Sam nodded, his own thoughts as mysterious as the expression on his face. He smiled at his grandmother. “With enough quilts on the beds, we should all be okay for the night,” he said.
“Okay but cold,” Kimberlee said, as the rest of the family sat down at the table and spread their napkins across their laps.
As they began eating, talk turned to their neighbors. Clara and Harold filled Sam and Nora in on how everyone was faring, given the sudden lack of electricity.
“Thank heavens I won’t have to endure this hardship much longer,” Kimberlee eventually exclaimed with relief as the meal drew to a close and Clara got up to bring a pot of stove-brewed coffee to the table.
“Next winter I’ll be in Chicago, where I won’t be without electricity and phone and cable every time there’s a little itty-bitty storm,” Kimberlee continued wistfully.
Nora watched as Sam and his grandparents exchanged concerned looks as a dessert of coffee and chocolate-chip pound cake was served.
Whatever was going on, Nora noted, Clara and Harold seemed to be leaving it up to Sam to take charge of the situation.
“This is more than ‘a little itty-bitty storm.’” Sam nodded at the bay windows, where they could see snow still coming down at an astounding rate. “It’s the snowstorm of the century, and as much as I hate to bring it up yet again, I thought we’d settled this,” he reminded his younger sister. “There is no way I am letting you go to college in Chicago just so you can be near your boyfriend.”
Kimberlee’s chin thrust out, and her expression turned pouty. “You are not my parent, Sam,” she growled.
“But I am your legal guardian.”
Nora noted that Sam did not look as if he were enjoying this confrontation any more than Kimberlee was.
Kimberlee put her fork down with a clatter. She sent pleading glances to Clara and Harold. “Gran, Granddad, talk to him!”
Clara looked at Kimberlee. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m afraid your granddad and I agree with your brother on this. You shouldn’t pick a college just because your boyfriend is already going there.”
“You go to college to prepare for a career,” Harold told her gently. “And since your boyfriend’s college has no nursing program—”
“So I’ll do that later!” Kimberlee said. Eyes sparkling, she shoved her unfinished dessert aside. “I don’t care what I study now!”
Sam sighed, exasperated. He leaned forward as he gently tried to reason with his younger sister. “You’re missing the point, Kimberlee.”
“No, you’re missing the point, Sam!” Kimberlee shot right back angrily, pushing her chair away from the table with an earsplitting screech. “I’m going to college in Chicago, and that’s that!”
“Over my dead body!” Sam said, completely losing patience.
“That may just have to be!” Kimberlee shouted as mortified tears streamed down her face. Shooting another look of abject misery at everyone at the table, she sprang to her feet and stormed out of the room.
Silence fell in the aftermath of Kimberlee’s dramatic departure. Sam and his grandparents looked miserable. Nora wanted to find somewhere to hide. “I think I’ll go upstairs and get settled in,” Nora said tactfully, deciding they needed time alone.
“Let us know if you need anything,” Clara murmured, distracted, as Sam and his grandparents helped themselves to more coffee.
Nora left them finishing their dessert. As she reached the second floor, she heard anguished sobs coming from Kimberlee’s room. On impulse, hoping she could help, she followed the sound. Kimberlee’s bedroom door was ajar. She had thrown herself across her bed.
Nora paused in front of the portal. She knew this was none of her business. But she never had been able to turn away from someone in need. And from the sound of that sobbing, Kimberlee needed someone to talk with, someone who was removed enough from the situation to be objective. Someone like her, who knew firsthand what it was like to have your family not understand you.
She knocked. Kimberlee looked up and beckoned her in. “I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time,” Nora said softly as she sat down on the edge of Kimberlee’s bed.
Kimberlee shoved her golden-brown hair from her eyes. “It’s all Sam’s fault!” Kimberlee said, fuming. “You heard him down there. He’s just so unreasonable.”
Protective, Nora thought, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked gently.
“I guess I might as well.” Kimberlee sniffed, sitting up. She reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “I’m in love. I’m so in love I can’t stand it. Only no one in the family supports me on this,” she continued, wiping her eyes. “You heard Sam and my grandparents. They didn’t even want me to apply to the University of Chicago! I had to cough up the application fee myself. And it wasn’t cheap! But you know what?” Kimberlee asked angrily. “I did it anyway. And you know what else? I’m going to get in. ’Cause I’ve got the grades and the extracurriculars and the SAT scores to get admitted.”
Kimberlee barely paused to take a breath as she blotted the tears from her face. “You know what the worst thing is? I almost had my grandparents’ support on this. And then Sam heard about it and found out U of C didn’t have a nursing program and started interfering, and now he’s convinced my grandparents I shouldn’t go there at all!”
Nora sifted through the emotion to the facts underneath. “Do you want to be a nurse?”
“Well, yes,” Kimberlee admitted, flushing, “but that can wait. My love for Kenny can’t. And before you even say it, I know what you’re thinking.” Kimberlee held up a hand, stop-sign-fashion. “I’m very young. But that doesn’t mean I can’t love someone, ’cause I do.”
“Maybe if you talked to Sam again,” Nora suggested gently, “and told him how much this all means to you—”
“I already have. He won’t listen.” Kimberlee threw herself into Nora’s arms and began to sob again as if her heart would break. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do, Nora! I can’t be away from my boyfriend for three more years, till he graduates. It’s too hard. I miss him too much. And if Sam and my grandparents make me, well, I’ll just die!”
“HOW IS SHE?” Sam asked an hour later from the open doorway of Nora’s room.
Nora looked up from her perch in front of the fireplace. She was glad Sam had sought her out; she’d been hoping they could talk about this. “She’s still pretty upset,” Nora relayed hesitantly, not sure how blunt she needed to be in order to help. “I imagine she’ll cry herself to sleep tonight.”
“Better here and now than next year in Chicago.” Sam sighed regretfully as he brought a quilt in and laid it on the end of the brass bed where Nora would be sleeping.
Nora studied the ruggedly handsome lines of Sam’s face, aware that her heart was beating double-time now that he was near again. “You don’t think she and her boyfriend are meant to be together long-term?” she queried softly.
Sam’s frown deepened. “I think she’s too young to know, and in the meantime should be preparing for her career.” Sam crossed the room in two long strides, then hunkered down in front of the fire with Nora. To Nora’s relief, he seemed as eager to talk privately as she. “Although I don’t suspect Kimberlee will ever see it that way.”
Nora was silent, thinking. She approved of the fact that Sam loved and cared for his sister and was trying to do the right thing on Kim’s behalf. She didn’t approve of the autocratic way he was handling the dispute. It reminded her too much of her own father, and the way he had handled things with Nora when she was eighteen. “Shouldn’t it be Kimberlee’s decision, where she goes to college?” Nora asked gently, trying to play intermediary.
“Sure, provided she’s going there for the right reason.” Sam sat facing Nora, his back to the hearth, one leg raised and bent at the knee. “But we both know she’s not.”
Unable to dispute that, Nora fell silent. She wished she could do something to circumvent the misery they were
both in.
“I’m doing what I think is best for my sister,” Sam said stiffly, defensively.
Nora reached out and covered Sam’s hand with hers. “I know you are,” she said.
He turned his palm so it lay flat beneath her hand, and tightened his fingers on hers. “But…?”
Nora shrugged, knowing she felt strangely at peace, just sitting there with him, and that—whether Sam liked it or not—this had to be said. “Kimberlee’s right about one thing. You’re not listening to her. You’re just writing off her feelings because she is so young.”
Sam’s shook his head in mute self-remonstration. His whole body was stiff with accumulated tension and worry. Making a concerted effort to relax, he tilted his head back, and his hair glowed a soft golden-brown in the fire light. He cupped her hand between the two of his and stroked it gently with his thumbs. “What would you have me do?”
Nora hitched in a breath at the thrill his touch engendered. As his grip on her tightened and the tempo of the stroking picked up, the feeling intensified. Tremors started deep inside her. Lower still, there was a persistent ache. “Look for a compromise with her.”
Sam regarded Nora with respect. “You really feel for her, don’t you?”
“Let’s just say I recall all too well what it’s like, knowing that what I want for me is more important than what others want for me.”
His sensual lips tightened in frustration. “Kim knows we love her.”
“But you don’t understand her, Sam,” Nora persisted. “If you did, you’d know how to talk to her without this turning into an all-out war.”
Sam sighed, dropped her hand and stood. “So what are you suggesting I do?” he asked as he paced restlessly back and forth.
Nora stood and moved to the window, where they could see snow still coming down at an alarming rate. She touched his shoulder gently and felt the strong muscles tense beneath her hand. “Try looking at things from her point of view. Try putting yourself in her place. Remember what you felt at her age, what you felt the first time you fell in love….” What I’m feeling now, Nora thought. “And then listen to her with your heart this time, instead of just your head.”
The only problem was, Sam thought, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been in love. In lust, absolutely. But in love to the point where he’d be willing to give up anything and everything just to be with another person? That, he didn’t know about.
Sam turned to Nora, wishing he’d met and dated her years ago, wishing he could date her now, instead of just harboring her temporarily from the storm. Maybe then he’d have the kind of lasting, loving marriage his grandparents and parents had had.
“You look confused,” Nora teased, suddenly seeming to be able to read his mind all too well. “And more than that, a little wistful.”
“A normal state,” Sam explained wryly as their glances met and held, “when it comes to examining my feelings under a micro scope.” A normal state, when I’m this close to you.
The shortwave radio crackled in the other room. Sam frowned at the interruption. He had known that peace would not prevail for long with weather like this, even with two deputies working overtime. Sam excused himself and went to answer the call. “Problem?” Nora asked, when he returned.
Sam nodded as he pinned on his badge and knotted his tie. He wished he didn’t have to leave Nora; he had been enjoying their time together. “I’ve got to get a message to a woman who doesn’t speak anything but German. Unfortunately, I don’t speak her language, and the German teacher at the high school lives on a farm ten miles out.” Sam sighed and shook his head at the enormity of the problem facing him. “So I’ve got to figure out who might know enough to get the message across and be willing to help me out,” he continued, lacing up his boots.
Nora was already hunting around for her own boots. “I could probably help you out.”
“You speak German?”
“And French and Spanish. My father insisted I become fluent in several languages.”
“Well, that’s one problem solved,” Sam said cheerfully. “Now for the second.” He looked out the third-floor window. Judging from the height of the snow gathering on the eaves, there was about nine inches and counting. Which meant it would be even higher on the ground, in places where it had accumulated in drifts. Not to mention the problem they’d have stomping through it. He turned back to Nora and accompanied her down two flights of stairs. “Have you ever strapped on snowshoes?”
“No, but I’m sure I could learn,” Nora told him confidently as they went to the coat tree in the front hall and retrieved their coats.
Sam reached over to help her into her parka. The silk of her hair brushed against his wrist, and the light floral scent of her perfume teased his senses. It was all he could do not to fantasize about what it would be like to have her around every day.
“How far is it?” Nora asked as she removed a tube of lip balm from her pocket and brushed some across her lips.
Sam forced his gaze away from her soft pink lips. This was no time to be thinking about kissing her again.
He watched as Nora threaded her hands through her hair and lifted the glossy bittersweet-chocolate length of it out of her collar, where it had gotten tangled with her scarf. “Not far,” he said, a little rustily, reaching a hand out to help her. “It’s in town, about three blocks over from here,” he said, as their hands collided. He pulled the scarf away from her collar, and she tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’d drive, but—the way it’s drifting up to a foot and a half in places—it looks too high to get my truck through. And the snowplows won’t be out to clear the streets again until morning.”
Nora shrugged as she buttoned the toggle buttons on her parka. Sam was pleased to note that she looked game for anything. “Then on foot it is,” she said cheerfully as Sam shrugged into his own coat, hat and gloves—then helped them both strap on snowshoes.
With them thus outfitted, Sam opened the door.
If it had been snowing before, it was a blizzard now. Bitterly cold. With snow coming down in daunting white sheets. He wasn’t afraid of getting lost—he could walk these streets blindfolded. But he knew they’d be chilled to the bone by the time they got back. He turned to Nora, giving her one last chance to back out. “You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked seriously.
Nora’s chin set determinedly as she tugged on her gloves and hat and wrapped her wool scarf up to her chin. “Positive. Let’s go.”
The wind was in their faces as they headed out, which made conversation all but impossible. Sam held on to Nora’s arm as they trooped through the snow, the beam of a single flashlight showing the way. Fifteen minutes later, they were there. Sam had barely knocked once when the door opened.
“Frau Heidtmann?” he asked.
The older woman nodded and, tears streaming down her face, began speaking in rapid German.
As Sam had expected would be the case, he didn’t understand a word of what she was saying. He looked to Nora for translation as Frau Heidtmann ushered them in. “She wants to know if you’ve brought her bad news about her daughter and son-in-law,” Nora explained.
Sam shook his head. “Tell her they are both fine. They got caught in the storm on the way home, and are staying in a hotel in Charleston.”
Nora repeated the message in rapid German. The older woman practically collapsed with relief. Her hand pressed to her heart, she spoke again. Nora smiled, and put her hand on the woman’s shoulder, and consoled her with a flow of German words that seemed to work wonders.
After a moment, the woman composed herself, and asked something else in German. Nora turned to Sam. “Apparently, her daughter is expecting a baby in April. Did you hear how the ultrasound test went?”
“All is well there, too,” Sam said.
Nora repeated the information. The woman reacted joyfully.
“Tell her they’ll be home as soon as it is safe to travel,” Sam said, “and find out if she needs us to do anything for her in the
meantime.”
Nora conveyed the message, and then listened intently. “Frau Heidtmann wants you to know that she is fine. She thanks you very much for coming by.”
“Tell her it was my pleasure. And we’ll get in touch with her if we have any more news.”
Nora conveyed the message. Goodbyes were said. Soon Nora and Sam were on the way again. And although they didn’t have the wind blowing into their faces, it was still rough going. By the time they arrived back at the house, they were both out of breath and chilled to the bone. Sam helped Nora out of her snowshoes and into the house.
They were still shivering as they took off their coats. “We’ve got to get you out of these clothes and into something warm and dry,” Sam said.
“You too,” Nora teased, shivering.
Mindful of the others sleeping in the house, they tiptoed up to the third floor, then went their separate ways, and met up again downstairs in the kitchen. Sam used the gas-powered stove to make some hot cocoa for both of them. When it was ready, Sam put two cups, the pot of cocoa and a plate of sugar cookies on a tray. They went back into the living room. Nora settled on the sofa and poured cocoa into cups while Sam knelt to build up the fire.
“Your life as a small-town sheriff sure is interesting,” Nora remarked as she sipped her cocoa. “I’m beginning to think there’s never a dull moment.” She studied him over the rim of her cup. “How did you end up being one?”
Sam stood. “When I was a kid, we had a family of bullies move into Clover Creek. They were big and mean and made life miserable for everyone. And the sheriff we had then didn’t do anything about it. Maybe he was afraid of them, too. I don’t know.” Sam shook his head and retrieved a colorful hand-knit afghan draped over the back of a nearby wing chair. Coming back to her, he settled down beside her and draped the blanket over both their laps. “Anyway, eventually the townspeople got mad enough and elected a new sheriff. He came in and cleaned things up, a couple of the bullies went to jail, the others moved on, and overnight Clover Creek went back to being a great place to live again.”
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