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could do to a man’s gut. She must not, because she said only, “I’ll have to speak to the store’s owner and see about ordering one. Do you see any others with January on them?”
    â€œNo … wait!” He stretched past her to pick up a page that had slid away from the others.
    His fingers remained above the page as he stared into her face. She was so near he could taste her sweet breath as it burst from her in soft gasp. All he had to do was close his arm around her and press his lips over hers to discover if her kiss would be as luscious as he suspected. He watched her eyelashes lower to curve along her cheeks as he leaned toward her. Was she trying to shut him out or inviting him to kiss her?
    Footsteps sounded hollowly from the front porch. Noah grasped the page behind her and shoved it into her hands. He gathered up more of the papers and placed them on the counter as he stood. Recognizing both the minister and the boy who had stolen his hammer, he stepped back as Emma peeked over the counter. Who had persuaded Reverend Faulkner to take that troublesome boy?
    â€œReverend Faulkner!” she cried, firing a guilty glance at Noah that suggested they had been doing something far more illicit than picking up scattered papers.
    Coming around the counter, Noah chuckled under his breath. That glance told him her thoughts had not been so different from his. As he bid her good day and went back out the door, he smiled. Maybe coming to Haven had not been such a bad idea, after all.

CHAPTER THREE
    â€œDisgraceful! Completely disgraceful!” Mrs. Randolph dropped the newspaper back onto the worn counter.
    Leaning one elbow on the glass jars where she kept candy for the children, Emma smiled. “Mrs. Randolph, you should not read about what is going on in Washington, DC. It always upsets you.”
    The elderly woman, whose hair was still the color of the mourning she wore for her husband, who had died a dozen years ago, tapped her finger on the front page of the Indianapolis newspaper that was only a few days old. “They are thieves! I say it’s time we told them that. With the surpluses they have in the federal treasury, they should be sending some of that money back to us here in Haven. Miss Underhill could use new primers at the school, and the sheriff …”
    Emma let Mrs. Randolph continue to vent her spleen, but paid no attention to the specifics of her complaints today. Mrs. Randolph did not care if anyone listened to her, for she would gladly talk to herself if no one else was about. Or maybe she thought everyone listened so intently they were speechless. She even sat and talked with Mr. Baker for hours on end, refusing to admit the man could not hear her soft voice.
    â€œHere you go,” Emma interjected when Mrs. Randolph halted her tirade to take a breath. Handing the small package wrapped in brown paper to the old lady, she added, “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Randolph.”
    â€œYoung fools! Not one of them has the brain of an earthworm. Twice as slimy.”
    Emma came around the counter and gently steered Mrs. Randolph toward the door. The old woman was still outlining each shortcoming of the federal legislature as she walked down Main Street. Leaning her head against the open door, Emma watched, wanting to be certain Mrs. Randolph did not walk right past her small house on the corner of Maple Street. More than once, lost in her outrage, Mrs. Randolph had wandered halfway to the bottomland down by the river before she had turned about to come home.
    Smiling, Emma straightened and stretched her tired shoulders as Mrs. Randolph opened the gate in the recently painted picket fence surrounding her house. Haven had more than its share of eccentric characters, which might be the very reason Emma liked living here. The townsfolk accepted everyone’s idiosyncrasies, even hers.
    She turned the sign in the door to let any stragglers know Delancy’s General Store