Wisconsin Wedding & Doctor, Soldier, Daddy by Carla Neggers

Author:Carla Neggers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

EPILOGUE

ON A SNOWY morning a few weeks after the Forrester brothers had given Tyler a fresh jolt of gossip with their surprise marriages to two prominent town citizens, Nora was working on one of her famous Christmas window displays when she spotted Byron in the street. Her heartbeat quickened. Snowflakes were gathering on his dark hair. He waved at her and flicked a snowflake in her direction, always ready to tease.

She loved him totally. He’d continued to prove himself a man of excitement, surprise and change. He’d already talked to Joe Santori—Tyler’s most eligible bachelor—about turning part of the garage into a studio for himself. The little twenties house was fast becoming not Aunt Ellie’s, not Nora’s, but a comfortable blend of the tastes and spirits of the woman who’d built it, the lonely girl who’d found herself there, the man who’d found love there. Together, Nora and Byron were becoming renowned as hosts. She was getting to know his friends from the East and all over; he was getting to know her friends from Tyler and the world of Wisconsin retail. That weekend, Henry Morrow—Hank, as he now preferred to be called—was coming to discuss technothrillers.

Byron pointed to the entrance to Gates Department Store, indicating that he was coming inside. Nora finished what she was working on and joined him.

He was already on a stepladder, hanging the photograph of Aunt Ellie and Nora above the glass-fronted perfume counter where he’d taken it. Looking at the image of herself from three years ago, Nora realized Aunt Ellie had been right to encourage Byron to leave Tyler then. He’d needed the time, but so had she. Those three years had made today—and their future together—possible.

Byron climbed down and stood next to his wife. “Johnny Kelsey stopped by the store earlier,” she told him. “Word’s going out—they’ve identified the body found at the lodge as an adult female. Her size isn’t inconsistent with Margaret Ingalls’s.”

“Does Liza know?” Byron asked seriously.

“I’m going out to the lodge now. I’ll tell her myself.”

He nodded. “I’ll go with you. Thank God she has Cliff! With all he’s faced, he can help her get through whatever she has to in the next weeks or months.”

Nora looked up at the smiling face of her plain, beautiful great-aunt. “Aunt Ellie admired Margaret for being her own woman, even at the risk of having people disapprove of her.”

“I wonder what she’d have said about this latest news.”

“First things first,” Nora said, quoting the woman who’d helped raise her, who’d guided her into adulthood and had helped her find her true self, even if she hadn’t lived to see it all happen. She slipped her arm around her husband’s solid waist, overwhelmed, as she still so often was, by how much she loved him, how tremendously lucky she was. “And she’d insist that Tyler’s strong enough to face the truth.”

“Your Aunt Ellie was a wise woman.”

“She was,” Nora said, “herself.”

* * * * *

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