw that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Hell, he couldn’t even teach them that it didn’t matter where at the board table they sat, that all seats but the one at the head of the table were equal. Emmett actually sat there, though he’d only agreed to chair the board while Sam was givingShelby a crash course in business management, so she could oversee their lobster-cake business. Willa leaned back against his chest, pulled his arms around her again, and patted his hands over her belly. “Thank God Peg agreed to come down and cook for us. But then, most of her customers are down here,” she said with a snicker. “It serves Craig Watson right for not being more community-minded. Maybe a little competition will straighten him out.”

When Peg’s three months of working for Willa were up, she sold her cabin onWagonWheelLake and opened a coffee shop right across the street from Craig Watson’s diner. The coffee clubbers had shifted their business to Peg, along with half the other residents in town. Peg had also come up with the recipe for Sam’s lobster cakes, after serving several versions in her diner and getting feedback on the perfect combination of lobster, bread crumbs, and a secret ingredient she was charging him an arm and a leg for.

Emerson had refused to leave his post at Rosebriar. He disappeared quite often, though, and Sam suspected he was hiding in his room, finally writing his book.

Ronald had also stayed, to drive for Ben. And when Sam and Willa came down for a visit, he kindly drove them around in his Stutz Bearcat.

Willa sighed. “I can’t believe Jen preferred to stay home and work on her boat this weekend. What is up with that girl?”

Jennifer had gotten her driver’s license just before school started and her new prosthesis a little more than three weeks ago. After being Willa’s maid of honor at their wedding, the teenager had started building the definitive Sengatti sloop with Emmett, and Jen intended to sail it solo around the world next summer.

Sam and Ben and Jesse had already started trying to figure out how to have their cargo ships surreptitiously shadow her on her journey. Sam broke into a cold sweat every time he pictured Jen out on the open ocean all alone.

He tightened his hands on Willa’s rounded belly. “This had better be a boy. I don’t think I’d survive a daughter like Jennifer.”

“But if it is a girl, can we name her Rose?” Willa asked, looking up at him. He kissed her nose. “I suppose that would be appropriate, considering that she was conceived on the RoseWind , which was Bram and Grammy’s private little love nest. Then he held a finger to his lips. “Listen,” he whispered. “Do you hear that?”

Willa went still, then gasped. “What is that?” she whispered back. “It sounds like…”

“Exactly, Mrs. Sinclair. That is definitely Bram laughing his head off!”

Letter fromLakeWatch

Dear Reader,

Robbie and I are in the habit of loading the camper onto our pickup whenever the mood strikes us, and simply driving out of our dooryard. When we reach the stop sign at the main road, it’s only then that we look at each other and ask, “Which way do we want to go? Right or left?”

Right takes us toward the mountains; left toward the ocean. More often than not, Robbie votes we turn right. He likes heading into the mountains, as there aren’t many places to spend money in the wilderness. Whereas the coastline ofMaine is awash with tourist attractions, most of which have a way of sucking the dollar bills directly from our wallets. Lobster shacks, antique shops, amusement parks, pottery and craft coops, and schooner rides call out as my husband tries to sneak by, his fists clenched on the steering wheel and his foot heavy on the gas as he steels himself against my softly spoken, “Oh, that looks interesting. Let’s stop.”

For those of you who might not know, stopping a heavy truck camper in Route One summer traffic is about as easy as bringing a 22-wheeler loaded with saw logs to a halt. But my husband of thirty years knows that if mama ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy, and he smartly finds a place to turn around and

go back.

But sometimes a girl’s just gotta shop. I mean, what’s the point of venturing out into the big beautiful world if you can’t lug some of it back home with you? Granted, when we go to the mountains I return with unusual rocks, beaver-sculpted sticks, and maybe a discarded antler or two. They’re all fantastic treasures to display around the house, but so are bird feeders that look like lighthouses, wind chimes that sound like offshore buoys, and lobster trap coffee tables. And the blueberry jam fromWashingtonCounty is to die for.

Robbie is loading the camper right now as I write this, and just between you and me, I already have a destination in mind. When we reach the stop sign, I’m going to strongly suggest we turn left.

“Why?” he’ll ask, even as he sighs in defeat.

Because, I’ll tell him, I am writing a book that takes place in KeelStone Cove, an imaginary town on the downeast coast ofMaine . And everyone knows that authors must thoroughly immerse themselves in their story settings.

After all, it’s been a full year since I’ve taken a schooner ride. I also believe we should eat lobster on the pier, just to add some authenticity to my work. And what kind of writer would I be if I didn’t peruse the craft shops? How can I hope to convey the essence of KeelStone Cove if I don’t hit every attraction each tiny fishing village has to offer? And I have to lug something home to place beside my computer, to nudge my muse when I find myself staring at a blank screen.

So I urge you to also get out and explore your own corner of the world. Lug little bits of it home with you. Leave your chores, your challenges, and your worries behind, and have fun. Can’t get away right now? Then find a good romance novel and indulge yourself in a minivacation!

Until later, fromLakeWatch …keep reading,

About this Title

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