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.
