“You’re a doll. Thank you.”
“I’m honored you’re letting me do this for you.”
“Don’t be silly. When one of the most amazing clothing designers I’ve ever met is my dear friend, I would be crazy not to ask her to design my wedding gown.”
Samantha glowed, not only at the praise of her work but because Gemma considered her a friend.
“Samantha is the best designer in the entire state of Idaho,” Kat said loyally.
All right, that might be hyperbole but she wasn’t about to argue. Sam did know she was extraordinarily lucky to be here in a town she loved, doing work she loved and surrounded by dear friends.
“I’m a seamstress,” she felt compelled to clarify. “I’m not really a designer.”
Katrina made a scoffing sort of noise. “Oh, stop it. The only one in this room who doesn’t consider you a designer is standing there with a pincushion on her wrist.”
Samantha fought down her instinctive impulse to disagree, to point out the many designs she had tried that were flops.
Of course Katrina would praise her work. She was Sam’s best friend and had been since they were in grade school. Kat was contractually obligated to give her positive strokes, right? If she wasn’t her best friend, would she still like Sam’s designs?
She knew that was the negative voice in her head that still spoke in her mother’s voice. Would it ever leave her?
She felt the twinge of guilt mingled with grief that had become painfully familiar to her since her mother died.
“I met your brother yesterday,” she told Gemma to distract herself from it. As she spoke, she was careful not to meet Katrina’s gaze this time. Her friend knew her entirely too well and might begin to guess at the whirl of conflicting emotions the man had stirred in her during their brief encounter.
Gemma’s eyes lit up. “That’s right. I forgot he decided to rent a house near yours. Did you meet the children, as well?”
“Yes. Actually, I fished Thomas out of the lake when he fell off my dock.”
“Did you?” Katrina looked shocked, knowing full well her aversion to the water.
“Oh, thank you,” Gemma exclaimed. “He might be a bit of a rascal but I’m fairly fond of him.”
Samantha shrugged. “It wasn’t deep water. He might have even been able to pull himself back on the dock or at least hold on to it to get to shore, but I think the cold water knocked the air out of him. I’m glad I was there. It was an accident. Amelia said he was looking at fish and lost his balance.”
Gemma shook her head. “That boy is going to be the death of poor Mrs. Gilbert, their nanny. He’s even more of a handful than Ian was at that age.”
Samantha had a difficult time imagining Ian Summerhill as a mischievous, troublesome boy. He seemed too stiff for that. Her mind chose that moment to replay one of those heated dreams she’d had about him and she felt her cheeks flush, hoping neither Kat nor Gemma noticed.
“I didn’t realize your family was coming to town for the wedding,” Katrina said. “Silly me. I should have realized. How long are they staying?”
“My parents don’t arrive until the week before the wedding but my brother and his children came to the area a bit early.”
“Amelia said they’re having an American adventure.”
Gemma smiled as Sam moved to the other side to finish pinning up the train.
“Ian likely won’t appreciate me spilling his secrets but my brother has been obsessed with the Wild Wild West since he was a boy watching reruns of old Westerns on the telly. Both my brothers loved them. Father, too. He bought them matching cowboy pajamas.”
She tried again to picture Ian as a boy of Thomas’s age, hair still dark and tousled, eyes still that bright blue, wearing cowboy pj’s and watching old-time heroes riding through the mountains in search of the bad guys who had betrayed them.
It was an entirely too endearing image. She didn’t want to feel fondly toward him. She didn’t have time to think about him at all.
She was the one who brought up his name, Sam reminded herself. This whole conversation was entirely her fault.
“How old are the children?” Katrina asked. As an elementary school teacher and mother of two adopted children, she always focused on children first.
“Amelia is eight and Ian is six. They’re lovely children, despite everything they’ve been through.”
“What have they been through?” Kat asked with a concerned frown.
“It’s very sad actually. Their mother died a year ago of cancer.”
“Oh,” Sam exclaimed, letting go of the material. “Oh. Those poor dears.”
“She was sick for a year before that. I think they’re all still figuring out how to go on.”
That must be the reason for the shadows she thought she had seen in his eyes.
Sunlight filtered in through her high windows, making the dress glow as Sam quickly finished.
“I won’t lie. I had my own issues with Susan before she grew ill, but I would never say she wasn’t a loving mother. The children miss her very much. They’re all a little lost, if you want the truth. I’m hoping this time together in Haven Point helps them find their way a little. It certainly worked its magic on me.”
Sam didn’t know Gemma’s entire story but she knew enough to be certain her friend very much deserved her happy ending with a good man like Josh Bailey, Katrina’s cousin.
She had dated Josh herself a few times. He was nice, gentlemanly, funny. For a week or two, she had even thought she might be falling for him.
Of course, she could say that about a dozen guys in Lake Haven County.
Sam shoved a pin in a little too hard, poking her finger in the process. She told herself that was the reason she had winced, not the reminder of her own years of stupidity.
“I’m sorry I
