do you mean he’s gone on vacation?” Sam demanded when Zupper’s secretary said her boss was unavailable.
“For a month,” she said calmly. “He and his wife are in Germany for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. That’s why he had to call and speak with your mother before he left.”
Sam grunted. He rubbed a hand over his hair. It was too short to tug which was what he wanted to do. “It’s absurd,” he muttered. “What the hell would Hattie do a thing like that for?”
It wasn’t that he didn’t have enough on his plate. He was the sole director of Fletcher’s Imports, one of the most exclusive businesses of its kind in the world. Places like Gumps and Neiman-Marcus would die to offer some of the goods he imported for sale. But having such goods didn’t mean he sat on his laurels. On the contrary, he flew all over the world, seeking out treasures, negotiating multi-million dollar deals. He did not have time to drop everything to run a little bed and breakfast inn in Dubuque, Iowa!
“I assure you, everything is in top-notch condition,” the secretary said, apparently under the illusion that he thought he was being saddled with a slum.
Sam grunted again. He knew Hattie’s bed and breakfast was a profitable business. Housed in a twenty-odd-room late Victorian mansion situated on a bluff overlooking the town of Dubuque and the Mississippi River, it was a charming place. It had even become a sort of bolt-hole for him when the pressures in his life became too much. Hattie, a childless widow, had always welcomed him with open arms.
She welcomed the whole world with open arms, Sam recalled grimly. As successful as Hattie’s inn, The Shields House, was commercially, it was also the site of the biggest collection of white elephants Sam had ever seen.
The cats were just one indication of her lamentable tendency to collect things other people tossed out. He supposed he ought to count himself fortunate that she hadn’t had more than three cats when she died. And a dog. And a parakeet.
And Josie Nolan.
And that was another thing! He’d assumed that Hattie, having no children of her own, would leave everything to Josie, whom she loved as if she were her daughter. What the hell was she doing leaving Josie to him?
He cleared his throat. “What’s that, um, business about, um, Josephine Nolan?” he asked the secretary now.
“Josephine Nolan?” The secretary sounded baffled.
“In the will,” Sam explained, feeling foolish. “Hattie left me the cats and the dog and the bird—” he grimaced as he said the word, all too aware of its appropriateness “—and Josephine Nolan.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not conversant with the exact items in the bequest. I only know we ran the property through a title check. I could enquire, if you wish.”
“Never mind. I’ll do it.” He hung up, sank back against the sofa and stared up at the ceiling.
His mother, thank heaven, had delivered her bombshell and departed. Amelia had never much liked messy situations, and the look on his face and the words out of his mouth when she’d mentioned Josie had not promised tranquility, so she’d brushed a kiss across his lips, waggled her fingers at him and headed for the door.
“I’ll just see you when you’re rested, dear,” she’d said. “Don’t worry. You know Hattie. It’s probably just her idea of a little joke.”
Some joke.
Josie Nolan.
Josie Nolan was Hattie’s innkeeper. Long ago she had been one of Hattie’s white elephants. As a teenage foster-child living nearby, she had spent so much time gazing longingly at Hattie and her husband, Walter’s, big house, that Hattie had invited her in. A few weeks later she’d invited Josie to work for her. Eventually she’d supported Josie through college. When she’d graduated, Josie had come back to help Hattie out.
Sam had first met Josie when she was a big-eyed, dark-haired child of fifteen and he’d been a worldly man of twenty-two. He’d teased her and chatted with her and forgotten her the moment he’d gone away.
Of course he’d heard “Josie stories” from Hattie over the years, and he’d always pictured the big-eyed, dark-haired girl who’d blushed every time he’d looked at her. But he hadn’t seen Josie again until last fall, when he’d used Hattie’s as a bolt-hole to avoid having to be best man at his ex-fiancée’s wedding.
He hadn’t even recognized her. Of course, she still had big eyes and dark hair, but she’d developed curves and a bosom—and legs.
Sam had been astonished at the length of Josie Nolan’s legs. He hadn’t ever thought of himself as a leg man. Hell, he couldn’t even remember Izzy’s, his ex-fiancée’s, legs!
He’d hardly been able to put Josie Nolan’s out of his mind.
Only, he assured himself, because he was still edgy about having been dumped. He’d noticed her because he was noticing women. Trying to regain his equilibrium after Izzy had thrown him over.
He actually thought she’d been right to break the engagement. So he’d been nice about it He’d even understood He had only to look at Izzy to see how much more deeply she felt about Finn, the man she had since married, than she’d ever felt about him.
But being nice hadn’t been easy. And “nice” had its limits. He couldn’t have faced standing at the front of the church and watching her walk down the aisle to marry another man.
So he’d gone to Dubuque and had spent a week doing wiring, painting and wallpapering...and other things.
It was the “other things” he was concerned about now.
Had Josie told Hattie what had happened that last night?
Sam wished to hell someone would tell him.
Or maybe he didn’t.
He remembered parts of it. If he shut his eyes, he could see again the tear-streaked face of Josie Nolan when she’d opened her door to his light knock. He shouldn’t have been knocking at all. He should have shut his ears to her soft, muffled sobs back then rather than try to be a good Samaritan.
God knew he’d been in no shape to comfort someone else on a night he’d wanted only to be comforted himself. It had been the night Izzy and Finn were getting married. And though he was happy for Izzy, and knew she was marrying the right man, it didn’t help to know he’d been the wrong one.
He’d retired to his room with a bottle of his dead uncle Walter’s best Irish whiskey right after dinner, hoping perhaps that a little Irish companionship could make him forget.
Maybe the whiskey had sharpened his hearing. Or maybe the walls were thinner than he’d remembered. Or maybe his tolerance for tears had been at an all-time low. Whichever, he’d heard sounds that surprised him. He’d known Josie was waiting for her fiancé, Kurt, to come and take her out for her birthday. He’d seen her pacing the floor of the parlor, then standing on the porch and looking hopefully down the road. Hadn’t the bastard ever shown up?
Sam hadn’t known. Then.
But then he went and tapped on her door, to have it opened by Josie,
