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“You’re willing to spend your life childless if this test comes back negative?”
“I’m not after your eggs, woman,” he said with a chuckle, again having to cradle his ribs. “It’s you I want.”
She actually smiled at that, and he thought she tried to roll her eyes. “You’ve been hanging around Phil Grindle way too much.” She turned suddenly serious again. “I suppose I might marry you,” she whispered. “If you get me out of that stupid bequest first, so everyone, especially the seniors, will know we’re doing it out of love.”
“Deal.”
“And if you agree to help me restructure Kent Caskets so I actually get to run it.”
“I can do that.”
“And you pay Craig Watson the seven hundred forty-three dollars I owe him.”
“And sixty-four cents,” he said. “Consider it done.”
“And you send Barry Cobb packing.”
“Happy to.”
“And you stop this feud between the seniors.”
“I’ll lock them in a room and let them duke it out.” He placed a finger over her lips. “And just what will
you be doing while I’m ru
“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 pe
“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 fu
“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?”
Je