The Man Must Marry(50)

you be doing while I'm running around putting out all the fires you've set?"

"And you help me straighten out Jen's thinking," she continued past his   finger, apparently on a roll. Sam sighed. "Is your list much longer?   Because I think I have to sit down," he said, grabbing the rail on her   gurney and eyeing his wheelchair across the room.

"We're having a baby, folks!" Dr. Zeus said as he came through the door,   followed by a small parade of people. "Two positives equal a few   thousand diapers and twenty years of saving for college." He took one   look at Sam and laughed. "It's about time that sedative kicked in.   Malcolm said he gave you enough to knock out a horse." He rolled the   wheelchair up behind Sam. "Okay, people, let's get this show on the   road. It's opening day of spring hunting, and I've got a plump little   turkey in the orchard behind my house with my name on it."

"Turkey?" Sam said, collapsing into the chair with a laugh. "I've always been more partial to partridge, myself."

Epilogue

Rosebriar, four months later

Sam sat straddling thegranite bench facing Bram's and Grammy Rose's   graves, his arms wrapped around Willa and his hands resting on her   slightly rounded belly. They'd come to the cemetery to escape the chaos   that had arrived at Rosebriar last night, and they'd been sitting in   blessed silence for the last ten minutes, gazing at the bouquet of roses   they'd set in front of the massive gravestone. "A penny for your   thoughts," Sam said, caressing Willa's belly through her coat.

"I'm worried about Ben," she said with a sigh. "He's been acting strange   ever since we got here four days ago. He seems preoccupied." She  titled  her head back to look up at him. "Do you think taking over  Tidewater  has been too much for him, now that you're living inMaine ?"

Though there hadn't been any need to use it, since Willa had married him   two weeks after their accident and she definitely was pregnant, the   loophole to secure Tidewater had turned out to be so simple Sam was   still kicking himself for not seeing it sooner. The three grandsons had   had the power for years to override Bram's vote any time they wanted.   Even if Warren Cobb had gotten hold of their grandfather's shares of   Tidewater, if Sam and Ben and Jesse had combined their own shares, they   would have had complete control of the company.

That spoke volumes about how much Bram had trusted them and how they'd   never once thought about combining their votes against him.

"Too much for Ben?" Sam kissed her nose, then snuggled her in the warmth   of his embrace. "He loves the challenge of stepping into Bram's shoes.   No, I believe something else is bothering him. Emerson told me Ben   started acting funny about a week ago, around the time he received a   letter. Emerson said it came here to the house, which is unusual, since   Ben gets most of his mail at the office. The letter didn't have a  return  address, but Emerson did see it was postmarked fromMaine ."                       
       
           



       

"Maine?" she repeated, tilting her head back to look at him again. "From Keelstone Cove?" She smiled.

"Maybe Ben turned the head of someone in town when he came up on one of   his visits." She gasped. "I bet it'sDoris 's granddaughter! She  couldn't  take her eyes off Ben at our wedding."

"Emerson said it was from Medicine Gore, a small town in the northwestern mountains, not far from the Canadian border."

"Who does Ben know in Medicine Gore?"

Sam shrugged. "He spent his summer between high school and college in   those mountains. He was a volunteer for the Sierra Club, doing   environmental research on a dam being built up there. Maybe the letter   is from someone he met back then." He rubbed his cheek against hers. "I   remember Ben came home really bummed out. He wouldn't talk about it,  but  we all thought he'd fallen for a girl and she had broken his heart.  It  took him almost a year to start dating again."

Willa kissed his cheek. "Maybe she realized her mistake and finally worked up the nerve to write to him."

Sam snorted. "She's out of luck, then. Ben's too enamored with Tidewater right now to rekindle an old flame."

"But he's obviously bothered by it."

"He'll get over it. So," he said, "remind me again why having Keelstone   Enterprises' board meeting at Rosebriar was such a brilliant idea?"

"Because we needed to get our seniors on neutral ground." She turned on   the bench to face him. "I swear, if they all don't start getting along,   we're firing every last one of them and finding some teenagers to make   up our board of directors. Even two-year-olds would get along better   than they do. Bringing them down here is our last resort-and their last   chance."

It had been Sam's idea to combine Kent Caskets and his lobster-cake   business-which they were calling Sinclair Foods until everyone could   agree on a name-under the mother company of Keelstone Enterprises.   They'd assembled a board of directors of both groups of seniors in hopes   that it would finally bring them together, but his plan wasn't  working.  Sam was starting to believe the old saw that you can't teach  an old dog  new tricks. Hell, he couldn't even teach them that it didn't  matter  where at the board table they sat, that all seats but the one  at the  head of the table were equal. Emmett actually sat there, though  he'd  only agreed to chair the board while Sam was givingShelby a crash  course  in business management, so she could oversee their lobster-cake   business. Willa leaned back against his chest, pulled his arms around   her again, and patted his hands over her belly. "Thank God Peg agreed to   come down and cook for us. But then, most of her customers are down   here," she said with a snicker. "It serves Craig Watson right for not   being more community-minded. Maybe a little competition will straighten   him out."

When Peg's three months of working for Willa were up, she sold her cabin   onWagonWheelLake and opened a coffee shop right across the street from   Craig Watson's diner. The coffee clubbers had shifted their business  to  Peg, along with half the other residents in town. Peg had also come  up  with the recipe for Sam's lobster cakes, after serving several  versions  in her diner and getting feedback on the perfect combination  of lobster,  bread crumbs, and a secret ingredient she was charging him  an arm and a  leg for.

Emerson had refused to leave his post at Rosebriar. He disappeared quite   often, though, and Sam suspected he was hiding in his room, finally   writing his book.

Ronald had also stayed, to drive for Ben. And when Sam and Willa came   down for a visit, he kindly drove them around in his Stutz Bearcat.

Willa sighed. "I can't believe Jen preferred to stay home and work on her boat this weekend. What is up with that girl?"

Jennifer had gotten her driver's license just before school started and   her new prosthesis a little more than three weeks ago. After being   Willa's maid of honor at their wedding, the teenager had started   building the definitive Sengatti sloop with Emmett, and Jen intended to   sail it solo around the world next summer.

Sam and Ben and Jesse had already started trying to figure out how to   have their cargo ships surreptitiously shadow her on her journey. Sam   broke into a cold sweat every time he pictured Jen out on the open ocean   all alone.

He tightened his hands on Willa's rounded belly. "This had better be a boy. I don't think I'd survive a daughter like Jennifer."

"But if it is a girl, can we name her Rose?" Willa asked, looking up at   him. He kissed her nose. "I suppose that would be appropriate,   considering that she was conceived on the RoseWind , which was Bram and   Grammy's private little love nest. Then he held a finger to his lips.   "Listen," he whispered. "Do you hear that?"                       
       
           



       

Willa went still, then gasped. "What is that?" she whispered back. "It sounds like … "

"Exactly, Mrs. Sinclair. That is definitely Bram laughing his head off!"

Letter fromLakeWatch

Dear Reader,

Robbie and I are in the habit of loading the camper onto our pickup   whenever the mood strikes us, and simply driving out of our dooryard.   When we reach the stop sign at the main road, it's only then that we   look at each other and ask, "Which way do we want to go? Right or left?"