For Jessie's Sake. Kate Welsh

Hopetown had been on the banks of the Delaware River since 1689, and no money-grubbing builder was going to help wipe it off the map.

      Hopetown had been hit by three major floods in the past eighteen months, the runoff that endangered many homes and roads was caused by too much development in the entire watershed region. Colin’s plans would only increase the runoff just upstream, dangerously close to town.

      The Hopewell name still meant something around there and she’d use every bit of influence it gave her. She’d beat Colin McCarthy and see his dreams crushed.

      Just the way he’d crushed hers.

      Chapter Five

      Colin stood in the shadow of one of the big oaks that shaded the oldest section of Main Street, waiting for Abby to leave the meeting. He’d spent the past ten minutes trying once again to control his temper, which seemed to flare where she was concerned.

      Earlier in the evening, when he’d run into her on the porch, he’d purposely brought up Tracy to see her reaction. Juliana Hopewell was right. Abby still deeply mourned his little sister.

      Knowing that, he had to try to understand the past, so he’d called his mother. She’d confessed that his father had ordered Tracy to end her friendship with Abby. He’d told Tracy only that James Hopewell had threatened to ruin them financially if Abby had any contact with the McCarthys. He hadn’t told Tracy the whole truth because they’d decided that in the short term they wouldn’t tell any of the younger children what had happened. It had seemed unnecessary to risk upsetting them about the threat to their parents’ livelihood.

      Now, though, Colin needed to understand what had happened. Now he knew why Tracy and Abby had ended their friendship. Abby hadn’t had a thing to do with Tracy’s death. Which left him with no reason to be angry—and a boatload of leftover hunger for her that he could do nothing about.

      Because, in spite of any attraction she still felt for him, she had every reason to think he’d used her that night. And for some reason she seemed to hold him responsible for what had happened to Tracy, which made no sense at all. It had been Abby, young and upset though she had been, who’d caved in to her father’s demands and given away their secret.

      Now she’d tried to torpedo his project, causing his anger to blaze anew. Once again the great and glorious Hopewell name alone was more important within the town than anything or anyone else.

      Harley had made it plain that they needed this development to widen the town’s tax base. And the McCarthy family needed it too. Torthúil had begun failing about a year before Tracy’s death and that expense had nearly put them over the edge. It had been Liam McCarthy’s dream to preserve the farm for future generations—to sell Torthúil would have broken his father’s already wounded heart. But his daughter’s death had left him a nearly broken man. They’d sold off all the expensive farm machinery to pay off the banknote and moved to Florida to improve their health—and forget the past.