That Chesapeake Summer (Chesapeake Diaries Book 9)

by Mariah Stewart

  Barbara looked around and appeared to notice Jamie, who stood quietly off to one side observing the conversation, for the first time. Her eyes lit with recognition, and she snapped her fingers. “J. L. Valentine.” She extended a hand to Jamie.

  “Jamie Valentine, but yes. I can’t believe you recognized me. Most people don’t know what authors look like.”

  Barbara reached behind Jamie and picked up a book and held it up for her to see. It was The Honest Relationship. “I see your face every day.” Barbara smiled. “I’ve been selling this book since the day it was released. Can’t keep it in the shop. Are you visiting? Vacationing?” She poked Dan in the side. “Or slumming around with this guy?”

  “I’m staying at the inn,” Jamie told her. “Dan was kind enough to bring me in to meet you. I was hoping maybe I could—”

  “You have to do a signing while you’re in town. And soon. Would you be willing?”

  “That’s actually what I came in to ask about.”

  “Tuesday of next week would be perfect. Does Tuesday work for you? Maybe around one?”

  “You know your clientele. If you think Tuesday at one is good, that’s fine with me.”

  “Excellent. I’ll order the books first thing in the morning. In the meantime, could I ask you to sign the ones that are in stock?”

  “Of course. I’d love to.” Jamie reached into her bag for a pen, but Barbara had one at the ready. “Thanks.” She signed her name in the seven copies that were on the table. All the while, Dan stood behind her, counting down the time by keeping his eyes on his watch.

  “Thank you so much, Jamie.” Barbara smiled. “These will be sold before noon tomorrow. Stop back anytime. You don’t have to wait until Tuesday.”

  “Four minutes thirty seconds,” Dan whispered in Jamie’s ear.

  “Great meeting you, Barbara. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

  “Right. Looking forward to it. See you, Dan,” Barbara called as he headed for the door. He waved without turning around. At the risk of being left in town to walk home, Jamie followed him out the door.

  “How’d I do?” she asked when they got into the car.

  “Fine. Lucky you get to ride back to the inn.”

  They rode in silence, and when Dan made the turn onto the inn’s drive, Jamie said, “Look, I’m sorry if you think I overstepped some boundary. You need to understand the circumstances.”

  “You need to understand when to butt out of other people’s conversations.”

  “I was asked for my opinion.”

  “You didn’t have to give it. Or be so enthusiastic about it.”

  “What did you expect me to say? Your daughter looked beautiful. She was absolutely beaming in that dress.”

  “She should have picked something else.”

  “Maybe something with a turtleneck that hit her around the ankles?”

  “Do they make dresses like that?”

  Was he serious? He sounded serious.

  “Only for the Amish.” Jamie paused. “Except for the turtleneck. Look—”

  “No, you look.” He stopped, then blew out a breath. “Never mind.” He parked in the same spot behind the inn.

  “Look, I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.” He got out of the car and waited for her to get out before locking it and heading for the inn at a quick pace.

  “Thanks for the ride.” She didn’t bother trying to catch up to him.

  “I’d say anytime, but I wouldn’t mean it.” He went into the inn, leaving her behind, wondering just what his problem was, and how a warm, friendly woman like Grace Sinclair could have raised such a grumpy son.

  Chapter 7

  JAMIE pulled the summer-weight blanket under her chin and stared at the ceiling. She’d forgotten to close the drapes over the French doors leading to the balcony before she went to bed, so she’d woken up with the early-morning light shining, annoyingly, smack in the middle of her face. She twisted and turned first in one direction, then another, but there was no way to avoid the glare. She flung back the covers and headed for the shower, stopping only to call room service with a request for coffee to be delivered in twenty-five minutes. In precisely twenty-three minutes, she was wrapping her hair in a towel and tying the belt of her fuzzy white robe when her order was delivered.

  She poured a mug of steaming coffee from the covered pot and stepped out onto the balcony. She lowered herself into one of the comfy chairs and sat back to enjoy the scenery. She’d found that she enjoyed the first quiet early moments, when the rest of the world was just starting to wake up, here on the banks of the bay. On the grounds below, a man, a woman, and a child walked through light fog toward the water. In the hush, she heard the squeal of hinges and the sound of a heavy door being pushed open, then moments later, a splash. Jamie leaned closer to the railing for a better look, just in time to see the woman and child climb into a kayak and, after a minute or two, the craft slide across the water and disappear into the fog that cloaked the tranquil bay. The man who’d accompanied them turned and walked back to the inn, his stride and his profile familiar.

  She rested her arms on the rail to get a better view as Dan Sinclair paused to pick up a piece of litter from the ground before resuming his trek to the building. She watched until he disappeared beneath the roofline. There were worse ways to start a new day than watching a good-looking man in cargo shorts and a tight T-shirt go about his business, even if that man brought a new meaning to the word “grouchy.” She couldn’t help marveling once again that a woman like Grace had produced such a child. Maybe he’d been dropped on his head a few times as an infant, Jamie mused. Something must have happened to make him so miserable. Was it possible to be born with such a disposition? Jamie thought not.

  Grace, on the other hand, was so pleasant. Jamie paused to wonder how nice Grace might be if she knew that Jamie’s real reason for coming to St. Dennis was to ferret out a woman who’d kept a very personal secret for thirty-six years. Odds were better than good that Grace knew the woman in question—a family friend, maybe even a relative—though she might not know her secret. How would she feel when—if—Jamie turned that woman’s world inside out?

  Jamie sipped her coffee and reflected back over the last two days in St. Dennis. Everywhere she’d gone, from the parking lot to the library to Bling and the bookstore and Scoop, she’d been mindful of the women around her, wondering always if this one might be her, or be related to her, or might know her. Jamie recognized it as a foolish, pointless exercise, but she seemed helpless to stop. She’d come to St. Dennis with one goal, and she understood enough to know that she needed to be careful, lest her quest turn into an obsession. She was aware that she was already skirting the line a little too closely.

  Not for the first time, she asked herself if she really wanted to go down this path, if she should pursue this search for someone who likely did not want to be found.

  Searching didn’t necessarily mean finding, and finding didn’t necessarily mean confronting. The best thing to do—the wisest thing—was to go one step at a time, she thought. It was very possible that she’d never identify this woman she sought, so no harm, no foul. Jamie was well aware that it would take a miracle of coincidences to find someone who truly was the proverbial needle in a haystack. What Jamie needed was a clearer plan and a reasonable deadline to complete that plan. She needed to decide what her next steps would be.

  She’d work under the assumption that the notice she’d receive from Pennsylvania would indicate that her birth mother declined to open her records. If she got good news from that quarter, so much the better, but in the meantime, she’d given herself one month—four weeks—to determine if her birth mother did in fact reside in St. Dennis, and if so, to discover her identity. Not much time, considering that right now she had nothing to go on, but if she were no further along in her quest in four more weeks, she would go
back to Princeton while she awaited notification from the state and return to her work. Work that had centered around one theme: honesty. Her stomach churned at the thought.

  How could she continue to write such books after finding out that she’d spent her entire life living a lie? Wouldn’t that make her the world’s biggest hypocrite? And if she couldn’t write, what would she do? Writing had been her life, honesty had been her platform, and the two books that remained on her contract haunted her. How could she possibly fulfill that obligation when the concept of honesty no longer held meaning for her? Even the thought of going on another book tour made her ill. Just thinking about facing a room filled with people who quoted her well-known lines—“Relationships with those you love are sacred trusts in which deception of any kind has no place”—made her flinch.

  Well, when she’d written it, she’d believed it. Now not so much. Her career—which would most likely sink like a stone once her publisher realized she couldn’t produce what she’d promised—had been put on hold. She needed to focus on her reason for being in St. Dennis. It was time to decide on her next steps.

  Everyone in St. Dennis seemed to know everyone else, so it followed that someone knew her birth mother and knew there was a secret in her past. To meet as many people as possible, she’d have to go where the residents went. That they seemed to congregate in any number of places left her undaunted. She wrote down the names of the local businesses on her pad.

  She paused with the pen in her hand, then wrote one name: Grace Sinclair. She circled it.

  By her own admission, Grace knew everything about everyone—she’d lived in St. Dennis for all of her seventy-some years, and she owned the newspaper that for years had chronicled the comings and goings of the people who lived there.

  Jamie chewed on the end of the pen. Grace, it would appear, could very well be the key to learning all she could in the shortest amount of time. How Jamie could pick the woman’s brain without appearing to be doing so, that could be tricky. It was a fortunate coincidence that she’d been able to make the acquaintance of the one person she felt sure would know who the likeliest suspects might be. Jamie couldn’t ask her outright—tempted though she might be to do exactly that—but there was a good possibility that Grace knew more than she realized about the matter. How to get the woman to not only unlock her memories but share them? Jamie would have to trust her own instincts, and right now her instincts were telling her that Grace was her starting point.

  Her conscience tugged at her. Cozying up to Grace to tap into the well of information about the residents of St. Dennis—didn’t that smack of using the woman? But Jamie really had liked the woman the moment she’d met her; there was no pretense there. Still, she’d have to be mindful where Grace was concerned.

  Draining her mug, Jamie stood and stretched before going into her room to dress for the day. She’d try to catch up with Grace downstairs—in the dining room, maybe, or in the lobby. Jamie would see if she could track Grace down for a friendly chat and take it from there.

  And to that little twinge of guilt she felt for plotting to use the woman’s warm and friendly manner to further her own ends, Jamie silently apologized in advance.

  GRACE WAS NOT in the lobby, nor was she in the dining room. Jamie ate breakfast alone at a table overlooking the beautifully maintained grounds. She crunched the last of her English muffin and signed her room number on the check before walking back through the main part of the dining room. She’d just stepped through the double doors when she saw Dan and his daughter in discussion. Diana waved and called out to her, “Jamie, wait.” She said something else to her father before tossing her head and walking in Jamie’s direction.

  “Hi, Diana,” Jamie said, well aware that Diana’s father was standing thirty feet away, hands on his hips, watching his daughter.

  “I tried my dress on for Gram last night and she loved it. She said the same thing you and Vanessa said, that it was just right for me.” Diana smiled smugly. “Dad has to come around. Even Gram told him he was being silly.”

  “I’m sure your father only wants what’s best for you,” Jamie said.

  “He wants me to stay, like, ten years old so that he can always tell me what to do.” Diana made a face.

  “It’s hard for fathers to let go of their daughters sometimes.”

  “Did your father treat you like you were a little kid even after you were, like, a teenager?”

  Jamie nodded. “He did. And we had our arguments over clothes and boys and where I could go and . . . well, the stuff that all girls and their dads argue over. It gets better.” She smiled in spite of the fact that she knew Dan was watching. “It will. It always does.”

  “Boy, I sure hope you’re right. I’d hate to have him following me around when I get to college.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’ll come around long before that.”

  “That’s what my gram said.”

  “Speaking of your grandmother, I was hoping to catch up with her this morning. Any idea where I might find her?”

  “I saw her at breakfast. She said she was going to her office for a while.”

  “Where’s her office?”

  Diana pointed to a hallway to the left of the lobby. “The second door on the right.”

  “Do you think it would be all right if I stopped in to say good morning?”

  “I think she’d love it. She doesn’t get around the way she used to, and I know it drives her crazy when she doesn’t have anyone to talk to. Go on over, tap on the door.”

  “If she’s in the middle of something, I’d hate to disturb her.”

  “Don’t worry, if she’s in the middle of something, she’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks, Diana.”

  “Oh, there’s my friend Paige.” Diana waved to a tall pretty girl who just entered the lobby and had stopped to say something to Dan. “We’re both working at Scoop this morning. Dad’s driving us.”

  “I won’t keep you, then. I’ll see you later.”

  “Sure.” Diana turned and hurried across the lobby.

  Jamie headed for the hallway and Grace’s office. She could see a light shining under the second door, which was unmarked except for a numeral two painted by a precise hand in purple. She rapped softly with her knuckles, and before she could knock a second time, the voice behind the door called, “Come in.”

  Jamie poked her head through the doorway. “Good morning, Grace.”

  “Oh, Jamie. How nice to see you. Please, come in.” Grace beckoned, a broad smile on her face.

  “Are you busy? I could come back.” Jamie hesitated.

  “Not at all. Come, take a seat and tell me what you thought of our bookstore.” Grace pointed to a chair opposite her desk.

  Jamie lowered herself into the cushioned chair. “It’s a great little shop, busy as all heck. Dan introduced me to Barbara, and she was really nice. She has a lot of my books in stock. I was just about to ask if I might do a signing there when she suggested it herself.”

  “Barbara’s had some very memorable book signings at her store. She’ll have lots of locals there as well as the tourists. You will sell a lot of books.”

  “Great. That’s the idea.” Well, that and seeing how many fifty-two-year-old local women I can meet.

  “What have you seen so far in St. Dennis?”

  “The library, the historical society—I like to read about the places I visit.”

  Grace nodded. “Very good.”

  “I had lunch at Blossoms yesterday.”

  “One of my favorite places.” Grace sighed.

  “I bought a dress and some sandals and a bag at Bling, and I’m thinking about going back for some shorts. I didn’t bring many pairs with me.”

  “A favorite place to shop, even for an old girl like me.” Grace nodded. “Vanessa carries lovely things. Where else?”

&nbs
p; “That’s about it. Oh, wait, I did stop at the coffee shop for an iced coffee.”

  “With whipped cream?”

  Jamie shook her head. “I passed. I’d just had lemon meringue pie at Blossoms and ice cream at Scoop. Whipped cream in my coffee would have been overkill.”

  “Cuppachino. How I miss that place.”

  “Oh? A favorite haunt?”

  “My very favorite.” Grace nodded. “Met my friends there almost every morning since it opened about six years ago, at least until I broke my leg. A lot of the local businesspeople gather there for coffee early every morning. Coffee and gossip. Is there a better way to start off your day?”

  “Sounds good to me. Maybe I’ll stop there this morning. I wanted to explore a little more.”

  “What I wouldn’t give to go with you.”

  “Is there any way we could make that happen?”

  Grace stared at her for a long moment. “I suppose if we could get someone to help me into the car . . . but no, no. That would be too much to ask of you.”

  “Not at all. I’d love your company. And I bet I could manage.” Jamie stood. “I drive a big car, and the front seat can be moved back so you could stretch out your leg. It might take us a few minutes to get you in, but I’m game if you are.”

  “I can wheel my chair out through the lobby and down the ramp if you pull your car up close.” Grace’s eyes lit as she spoke. “It might be tough getting me into the car, but maybe . . . What the heck, Jamie. Let’s give it a try.” She wheeled around the side of her desk, grabbing her purse from the corner and pointing to the door. “Let’s do this.”

  Jamie grinned and held the door open for Grace. “I’ll bring the car around.”

  Grace followed Jamie across the lobby, pausing only to tell the startled receptionist, “If anyone’s looking for me, I’ll be at Cuppachino.”

  Jamie waited for Grace to catch up and, once outside, watched the wheelchair glide down the ramp.

  “Oh my, it’s going to be a hot one today.” Grace looked pleased in spite of her forecast.