"But he's only pretending to be interested in you to get back his inheritance," Maureen cried.
"Did you know he's buying the old Ingall warehouse in Prime Point?" Silas said. "Avery Ingall has been trying to unload that place for years. I bet he takes Sinclair to the cleaners."
"Word on the street is that Sam's planning to open some sort of mail-order food plant," Levi said. Maureen snickered. "I heard he asked Doris Ambrose to head up his marketing department. I hope he knows his labels are going to have angels on them. That's all the woman can paint."
"And Phil Grindle's supposed to be his head chef," Carl Sills, a retired lawyer in charge of her sales department, added. "Throwing lobsters into a pot of boiling water for thirty years is one hell of a résumé."
Willa was horrified. "My God, you really are all a bunch of snobs."
"What?" Silas said, his face reddening. He stood up. "We are not. But who the hell does Sam Sinclair think he is, coming here and opening a business, hiring a bunch of coffee-swigging old people to run it?"
Willa crossed her arms. "Last time I checked,Maine was still part of theUnited States of America . I believe anyone can open a business wherever he desires, and that if he wants to hire retired people, he can. How is what Sam's doing any different from what I did four years ago?"
"Oh, Willa!" Maureen cried, also standing up. "You're no better than my girls in the sewing room. You've taken one look at Sam's pretty face and fat bankbook and lost your senses."
"My bankbook happens to be bigger than his at the moment," Willa shot back. "And I have not lost my senses."
"Wait a minute," Levi said, also standing up and looking at Maureen and Silas. "It might be okay if she falls in love with Sam. Now that he's opening a business here, they'd be living in Keelstone Cove. It's Barry Cobb we should be worried about."
That'swhat all this was about? Willa sat down hard. They weren't worried about her happiness; they were worried about their jobs! They were afraid that if she fell in love with Sam, she might sell Kent Caskets and move toNew York . And they damn well knew the next owner wouldn't put up with their shenanigans.
"Willa. Willa!" Maureen said, thumping her cane to get her attention. "It's okay, then, if you marry Sam. And we're sorry we threatened him."
"And if Sam and I end up having a dozen children, is that okay, too, Maureen? And Silas?" she asked, her gaze moving down the table. "Levi? Carl? And the rest of you? Because I sure as heck wouldn't want to do anything that you don't think will make me happy."
"Now, Willa," Silas said, his face red. "Your happiness is our only concern."
She stood and silently walked out the door. Ignoring Maureen's calls to her, she continued down the hall and didn't stop until she reached her truck. She looked back at her building and decided she was going to paint it white and green again.
Sam turned down Willa's driveway, smiling in anticipation of her reaction to his purchase. His new truck was identical to Jennifer's, only black instead of red. Emmett, with his usual dry humor, had wished Sam good luck this winter trying to keep it clean once they started salting the roads. He'd originally gone shopping for a pickup but had decided on the SUV when he remembered that his future might include a car seat and other baby paraphernalia. Not that he intended to mention that to Willa.
He frowned as he pulled up beside Willa's pickup in front of her cottage. It was five minutes to six, but there weren't any lights on inside. All the windows of the main house were ablaze. Was she visiting her sister?
Had she forgotten their date?
He got out and noticed the smell of wood smoke as he walked up the cottage steps. He peeked into the door window and saw a fire burning in the stove in the corner, its cast-iron doors open and the screen set in place.
Willa wouldn't leave an open stove unattended. He knocked, then cupped his hands to watch through the window again, but he didn't see anyone rushing to let him in. He tried the knob and found it was unlocked, so he stepped inside.
He could just make out the silhouette of her head rising above the back of the couch. "Willa?" he said, tossing his jacket onto the table.
She didn't answer him.
"Did you fall asleep?" he asked, going to her. "I've made reservations for us at seven in Ellsworth."
"Go away."
"Honey, what's wrong?" he asked, hunching down in front of her, only to find her staring blankly at the fire. He immediately scooped her up in his arms and took her place on the couch, setting her on his lap.
"What's happened? Is it one of your seniors? Is someone sick?"
She buried her face in his shirt.
"Okay, we'll just sit together for a while." He kissed her hair as he held her head to his chest. She released a deep, shuddering sigh.
What had upset her? Or who? Sam knew it wasn't his coffee gang; he'd spent most of the day with them inspecting the warehouse.
Cobb better not have bothered Willa. He'd run into Cobb in town today, and the bastard had actually tried to strike up a conversation. Sam had nearly laughed out loud when Phil Grindle, at five-foot-four and a hundred and fifty pounds, had stepped between him and Cobb and asked Barry if he wouldn't like to go on an authentic lobster run with a young fisherman friend of his. Fearing that Phil planned it to be a one-way trip, Sam had pulled his friend away before Cobb could answer. Had Cobb visited Kent Caskets this afternoon and said something to upset Willa? Maybe one of her workers had taken ill. Or even died?
She shuddered again, as if fighting tears.
"Grammy Rose always told me that sharing a burden shrinks it by half," he said against her hair. "Please, honey, tell me what's bothering you."
"I don't like the people I work with," she said in a ragged voice. "They're selfish, manipulative snobs who are only interested in themselves, and I don't ever want to see any of them again."
"They're people, Willa, not saints. Ordinary, flawed people, just like you and me." Her rubbed his hand soothingly up and down her arm. "And though they might put on a happy face every morning when they come to work, it's really a mask hiding their fear."
She tilted her head back to look at him. "What are they afraid of?"
"Of growing old and no longer being in control. They're actually more afraid of not being alive but still breathing than they are of dying." He smiled sadly. "That was Bram's biggest fear after Grammy died."
"But we're supposed to become less selfish as we get older."
"What did they do to upset you?"
She settled back into the crook of his arm and stared into the fire. "I called a meeting to tell them all to stay out of my love life, but I might as well have been talking to the wall. They kept insisting that you were hanging around to get your inheritance."
"And this surprises you?"
"Then they started trashing the coffee clubbers, dismissing them as simple-minded locals. And they scoffed at the idea of you opening a business just to give a bunch of old people something to do."
"But you agree with them about my opening a business here."
She sat up to look at him. "Not in principle, I don't. But the real reason they don't want me marrying you is that they're afraid I'd sell Kent Caskets and move toNew York . As soon as they realized that if you opened a business I'd stay in Keelstone Cove, they did an about-face and decided I should fall in love with you."
"I see. You're afraid that more than wanting to see you happy, they really only want you sticking around?" He pulled her back against his chest and tucked her head under his chin. "So, fire the whole damn bunch of them."
"I can't," she muttered into his shirt.
Sam smiled, unsurprised. "Okay, then sell Kent Caskets, and let some new boss deal with them."
"I can't do that, either."
"Then quit. Give them the entire business-lock, stock, and caskets."