enough she caught his eye. One point of her forefinger to her place on the couch arm, one swift slip of her hand from Dylan's, and Connor Sutherland took her spot. When she looked back, Connor's large frame completed the circle of old friends and she could no longer see Dylan.
As she wandered away she heard him laugh again, and despite another ache in her heart, she smiled.
People crowded every room of the house. Kitty chatted with a few, but tried to keep circulating, not feeling up to a real conversation. After almost dropping her empty wineglass when a passerby jostled her elbow, she headed for the kitchen to stash it somewhere safe.
Men clogged the kitchen entry, though, and through a chink in two pairs of stocky shoulders, Kitty glimpsed a group of gray-haired Odd Fellows. She was about to excuse herself through them when a comment floated out the door. "Everything's taken care of." She recognized the voice of Bob Byer, who headed the Odd Fellows Park Committee. "As far as I know, Dylan has no idea we're naming the park after him on Heritage Day. The mayor has titled his speech, 'From Hot Water Up Bubbles a Hero.'"
Several people groaned at the half-baked pun, and Kitty would have, too, if the idea of Dylan's being honored on Heritage Day didn't set off a three-alarm-fire's worth of warning bells ringing. He'd hate it, she thought in panic. He'd hate it, and just as certainly as she knew that, she also knew that he'd blame her for it.
She had to tell him what the Odd Fellows planned to do.
Her skin went cold and she shivered, aware of what would happen once she did. Dylan would hop on his motorcycle, married or not, divorced or not, and immediately leave Hot Water behind for good. And Kitty.
And more important, much more important, he'd leave without that happy light in his eyes, that easy laughter, that appreciation of home.
With a few more days here, maybe he could overcome whatever pain the place brought him. Maybe she could engineer an opportunity for Dylan to run into Bram, and he could say what he obviously longed to.
Maybe she wouldn't have to give him up quite so soon. She didn't know what to do. Biting her lip, she turned from the kitchen just as little Amalie wormed her way through the doorway, something in her hands. Apparently on an important mission, the child scurried down a hall and slipped into another room.
That's it, Kitty thought. Sylvia. The other woman knew Dylan. Like Kitty, she'd seen the love Dylan had for the town. Kitty would ask her what to do.
Figuring Amalie would be the quickest route to her mother, Kitty headed in the direction she'd seen Amalie disappear. The open doorway led to two rooms, what looked like an office and beyond that, through an arched entry, a small room with a couch and a TV.
There, Sylvia sat on the couch, her arm around Kitty's mother, her expression full of sympathy and concern.
Kitty froze by the desk in the adjoining office, her gaze fixed on the two women. A premonition set the hairs on the back of her neck rising.
"You should have said something, Samantha," Sylvia scolded. "Here I've been jawing your ear off for weeks with my moans and groans, and you haven't been feeling well either."
Kitty frowned. Samantha did look green around the gills. For weeks?
From outside Kitty's range of vision, Amalie skipped into view, a plastic-wrapped tube of crackers in her hand. "This what you wanted, Mommy, right?"
Sylvia smiled and took them from her daughter. "Yes, sweetie. Thank you." She held them out to Samantha.
Samantha eyed the crackers dubiously. "They don't work."
"Raspberry tea?"
Samantha shook her head. "No good either. Worse, as a matter of fact."
Saltine crackers? Raspberry tea? Kitty had seen them in Samantha's cart yesterday. Sylvia had mentioned both to Kitty just a few minutes ago as a morning-sickness remedy. For pregnancy. Kitty's mind slammed to a halt, backed up.
For pregnancy?
No! Yes?
Her mother was pregnant?
She looked at Samantha harder, taking in the definitely greenish cast to her skin. Samantha held a cracker to her mouth, then dropped it into her lap with a sigh. "I don't remember feeling this way when I was pregnant with Kitty," she said.
Her mother was pregnant.
Kitty whirled, and ran smack into Judge D. B. Matthews. She'd been doing a lot of that lately, she thought hysterically. Just like yesterday, his gaze was fixed on Samantha, and he looked