LITMIR.BIZ

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out and steadied her with a hand under her elbow. She was right. His touch was as warm and strong as the rest of him. “Are you sure you should be driving any more today? You look pretty done in to me.”

      He didn’t mince words, obviously. Nothing like Brian, who tap-danced his way around everything—until it came time to tell her he was leaving her and the baby to follow his dream and play winter baseball in Central America.

      “I’m fine, really,” she assured Mitch.

      He didn’t look convinced. “It’s going to be dark in an hour. It’ll take you another hour after that to make it to the interstate. Why don’t you stay the night here? The hotel on Main Street was restored just a couple of years ago. The rates are reasonable. And it’s clean. It’s even supposed to be haunted. And the restaurant’s not half-bad, either,” he added, deadpan.

      “I don’t believe you.”

      He made an exaggerated X on his chest. “Cross my heart, the food’s good.”

      A chuckle escaped her. “I mean, I don’t believe the hotel’s haunted. I always thought ghosts were unhappy spirits doomed to wander the earth until they were set free. What could have happened in a town like this to cause a ghost?”

      His face clouded slightly. She felt the same chill she had when the sun dipped behind a cloud a few minutes before he showed up. “Riverbend’s not paradise,” he said. “Most small towns aren’t.” Tessa waited, wondering what he would say next. He was silent a moment, glancing out over the river. Then his frown cleared and the sunshine came back into his face. “But this place is probably as close as you’ll come to it. And as a member of the town council and the Chamber of Commerce, it’s my duty to roll out the welcome mat. Get in your car and I’ll show you the way to the hotel.”

      “That’s not necessary.” She had no intention of spending the night in Riverbend or anywhere else. She couldn’t afford it even if the hotel rates were more than reasonable. They’d have to be giving the rooms away free.

      She had no health insurance and less than two hundred dollars to her name. One hundred and seventy-nine dollars, to be exact. And her credit card. It was paid off, thank goodness, but she’d have to live on the credit line, and it was by no means a large one. It scared her to death to think about how nearly penniless she was.

      But she wasn’t about to tell Mitch Sterling any of that, no matter how warm his eyes and his touch. How could he know how truly desperate she was? And how determined she was not to be beholden to a man to whom she and their baby were just an afterthought? Mitch Sterling was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the town council. He lived in the sort of storybook house she had yearned for all her life, in a town that was the embodiment of the American dream. In a place like Riverbend, a man didn’t make a woman he professed to love pregnant and then leave her to follow his own dreams.

      She had her pride left, even if she’d lost most everything else. And her pride wouldn’t let her tell this confident, self-assured man that she had no intention of sleeping anywhere but in her car. So she let him walk beside her the short distance to the parking lot. She followed him out, onto Main Street, and then, after he waited for her to park her car, into the high-ceilinged, spotlessly clean lobby of the River View Hotel. She smiled when he introduced her to the clerk, a gray-haired woman standing behind an antique partners desk that served as a reception counter. He told the clerk that Tessa was a stranded traveler and to give her the best room in the house.

      Then he had shaken her hand and said goodbye. “I’m late picking up my son from his art lesson. It’s been nice meeting you.”

      “Thank you,” she said, equally formal in front of the inquisitive eyes of the desk clerk. “I’ll always remember your kindness.”

      “Goodbye, Tessa Masterson. Good luck in your journey.” He turned and left the building.

      Where had Mitch Sterling learned her name? From his friend the cop, she supposed.

      “Now,” said the clerk, “I imagine you’ll be wanting a nonsmoking room.”

      “I…” She was going to say she didn’t want a room at all. But she betrayed her resolve by asking what the room rates were, instead of turning on her heel and marching out of the building to her car.

      “Fifty-nine dollars a night, plus tax,” the woman said, spinning the antique desk ledger toward her. More than reasonable. But still too much. “We take credit cards,” she prompted.

      Tessa was tempted. So very tempted. Just one night. She started to reach for the pen but caught herself. “I’m sorry. I’ve changed my mind. I really must cover some more distance tonight. I…I have such a long way to go.”

      The woman’s smile faltered for a moment, then returned, polite but more distant now. “Certainly. I’m sorry you won’t be staying with us. Have a safe trip.”

      “Thank you.” Tessa turned and hurried out through the etched-glass double doors and down the steps to her car.

      She did need to cover more miles tonight. She really did.

      The sun was still shining even though the rain clouds on the horizon were moving steadily closer. There were only a few more minutes of the beautiful autumn afternoon left. As long as the sun was shining, she would sit in the park and soak in the warmth and dream a little more of what her life might have been if she’d grown up in a town like this, with deep roots and strong family ties, instead of in the run-down part of a city in a series of shabby apartments with a mother who searched for love in all the wrong places and a father she couldn’t even remember.

      She could do that. It would cost her nothing but another hour or so of her time. And it would give her back so much more. A few moments of peace and serenity that were worth their weight in gold.

      IT STARTED TO RAIN just before sundown. The weather forecaster on the radio had said it would go on all night and most of the next day. Heavy fog was predicted for the morning, and school delays were a possibility.

      If they canceled school he’d have to find someone to look after Sam, or else take him to the store with him. At ten and a half his son thought he was a grown-up. But Mitch didn’t feel right leaving him home alone all day. Even in a town like Riverbend, a kid could get into trouble. Especially a kid with a handicap.

      If school was canceled, he’d take Sam to the store and let him price the new shipment of Christmas lights that had shown up yesterday afternoon. He’d even offer to pay him double his usual rate of two bucks an hour. Mitch wanted that Christmas-light display up before the end of the week. The big chain hardware out near the highway had had its Christmas lights out for weeks.

      People in Riverbend were loyal to Sterling Hardware and Building Supply, had been for the seventy-five years since his great-grandfather had first opened the doors. They knew it might take Mitch a week longer to get his shipments of such must-have items as icicle lights, but he’d get them. And he’d come damned close to matching the big store’s prices. So they waited.

      And Mitch tried his best to make sure they didn’t wait a minute longer than necessary.

      Thinking of the new store out by the highway brought a frown to his face. He’d lost his best employee, Larry Kellerman, to them just the week before. Mitch was going to have to find someone to replace him soon. Trouble was, no one with Larry’s experience or business training had applied for the job yet, and with the Christmas season less than a month away, Mitch couldn’t afford to put a novice on the front lines. He’d have to take up the slack himself.

      And then Sam would get the short end of the stick.

      Not if he could help it, though. Sam had gotten the short end of the stick too often in his life. An ordinary sore throat when he was two had developed into a serious strep infection. His temperature had soared and for two days his life hung in the balance. Then when he’d emerged from the semiconscious state he’d fallen into, it had taken weeks for him to fully recover. And sometime, somehow, during the illness, Sam had lost a significant portion of his hearing.

      Mitch’s

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