of water?”
Shelby Monroe ignored the kamikaze butterflies swarming in her belly at this news and glanced indulgently at her assistant. “He just got here, Mavis,” she drawled. “He’s hardly had time to work up a sweat.”
The “he” in question was Eli Weston, of course. Just the thought of him conjured more feeling—most of it conflicted—in her rapidly beating heart than could possibly be good for her.
Nothing new there, damn him. She should have known...
Mavis pretended to swoon and braced a bejeweled hand against the wall. “Sweat,” she murmured, blinking slowly. She shook herself and sent Shelby a scolding look, her perfectly drawn on brows furrowed with chagrin. “You ought to know better than to say things like that when I’m in this condition.”
“This condition” being hornier than a teenage boy with his first skin magazine. Mavis’s hormone replacement therapy had gone horribly awry. Either she was especially sensitive to the medication or she was on the wrong dosage. Regardless of the reason, the drugs were having a hyper reaction in Shelby’s older friend and, as such, had resurrected her flatlined libido with disturbing results. A former Vegas showgirl who’d dated A-list celebrities and famous politicians, Mavis had never married—had said she considered it an invasion of her privacy—and had always been a charismatic force of nature. But a desperate-to-get-laid Mavis had the makings of a natural disaster.
“Have you talked to Doc Anderson?”
Mavis turned away from the window and fanned herself. She’d recently gone from blond to red, a shade that suited her. “I have an appointment next week.”
It wasn’t soon enough if you asked Shelby, but she supposed it would have to do. “Maybe he can get you sorted out.” One could hope, at any rate.
She harrumphed under her breath. “The only thing that’s going to get me sorted out is an obliging man, preferably one with an especially large penis and more stamina than intelligence.”
Startled, Shelby’s needle missed the buttonhole and pricked her finger. She winced and inspected the damage, thankful when she didn’t see blood. She’d hate to bleed on this fine piece of vintage chenille. She was putting the finishing touches on a custom romper for Lilly Wilken’s little girl. It was excellent work, if she did say so herself.
And she did, because she was a first-rate seamstress. She’d learned at her grandmother’s knee and had taken to the craft like a fish to water. While other little girls had been playing with dolls and Easy-Bake ovens, Shelby had been learning how to sew. She’d gotten her own machine at ten and had started making her own clothes shortly thereafter.
Never one to follow the trends, Shelby had been happier with her own designs than anything she could buy off the rack. She’d always had a firm sense of self, knew what looked best on her own body and could tailor-make anything that struck her fancy. Thankfully, it wasn’t long until other girls were knocking on her door asking her to help them find their own personal style, as well. She’d gone to college on a partial home economics scholarship and was able to pay for the rest with the modest inheritance her grandmother had left her.
Armed with a business degree—with a minor in fashion merchandising—she’d returned to Willow Haven, bought the old dry goods store on the town square and converted it into her own shop, which she’d named In Stitches. The front room showcased her own custom designs, the back housed the working area, where she kept three full-time seamstresses employed, and she’d converted the upstairs space into an apartment, which was presently part of Mavis’s employment package.
But whereas business might be good, her personal life was in the toilet.
Between Micah’s death and the guilt she felt over breaking off their engagement—not to mention the guilt she carried over what had happened between her and Eli the night of Carl and Sally’s anniversary party—and the threatening letters she’d been getting for months, the last damned thing in the world she needed to complicate things more was Eli Weston, here in the flesh. She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight.
He blamed her—or at least considered her a contributing factor—she knew. How could he not? After what had happened? Though the official line from the military had cited an accidental death, Shelby knew that hadn’t been the case.
She knew...because Micah had written her prior to his death and told her so.
She hadn’t received the letter until several days after Micah’s passing, but even then she’d suspected. Though she’d broken their engagement six months before his death, they’d still kept in touch. Hell, they’d been friends since grade school. Just because the romantic relationship was over hadn’t meant that she’d stopped caring about him, that she hadn’t wanted the best for him. And he’d been struggling, she knew.
Eli, she imagined, had known it, too.
Shelby had been so consumed with grief and regret that she’d hadn’t even been able to look at him during Micah’s service. She’d been too afraid of what she’d see there. And she blamed herself enough as it was. Not specifically for Micah’s death—the sole purpose of his letter was to keep her from blaming herself—but the pain she’d inflicted on him, the guilt of longing for Eli... She owned that and suspected she always would.
Eli, she imagined, would, as well, which made facing him all the more difficult.
But there would be no avoiding him here and, considering that she needed his help to try and figure out who was sending the letters, she’d better pull herself together.
She released a shaky breath, thankful that her hands were steady even though her nerves were stretched thinner than a razor’s edge.
Thankfully, Sally had insisted that Eli be a part of the building and dedication of the gazebo going up in the center of the town square. A tribute to Micah, their fallen hometown hero. Because she’d always been good with a pencil, Carl had asked her to draw up the design. He’d told her it would mean a lot to the family, to Micah. In light of the breakup, she wasn’t certain it was completely appropriate, but Carl and Sally had been too good to her over the years for her to be anything other than helpful.
To show their appreciation to everyone who was participating with the construction, Micah’s parents were hosting a dinner every evening until the project was complete and Shelby had been told her presence was expected. “Micah loved you,” Sally had told her. “And we love you. It would mean so much to us for you to be there.”
Rather than argue, Shelby had simply nodded. She had no intention of doing anything that was going to cause Micah’s family any further distress. They’d been through hell. That playful light behind Carl’s eyes had dimmed, Sally’s smile had resurfaced a few weeks ago, but it never moved past her lips, and poor Colin—their “little surprise,” Sally liked to say—at thirteen, was caught at that awkward age where he was too young to truly cope and too old to allow himself to cry. He’d grown sullen and remote, a shadow of the happy, energetic boy she’d known. It was so sad.
And she would never, ever reveal the truth. No matter how many letters she received.
Which was why she needed Eli’s help. As Micah’s best friend, he could snoop around with less suspicion than she could. Willow Haven was a small tight-knit community. It wasn’t just likely that she knew the sender—it was a certainty. Any questions she asked on her own behalf were going to throw up a red flag and potentially allow the truth about Micah’s death to become public. She couldn’t
