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Queen City Candy Shoppe (Great Lakes Romances) (Volume 7)

By Donna Winters

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CHAPTER 1
Traverse City, Michigan
July 2, 1900

Coal smoke fouled the air as eighteen-year-old Rosalie Foxe slipped into a window seat aboard the half-full Grand Rapids and Indiana train bound for Detroit. She ignored the stares at her crippled right shoulder and arm as she used her left hand to set her valise on the empty seat beside her and take out the little volume of poems by John Henry Boner of her native North Carolina. Laying aside the embroidered bookmark, she started to read.
But a nightmarish accusation leveled against her earlier that morning repeated again and again in her mind. Desperate to block it out, she closed her eyes and envisioned herself in her daddy’s carriage entering the long driveway at Tanglewood, the beloved North Carolina home she’d left a month ago.
The old, familiar oaks, poplars, and magnolias stretched their boughs in welcome, shading her from the blistering heat of summer in the Piedmont. Passing stables and horse pastures, she scanned the landscape for some sign of Vanda Mae, her horse-crazy sixteen-year-old sister. Was she out riding in the woods? Had her cherished mare, Tassie, produced the foal that had enticed Vanda Mae to remain in the oppressive heat rather than seek the cooler realm of the mountain resort at Blowing Rock as their mother had?
Rosalie’s daydream carried her past barns and servants’ quarters to the circle in front of an eighteen-room manor house that stood on a rise like a rectangular brick fortress guarding the meadow below. She hurried inside and up the sweeping staircase to the spacious bedroom that had always granted her shelter from the cruelties of the world.
The thud of a passenger car window dropping shut jolted her back to reality. She was not in North Carolina, but in northern Michigan on a sojourn that had been a graduation gift from a cherished aunt and uncle she had seldom seen in her growing-up years. Again, the contemptible words that had cast slurs on her trustworthiness and sent her packing for Tanglewood echoed in her mind. She bowed her head in a silent, urgent prayer. Lord, right now I’m feeling like the small end of nothing whittled down to a fine point. Please carry me back to Tanglewood just as quickly as—
“Miss Foxe, I am disappointed in you. I didn’t think you’d leave Traverse City at a time like this.”
Kenton McCune, the thirty-one-year-old attorney friend of her Aunt Lottie and Uncle Benjamin interrupted her supplication. He put her valise on the floor and sat on the aisle seat beside her, his neatly trimmed mustache and goatee accentuating the grim line of his mouth.
His clipped speech contrasted so sharply with the easygoing drawl of North Carolinians that it still grated on her ears despite the fact that she’d spoken with him a dozen times or more. Her gaze moved from his meticulously creased pants to his pin-tucked white shirt to his hazel-come-grey eyes.
She measured her words. “You think I stole the mortgage money from Uncle Benjamin and Aunt Lottie, don’t you now?”
Kenton leaned close. “Did you?”
The question and his nearness augmented her discomfort. “You’d have to be crazy as a betsy bug to think I’d do that. I made the payment on the candy store Friday morning, just like they asked me to.”
“You’re sure?”
Rosalie glared at him, then raised her book between them in an effort to ignore his question, the scent of his sandalwood soap that reminded her so much of her daddy, and the peculiar effect this Michigander was having on her nerves.
Kenton lowered the book with one finger—the nail-less one he’d smashed in a baseball game awhile back. But he’d hit a home run in that game and she could still see him dashing around the bases.
He continued. “Running away makes you look guilty. Tell me again you didn’t take the money.”
Rosalie sighed heavily. “I did not take it, Mr. McCune. Now, are you satisfied?”
“No. Not until you get off this train. You’re the only person who can help me keep Gowen from foreclosing on Ben and Lottie.” He paused, his expression more solemn. “Besides, your aunt and uncle will be deeply hurt to think you’ve abandoned them.”
Rosalie snapped her book shut forgetting to replace the bookmark still on her lap. “You may be a smooth-talking Yankee lawyer from Harvard, Mr. McCune, but that butters no cornbread with me at-all. I mean, do you really think you can convince me to stay?”
Kenton picked up the bookmark and read it aloud. “‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.’ Did you make this?” He waved it in front of her. “Or did you steal it?”
Rosalie snatched it from him. “Of course I made it! I try to live by its motto, too.”
“Then live by it now. See this thing through. You can’t run from your troubles, Miss Foxe.”
She looked away.
He drew a deep breath. “The city is about to fill up with guests for the Independence Day celebration. Ben and Lottie need your help at the store more than ever. Besides, you promised to attend the Carnival Ball with me tomorrow night.”
Placing the bookmark inside the front cover, Rosalie focused on him. “My mind is made up. I’m going home to Vanda Mae and Daddy. I miss them something fierce. I miss Shani’s grits and red-eye gravy. Most of all, I miss Willy Jo Winthrop.” She named her neighbor and best friend, the twenty-two-year-old next door.
“But—”
“I know you only invited me to the ball to please Aunt Lottie. I never wanted to go in the first place. The sooner I get away from here, the better.” The instant the words came out, she regretted speaking falsely—about her desire to go to the ball at least. Only a distinguished few had been invited and she had counted it a privilege not to be relegated to the gallery like the rest of the public.
Kenton glared at her.
She fidgeted with the satin bow at her neck, the one with the crimped tails she always wore. For an instant she was sure he’d grab hold of that ribbon and lead her off the train.
“Go home to Tanglewood, then. I’ll give Ben and Lottie your good byes.” He made his way toward the exit at the back of the car.
Rosalie turned to watch him go, her stomach churning. He was right. She couldn’t outrun trouble.
He disappeared from view just as the conductor shouted, “Last call! All aboard!”

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