found himself seated next to Elysia at the monthly meeting of businessmen. It was a lunch affair, served in the private dining room of the largest local restaurant. Tom, in a dark suit, and Elysia, in a neat gray pantsuit, her hair in a chignon, was secretary of the group. She couldn’t avoid him at this function, or the gossip would have been even worse.
But it was obvious to the most unobservant of guests that they barely tolerated each other. When Elysia passed around the neat copies she’d made of the financial report, she made sure that her hand didn’t touch Tom’s. When she passed the cream and sugar holders to him, again, she kept her fingers from making contact.
Tom was keenly aware of her bitter avoidance of him. He understood it, but that didn’t make it any easier. He was astonished that such a mercenary woman still had feelings to hurt.
After the meeting, she went straight to her car.
Tom followed right behind her, keenly aware of eyes following his progress to his own somber Lincoln, which was parked beside her Mercedes convertible.
Elysia fumbled with her keys and dropped them in her haste to get away before he came to his car. She muttered curses, hating the door because it wouldn’t cooperate.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured coolly from across the top of her car, “whatever I seem to have probably isn’t contagious a car length away.”
She glared at him, flushed. “That works both ways, Mr. Walker!”
“Listen, if you want to sleep your way up in the fashion world, it’s none of my business,” he said with icy venom.
She bit back a curse as the president of the chamber of commerce passed them with a curious glance.
“Nice meeting, Mr. James,” she said through her teeth with a smile.
“Yes, it was. Nice to have you aboard, too, Mr. Walker,” he said, pausing to shake Tom’s hand. “You be good to him, Mrs. Nash, we need new blood in the community!” he added with a wave of his hand as he went along to his own car.
“Oh, how I’d love to show him some of yours,” Elysia said fervently, glaring at Tom.
“You need to work on that attitude problem,” he replied somberly. “You seem to have lost your knack for diplomacy.”
“Only with you,” she shot right back. “I get along fine with everyone else.”
“Especially French buyers, hmmm?”
“Damn you!”
His eyebrows arched as she pulled off a high heel shoe and threw it at him.
“Wouldn’t you know I’d miss?” she demanded of the parking lot. “Give me back my shoe.”
“Come over here and get it,” he challenged.
“You’re not my type,” she purred. “You can’t speak French!”
His eyes went cold. He threw the shoe onto the top of her car, got into his own, backed out and drove away without even looking in her direction.
“I love you, too, you sweet man!” she called after him.
“Can I print that?” the local newspaper editor whispered in her ear.
She shrieked. “John, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
He grinned wickedly. “Can’t you see the headlines? Boutique Owner Shouts Love For Financial Advisor At Top Of Lungs…”
“Do you need a shoe?” she asked, holding it over her head in a threatening manner.
He cleared his throat. “Not my size. Thanks, anyway.”
He beat a hasty retreat. She glared after him. This was getting totally out of hand.
Tom was kept busy for the rest of the week, and Elysia took a back seat in his mind as he dealt with one financial crisis after another. By Saturday, he was ready for some rest and recreation. He decided that fishing might be a nice way to relax, and a local man had a stocked private pond where he rented poles and bait for a small all-day fee.
He put on jeans and went on his way. Fortunately the fish were biting, since he did love a nice fried bass. It brought back memories of his youth in South Dakota, when he and Kate had gone fishing with Jacob Cade on the older man’s sprawling ranch.
His boots were worn, but serviceable, like the old beige Stetson he’d had for years. Dressed like that, he looked every inch a cowboy. Kate had always wondered why her only brother had chosen city life. She’d never realized that the very anonymity of a big city was kind to his ego. In a small town, his aloneness would have been so much more noticeable.
In fact, it worried him here. He hadn’t considered how curious small-town people were about strangers, or how gossip, though kind, ran rampant. It was rather like being part of a huge family, having everyone know all about you. The comforting thing about it was that, also like family, people tended to accept each other regardless of human frailty.
For instance, everyone knew that old Harry was an alcoholic, and that Jeff had been in prison for killing his wife’s lover. They also knew that a local spinster bought copies of a notorious magazine that contained vivid photos of nude men, and that a certain social worker lived with a man to whom she wasn’t married. These were open secrets, however, and not one person ridiculed these people or treated them as untouchables. They were family.
Tom began to understand that even the talk about Elysia wasn’t vicious or brutal.
In fact, as Tom spent more time around local people, and heard more gossip about her, he learned that Elysia’s marriage had been looked upon more as a charitable act on her part, despite her husband’s wealth.
“Took care of him like a nurse, she did,” old man Gallagher had said, nodding with approval as he filled Tom’s order at the office supply store the week before, when talk had turned to Elysia’s similar taste in stationery for her boutique. “Never shirked, not even at the end when he was bedridden and needed around-the-clock nursing. She had a nurse, but she stayed, too.” He smiled. “She may have inherited a lot of money, that’s true, but most people feel like she earned it with the care she took of old Fred. Never doubted that she was fond of him. And that kid doted on him.” He sighed. “She mourned him, too, and so did the kid. Nice young woman. Most folks remember her dad.” His eyes had darkened and narrowed.
Tom frowned. “In a kind way?” he asked, because the old man’s voice had shaded a bit.
“Hardly. Old man Craig drank like a fish. Beat Elysia’s mother and Luke. Day came when Luke was old enough to realize he had to do something.
He called the police, even though his mama wouldn’t. Swore out a warrant for his dad and signed it, too.” He chuckled. “They put the man away. He died in prison of a heart attack, but I think it was a relief to all of them. Would never have stopped beating her, if they’d ever let him out. I reckon they all knew it.”
That had sounded painfully familiar to Tom, who’d had his share of beatings. His and Kate’s father had never touched alcohol, but the brain tumor had made a monster of him. The two of them had been “disciplined”
