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At the sound of his name, Adam looked up from the news magazine he’d been pretending to read.
Across the waiting room, a woman whose long hair was the color of natural ash wood smiled at him. “Good morning. I’m Phoebe Moss.”
His heart began to pound against his ribs. He put the journal aside and got to his feet, pretending his palms weren’t sweaty, his throat hadn’t closed down completely. The receptionist, a grandmotherly woman with unlikely red hair, smiled at him as he passed by. Though he tried to return the favor, he doubted he’d been successful.
Phoebe Moss looked up at him when he got close—she was almost a foot shorter than he—and tilted her head toward the hallway behind her. “This way, please.”
With every step, Adam’s resistance mounted. He didn’t want to be here, would rather have been just about anywhere else on the planet besides this place, this morning. Walking down the hall felt like pushing against an incoming tide. In the middle of a hurricane.
“Come in and have a seat.” She ushered him into a north-facing office with a couch and an armchair, a desk positioned in the corner between two windows, and an assortment of assessment machines with which Adam was all too familiar, thanks to past experience. His strongest impulse was to run…as far and as fast as he possibly could.
But when Phoebe Moss sat in the chair in front of her desk and turned to face him with a clipboard in her lap, Adam lowered himself into the armchair.
She pushed her gold-rimmed glasses up on her nose and settled down to business. “What can I do for you, Mr. DeVries?”
“Y-you’re a s-s-speech th-therapist.” He clenched his fist, hitting it against his leg. Bad enough to be here, without having to explain why.
“Yes.” The word definitely held a question. Waiting for his answer, she wrote briefly on the paper held by the clipboard.
“A-as y-you c-c-can hear, I s-s-stutter.”
Nodding, Phoebe Moss scribbled something else. “Fairly badly.”
“I w-w-want to s-stop.”
Her gaze lifted to his face. “Why?”
This was even worse than he’d expected. “W-why do you think? Talking this w-w-w-way s-s-sucks.”
Another notation. “I understand. Have you tried therapy before?”
He nodded, his lips pressed tightly together.
“Did it work?”
“Obv-v-viously n-n-not.”
“Not even for a brief time?”
Adam shrugged. “If I c-concentrate,” he said, very slowly, “I can g-get th-through short s-sentences. But that’s n-not e-enough.”
“Has something changed in your life to prompt this new attempt?”
He gripped his hands together, studying his thumbs. The answer to her question was straightforward enough. Yet he dreaded her reaction.
When he didn’t answer, she cleared her throat. “What’s changed?”
After staring a little longer at his linked fingers, Adam lifted his gaze to her face again. Her eyes, he saw in that instant, were the dark gray of a stormy ocean.
“I’m going into politics,” he said, using the exaggerated drawl he’d been taught. “I have to be able to talk without stuttering.” He finished the sentence and winced. God, he hated the sound of his voice.
His worry over her response had been justified. Phoebe Moss stared at him, her mouth open in astonishment. “Politics? You’re going to run for office?”
He nodded. “M-m-mayor of N-New Sk-Skye.”
“That’s an ambitious goal for anyone.” Looking down at the paper in her lap, she tapped her pen on the edge of the clipboard for a moment. “When were you thinking about running for office?”
“Th-this y-y-year. I-I’ve al-already f-filed.”
Her startled eyes met his. “Aren’t elections in November?”
“Y-yes. B-but the c-campaign w-w-will s-s-start by L-Labor D-Day.”
“You expect to stop stuttering in less than three months?”
“Y-yes.”
“Mr. DeVries—”
“C-call me Adam.”
“Adam, do you realize how much you’re asking of yourself? Curing a stutter can take many months—years—of practice.”
He shrugged. “I’ll j-just h-have to work hard.”
She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands together, maintaining eye contact. “I can’t make any kind of guarantee on your progress. Not in three months, or six or twelve.”
“I c-can d-do it.”
“Why are you so sure, when the past hasn’t shown success?”
“Th-that w-w-was for…for o-other p-p-people.” Adam took a deep breath. “This time is for m-me.”
“I…SEE.” STUNNED, impressed—and, to be honest, a little scared—by Adam DeVries’s resolve, Phoebe sat back in her desk chair. A glance out the window to her right showed a white pickup truck, with the red-and-blue DeVries Construction logo on the door, parked next to her lime-green Beetle. Now that she thought about it, his company’s signs were posted on building projects all over town.
“You’re obviously a successful businessman.” She gestured toward the truck. “Why worry about the stutter? Let the voters accept you as you are.”
“G-good p-p-point,” he said, without the rancor she’d expected. “B-but I have to be able to make my ideas plain.” For the first time, he smiled. “At a speed g-greater than the average snail’s p-p-pace.” His words were clear—though very, very slow—and his tone was distorted, due to his prolonged speech pattern.
But that smile… Seeing it, Phoebe couldn’t get her breath. The aristocratic planes of his cheeks softened, and his bright blue eyes crinkled at the corners as his firm lips stretched wide—Adam DeVries’s smile was like the return of the sun after an eclipse, all the more valuable for being rare.
After a shocked moment, she gathered her wits to speak. “As I said, I can’t make any guarantees.”
“I-I und-derstand.”
“We’ll need several sessions every week.”
“N-no p-problem. C-c-can w-we sc-schedule at n-n-night? I-I can’t s-s-spend so m-many m-mornings away f-from w-w-work.”
Phoebe frowned, not so much at him as at the frantic beating of her heart. What was she thinking? “I-I have responsibilities after work. And I live thirty minutes out of town.”
“Oh.” His dark brows lowered as he considered.
That was when she gave in to a truly crazy impulse. “I could see you at my home in the evening—if you wanted to drive that far.”
Adam thought for another moment, then nodded. “Th-that w-w-would w-work for m-me. Wh-wh-when?” As he had during the whole interview, he clenched his right fist and pounded it on his thigh, as if the motion helped him get the words out.
That gesture would be one of their first points of change, when they began their sessions at her house. Phoebe got to her feet, not really believing she’d agreed to this situation, let alone that she’d suggested it to begin with. “Thursday night? Seven-thirty?”
“S-s-sounds g-good.” He came to her at the desk with his arm extended. “Th-thanks, M-Miss M-M-Moss. I-I’ll see you th-then.”
“C-call me Phoebe,” she said faintly as they shook hands.
For that, Adam gave her another one of those heart-stealing smiles. “O-okay.”
She managed to remain standing as Adam DeVries left her office and headed down the hall toward the reception area. As soon as he was out of sight, she let her shaking knees give way and dropped back into her chair.
What was she thinking, inviting a man she didn’t know to her home? No smart woman acted so carelessly these days.
The DeVries family itself was well-known in New Skye, of course, with a history dating back to before the Civil War. Preston DeVries, Adam’s father, was a respected surgeon at the local hospital, while Cynthia, his mother, worked with the most prominent charity and volunteer groups. Phoebe had moved to North Carolina only a year ago, but she’d seen the DeVries name in the newspaper often enough to be curious. Her friends who’d grown up in town had filled her in on the details, which made Adam less of a stranger, surely. Less of a risk.
Then her first glimpse of him across the waiting room this morning had set her pulse skittering. Tall, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, with a workingman’s hands and a poet’s sad, farsighted gaze, Adam DeVries embodied the sum of all her romantic fantasies. His thick, neatly cut brown hair, his smooth, tanned face and strong chin, belonged on a movie poster…or a campaign flyer. How could she say no to a dream come true?
And there was that smile…
Still, had she allowed her physical and emotional reaction to a client to overwhelm her professional good sense?
No, she concluded, I didn’t. The smile hadn’t caused her to bend the rules. Her decision resulted from the moment before the smile. The moment when he’d said, “This time is for me.”
Phoebe knew exactly what he meant. She’d spent years trying to meet the expectations of other people, only to fail time and time again. Not until she’d begun to live for herself had she succeeded in dealing with her own stutter.
She wouldn’t deny Adam DeVries his chance to accomplish the same miracle.
And she wouldn’t consider the notion that he…and she…could possibly fail.
TUESDAY NIGHT, ADAM MET Tommy Crawford in the parking lot outside the Carolina Diner. “Th-thought you w-were g-gonna be l-l-late.”
Tommy shook his hand. “Me, too. My last client decided not to come out in the rainstorm to discuss insurance. These elderly Southern ladies do have certain…peculiarities.”
“D-don’t I kn-know it. T-try b-building a h-house f-f-for one of th-them.” Adam held the door and let Tommy go in ahead of him. “The rain s-slowed us d-down, too. I s-sent most of the c-crews h-home early.” Combined with his late start, that meant not much work got done today.
Tommy turned a hard right and slid into Adam’s usual booth. Just as Adam settled in, Abby Brannon appeared with two glasses of iced tea.
“Hi, guys. Isn’t the rain great?” Abby’s dad, Charlie, owned the Carolina Diner, but everybody in town knew that Abby was the real engine running the place. She flipped to a new page in her order book. “Tonight’s special is porcupine meatballs, and I baked a red velvet cake yesterday. You want to think, or you want to order?”
Since they’d been eating here since they were teenagers, along with most of the other kids who attended nearby New Skye High, neither Adam nor Tommy needed a menu. They both ordered the special. “With green beans,” Tommy said, “and macaroni and cheese.”
“I’ll h-have o-okra and ap-p-ples. L-looks like you’re g-gonna b-be b-busy t-tonight.”
Abby glanced around at the rapidly filling tables and brushed her brown bangs off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Rainy nights tend to bring folks out to eat. Unlike some people,” she said to Adam as she grinned and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Some people eat out every night.”
“S-some p-people don’t c-cook.”
She winked. “You oughta find a nice woman who’ll solve that problem for you.”
He winked back. “I d-d-did.”
Abby rolled her eyes and walked away. Tommy laughed. “So why don’t you marry her and then you wouldn’t have to drive out for breakfast?”
Adam looked at his best friend. “M-me? M-marry Abby?”
“Why not?”
“B-because…” He narrowed his eyes and thought. “There’s always s-something Abby h-holds b-back. You kn-know? Y-you c-can’t qu-quite r-r-reach her.”
“She’s a busy lady.” They watched her bustle from table to table, serving drinks, clearing plates, taking orders. “But she’d be a sweet armful.”
“S-so y-you m-marry her.”
“Yeah, right.” Tommy shook his head. “I’m too much of a wiseass for Abby. Give me a woman with a good suit of armor. That way we won’t kill each other.”
“Campaign meeting, gentlemen?”
Adam looked up to find one of his worst nightmares standing beside the table—Samantha Pettit, reporter for the New Skye News. Surprise made words impossible. He glanced at Tommy.
His friend took over smoothly. “Hey, Sam. How’s it going? Sit down and have a drink.”
“No, thanks. I’m meeting an interview in a few minutes. But I saw you two sitting here and figured you must be planning election strategy.”
Adam had pulled himself together. “Election?”
Samantha flashed him a mocking smile. “I saw you’d filed papers for the mayor’s race, Adam.”
Tommy stepped in. “You just can’t keep a secret in this town. You want the first interview, Sam?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, when we’re up and running, I’ll give you a call.”
“You’re the campaign manager?”
“Who else?”
The reporter nodded. “I’ll remember. Keep me up to date on your schedule.” Behind Adam, the bell on the door jingled. “Gotta go.”
As she walked away, Tommy swore under his breath.
“W-what?”
