Confessions of a Small-Town Girl Read online

  “Actually she didn’t say anything until Charlie did. He saw your car on his way into the diner.”

  Confused by his comment, she buried any equally imprudent stab of disappointment when he killed the possibility of reaching for her by crossing his arms over his chest. “Charlie doesn’t know what kind of car I drive.”

  “He saw your plates.”

  Of course, she thought. Knowing she was coming, Charlie would have instantly realized the license plate with the purple cactus on it was hers. It didn’t matter who had announced her arrival, though. What struck her as odd was that her mother hadn’t been the first to mention it. That didn’t sound like the parent she knew at all.

  The caution she’d felt a moment ago compounded itself as she pulled her glance from the bunched muscles of Sam’s biceps. “Did Mom seem okay to you this morning?”

  “She seemed fine. Why?”

  “I just wondered if she said anything to you about helping me with the mill.”

  “She hardly said anything to me at all.”

  That was not good, Kelsey thought. But it had no sooner occurred to her that Sam had completely missed the significance of that silent disapproval when a muscle in his jaw jerked.

  “So,” he said, as if wanting to shake off whatever thought had elicited that betraying bit of tension. “How was your trip out? Any problems?”

  Sam watched her ponytail sway as she shook her head, shades of wheat and platinum shining in the morning sun. Her scent drifted toward him, clean, fresh, and far too innocent to be so erotic. The whiff he’d caught seconds ago had jerked hard at his memory. The last time he’d breathed in that fragrance, he’d been with her in the moonlight and silently swearing at himself for not being a better Boy Scout.

  Though it disturbed him to realize how easily she affected him, he knew he wouldn’t be caught unprepared again.

  “It was unbelievably uneventful.”

  “How about the light fixtures you wanted? Did you bring them with you?”

  “They’re on the truck with my furniture. So are the drill and masonry bits you asked me to get. And I bought a chain saw. For firewood,” she explained, because they hadn’t talked about that particular piece of equipment. “And an automatic screwdriver, because you said it would be easier for me to use.”

  Their conversation wasn’t unlike those they’d had on the telephone. Pragmatic. Matter of fact. And so totally not about the things that had been on his mind as he’d listened to the anticipation and worry in the seductive tones of her voice.

  As they’d talked about rewiring, he’d remembered kissing her in the moonlight and how perfectly her breasts fit his hands.

  While they’d discussed insulation and flooring, he’d thought about how beautifully she’d responded to his touch, and how badly he wanted her in his bed.

  The muscles tightened low in his gut. He would admit that he wanted her. He would even admit he’d looked forward to her return. But he was certain that was only because her plans had given him more to do and the harder he worked, the easier it was for him to avoid the restiveness that had returned with a vengeance when she’d left. Working to exhaustion helped him sleep, too. Sleep better, anyway. He doubted he’d ever go a night without waking every hour wondering where he was.

  “What about work gloves?” he asked, determined to focus on something that didn’t involve being horizontal.

  “I bought two pairs. And I found the decals for the monster trap.”

  His attention finally shifted. “The decals?” He couldn’t believe she’d remembered them. He’d only mentioned his idea in passing. “Which ones?”

  “I could only find ‘danger’ and ‘caution.’ They didn’t carry ‘radioactive.’” Almost looking a little cautious herself, her dark eyes softened. “How is your sister doing?”

  “I haven’t talked to her this week, but my aunt says she’s doing okay. How about you?” he asked, searching for some clue that she might regret the enormous step she’d taken. “How are you doing now that you’re here?”

  An uneasy smile threatened the warmth in her eyes. “I think I’ll plead the fifth for now.”

  “Don’t want to incriminate yourself?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Hey,” he murmured. Unwrapping his arms, he caught her chin when she glanced away. “You’re not still worried about how this all came together, are you?” There had been times on the phone when he’d known she didn’t trust how easily everything had come about. It had never occurred to him to question it. “If details fall into place, a goal is meant to be, Kelsey. It’s when something has to be forced to happen that it’s going to be nothing but problems.”

  There was no mistaking the uncertainty clouding her expression. It was as obvious to him as her hesitation in the moment before her head moved almost imperceptibly toward his touch. Encouraged by that unconscious need for reassurance, liking that he could offer it, he let his thumb drift to the corner of her mouth. Her lips were unadorned, free of anything that would interfere with the feel of their softness.

  He hadn’t been able to go five minutes without touching her. But touching her wasn’t enough.

  “Stop worrying,” he insisted, lowering his head to hers. “And welcome home.”

  Welcome home. He’d been the only one to offer the words that would have made her heart smile had she not been so busy hoping he was right. As smoothly as her transition had gone, she’d had no reason to think anything should go wrong now. Yet, as his mouth covered hers and he drew her into his arms, she knew she already had problems. Her mother, for one. Him for another. She couldn’t deny how grateful she was for his encouragement—or how she’d ached to have him do exactly what he did as he drew her up, molding her to him as if he’d missed her as badly as she’d missed him.

  Groping blindly for her sense of self-preservation, she’d barely stopped her arms from going around his neck and started to pull back when the honk of a horn penetrated the beat of the pulse in her ears.

  The sound had barely registered when Sam lifted his head. A second honk had her glancing toward the sound in time to see Joe Sheldon, the local deputy, driving by in his tan Jeep. He had his khaki-clad arm out the open window and was waving to them as he passed.

  She didn’t need to see his Joe’s face to know he was either grinning or that his eyebrows had arched halfway to his receding hairline.

  With a groan, she lowered her forehead to Sam’s chest.

  “That’ll be all over town in about five minutes.”

  The warmth of his broad palm penetrated her skin as he cupped it over the back of her neck. She knew she should move. She also hated the thought.

  “It won’t take that long. He has a radio in his car.”

  Her head came up. “You don’t think he’d get on his radio, do you?”

  “It’s possible,” he admitted, looking more interested in whatever it was he saw in her face than with what the deputy had witnessed. “The guy loves to talk. You’d no sooner finalized the deal with the bank than he was out here telling me he’d heard you’d bought the mill. His wife has a cousin at the title company in St. Johnsbury.”

  She didn’t question the swiftness of the grapevine. With the need to protect herself jerking hard, what she was missing was the connection between Sam and Joe. “Why would he come out there to tell you that?”

  “He stops by all the time. He likes to talk shop.”

  “Shop?”

  “Trade law enforcement stories,” he explained. “I told him the next time he’s in New York to look me up. If I’m available, I’ll give him a tour of the trenches.”

  Reminded of the danger Sam would soon return to, she wrapped the need to protect herself a little tighter and finally stepped from his arms. Casting a worried glance toward the road, she was about to ask if there was any chance his new friend would extend a little professional courtesy when Sam stepped back himself.

  “Tell you what,” he said, Joe apparently forgotten as h
e moved toward the house. “I have an hour before Charlie gets here to help me hang the molding upstairs. Give me a minute to leave him a note in case he gets here early, and I’ll meet you over at the mill. You’ve got a lot of work to do over there.”

  The problem with her mother had just compounded itself.

  It seemed to Kelsey that Sam hadn’t been concerned at all with what the friendly local deputy might be sharing with their neighbors at that very moment. But thoughts of the fuel about to be added to her mother’s fire filled her with a nagging sort of dread. It had taken her mother less than fifteen minutes last night to conclude that she had returned because of Sam. She had come back because of him. His encouragement had been invaluable. She just hadn’t come back for him. The distinction would be infinitely easier to make her mom understand, however, had Joe not happened by.

  Not that there was much Joe could say, Kelsey rationalized as she parked her car in the mill’s overgrown driveway and snatched a pair of her new work gloves from the passenger seat. All he’d seen was a kiss. It was entirely possible that as fast as he’d driven past, he hadn’t noticed that they’d nearly been wrapped around each other like pretzels.

  Possible. But not probable. It was her experience, limited as it was, that those involved in law enforcement noticed details that totally escaped the average citizen.

  Remembering from her yoga classes that proper breathing was essential to alleviate stress, she drew a lungful of the clean summer air and slowly blew it out as she climbed from her car. As agitated as she felt, she didn’t even look toward the mill that, under other circumstances, would have had her hugging herself at the realization that it was actually hers.

  All she could think about was the man she truly had no business being attracted to. There was no denying the pull she felt toward Sam, though. She just needed to believe that the appeal was so strong because of what she’d felt for him before. Nostalgia could be a powerful thing. It had to be. It was at least partly responsible for the gamble she’d taken with her entire future by buying the mill.

  The thought of what she’d actually found the nerve to do with her life finally drew her glance to the stone building rising by the stream. She truly believed that coming back had been the right thing to do. She belonged there. She needed to be there. She couldn’t necessarily explain why that was but she believed that as much as she believed in her plans for her new business. No matter what her mom or anyone else thought, she wouldn’t have done what she had if she hadn’t believed she could make a go of it on her own.

  She saw Sam cross the footbridge downstream. With his easy, athletic stride betraying the power in his big body, she reminded herself that she also knew she would be a fool to risk the rest of her dreams on a man who was willing to risk his life, but not his heart. She just needed to get through the next month without getting her own heart more involved than she suspected it already was.

  “What’s the matter?” Sam’s eyes narrowed as he approached, his too-keen glance skimming her face. “I thought you’d already be inside.”

  He watched Kelsey’s glance dart away, her expression oddly self-conscious in the instant before she looked back.

  “I just thought I’d wait for you.”

  The woman couldn’t tell a convincing lie if the survival of mankind depended on it. Something was bothering her. Joe, he suspected, though, personally, he didn’t see what the problem was with what the guy had seen. He and Kelsey were both adults. They were both single. What they did was no one’s business but theirs.

  He might have told her that, too, had she not just walked away to check out the property she’d recently acquired.

  She reached the end of the building. Coming to a halt in the overgrown grass, she spun back with the delight of child.

  “You rebuilt the staircase?”

  There was more excitement than query in her question. That unreserved pleasure lit her face, erasing the concern he’d seen there moments ago. She wasn’t just a lousy liar, he thought, enjoying the way her smile made him feel. She couldn’t hide much of anything she felt. At least, not from him.

  “I figured you’d rather use the side entrance to upstairs than to have to come and go through the mill once you’re living here,” he told her, walking over to where she stood. “It’s going to be a mess down there for a while.”

  Curious to see what he’d done, Kelsey moved to the stairs that hugged the side of the cobblestone building. He had replaced the rotted and broken boards of the steps and railings with new wood. In the warming air, the fresh smell of raw lumber mingled with the sweetness of wildflowers.

  Wondering at the hours he must have spent working there, she climbed the now-sturdy stairs to the small, square landing.

  Gray paint peeled and curled on the upper entry door’s panels. The broken lock, however, had been repaired. New brass screws gleamed against the older brass plate. Reaching for the antique handle, she pushed the door open.

  In the pale light, the interior looked much as it had when she’d been there nearly three weeks ago. It still needed to be swept clean of leaves and dirt before she could even begin to scour the century’s worth of soot from the outside of the fireplace and strip the hardwood floor. But the rotten wood that had once supported the broken windows was gone. In its place was the thick new furring that would support new windows. The kitchen at the end of the room remained in desperate need of more work than she cared to consider at the moment, too, but it was the little room just off of it that drew her attention.

  Skirting the sawhorses that occupied the space where her dining table would go, she passed the slab of gray-green slate she would keep for her countertop and peeked inside the larger of the two small bedrooms.

  She and Sam had talked about how the room needed to be insulated and lined with Sheetrock, but even though her mom had said he’d been working here, she hadn’t considered for a moment that he would have done so much without her. All the room needed was paint.

  “Sam…” she began, only to turn and notice what she’d missed before.

  Across the room was the window that opened to the view of the meadow and the mill pond. The broken glass was gone and the furring around it was new like the rest, but he had repaired the built-in seat that occupied the little bay below it.

  She knew he was aware that the bench was where she’d spent so many hours writing of her dreams for this place in her diary. That he had bothered to repair it when he had so much else to do made it nearly impossible for her to remember why she wasn’t going be drawn any more to him than she already was.

  “I can’t believe how much you’ve already done. And the window seat…” she murmured, walking over to run her hand over its glued-and-sanded surface. She looked up, searching the inscrutable lines of his face. “You didn’t have to do this.”

  The sensation that jolted through Sam was totally unexpected and disturbingly familiar. That quick dread, however, felt totally out of context. He usually only experienced it when he feared he’d blown his cover. Yet, that was how he felt now. As if, somehow, he’d just been exposed.

  Frowning at himself, he dismissed the odd sensation and snatched up a scrap of unfinished molding. Tossing it toward the other scraps under the sawhorses, it landed with a clatter and a puff of dust.

  “I know you’re anxious to get in here,” he told her, the cynic in him dismissing any possible significance to what he’d done. He had repaired the bench only because he had known it was the sort of thing she would be sentimental about. That was all. He didn’t want her looking for any meaning beyond that. “I just thought it would be easier if we got a head start on some of it. Depending on how adventurous you are,” he continued, relieved when she finally turned from what had her looking a little too moved, “you should be able to move in when your things get here. You’ll have a bedroom. And the plumbing in the bathroom works. You just need a water heater.”

  Kelsey watched him nudge aside another scrap of wood with his foot. She’d bumped in
to the wall he’d built around himself before. “When did you do all this?” she asked, feeling as if she’d just hit it again.

  “After I finished up for the day at my sister’s. The windows will be in in a few days,” he continued, more interested in what remained to be done rather than what he’d already accomplished. “They’re a little smaller than those that were in here, but I built a thicker frame so they’ll fit. It’s the best we can do without a custom order. It could take a few months to get them if we do that, and I want them in before I go.”

  The reminder that leaving was never far from his mind stayed with her as he moved about the rooms, explaining the order in which he thought things ought to be done, asking if she was okay with his plan. Still aware of that invisible wall, she watched him stop in the middle of the space, dominating it as he stood with his hands on his hips scrutinizing the beams on the ceiling, the condition of the floor. Lines of concentration etched his rugged features as he methodically outlined his plan for making her new home everything she’d ever imagined it could be.

  He seemed just as preoccupied when she followed him back out into the sunshine to survey the ivy and brambles that needed to be cleared away.

  “I borrowed a wheelbarrow and weed eater from my uncle for you,” he told her, hauling open the large main door. “Do you know how to use one?”

  “A wheelbarrow?”

  “A weed-eater.”

  “Not without amputating a body part. Show me how?”

  “Ain’t nothing to it,” claimed a rusty voice from the end of the building. Apparently in the process of looking around the place, Charlie emerged from the weeds at the opposite corner brushing at the dandelion wishes that had blown onto his coveralls. “Lot safer than a scythe, too. Wicked, them things are.”

  “Hey, Charlie.” Shrugging off his preoccupation, and the faint tension that had come with it, Sam nodded at his friend. “You’re early.”