Maggie’s eyes opened wide and she leaned back slightly. For a moment she didn’t say anything. “Are you…”

“I was going to buy you an official engagement ring, but then I decided it would be more fun for us to buy one together. Is that horribly unromantic?”

Maggie stood up, holding the towel around her. “Will Brewer. Did you just propose to me?”

“I hope so. Would you like me to try again? I haven’t had a lot of practice.”

“No, no. I mean…”

“All you have to do is say ‘yes;’ it’s a one-syllable word. You’re usually good with words.”

“I know.” Maggie moved from the bed.

Will just looked at her. “You’re not going to say yes.”

“I love you. I want to say ‘yes.’”

“Then?”

“I have to tell you something first.”

“I know, I know. It’s complicated. You live in New Jersey. I live in Maine. There’s Aunt Nettie. I know we can’t get married right away. But we’ll work things out. We’ll make it work! We love each other, Maggie!”

“We do. But it’s none of those things. It’s something else.” Maggie sat on the bed, but not next to him. “Will, I was going to tell you this weekend. I still want to be a mother. I’ve applied to Our World, Our Children to adopt a child. My home study should be finished by Christmas. You remember—the agency we did the benefit for last spring.”

It was Will’s turn to be silent.

“You liked the people there, Will.”

“They were nice people. But a child, Maggie. That’s a lifetime responsibility. And you know how I feel about that.”

“It’s important to me. And if I wait much longer, I’ll be too old.”

“How could you do that without talking to me? How could you plan the rest of your life without discussing it with the man you say you love?” Will walked over to the window. He stood for a few minutes, looking out at the darkness, his hands clenched. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I can’t change that much. I’ve taken responsibility for Aunt Nettie. I’ve proposed to you. But I can’t take on parenthood. I can’t. And you can’t expect me to. I’ve never pretended I could do that.”

“In relationships everyone has to give up something; everyone has to change.”

He turned and looked at her. “Hell, Maggie. Don’t tell me I can’t change. In the past year I’ve changed almost everything in my life! I’ve given up my house. I’ve moved to Maine. I’ve changed the way I do business. I’ve taken on responsibility for Aunt Nettie. I’ve just proposed to the second person in my life I’ve ever loved. Don’t tell me I won’t change! What are you prepared to give up, Maggie? What are you prepared to change?”

Maggie didn’t answer.

“Think about it, then. Because it sounds to me as though you don’t want to change much in your life at all. Nothing that has anything to do with me, anyway.”

Chapter 38

Camomile: Engergy [sic] Will Surmount Adversity.Hand-­colored steel engraving from American Flora, 1851. Woman on columned balcony, staring at storm clouds above; man on ladder who has climbed to the balcony reaches up to her. Below the title is the poem, “We must on, —be our pathway o’er flowers or o’er thorns, / Do thunder-clouds gloom it, or sunbeams adorn! / Then sigh not! It never will lighten our woe, / But smile, and e’en pleasure from sorrow may flow.” Chamomile flowers surround the picture. Page, 7 x 9.5 inches, toned edges. Picture, 5.5 x 7.5 inches. Price: $50.

The sound of Maggie’s cell phone interrupted them.

“Forget the proposal, Maggie. Forget me. I was wrong to think this was going to work. If it weren’t for this damn hurricane I’d leave for Maine tonight. I’m going downstairs. I need time alone.” The door slammed behind Will.

Maggie stood, shivering, as though a cold wave had just broken over her.

No. This couldn’t have happened. Will couldn’t have walked out on her.

But he had.

Her phone. That had probably been Gussie, cancelling the party. She’d check the message and then go and talk with Will. They’d make up. It would be all right.

Wind was hammering at the windows, shaking the panes. Somewhere a shutter had come loose and was hitting the side of the house. The banging felt as though it was inside her head.

Maggie looked for her bag, where her phone was. She found it under the wet clothes she’d hurriedly peeled off. Before the outline of her world changed.

Her phone was in the bottom of the canvas bag she used as a pocketbook. The bag was still damp; she should have emptied it and put it near the radiator. Too late for that now.

The message wasn’t from Gussie; it was from Annie. Because of the storm, the party’d been moved to an earlier time. Lily’d decided not to go, because of the storm, but Annie would pick Maggie up at five-thirty at Six Gables.

Five-thirty! She only had fifteen minutes to get ready. And no time to talk with Will; no cozy dinner here at the inn. If she weren’t the maid of honor, she’d be tempted to opt out, as Lily had. But she didn’t have a choice.

Somehow through her emotional fog she found clean, dry underwear, a pair of decent slacks, and a dry sweater. The sweater wasn’t as nice as the one she’d had on earlier, but that one wouldn’t be dry for hours. In this weather she couldn’t be expected to be elegant. She looked at the leather shoes she’d planned to wear, and then at her soaked sneakers. Neither was a good choice. She opted for the wet sneakers and a pair of dry socks. Her feet wouldn’t stay dry long anyway. Why ruin a good pair of shoes?

She made an attempt at braiding her still-damp hair, which no doubt would get soaked again, and added a minimum of makeup, hoping it wouldn’t run. She didn’t really care what she looked like anyway.

In case she didn’t see him downstairs, in case he cared, she left Will a note. Time of bachelorette party moved up. Getting ride with Annie. Back as early as possible. She hesitated before signing it, Love, Maggie. She did love him, damn it. She left the note on the bed.

As soon as she got downstairs, Annie pulled up in front of Six Gables, although not in the police car she’d promised earlier. Probably the chief had other plans for the patrol cars tonight, Maggie thought as she climbed into the passenger seat. “How are the roads?” she asked, as they took off.

Tonight was a night to think about Gussie; not about Will.

The rains were still torrential.

“Not good,” Annie admitted. “A half dozen streets have already been blocked off because of flooding, and I had to detour around another because a tree had fallen. Luckily, it hadn’t hit a house, just ­another tree and a mailbox. I called the station to let them know so they could put roadblocks up there, too. It’s going to be a long night.”

“I’m surprised Sheila and Gussie didn’t cancel the party,” Maggie said. “It’s ridiculous to ask anyone to come out in this weather. It must have been a challenge for you to find a baby-sitter tonight.”

“Luckily there are a lot of teenagers in the neighborhood,” Annie said. “I can usually find someone willing to earn some money.” She swerved, barely missing a large branch blocking one lane.

The only lights were from swaying streetlights that gave a ghostly appearance to the wildly blowing tree tops and the garish reflections of the car’s headlights on the wet road.

Maggie looked around. “How far is the Snow Squall Inn? I thought Gussie said it was close to town. We passed downtown a while back.”

“I told you some streets were blocked,” Annie assured her, wiping the inside of the windshield so she could see more clearly. “I’m going around that area.”

Maggie nodded. But she had a growing sense that something was wrong. Even with weather this bad, from what Gussie’d said they should have been to the inn by now. But she didn’t know the area, and it was dark, and with the storm making it even harder to see than it would have been usually, she couldn’t be sure.