Smitten Book Club

by Colleen Coble

  Wyatt said nothing, and Abby’s stomach sank like a stone in Smitten Lake. She searched Wyatt’s expression for some form of denial and the reassurance he’d given her in the air, but he offered none. The warm air turned brisk.

  “Is that what he told you?” Casey turned toward her. “That your father left him that letter?”

  Wyatt’s expression fell, and there was no mistaking the truth.

  “The letter didn’t come from my father?” Abby asked.

  “Yes, it did. Let me explain.” Wyatt clenched his jaw. “Casey, I told you about the letter in confidence!”

  “I trusted you.” Abby’s voice sounded hoarse. “It was my father’s handwriting,” she said, as much to convince herself as Casey.

  Heather, Molly, and Lia surrounded her. Heather glared at Casey. “Do you realize that everywhere you go you start something? You’re supposed to be Abby’s friend!”

  “I work with Abby. She’s made it perfectly clear that our relationship is strictly professional.”

  “So what are you doing here?” Heather probed. “This doesn’t look like the library.”

  Casey flipped her long, dark hair and raised her chin. “I’m only trying to protect Abby from the likes of Wyatt.”

  “That’s sweet of you, but Abby can handle herself,” Heather said.

  “Wyatt,” Molly said. “Maybe it’s better that you go.”

  “Where did that letter come from?” Abby implored.

  “It’s your father’s letter, I promise you,” Wyatt said.

  “That isn’t what she asked,” Casey said. “Take it from me, Abby. Wyatt says what Wyatt needs to say to get close to women. He did it to me, and he’ll do it to you. It’s what rakes do. It’s in their nature.”

  “You have to tell her to listen to me,” Wyatt said to Abby’s friends. “I need the chance to explain. Tell her. Abby, please.”

  Steps took her closer to the car, but Abby had no recollection of putting one foot in front of the other. Somehow the car just got closer.

  “How could he lie to me?” She’d never flown so high nor crashed so low in the span of a few minutes. “This is what happens when girls like me take chances.”

  Tears filled Lia’s eyes. “Abby, that’s not all you’re here for. God doesn’t see you as some kind of sacrifice. You have to know that. I’m sure Wyatt has a good excuse. You just need to be ready to hear it.”

  “It doesn’t really matter, does it? He just wanted to help me find my inner strength. A little adventure. It was one bad date. That’s all. Just a bad date. Everyone has them.” She tried to reason with herself, but her feelings went deeper—they stuck into the cavern of her heart. Wyatt, in a short time but with close proximity, had embedded himself there like the gold in Molly’s ore.

  “I wanted to try something new and adventurous. I guess I got what I wanted. I learned that maybe I’m not ready to trust an adventure as big as love.” Abby pressed her palm to her heart, shocked at the physical sting that stirred within her.

  Prudence and virtue will certainly secure the right sort of husband material, but one must make sure that passion is present.

  PEARL CHAMBERS, The Gentlewoman’s Guide to Love and Courtship

  CHAPTER NINE

  Abby awoke groggily. She had cried herself to sleep, and her head pounded. Maybe she didn’t have an ounce of Anne Elliot’s sense of adventure in her. Perhaps she was only Sense and Sensibility’s Marianne, full of romantic idealism without the practicality she needed.

  Wyatt Tanner had trusted Casey, and that was immediate cause for concern . . . for sensibility.

  She squinted against the light as Lia lifted the shades. “Are you awake, Abby?”

  She felt her red, puffy eyes and sniffed the fresh scent of coffee.

  “What time is it? Is my mother up?” She bolted upright.

  “She’s having coffee with Casey now.”

  “Casey? What’s she doing here?” Abby popped up and began to dress. “What does she want from me, Lia?”

  “I think she wants to be you, Abby. You’re very confortable in your own skin, and I think that is something very foreign to Casey. She’s always trying to make others like her.”

  “Maybe if she stopped gossiping . . .” Abby felt guilty at once for her nasty response. “I’m sorry, but I feel like whenever Casey is involved in something, trouble is sure to follow.”

  “In this case, you’d be right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After you left yesterday, I asked Casey how she knew about the letter from your father.”

  “If it even was from my father.”

  “It was.”

  Abby leaned toward Lia, anxious to hear that Wyatt may have been telling the truth. “How do you know that?”

  “I told you, I confronted Casey.”

  “You confronted someone? That doesn’t sound like you, Lia.”

  Lia combed her fingers through her hair. “Mess with one of my friends, and you get what you get.”

  The two of them laughed.

  “You’re a regular Dirty Harry.”

  “What Casey said just didn’t sound like Wyatt, Abby. He’s a good guy. And think about what happened. Casey creates trouble wherever she goes, so I simply had to confront her. Turns out Casey’s father was in your dad’s men’s group too. Along with Wyatt.”

  A mixture of elation and dread pulsed through Abby’s body. “So was the letter really from my father? Wyatt didn’t lie?” Abby wanted more than anything to hear that Wyatt had been telling the truth. She slipped on a pair of yoga pants underneath her robe. “I was afraid I just believed him because I wanted to be around him.”

  “No one would blame you. It’s obvious he’s sweet on you, and he’s not hard on the eyes. But why don’t you get dressed and come talk to Casey? It’s time she answered for her actions.”

  Abby nodded and smiled, still stunned to hear the unlikely threat from her friend. Lia was usually all sunshine and light, and her devotion meant a lot.

  While Abby dressed, Lia buzzed about her room, picking up the things Abby had thrown off in her fit of emotion the day before. Her heart swelled with how much she loved her friends, how much she could depend on them . . . no matter what Casey had to say to her.

  When Abby came down the stairway, Casey rose and set her coffee cup on a coaster. She swallowed visibly. “Abby.”

  “Good morning, Casey. What brings you out so early?”

  “Early? Abby, it’s nine thirty. I’ve already been to early service. I guess you’re going to the later service.”

  “Right! Church.” She looked down at her yoga pants and fuzzy slippers. “I guess I am.”

  “From what Lia tells me, I owe you an apology.” Casey rolled her eyes and smirked as if she didn’t plan to give any kind of apology at all.

  “If you’re sweet on Wyatt Turner, I had no idea. I only wanted to do as my father wished of me,” Abby said.

  “I gave Wyatt that letter.”

  “What?” Abby searched her mind to try and make sense out of it. “Did you write it?”

  “It was a misunderstanding.”

  The doorbell rang. “Excuse me a minute. Grand Central Station this morning.”

  “We haven’t seen this much excitement since the day of Matthias’s funeral,” her mother said matter-of-factly.

  “Mother!”

  “Well, we haven’t.”

  Abby opened the door to a bushel of red roses so big that only legs could be seen beneath the deliverer. The familiar paper from the Red Barn greenhouse made her smile. “Delivery for Abby Gray.”

  “That’s me. Did Molly Moore send me these?”

  “Would you like me to set them somewhere? It’s two dozen. Pretty heavy.”

  “Set them over there on the table.” She patted her yoga pants to see if she could find some sort of tip, but she had nothing—not even pockets.

  “Tip has already been taken care of, ma’am.” The deliveryman tipped his hat, a smal
l black bowler. “I’ll just need your signature. Sorry to disturb you so early, but the sender was adamant they reach you before you were out for church this morning.”

  “No, that’s quite all right. Who could be upset about being awakened by two dozen roses?”

  “As I was saying—” Casey continued.

  Abby tried to sneak a look at the card without being rude.

  “Who are the roses from?” Lia asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably Molly, for my figuring out that the gold on her property was most likely mined already.”

  “Molly doesn’t have time to watch Gone with the Wind all the way through. Surely she didn’t send them. Open the card!”

  Abby obeyed.

  Dear Abby,

  Forgive me. I would never do anything to hurt you. Please agree to meet with me one more time and hear me out. I don’t deserve it, but I ask you in grace.

  Ever hopeful and in love,

  Wyatt

  Abby slipped the card into the waistband of her yoga pants, unwilling to share that they were from Wyatt with Casey standing before her. She didn’t want to lie—so she simply shrugged.

  Casey glared at her. “Life goes along swimmingly for you, doesn’t it, Abby? You’re the librarian everyone wants to have wait on them. You’re the woman Wyatt Tanner wants to take up in the sky. You’re the girl who gets first dibs on all the movies at the library—”

  “So I can give them to my friend Molly! Casey, I live with my mother, and Wyatt was doing a favor for my father. You treat me abominably, and I’ve always wondered what I’d done to you.”

  Lia rubbed the back of her neck, obviously nervous over the confrontation taking place.

  “The roses are from Wyatt,” Casey said. “Just say so already.”

  “Yes, they’re from Wyatt. He’s apologizing for yesterday.”

  “The letter is from your father,” Casey said. “I gave it to Wyatt. I figured if he wanted to take you on one of his adventures, you two would see how incompatible you are and that would be the end of it.”

  “How would you get a letter from my father?” Abby asked.

  “My father was in your dad’s men’s group too. When your father knew his health was taking a turn for the worse, he told the men that he was worried about you, that they’d sheltered you too much. He didn’t want you to live like he did and never leave Smitten. He wanted you to see more than just the inside of this house.” Casey looked toward her mother. “No offense, Mrs. Gray.”

  “None taken,” Abby’s mother answered with brows raised. “Though I rather like the inside of this home.”

  “Casey, get on with it,” Abby said angrily. “How did you get this letter?”

  “My father was supposed to deliver it, but he never did because he thought that maybe your father wasn’t thinking right. ‘Imagine,’ he said, ‘sending your only child up in the air on a virtual kite.’ I saw it as my chance to show Wyatt how wrong you were for him.” Casey dropped her head in her hands.

  It was the first time, Abby thought, she might be truly regretful of her actions.

  “I accused him of lying,” Abby said with a sick feeling in her stomach. “When he was telling me the truth.”

  Casey nodded. “I’m so sorry, Abby. I mean, truly I am. Wyatt was never interested in me, and I had no right—”

  Abby went toward her fellow librarian and hugged her. “The important thing is you did the right thing when it mattered. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  Butterflies took flight in her stomach like a thousand hang gliders. She never would have taken the leap without her father’s letter. Without Wyatt’s encouragement and his physical presence. With absolute clarity, she knew she wanted him by her side. Always.

  She kissed her mother’s cheek and then Lia’s. “Thank you, Lia. Mom, I have to run out—”

  “Abby, darling, you’re not fully dressed.”

  Abby scampered back up the stairs two at a time, like an overeager puppy. She selected her most Scarlett-like dress—a red-and-white polka dot number that was a hand-me-down from Lia—and slipped into her new shoes. She brushed her face with powder, slopped some lip gloss on, and jogged down the stairs. “I’ll be back!”

  She ran the three blocks to church, stopping every so often to slide her shoes back on until she came to the courtyard, where the entire congregation milled about. She said hello absently to anyone who addressed her until she spotted Wyatt talking to one of the deacons.

  “Wyatt?”

  He tapped the man’s arm twice and came to her side. “Abby! Your father didn’t give me that letter.”

  “I know.”

  “He didn’t give me his blessing to court you either.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Do you think he would have allowed me to court you?”

  “I’m twenty-seven, Wyatt. It’s up to me who I allow to court me.”

  “And will you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Even though you think I’m dangerous?”

  “I think you’re dangerous in a good way. More importantly, I trust you.”

  “So that means I only have to convince your mother to trust me.”

  “I think we can arrange that. Maybe bring her a few tubs of Jake’s soup, and you’ll have her heart.”

  “But will I have yours?” He leaned into her and pressed a kiss upon her cheek.

  Abby grasped his jawline between her palms and pulled his mouth toward hers. “You already do, Wyatt.”

  A New Chapter

  Diann Hunt

  A man doesn’t always know what he wants. It’s up to the gentlewoman to show him.

  PEARL CHAMBERS, The Gentlewoman’s Guide to Love and Courtship

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ow.” Elliana Burton flipped her auburn hair behind her shoulder and cupped her hand against her cheek.

  “What is it, Lia?” her mom asked, carving more turkey on the dining room table.

  “The apple walnut salad,” she said as though a marble were loose in her mouth. “There was a piece of walnut shell. I think my filling came out.” She discreetly eyed the silver filling in her napkin.

  Sympathetic groans rippled appropriately around the table. If anyone knew the value of teeth, it was their friends from the Smitten Assisted Living Center.

  “You’d better get that taken care of immediately.” Mrs. Hobson pointed a gnarled finger at her. “You don’t want to end up like me.” She pulled down her dentures to reveal her plight.

  Lia walked over and settled on the sofa. Her mom abandoned the turkey and grabbed the phone.

  “Dr. Sam won’t come in on Thanksgiving,” Lia said.

  “Yes, he will. It’s an emergency. Besides, I changed Sam Oliver’s diapers. He owes me.” Mom punched in the numbers.

  Lia moaned. “What a bummer. Not only do I have to go to the dentist, but I have to miss turkey and gravy, dressing, mashed potatoes, and rolls. This is awful.” She leaned her head back against the sofa and threw her arm over her eyes. She could still smell the peach lotion she’d put on after her shower. The lotion her dad had bought her every year at Christmas until he died two years ago. She still bought it as a reminder of him.

  Her mother clicked off the phone. “He’ll meet you at his office in half an hour.”

  “That doesn’t give him time to eat.”

  Mom shrugged. “He didn’t seem to mind.” She shoved herself off the sofa and made her way back to the table, shoes clacking against the hardwood. “You know Sam; he’s always willing to help friends.”

  “He’ll give me that lecture about not coming in on a regular basis.” Lia got up and headed for her bedroom to get her handbag—and her dog-eared copy of Anne of Green Gables. One last-minute glance in the mirror and she tucked a strand of baby’s breath at the side of her hair.

  “Rightfully, he should,” Mom whispered to her guests. “She has white-coat syndrome.”

  “I heard that,” Lia called as she walked out t
he door.

  The noonday sun hung suspended just over Sugarcreek Mountain, bringing a zest of color to the bare trees and brown lawns of winter. Even the frigid cold couldn’t deter her love for the town of Smitten. Cozy shops and bungalows nestled at the foothills of the mountain. People who had time for each other. Front porch people, Lia called them. Everyone had time for a chat.

  As she pulled into the dental practice, she noticed that Sam had a new silver truck. She looked at her little VW Bug—yellow with daisies painted on the side doors. Teaching might not afford the fanciest of cars, but she was quite happy with hers.

  Grabbing her handbag and book, she got out of the car and walked up the entrance to the door. She shoved her remote into her bag, thinking how nice it was to live in a town where they didn’t have to worry about locking their cars.

  The air was crisp, but none of the threatened snow yet. She straightened her navy coat and adjusted her red scarf. After taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open. There was no receptionist to greet her, so she called out tentatively, “Hello?”

  “Come on back. I’m just getting things ready.”

  Lia rubbed her sweaty palms together and tried to keep the room from spinning. If her kindergarten kids could go to a dentist, she certainly should be able to. She would get a free toothbrush, after all. But those smells, medicinal-type smells, needles, chairs that recline so you can’t get up, bright lights and a mirror. Like she wanted to see that?

  And don’t even get her started on having someone’s hand in her mouth.

  When she reached the room, she saw the back of Sam’s white coat as he gathered together the instruments he needed, instruments that made her stomach flip-flop. The room was quiet, since it was Thanksgiving Day, but the sterile atmosphere still made her nervous. Something about latex gloves brought on thoughts of dark movies with murder and blood and autopsies.

  Her heartbeat kicked up several notches.

  “Go ahead and have a seat,” he said.

  She swallowed hard. It occurred to her they were alone. If he hurt her, who would know? Her knuckles gripped the armrests. What if he resented the fact that she had missed her teeth cleanings for the last three years? Now was the time he could make her pay . . .