LITMIR.BIZ

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embarrassed was she at her own plea. “I know I have no right to ask any favors of you, but I swear, Wood, they’re going to marry me off to him.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “And that’ll be my life. I’ll be organized right into it, just like I was organized into running Tiff’s.”

      “Sit down.” His hands closed over her shoulders and she found herself being nudged inexorably toward one of the iron chairs around the small table in the sunny bay of windows. “This place was your mother’s, wasn’t it? I thought you wanted to run it.”

      She curled her fingers into her fists until she could feel the pricks of her nails. He crouched down in front of her, his hands resting lightly on the seat on either side of her knees. And she ought to have felt hemmed in, just the way she’d felt by Wendell, but she didn’t.

      “I didn’t mean that.” How could she? Tiff’s had been her mother’s dream. Tiff’s and marriage to Beau Golightly, who’d been the only father Hadley had ever known. “I’m just… I don’t know what I’m saying. See? I’m so frustrated. Would you—” she swallowed “—be willing to try the Tipped Barrel again? I know it wasn’t much of a success the other night, and you wouldn’t have to really, you know, act interested in me or… or anything.” She was humiliating herself right and left. “You could play pool like you did last night, then the evening wouldn’t be a complete bore!”

       He exhaled. “Nothing about you is boring, Hadley.”

      She laughed, wanting to cry. “Everything about me is boring,” she whispered fiercely, “and that’s why Wendell thinks we’re so perfect for each other!” And she’d just asked this man to kiss her, this man who’d been nothing but nice to her, who clearly had some other interest already given the woman—and she was sure it had been a woman—he’d met the night before.

      And the most embarrassing part of it all was that she wasn’t sure asking him to kiss her had anything really to do with Wendell at all.

      “First,” he said gruffly, “you need to stay out of the Tipped Barrel. I shouldn’t have taken you in there in the first place. It’s a dive. And secondly, stop worrying. You can’t be forced into marrying someone.”

      She pushed his hands away and rose, yanking down the hem of the beige cable-knit sweater she wore over a long beige skirt. “Easy for you to say. You’ve probably never done anything in your entire life that you didn’t choose to do.”

      His lips twisted as he rose. “Then you’d be wrong, sweetness, believe me.”

      When nothing else seemed fit to stop her runaway rant, his flat voice did the job. And she could tell by his expression that asking him what he was referring to would get her nowhere. She exhaled. Switched subjects. “How does your head feel today?”

      “Like the drum corps beating inside it have finally taken a breather.” He lifted his hand. “And don’t start in with the apologies again.”

      He didn’t have knobby fingers. They were long, blunt tipped and capable looking. Capable of wielding tools, steering wheels and willing women.

      She swallowed and turned back to the stove once more. “I’m glad you’re feeling a little better,” she managed evenly. “Will you be staying in for lunch?”

      The back door opened without ceremony, and Wendell trooped in, his binoculars hanging from the long strap around his lanky neck. His orange-andblue-plaid scarf straggled around his serviceable parka, and Hadley felt her nerves tighten up even more when he didn’t so much as lift an eyebrow at Wood’s presence in the kitchen.

      Why would he? After all, Hadley ran a boardinghouse. There were plenty of people who were often around. Just because Wood was six-plus feet of palpitation-inspiring masculinity, it didn’t mean diddly to Wendell.

      Wendell rounded the counter and bussed Hadley’s cheek. “See you later, dear.”

      Her molars ground together and she just stood there, mute, as he bounded through Tiff’s. Even when she heard the front door slam shut, she didn’t move, because if she did, she very much feared she was going to scream her head off.

      “Hadley?”

      She closed her eyes for a moment. Prayed for sanity. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s old sock. She just wasn’t. “Yes, Wood?”

      “Your soup is boiling over.”

      She jerked. Looked. “Oh, rats, bats and spiders,”

       She muttered as she hurriedly turned off the flame under the pot. The stovetop was a mess. She yanked the pot off and stuck it in the sink, cleaned up the stove, then ladled the soup into the tureen that she’d already set out.

      When it was full, she started to lift it, but Wood nudged her hands away. “I’ll get it,” he murmured.

      Kindness. More kindnesses. Instead of warming her, it made her want to throw something.

      She gathered up the rest of the lunch items and carried them out to the dining room. Arranged it mindlessly, rang the bell and grabbed her coat again.

      She went out the back door, stomped around the side of the house, and headed up the street. By the time she made it to Stu’s garage, her temper—rather than being walked out—had only increased.

      Her truck was sitting in the lot, hood closed, and she was headed for the office when she saw Evie’s trio of kids playing on the snow drifting up the side of the building.

      Her irritation with Stu took a hiatus and she headed over to the kids. She hadn’t seen them at church that morning, either. Not that their absence was particularly unusual. Charlie—to Beau’s dismay—wasn’t a very church-going man. “Hey, guys. What’s up? How’s the arm?”

      Alan, the eldest at ten, shrugged. He’d broken his arm before Christmas playing football with some bigger kids. “It itches.”

      She nodded sympathetically. Julie and Trev, eight and six respectively, were using a plastic cup to dig holes in the snow. “Your mom inside?”

      “Yeah.” Alan leaned against the wall and kicked his foot desultorily back against it. “She wants Uncle Stu to watch us while she goes to Billings.”

      “I wanna go to Billings,” Julie complained.

      “I wanna go to Auntie Had’s,” Trevor said. He smiled his winsome smile up at Hadley. He’d lost his front teeth recently and couldn’t have been any cuter if he’d tried.

      “Last time you went to Auntie Had’s, you broke a window, dipwad,” Alan said.

      “Come on, now,” Hadley winked at Trevor and chucked Alan under the chin. “You once broke a chair,” she reminded him humorously, and Trev made a so-there face at his big brother.

      Hadley looked at Julie. “So what’s so special in Billings?”

      “I want a new dress.”

      Hadley nodded, taking the announcement with due seriousness. Julie always wanted a new dress. She was the definitive girly-girl. “And there are no new dresses here in Lucius?”

      Julie sighed. “I’ve seen them all.”

      “Ahh. A problem, indeed.” She looked over when the door to the office squealed open and Evie stomped out. “Hi.”

      Evie stopped, clearly not expecting to see Hadley standing there. The expression in her blue eyes closed. “Stu can’t watch you guys today,” she said.

      “Then we can go with you.” Julie looked delighted. Evie, however, did not.

      “The kids can stay with me, if you need them to, Evie,” Hadley offered. There’d been a day when her sister would have told her that she was going to Billings for some reason. A day when she’d have just dumped off the kids with no warning, in fact. But those had been days when Evie smiled, when she seemed happy and that hadn’t been the case for

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