That Chesapeake Summer (Chesapeake Diaries Book 9)

by Mariah Stewart

  On the opposite corner stood yet another redbrick building. Jamie crossed the street to read the sign, and her breath caught in her throat.

  Enright and Enright, Attorneys-at-Law.

  Jamie stood frozen to the spot for a very long moment. She leaned against a nearby magnolia and stared as if seeing a vision or watching a video of her parents arriving that day so long ago. Her father parking his big white Oldsmobile out front, getting out of the car to open her mother’s door, and taking her arm. Jamie could almost sense their excitement, their anticipation, their anxiety, as they walked to the door and opened it. Later, they’d have left hand in hand, their steps buoyant, wondering if they dared believe this wonderful thing—this promise of a baby they’d wanted for so long—could actually come true.

  She blinked and the vision was gone, but she was pretty sure that was the way it would have gone. They’d been to this very place, arranging to take her as their child. That she stood here now raised goose bumps on her arms. For a moment, she felt them here, too, and then the moment passed and they were gone.

  Funny, she thought as she walked back to her car, the last place I expected to find my parents was here, in St. Dennis.

  Jamie couldn’t help feeling that she just might have their blessing after all.

  SHE RETURNED TO the inn armed with a mental list of things to do and several photos on her phone. She opted for dinner in her room and a leisurely stroll on the grounds at dusk. The bay was quiet and deep blue, and from the end of the main dock, she watched several sailboats glide into their berths. She heard music drifting from somewhere—one of the boats at anchor on the water, maybe?—and saw lightning bugs dance across the darkening landscape. When her stroll found her at the front of the inn, she took a seat in one of the comfy-looking rocking chairs and sat back with a contented sigh. Her eyes closed—the chair’s movement gentle and rhythmic—she embraced the solitude and the peace of the moment. It was, she realized, the most relaxed she’d felt in . . . She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so weightless. After the emotional drain of the past couple of months, such moments were bliss. She easily could have fallen asleep right there.

  The sound of a man and a woman arguing beyond the nearby hedge brought her back to reality. “You didn’t have to be such a heavy, Dan. A simple ‘Sorry, but I can’t do that’ would probably have sufficed,” the woman said.

  “Do you really think that was a practical request?” The man’s voice drifted across the veranda.

  “I think you could have at least pretended to give consideration to it. I think you could listen more and talk less. You know, sometimes you can come across as a real knucklehead.”

  “Knucklehead? Really, Luce? That’s the best you can come up with?” He snorted.

  “Shut. Up.”

  “There was—is—no point in discussing it. It’s out of the question.”

  “Could you at least apologize for your attitude?”

  “What’s wrong with my attitude?”

  “I can’t believe you actually asked me that.” The woman reached the walk leading to the veranda, muttering something about “Mr. Crankypants.”

  In the porch light, Jamie could see that the woman was petite and had long, light auburn hair trailing down her back. She was followed by a tall man with a nice set of shoulders. Jamie couldn’t see his face, but she recognized the walk. She’d followed him from the lobby to her room earlier that day.

  Looks like the bellboy has a real way with the ladies, Jamie thought dryly. Color me surprised.

  The petite woman opened the front door and went inside, slamming the door in his face. He swore softly under his breath before following.

  Some guys got it, Jamie mused, some guys wish they had.

  Minutes later, the tranquil spell having been broken, she walked through the lobby to the stairwell, and there he was again, outside the dining room doors, this time in conversation with a pretty dark-haired girl in her mid-teens. Whatever he was saying made the girl roll her eyes and walk away with a toss of her hair.

  I feel your pain, Jamie could have told the girl as she walked past.

  But halfway up the stairs, Jamie glanced back over her shoulder and took a second look. He was standing in the same place, his hands on his hips, watching the young girl disappear through the double doors, a somewhat confused look on his face. Instead of the polo and khaki shorts he’d worn earlier, he was dressed in a gray suit with a white shirt open at the collar where a tie draped and hung untied.

  What a shame, she thought. He really looks pretty hot in a suit.

  She’d gone back to her room and hunkered down for the rest of the night, mapping out her game plan. Tomorrow she’d stop at the library and do some research on the early days of St. Dennis. She didn’t expect to have any epiphanies, but she did want to get the lay of the historical land. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but it was a starting place. The library might have a copy of the phone or property directory from 1979, and that could help her get a feel for the population, for who lived here back then. Sometimes phone directories listed the children’s phone numbers separately, so that information could be useful as well. If her birth mother had been sixteen in 1979, was there a chance that she had her own phone line? Again, a long shot, but the entire trip was about long shots.

  She tapped her pen on the desktop. Didn’t some libraries keep high school yearbooks? That, too, was worth checking into. The woman she sought most likely graduated in 1980 or ’81. Assuming she attended the local schools, her name and photo could be there. If Jamie made a list of the girls who graduated in those years, she might somehow, eventually, be able to narrow down the list to a few likely suspects. Of course, the woman could have attended a different school, and by now she could have married and changed her name, or she could have moved to one of the nearby small towns.

  Jamie knew the odds were very slim that any of her maybes would lead her to the eureka moment she was hoping for, but as her father always liked to say, every journey begins with a single step. Tomorrow she would take that first step. Time alone would tell where it might lead.

  Chapter 5

  JAMIE’S first full day in St. Dennis began with breakfast on the terrace overlooking the inn’s tennis courts. The only sound was that of a ball being lobbed back and forth by a couple of early-morning players. The air was scented by a nearby flower bed, and the sailboats heading out onto the bay on the easy breeze made the perfect picture of a June morning on the Chesapeake. Jamie sighed, content to be where she was at that moment. It hadn’t taken much to convince her to sit just a little longer and enjoy a second cup of coffee before signing her name and room number on the check and heading out into her day.

  Her first stop was the library, where, after a chat with the librarian, she discovered there was in fact a directory on the shelves for each year since there’d been phone service in town. She located the one for 1979 and eagerly took a seat at one of the tables and opened it, but it was impossible to sort through all the names and businesses. There’d been far more residents than she’d assumed back then, and the book covered not only St. Dennis but several nearby towns as well. She skimmed from page to page before having to concede that the exercise was a waste of time. She returned the directory to the front desk and inquired about school yearbooks.

  “From which school?” the librarian asked.

  “The local high school,” Jamie replied.

  “There are two,” the woman said. “Bayside Regional High School and St. Dennis Academy.” She paused. “Before the regional school was built, there was St. Dennis High.”

  “What year would that have been? I’m looking for 1979 and 1980.”

  “The new school was built in the 1990s, so you want the old high school and the academy.”

  “Right.”

  “You’ll find them in the local history section.” The woman pointed o
ff to the left.

  “Thanks.”

  Jamie located the section and pulled the respective years—1979 and 1980—for both schools. She carried the four yearbooks back to her table and took a deep breath before opening the first one. The class of 1979 of St. Dennis Academy consisted of forty-two students, not all of whom, she discovered, lived in St. Dennis. She turned the pages carefully, studying the face of each girl before writing down the name. She scrutinized each one for some similarity to her own features that could possibly hint at a relationship—a hairline, the shape of the eyes, the nose, the smile. But there was nothing that stood out, nothing that made her place a star next to a girl’s name. It took several hours, and when Jamie closed the last of the four yearbooks, she had almost one hundred names.

  Ridiculous, she thought as she returned the yearbooks to their respective shelves. How in the world am I going to pare that down?

  She thanked the librarian and went outside to sit in the shaded courtyard, where she looked over the pages she’d filled in her notebook. Any one of the girls could turn out to be her birth mother. She softly read aloud several of the names, hoping to feel something stir inside her at the sound; again, nothing. But far from being discouraged, she got off the bench and walked down the street to the building that housed the historical society.

  A minivan was parked in front of the lovely Victorian building—surely once the home of someone prominent—and three boys in their early teens were carrying boxes from the van to the front porch.

  “That looks heavy,” Jamie remarked as she passed by.

  “Nah, we’re good.” The boy—tall and skinny, all arms and legs, his dark auburn hair falling over his freckled forehead—transferred the box to his right arm, then made a show of his virtually nonexistent bicep with his left. He exchanged a grin with Jamie—Yeah, I’m a ham—and stood back to let her pass.

  Jamie was still smiling when she went up the path to the porch. A plaque reading 1877 hung next to the front door. The earliest she’d seen thus far had been 1718, but there could be some even older. She stepped inside the building, wondering exactly when the first settlers arrived, when the town was established, and which home was the oldest. Perhaps she’d find the answers here. She might not learn anything about her birth mother, but a little local history could be interesting, if not potentially useful, depending on what else she discovered during her stay in St. Dennis.

  “Hello?” Jamie called from the foyer, assuming that since the building was open, there would be someone there, a docent or a member of the organization, but no one responded to her call.

  Her freckle-faced friend came into the hall from somewhere back in the house. When he saw her, he said, “I think they might be opening a little late today. Mrs. Ferguson—today’s her usual day—hasn’t gotten here yet.”

  “Oh. I saw the door open and you and the others coming in and out, and I just thought . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  “We’re just here ’cause my gramma asked us to bring some stuff over for her. Stuff she was sort of archiving and is finished with.” He leaned against the newel post.

  “Is your grandmother the local historian?”

  “Not officially, but I don’t think anyone knows more about St. Dennis than she does. She knows everything that ever happened in St. Dennis and everyone it happened to.”

  “She sounds like someone I’d like to know.”

  “She’s pretty old, but she’s pretty cool.” He sat on the bottom step. “You can probably wait here till Mrs. Ferguson gets in.”

  Jamie looked through a wide doorway into the next room. “I’d like that.”

  “I don’t think you should be wandering around, though.” The boy was obviously having second thoughts.

  “Maybe I could just wait out on the front porch,” Jamie said.

  “That might be . . .” He looked beyond Jamie. “Oh, there’s Mrs. Ferguson.”

  A woman in her late sixties came through the door carrying a grocery bag. The boy jumped up and held out his arms. “I can take that for you,” he told her.

  “Oh, thank you, D.J. You can put it in the kitchen next to—” The woman noticed Jamie and frowned. “I’m afraid we’re not quite ready for visitors. I apologize for running late. If you wouldn’t mind waiting outside for ten minutes or so . . .”

  “I was just about to do exactly that.” Jamie flashed her friendliest smile.

  “I let her in, Mrs. Ferguson,” the boy said over his shoulder on his way out of the room. Mrs. Ferguson was still frowning.

  “Really, I just thought the building was already open. I haven’t gone beyond the foyer,” Jamie explained.

  “I suppose it’s all right,” the woman said. “It is my fault that we didn’t open on time.”

  “We all have those mornings when, no matter what we do, we run a little late.”

  “Yes, well. Thank you for understanding. Now, was there something in particular you wanted to see?”

  “I was hoping to find some information on the early settlement of the town.” Jamie added as if an afterthought, “And maybe something about the early families.” Might as well start at the beginning.

  “Oh, there’s lots of information about the First Families. That’s what we in town call the early folks who settled and stayed. We have a big event every year to honor them.”

  “When is that?”

  “The second Sunday in November.” Mrs. Ferguson was clearly beginning to warm to Jamie.

  “What kind of things do you do?”

  “Well, the usual, you know. Speeches down the street at the square, and they do some sort of reenactment, which is fun.”

  “Reenactment?”

  “Important events in the town’s past. Like the time the British tried to shell us during the War of 1812. Or the pirate invasions.”

  “Pirates invaded St. Dennis?”

  “Oh, yes. For years starting in the 1700s and lasting for over a hundred years. Because we’re right on the bay, you see. We were an easy mark. Mostly, a bunch of them would pile into a boat, row to shore—our harbor’s too shallow for those big ships, you know—grab a few residents, and hold them for ransom. Once they got paid, they’d leave. No one ever got hurt.”

  “The pirates traded their hostages for money?”

  Mrs. Ferguson nodded. “Exactly.”

  “They ever take anyone with them?”

  The woman shook her head. “No. Although I have heard tales of the occasional sailor falling under the spell of a hostage and deciding to stay on in St. Dennis.”

  “That’s a romantic thought.”

  “You’ve no idea how many people in St. Dennis claim to have pirate blood,” Mrs. Ferguson confided. Jamie wondered if she might be one of them. “After the reenactment, we have a ham supper at the Grange Hall. Same dinner every year, but everyone in town goes, and it’s always fun.”

  “Sorry I won’t be here for it,” Jamie said.

  “You’re visiting?”

  “Just for a few weeks.”

  “Vacation?”

  Jamie nodded.

  “Well, we welcome you to St. Dennis. Now, would you like a tour?”

  “I would love one, thank you.”

  The tour lasted exactly twenty minutes, and if Jamie hadn’t asked so many questions, it would have gone half as long.

  She spent another hour going through the records of the early days and was making a list of the First Families when she sensed someone in the doorway. She looked up to find her young friend watching her.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Are you, like, a teacher or something?” he asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Because mostly only teachers spend so much time with those.” He pointed to the books.

  “Oh. Well, I’m only in town for a little while, but I always like to know the sto
ries about the places where I stay.” Jamie held up the book where the names of the early settlers had been written down. “I was just wondering if the descendants of any of these folks were still around town.”

  He came closer to look at the title. “Oh, yeah. The First Families. Sure. Lots of them. And there’s a book here somewhere that has maps that show where all the houses were back in the early days. It’s pretty cool.”

  “You seem to know a lot about the town.”

  “My dad’s family is in that book.” He pointed to the one she was holding.

  “Oh? What’s the name?”

  “Sinclair.”

  “As in the inn?”

  He nodded. “My great-great-great . . . I forget how many greats . . . grandfather built it. It’s a famous place.”

  “It sure is. I’m staying there.”

  “You are?” He smiled. “Cool. It’s the coolest place in St. Dennis. We have—”

  “D.J., come on.” One of his friends appeared in the doorway. “My mom is waiting for us, and she said we’re already late.”

  “Okay.” He turned back to Jamie. “Nice talking to you. See you around the inn, maybe.”

  The two boys disappeared, their footsteps heavy on the porch. Moments later, Mrs. Ferguson reappeared. “Those are such interesting tales, aren’t they?” she asked.

  “They are. I was wondering, does the historical society sell copies, by any chance?”

  “No, but we’ve been asked to have some made. I think the board of directors is considering doing something like that for a fund-raiser next year. If you’d like to check back . . .”

  “Is there a mailing list?”

  “No, but we can start one.” She searched her pockets for a small notebook, opened it, and looked for a blank page. She handed it to Jamie, saying, “I’m afraid I don’t have a pen handy.”

  “I have one, thanks.” Jamie wrote her name and address, then handed the notebook back. “Do I understand there’s a book that shows where all the First Families made their homes?”