Harbor Nights Read Free Page B

china cups on their saucers and scattered them throughout the cabinet. “What color are you thinking about painting this room?” As a change of subject, it was guaranteed to work. It was the first thing her mother had said when she’d signed the settlement papers on this house. She was looking forward to painting every room in the place any color she wanted to. It had been a strange statement from a woman who’d never painted a room in her life. Every room in the house Norah had grown up in had been white. White ceilings, white walls, and light beige carpeting had dominated every room. Norah hadn’t even been allowed to paint her bedroom walls when she was a teenager, let alone hang a poster or two in the sterile environment.
    Had it been any wonder that she had fallen in love with the dorms at college and had rarely come home to visit?
    Her mother took the bait as she studied the white dining room walls. “Blue.” She softly rubbed the towel against the dog. “I’m thinking a deep, rich blue to match the pattern on the china.”
    Norah smiled as she put away the last plate. Joanna’s prize possession was her mother’s china. She watched as her mother fluffed out Zsa Zsa’s hair and then plugged in the hair dryer.
    As the hum of the dryer filled the kitchen and the dining room, Norah jammed all the crinkled newspapers into the empty boxes and carried them to the back porch to join the other stack. Her mother was right. She was exhausted, but it was a good tired. It was the tired feeling you got from physical labor and accomplishing something. The downstairs rooms were in pretty good shape, and her mother’s bedroom looked a lot better than her own. She had been too busy helping her mother to worry about the upstairs where her two rooms and a bath were. Her mother would be appalled if she knew Norah was still digging through boxes to find clean underwear and her deodorant.
    Norah leaned against the porch post and studied the house next door. Ned’s parents’ home was once again in total darkness. Not even a hall light was lit to warn away potential burglars. Ned and Flipper were long gone. She had heard them drive away about five minutes after she returned home.
    She had lied to her mother. She wasn’t fine. Tonight, she had discovered a horrible truth about herself. She had been afraid of Ned and his obvious physical strength. She had the heart of a coward, and she was darn grateful for the fact that Ned wasn’t their neighbor. How would she have the strength to keep hiding that fear day after day?
    It was one more thing to hate her father for. Vincent Stevens, the man who had given her life, had put that fear and cowardice into her heart.
    How was it possible for her mother to look at six-feet, two-inch Ned and think he looked like a nice young man, when all Norah kept seeing were his hands? Big, work-roughened hands.
    Hands like her father’s.
    Hands that hit, and hit hard.
    Norah could close her eyes and still see the night over a year ago when those hands had shattered her trust, her respect, and the love she had always felt for the man who used to bounce her on his knee and give her horsey rides.

Chapter Two
    Norah stood beside Peggy Porter and tried not to let her anxiety show. Four angry lobster fishermen were standing in the middle of her front yard voicing their discontentment with her first weekly article. While the lobstermen weren’t very eloquent in their speech, they were vocal.
    Loud enough for her mother to head back inside the house to try and calm Zsa Zsa down. The four-pound Pomeranian had taken an instant dislike to the shouting men. Their voices had been loud enough for their new neighbor, Peggy Porter, to come storming over to find out what in the world was going on.
    Peggy looked like she could armwrestle and beat every one of the angry men. Norah now knew where Ned got his height and his broad shoulders from—his dear