Willa sighed. “This isn’t about the mix-up,Gary , since no one told me about it, anyway. And please, call me Willa. We’re very informal here. Do you know if the others got my memo?” It was twenty-five minutes past ten.
“Oh, yes,”Gary said, his expression brightening. “Your secretary hand-delivered it to all the departments. Say, you must know Isobel quite well, since she’s your personal secretary. Can you tell me how long she’s been widowed?”
“Six or seven years, I believe.”
“Would you know if she’s seeing anyone?”
Willa sighed again. “I don’t believe she is.” She stood up. “Nor do I believe anyone else is coming to my meeting, Gary. And since it wasn’t about anything involving you, why don’t you head back to shipping?
Oh, and welcome to Kent Caskets.”
Garyhad stood up when she had, his joints creaking loudly. “Thank you,” he said, hobbling toward the door. “I have to say, I love getting up in the morning and having someplace to go again. Retirement’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I spent so many hours working to make my dealership successful I never acquired any hobbies. It’s very community-minded of you to hire older citizens.”
“Yes, it seems I’ve gotten a reputation for being very community-minded.”
The door suddenly opened, and Silas, Maureen, and Levi walked in, followed by the rest of her older workers.
“Sorry we’re late, Willa,” Silas said, pulling out the chair on her right and standing in front of it as the others went to their usual seats. “Isobel just tracked us down. It was such a beautiful day, we decided to go over our last-quarter reports outside at the picnic tables.”
“Sorry to pull you away from your important meeting, but I wanted to talk to all of you together,” Willa said. She realized that for them to sit down, she had to sit down, so she did. The moment they sat, she stood back up.
“Is this about the new line of pet caskets?” Maureen asked. “I haven’t finished the interior patterns, because Levi hasn’t given me the measurements yet.”
“No, this isn’t about our pet line. I’ve called you here to talk about Sam Sinclair.”
“I had to let him go, Willa,” Levi said. “The man’s all thumbs.” He shook his head. “I should have suspected it when he first showed up, considering how beat up he was.”
“He was also disruptive,” Silas interjected. “He spent more time talking than working. Our production was falling behind.”
“That’s right,” Maureen piped in. “All he had to do was walk through the sewing room, and the younger women got all a-twitter. Carol actually sewed her sleeve to the pillow she was working on.” She narrowed her eyes at Willa. “Sam Sinclair is a worse flirt than his grandfather was.”
Willa held up her hand. “His firing is not the reason I called this meeting. I want to talk to you about this little…dispute you’re having with the coffee clubbers, of which Sam and I seem to be the center.” She placed her hands on the table and moved her glare from one person to the next. “Butt out, people. My love life is none of your business. If I ever decide to get married again, I will marry whomever I damn well please.” She straightened and pointed her finger at them. “If you don’t stop interfering in my life, I will fire every last one of you. Except you, Gary,” she quickly amended, “unless I hear that you’ve fallen in with these outlaws.”
She glared around the table again. “Do we understand each other, ladies and gentlemen? And if any of you threaten Sam again, I will call the sheriff.”
“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.”