build. She’d more or less been drafted by the chamber of commerce and other concerned citizens, and initially she’d felt she had no choice but to run for the office. But now she wanted to beat him. She wanted him contained and silenced so that his wheeling and dealing could only hurt those who chose to do business with Bryant Savings and Loan, his family business.
To get into town, Abby planned to borrow the little Mercedes she and her mother shared. Abby knew she had some time before Juliana arrived with the car. She’d dropped her mother off at the manor, then zip down the winding road into Hopetown. Anxious to be on her way, she settled into one of the big wicker rockers on the porch to wait.
It was only a routine meeting tonight and since she was well prepared, Abby let her mind wander as she stared out over the terraces of ripening vines. Before she knew it, her mind veered to thoughts of Colin. Then the porch squeaked behind her.
Startled by the intrusion, Abby turned. As if conjured by her thoughts, he stood just outside the front door. From the look of surprise on his handsome face, she was sure he was just as unprepared as she was to find themselves alone together.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“Why not? I told you I live here,” she replied, recovering quickly despite her racing heart.
A smirk crossed his features. “That’s what I hear, but you couldn’t prove it by how scarce the Snow White sightings have been. Jessie’s going to drive me crazy asking where you are. Are you hiding from us, Miss Abby?”
Abby stood, her lips clamped together to keep herself from answering truthfully that she was hiding from him. As she tried to walk away, he put a hand on her arm to stop her retreat. Her racing heart now thundered at his touch. Pointedly, Abby looked down at his hand, then defiantly back up at him.
Her gaze locked with his. He stared. She stared. Unable to look away, she nearly sighed in relief when a piping voice said joyously, “Miss Abby! You’re here! Daddy found you.”
Colin blinked and dropped his hand from her arm as if burned. “She’s here. We were just talking about old times,” he lied—but not very smoothly. His voice sounded rough, as though his throat was dry. He coughed a little then went on, “Abby wasn’t so hard to find when I lived around here before. In fact, our family couldn’t seem to get rid of her. She was always around because she was your Aunt Tracy’s best friend.”
“Aunt Tracy’s the one who got dead, right?”
“Yes.” He coughed again, clearly fighting emotion. “When she was eighteen,” he amended. From the thin line of his lips and the angry flare in his eyes, Abby guessed he’d remembered not just Tracy’s death but his inability to attend the funeral.
Well, she carried a lot of anger about Tracy’s death too—but it was directed at Colin. If Tracy had still been her friend, she would have listened to the truth about Kiel Laughlin when Abby tried to tell her. Tracy had had one huge fault—money. Feeling the lack of it, and desperately wanting it. She’d seen Abby’s mother’s life as a fairy tale come true. And she’d thought Kiel was her Prince Charming.
But Kiel was spoiled and reckless. One day while Tracy stood on the bow of his father’s boat, Kiel took his eyes off the river to take another swig of his beer. He ran them aground at high rate of speed and Tracy broke her neck when she flew off and landed in the shallow water. He’d been charged with manslaughter. There hadn’t been any witnesses on the shore, though, and the one witness against him had changed her story at the last minute. Everyone else on the boat had always claimed to have been looking the other way. With no evidence, Kiel had been found not guilty.
Tracy had been with Kiel for one reason—to capture him and his wealth. She hadn’t understood that the real treasure was a marriage like Tracy’s parents had shared. No matter the lack of material goods, the McCarthys’ marriage had been one made in heaven.
No so with the Hopewells. Abby’s mother had found wealth when she wed her husband but within months of Tracy’s death, the marriage dissolved.
It was only after ending her last attempt at a relationship that Abby had come to understand that she had to put the lessons of that painful summer to work in her own life. She would never again let a man get close to her. She was impulsive and had a passionate nature that would surely lead her to heartbreak again and again. Abby knew what a dangerous combination those could be just by looking at the mess her father had made of all their lives.
James Hopewell had gone on a tour of Europe after graduation from college. While in Tuscany he’d met Juliana and was swept away by passion for the seventeen-year-old daughter of a local vintner. He’d married her in spite of her father’s objections, then he’d brought his young wife home, where he’d found his own parents no less displeased by the union.
Years later he’d once again impulsively succumbed to his craving for passion and he’d betrayed Juliana. It was only months after Abby’s own debacle with Colin, and Tracy’s death, that her mother discovered James in the arms of another woman. Then her oldest sister’s heart had been broken when her fiancé called off their engagement because of the scandal surrounding the family.
Lesson learned.
That was why Abby had spent these past years studiously hiding behind a carefully built wall of self-discipline and self-denial. She couldn’t trust her own judgment. Not where men—and certainly not love— were concerned.
And she never would.
“…so after that,” Abby heard Colin saying, seemingly from a distance, “when you saw my sister, Tracy, you nearly always saw Abby Hopewell.”
Abby winced as memories and emotions flooded her thoughts. The pain of Tracy’s death had never really dulled as Abby had been promised it would. Much as she blamed Colin for somehow causing the rift between them, she blamed herself just as much for giving Tracy a craving for the kinds of things only money could buy.
Abby shook off the painful memories. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to meet my mother,” she lied, and fled down the porch steps. She’d wait for Juliana over at the winery even if she broke her neck stomping along the cracked-stone driveway in her high heels.
As she entered the town hall at exactly two minutes to seven, Abby looked around for her core group of lovable troublemakers. Sure enough, they were all there, seated down front and ready for action. Jean Anne, co-owner of the Hopetown Hotel and the Blue Moon Restaurant and Bar, turned around and waved to the seat they’d saved her. Jerry, Jean Anne’s husband, wasn’t there—probably the one home minding the kids and the hotel. As Abby strode down the center aisle, Harry Clark, owner of a local biker boutique, stood and turned toward her. Deep frown lines wrinkled his forehead. Harry looked like the kind of man you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley—or even mess with in broad daylight—but he was a pussycat.
“What’s up?” she asked, seeing that even Muriel Haversham seemed disturbed.
Muriel was the owner of Seek and Find, one of the many antique stores that dotted the town. She was usually unflappable and sunny. She didn’t look a bit sunny tonight. “Harley’s changed the agenda—tabled the federal grant discussion.”
Abby frowned. “What could be more important than getting federal help to solve the town’s flooding problem? Is he waiting for a fourth flood? Three in the last eighteen months isn’t enough?”
Harry waved the agenda. She stooped down and picked a copy off the
