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Everyone turned to Nora and grinned, as if her “secret” had been revealed.
She couldn’t help it; she blushed.
“I’m happy to report the pretty lady is here, and all in one piece!” Clara replied cheerfully. “But I must say we’d all be a little happier if you had only been here to witness her arrival, too!”
“I know, but—” Gus uttered a wistful sigh, then chuckled. “Isn’t she a beaut?”
“And then some,” Sam replied, with no hint of irony, as he turned back to Nora.
Her pulse automatically increased.
“You’ll take good care of her until I can arrive?” Gus continued to worry on the other end. “Find some place safe and warm and dry for her to stay? Maybe over at your house, Gran?”
“Don’t you worry, Gus. We’ll make room for her,” Sam said.
“Great.” On the other end, Gus breathed an audible sigh of relief. “When I get there, we’ll see about changing her name.”
At that, winks and nods were exchanged all around. Sam regarded her intently. Nora, helpless to prevent what they were all concluding, could only roll her eyes.
More horns sounded in the background, on the other end of the line. “Well, listen, I better go—” Gus said.
Clara frowned. “Wait. Don’t you want to talk to anyone else?” she asked her grandson quickly. Meaning me, of course, Nora thought.
“Gee, I’d love to, Gran,” Gus replied, “but…” A horn blared, obliterating his voice. Gus swore as the sounds of sirens increased in the background. “There’s an…” Static crackled. “…ambulance…” Brakes squealed. “…trying to…” Another horn blared. “…get through…” The siren rose to an earsplitting shriek before it faded slightly. “…later,” Gus said in a muffled tone.
The click of the connection being severed was followed by utter silence, as once again all eyes turned Nora’s way.
“I really don’t know what to say,” she said, blushing. She knew what they were thinking. She could hardly blame them. It had sounded as if Gus were talking about a woman arriving, as a surprise to his family, and since she was the only newcomer around, for the moment, anyway, they were assuming—quite wrongly, as it happened—that it was her.
“That’s all right, dear, you don’t have to say another word,” Clara Whittaker said, patting Nora’s hand gently. “I think we’ve all figured out what’s going on.”
Everyone looked at each other. After a moment, they all began to grin and talk at once. “It really is obvious,” someone put in finally.
A farmer in overalls and a bill cap chuckled merrily. “The pretty lady here and Gus had a fight—”
“He was probably late getting out of the city—like he said on the phone just now,” added a woman in a parka and jeans.
“And then, naturally, their plans got all messed up—” a teen Kimberlee’s age said.
“Who wouldn’t be ticked off?” a white-haired woman put in indignantly. “Gus should have put her—and their impending nuptials—first on their wedding day.”
“Typical Gus, though,” said a nicely dressed young woman with a toddler in tow. “Business first, then pleasure.”
Another woman, in an upscale running suit and sneakers, chuckled. “’Course, he makes up for it when he does party. There’s no one who can throw a bash like Gus!”
Nora threw up her hands in frustration and broke into the conversation. “For the last time, everyone! I am not engaged to Gus Whittaker!”
“Not anymore,” a handsome young man in construction clothes said, grinning and nodding at the bare ring finger on Nora’s left hand.
“Don’t worry, honey, when he shows up and proposes all over again, I’m sure he’ll bring you your ring,” an older man added.
“Unless…” Clara paused, a worried look on her face. “You didn’t throw it away in a fit of pique, did you?”
“No, I didn’t throw it away!” Nora exclaimed stiffly as she tightened her grip on her package and started to brush by Sam. “Because I never had a ring from him in the first place.”
Kimberlee Whittaker gasped as Sam stepped back slightly to allow Nora to pass.
“All the more reason to delay the nuptials, then,” Kimberlee said indignantly.
“Really,” another woman added fervently, in support. “Gus should get you a ring, and we—his friends and neighbors—will make sure he does.”
Nora groaned, and shot a glance at Sam, who was still regarding her with an interest that had little, if anything, to do with local law enforcement. With an effort, she tore her eyes from his and turned back to the crowd gathered round her. “Trust me. If Gus shows up before I leave Clover Creek, and that in itself is doubtful, given the fact Gus’s still in New York City as we speak, Gus is not going to ask me to marry him. Not in a million years,” she promised them all firmly.
Sam Whittaker continued to contemplate her—and her current predicament. “The breakup was that harsh?” Sam asked, in a low, sexy voice that sent shivers down Nora’s spine.
“There was no breakup,” Nora said, looking straight at Sam, before finishing in utter exasperation, “We were never together.”
SAM KNEW no one else in the store did, but he believed Nora, for a variety of reasons. He also thought, from the guilty way she was flushing and the slightly nervous way she was behaving, that she was hiding a lot more than she was telling, and that she might need help. His help. In any case, it was almost certain that there were a lot of people worried about her.
Unlike Nora, however, he did not believe in running from problems; he knew predicaments were best dealt with directly. He hoped, before she left Clover Creek, to convince her of that, too. And perhaps reunite her with her friends and family, as well.
“Then who were you engaged to?” Sam asked Nora, aware that he really wanted to know not just that, but everything about her. Furthermore, he hoped she’d tell him more about herself, now that she’d seen firsthand how insatiably curious the small, friendly West Virginia community could be.
“I’d rather not say, Sam.”
“How about your last name, then?”
She glared at him for a moment. “I don’t see what that matters—”
“It does if you’re going to be staying here. Unless there’s a reason you don’t want any of us to know who you really are.” He was baiting her, anxious to see her reaction to that.
Nora’s mouth opened in a round O of surprise then snapped shut. She paused, looking as reluctant as any runaway would, but in the end, as he’d figured she would, came through.
“It’s Hart-Kingsley. Nora Hart-Kingsley. My mother’s name was Hart, my father’s Kingsley. I ended up with both family names. Satisfied?”
Sam grinned. “It’s a start,” he said. Although he would need a lot more than that, if he was going to be able to help her.
Dr. Ellen Maxwell stepped between Sam and Nora, swiftly introducing herself as the town physician before saying, “If you want me to put my two cents in, I think it’s just as well the nuptials get delayed awhile, anyway. The weather would not make it easy for any out-of-town guests—never mind the groom—to get here.”
“And besides, if you’re going to be a part of the Whittaker clan, you need time to get to know the rest of us, too,” Kimberlee said.
Nora regarded the people gathered around her. “Isn’t anyone going to listen to me?” she demanded, in obvious exasperation. Though they obviously meant well.
The group replied in unison. “No.”
Harold patted Nora’s shoulder in a comforting manner. “It’s okay, honey. We all know how to act stunned and amazed. We can do that for Gus. We won’t ruin his surprise for us.”
Clara smiled. “In the meantime, maybe you’d like to get out of that dress, and see about doing something to dry the hem and train—it looks a little damp, from where I’m standing.”
Good idea, Nora thought, if only because it’d stop all the wedding talk.
“The only problem is, there’s something wrong with the zipper,” Nora confided. “We may have to cut me out of it. So if I could borrow some scissors and enlist a little help, after I dash out to my car to get a change of clothes, I’ll—”
Clara patted her arm. “Now, now, I’m sure we can fix it without making any cuts in this beautiful fabric. Kim, darling, help Nora get her clothes out of her car and then show Nora to a dressing room and help her out of that gown.”
“Right, Gran,” Kimberlee said, giving a thumbs-up sign before leading the way.
“YOU’RE just going to have to ignore Sam,” Kimberlee told Nora as she worked on the jammed zipper in the back of Nora’s dress.
Nora turned, the trailing satin hem of her wedding gown swishing softly across the parquet floor of the large, old-fashioned fitting room. “What do you mean?”
Kimberlee tossed the length of her golden-brown hair off her shoulders. She paused and took a tiny drop of liquid soap and ever so delicately worked it into the teeth of the zipper. “I saw those looks he was giving you,” Kimberlee said, catching Nora’s glance in the three-way mirror before peering down at the zipper seam. “The way he questioned you.”
Nora flushed. “I think he’s just curious.”
Kimberlee shook her head. In an electric-purple jumper and ribbed white turtleneck, purple tights and cute leather ankle boots, she looked pretty enough to be on the cover of a teen magazine. “It’s more than that. He thinks it’s his job to take care of everyone!”
Alarm bells went off in Nora’s head. Perspiration broke her skin. “Because he’s the sheriff?” Nora asked warily—aware that she was flushing again, an even brighter pink.
“Because he’s Sam.”
“You’re saying he’s controlling?” Nora asked, as casually as possible.
“To the max,” Kimberlee affirmed emotionally. “It’s because of Mom and Dad and the way they—” At the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside the fitting room, Kimberlee stopped short and stuck her head out into the hall to see who was there. Almost immediately, she flushed a bright red. “Sam!”
Sam looked at his younger sister grimly as he stepped inside the spacious fitting room. Obviously, Nora thought, Sam did not appreciate whatever it was his younger sister had been about to reveal. Which was too bad, because Nora found herself wanting to know everything there was to know about Sam that Sam didn’t want revealed.
“You’re needed out front to help ring up the purchases,” Sam told Kimberlee firmly.
Kimberlee gave her older brother a pouty look. “Can’t you help out? After all, you used to work in the store, too, when you were my age. You know how to do it.”
Sam leaned against the door frame, clearly in no hurry to go anywhere. “I’m not disputing that, but Gran wants you.”
“Ha!” Kimberlee said. “I think you just want to be back here with Nora.” Kimberlee gave Nora a commiserating look as she flounced out. “Good luck. You’re going to need it with Mr. Impossible here!”
“Mr. Impossible?” Nora echoed when Kimberlee had left.
“It’s one of the nicer things she’s called me lately,” Sam said dryly as Nora surreptitiously measured the dwindling distance between them as he advanced all the way into the room.
He had dispensed with the Stetson and shearling coat and brushed the snow from his pants and shoes. And though Nora should’ve expected that—if Sam Whittaker were spending any time at all inside the heated building—she hadn’t expected the way he would look in the snug-fitting khaki uniform. He had an all-business stance that suggested he didn’t take trouble from anyone, but it was more than just that, and the come-hither look in his eyes, that had her pulse racing. It was his commanding height, the dwarfing width of his shoulders. The muscular tightness of his lean hips and long legs. And, most of all, the way he was looking at her now that made her tingle from head to toe.
“Still stuck, hmm?” he drawled, looking over at her almost insolently.
In this town, in her dress, in her whole life, Nora thought. “Maybe we should just give up and cut me out of this dress,” Nora suggested.
Sam continued to look her up and down as Nora grew ever warmer. “Oh, I think we can do better than that,” he quipped. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Nora barely had time to draw a brush through the wind-mussed layers of her dark hair before he returned with a button hook and a pair of tweezers.
“Don’t look so worried,” Sam said cheerfully as he stepped behind Nora. His eyes met and held hers in the mirror. “I’m an experienced hand at this. I’m sure I can free you from this dress.”
Something about the utterly male way he was looking at her made Nora sure he could, too. And that might be even more dangerous. “You didn’t have much luck earlier, back at the tourist station,” she said breathlessly as he placed his hands lightly on her shoulders.
“Ah, but I didn’t have the right tools then,” he told her. “Now I do.”
Nora raised a skeptical brow as the back of his hand brushed the bare skin at the nape of her neck. She froze beneath the onslaught of his touch, the warmth and gentleness of his skin pressed against hers. He had just come close to her, and she was ablaze already. She could barely breathe.
Aware that her heart was beating wildly in her chest, she forced herself to concentrate not on what they shouldn’t be doing—ever—but on what he was actually doing now. Aloud, she asked, “A button hook and tweezers are the right tools for an occasion such as this?”
Sam’s gaze met hers, and his handsome golden-brown eyes lit enthusiastically. “You’d be surprised what can be accomplished with these two items, under the right circumstances,” he said with mock grave ness, as he bent his head and once again concentrated on his task.
Nora hitched in a breath, realizing that, friend or foe, it didn’t seem to matter. With every second that passed, she became even more extraordinarily aware of him.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she told him defiantly, as she noticed that her knees were trembling, and that the shiver ghosting down her spine had nothing to do with the cold weather outside and everything to do with the heat generated by Sam.
“Actually,” Sam drawled, as he ever-so-carefully grasped the jammed fabric with the tweezers and slid the end of the button hook between the fabric and the teeth of the zipper to gently move them in tandem. “I do.”
Nora’s brow lifted as he continued to labor over the back of her dress with delicate finesse. What did he know that she didn’t?
“I came in here on a mission,” he explained.
Nora waited until he’d finished whatever it was he was doing to her zipper, then spun around to confront him face-to-face. “That mission being?”
“To find out if you need help of some sort. Because if you do,” Sam vowed, setting both button hook and tweezers aside, “I’m here to give it.”
EVEN KNOWING what Nora did about the error of her ways, she was tempted to let herself be rescued. But letting a man jump in to save her from all life’s hard ships was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. It was high time she stood on her own two feet and said adios to all well-meaning, overbearing men. Her chin took on a challenging tilt. “And if I don’t need help?” she asserted calmly, her heart pounding.
Sam shrugged. “Then you don’t,” he retorted mildly, though it was clear he did not think that was the case.
Nora sighed. She could see Sam was not going to be an easy man to dissuade. No doubt he would shadow her as long as she remained in Clover Creek. “You know,” she said, stepping back to lean against the far wall, her hands pressed flat behind her, “since we’re alone, I have a bone to pick with you.”
Sam took up a post against the opposite wall, only a few feet away. He folded his arms in front of him and kept his eyes trained on her face. “That bone being?”
Nora tilted her face up to his and drew a deep breath. “So far, this has been one of the worst days of my life. And you are not making things any easier on me with all your prying questions.”
He nodded, accepting that. Then said, with a devilish gleam in his eyes, “It was never my intention to make it easy on you.”
Her heartbeating all the harder, Nora met his eyes.
“Why not?”
Sam dropped his hands to his sides and continued regarding her steadily. “’Cause my gut instinct tells me it’s the fact you’ve been way too sheltered in the past that has you running away now.”
Nora struggled to hold her rising temper in check. She hated it when a man presumed to know—via ESP or, worse, experience with other women!—what was on her mind. “How do you know I’m running away?” she demanded.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Sam straightened and pushed away from the wall. “You’ve been acting like you had something to hide since the first moment we met. Now, I don’t know what hurt you so. And don’t bother to deny it. You have been hurt. I can see it in your eyes whenever the subject of your wedding comes up. But I’d like to find out,” he told her as he slowly stepped toward her.
“So I’ve been hurt,” Nora retorted nervously, straightening as he neared. “Everyone has.”
