That Chesapeake Summer (Chesapeake Diaries Book 9)

by Mariah Stewart

  She knew he’d shouldered the burden of keeping his ancestral home in the family, and by all accounts, he’d done a remarkable job. Add the responsibilities of single parent to that plate, and it was a miracle his head hadn’t exploded at some point.

  But . . . right. It was none of her business. Forget the kiss, keep it friendly. Stop butting into his life. The last thing she needed was something that would complicate her stay in St. Dennis.

  Was that all she wanted from Dan? Friendship? At this point, she didn’t trust herself to know what she wanted. The last few months had been rough on her mind and on her soul, and she’d been swallowed up by emotions that had overwhelmed her. Grief over her mother’s death. Shock over finding out she’d been adopted. Anger that she’d been lied to all her life. Guilt because she’d built a career on something that wasn’t real, and guilt that had left her feeling that she’d been lying to her readers from the beginning. Indecision over whether to search for her birth mother. Fear that if her quest were successful, she’d be rejected all over again. Fear that if she came up dry, she’d spend the rest of her life searching and unsure of herself.

  How could she possibly know what she wanted from Dan when she wasn’t sure of who she was?

  Jamie opened a new file on her laptop and typed up her notes on the findings from that day. Knowing how small details tended to get lost, she’d started a running journal about what might or might not be significant, referencing the date of the newspaper in which she’d found what could prove to be a clue, no matter how oblique. If it resonated with her somehow, she’d make a note of it. So far, she had only that one photo of the five eighth-grade graduates, but it was a starting place.

  Tomorrow was her signing at Book ’Em, more opportunity to meet people, any one of whom might prove to be the one she sought. You never know. She’d make a point to remember names—maybe have a sign-up sheet for the newsletter her publicist talked about sending out. She could have people sign their name and address; then she’d make some sort of mark next to the names of women the right age who’d grown up in St. Dennis.

  And how would she know? She’d ask.

  Chapter 13

  JAMIE’S name had been on the bike list for the past several days, so she was excited when she got the text assuring her that a bike would be waiting for her on Tuesday morning. All she had to do was confirm that she still wanted the bike and let the front desk know what time she wanted it for. By return text she reserved for six the next morning. Her book signing was later in the day, so she thought a nice early-­morning ride would be just the thing after so sedentary a week. She left a note on Grace’s office door that she’d see her at Book ’Em.

  So it’s true what they say about riding a bike, Jamie mused. After a bit of initial wobbling, she was able to find and keep her balance, much to her delight. She pedaled smoothly to the end of the long winding driveway that led from the inn to Charles Street, pausing only to choose a direction.

  After a moment’s deliberation, she turned right onto the road’s shoulder, the mixture of gravel and ground oyster shells crunching under the wheels before she eased onto the blacktopped road. She’d gotten accustomed to taking a left toward the center of town, but this morning she wanted to explore the other side of town. Yesterday she’d driven on every street in St. Dennis except the ones that lay between the Inn at Sinclair’s Point and Cannonball Island. Today she’d leave all her doubts and questions behind for a while (Will she come to my book signing? Will I know her? Will she know me?), and she’d take a peaceful ride and relax her mind. Today she’d bike to the end of Charles Street and see what lay beyond the marsh.

  She smelled it before she saw it, a pungent mix of decaying organic matter and salt water that made up the wetlands at the far end of the inn’s property bordering the road. She passed a pond, the water alive with sparkly early light, and she rolled the bike to a slow stop to enjoy the view. A great blue heron, partially hidden by the reeds, paused in its pursuit of breakfast to consider whether the figure on the road represented danger. Could it be the same one she and Dan had seen yesterday at the inn? Apparently deciding that the spectator posed no threat, the bird continued its single-minded stare into the shallows. Like a shot, its beak plunged forward into the water and emerged with a hapless fish. With lethal elegance, it tossed its head back and swallowed its prey in one motion.

  Jamie leaned forward on the handlebars, fascinated, preparing to watch as long as the bird dined, but this time her motion alarmed the heron, which unexpectedly took flight somewhat awkwardly before its wings reached their full and formidable span. It flew upward with a few powerful flaps, then settled into flight, soaring over Jamie’s head.

  Awesome. Jamie watched it disappear beyond the trees. Just awesome.

  She got back on the bike seat and resumed pedaling toward the island, her spirit rising as the bird rose from the pond. Her grandmother Margaret had been fond of saying that starting a morning with a moment of wonder could carry your heart through the rest of the day, and Jamie thought it might be true.

  She’d spent last night in her room, second-­guessing her decision to come to St. Dennis and the direction she was taking. On her drive around the town yesterday afternoon and evening, she’d studied every house, as if seeking some connection. So many homes, and her birth mother could have lived—could now be living—in any one of them. The sheer number of possibilities boggled the mind.

  She’d read somewhere that there was such a thing as genetic memory. If that were true, wouldn’t she feel some sort of pull toward one place or another on the streets of St. Dennis? Though she’d looked at every house as if something in her DNA might recognize it, there’d been nothing.

  But she’d been surprised when she awakened that morning feeling revived and invigorated and humming with positive energy, and was dressed and in the lobby at six sharp to pick up her bike. She’d politely declined the offer of a helmet and ignored the suggestion that a hat might be useful, inasmuch as the temperatures were expected to reach ninety degrees by noon. She’d wanted to feel the wind in her hair and on her face.

  After a moment or two while she recalled how to balance, she’d taken off into the early morning mist. The sky was gloriously pink and coral over the trees where the sun rose, casting a glow on the town and on the bay off to her right. Jamie felt confident for the first time since she’d decided to take this journey into her unknown past. She was, she realized, as close to being content as she’d been in a long time. The feeling was unexpected, and while there was seemingly no explanation for the change in her mood, it felt so good that she refused to question it.

  Accept each day as the gift that it is was another of her grandmother’s favorite sayings. Today Jamie was in acceptance mode. She wondered what her grandmother would think of her quest. Remembering Grandma Marg, who was already old when Jamie was a child, brought a smile. She had been a feisty, tell-it-like-it-is woman. Jamie was sure she’d have told her only granddaughter to go for it.

  Even the thought of facing so many people at the book signing that afternoon failed to shake her buoyant mood. Though she’d always loved interacting with her readers, the thought of talking about honest lives made her feel uncomfortable. But she promised herself that today she would trust her intuition and keep an open mind. Not that she expected anyone to tap her on the shoulder, throw her arms around her, and introduce herself as Jamie’s long-lost birth mother—that was the stuff of made-for-TV movies—but maybe someone would remember who she reminded them of. If she came away from the day with nothing more than a name of a possible relative, she’d be well ahead of the game. It was, she knew, a total long shot, but stranger things had happened, right?

  Stretching out ahead was the drawbridge to Cannonball Island, a low two-lane structure that had seen better days. Jamie paused at the side of the road to allow a SUV to pass, then followed it to the other side. She’d read that the road looping around Cann
onball Island was eighteen miles long, and the island itself was sparsely populated due to the fact that its location made it a target for the worst storms year-round. Most of its residents were water men, engaged in fishing, crabbing or oyster farming, or a combination of the three. As she pedaled through the morning light, she passed few houses but several small coves where boats were moored at rickety-looking docks. Here and there, older boats on cinder blocks, their paint faded down to grayed wood, overlooked the bay as if nostalgically watching the newer vessels with envy and recalling the days when they, too, took to the seas and battled the storms and returned proudly with their hulls brimming with a catch.

  The road wound past salt marshes on one side and the bay on the other. Jamie pedaled leisurely past a tiny chapel that had fallen into disrepair, its roof partially caved in, the adjacent churchyard fenced to enclose ancient graves. There were boarded-up houses, several of which were marked by similar white fences, the paint long gone, the wood grayed by age and weather. The closest thing she saw to an actual village was a grouping of ten or twelve houses built in the same general area. They were spaced fairly far apart, the front yard of each enclosed by the ubiquitous white picket fence. As she passed the closest house to the road, she noticed that grave markers lined one side of the yard, just as they had at the churchyard and the abandoned structures. A woman came out the back door, a laundry basket in her hand. She watched Jamie go by but did not return her wave.

  Jamie rolled on into a morning that was growing increasingly warmer. Halfway around the island, she realized she’d downed the last of her water. She chastised herself for having been so foolish as to set out with no hat to shield her face from the sun and only one bottle of water.

  Her pace slowed, the heat wearing her down. A thin bead of sweat slithered from the back of her neck right on down between her shoulder blades. She almost sang out loud when she spotted a weathered brown building with a sign that read GENERAL STORE over the front door. “Water,” she murmured thirstily. “I bet they sell water.”

  She leaned the bike up against the front rail and went inside. There was no cheery bell over the door—though she’d expected one, for some reason—and the interior was dark, most of the light coming in through the open windows.

  A wizened woman of indeterminate age sat in a chair near the side window, reading a newspaper. She turned to Jamie and asked, “Help you?”

  “I was hoping to buy a bottle of water.” Jamie reached into her pocket for the five-dollar bill she’d tucked there just in case. “Actually, two might be better.”

  “Water’s in the case.” The woman pointed to a cooler near the counter where an ancient cash register sat. Jamie grabbed two bottles and set them on the well-worn counter. “That’ll be a dollar,” said the woman, who left the paper on her chair and shuffled toward the counter on untied pristinely white tennis shoes.

  “I have two bottles.” Jamie held up both.

  “Nothin’ wrong with my eyesight,” the woman replied. “Fifty cents a bottle.”

  “Wow, the price is higher in town.” Jamie handed over her five.

  “This all you got? Not much change yet this morning.”

  “It’s all I brought with me.”

  The woman sorted through the drawers in the cash register, then went through a door into a back room. A minute later, she returned with four ones in her hand. She passed them to Jamie without a word.

  “Thanks.” Jamie stuck the bills into her pocket.

  “That your bike out there?”

  “I borrowed it from the inn.”

  “Gracie’s inn?”

  “Yes. The Inn at Sinclair’s Point.”

  “Good people, Gracie is.” She smiled at Jamie for the first time and added slyly, “She has the eye.”

  “The eye for what?”

  The woman chuckled. “Ask her. She’ll tell you, ’less she got shy about it. Which I doubt, since Gracie ain’t likely to be shy about much of anything.”

  “I guess you know her pretty well, then.”

  “Since she was a girl. Came from a nice family. Married into a good one, too. Good man, her Daniel was. Them kids of hers were always polite when they were little ones. Ain’t seen them in years.” She paused. “They still around?”

  “They’re all there.”

  “Good. Gracie always liked to have her babies close. That young one of hers, he was always a daredevil, that one.”

  “You mean Ford?”

  The woman nodded. “And that girl of hers, she was a pretty little thing. Married, I heard, to the Madison boy. Good boy, he was. I ’spect he’s grown into a good man or Gracie wouldn’t have had it.”

  “Grace has three kids. You’re forgetting Dan,” Jamie told her.

  The woman laughed. “I’m not forgetting young Dan. Picture of his grandfather, that boy was. Smart, he was, but too serious for a young ’un.”

  “Hmph. Even when he was little?”

  “Some folks just carry the weight, girl.” The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she stared at Jamie for a moment. “Up to some others to help with the load.”

  Jamie stared back. What was that supposed to mean?

  “Well, then, you tell Gracie that Ruby Carter sends her best, you hear?”

  The woman turned her back as if to signal the conversation was over, then she headed back to her chair and her newspaper.

  “Thanks,” Jamie said, then went outside and opened the first bottle and sat on the edge of the store’s front porch and drank until she started to feel revived. She had to remind herself to slow down, lest she make herself sick. Still contemplating the nature of Gracie’s eye, Jamie tossed both bottles into the basket on the front of the bike and resumed her ride back to the inn.

  She paused at the pond where she’d seen the heron, but the bird was gone and none had arrived to take its place. Ten minutes later, she was back at the inn and turning in her bike. She ran into Dan as she crossed the lobby.

  He hesitated midstep to take in her appearance. “Early-morning . . . what?”

  “Bike ride. All the way to Cannonball Island and back,” she said with a touch of pride.

  His eyes narrowed. “Are you the one who left without a helmet?”

  “Yes, I didn’t think I’d need . . .” Jamie frowned. “How do you know?”

  “Jenny at the desk was concerned that a guest had taken off without one.”

  “I don’t think it’s that big a deal. I went to Cannonball Island, and that’s only down the road.”

  “Two summers ago a guest borrowed a bike and went out for an early-morning ride. Thirty feet from the entrance, she was hit from behind by a couple of kids who thought it would be cool to scare the biker. She wasn’t wearing a helmet because she didn’t want to mess up her hair. Do I need to tell you what happened to her?” Dan sighed. “I’d hate to get the call and have to watch them scraping your brains off the side of the road like they did hers.”

  Jamie grimaced. “Nice image.”

  “Well, that’s what happened.”

  “How did they know to call you?”

  “Didn’t you notice the little license plate on the back of your bike? ‘Property of the Inn at Sinclair’s Point.’ ”

  “No, actually, I did not.”

  “All the helmets have the inn’s logo on them. You would know that if you’d worn one.”

  “What’s the inn’s logo?”

  “A great blue heron. Like the one on the sign for the inn down on Charles Street.”

  “I saw one this morning,” she said, hoping to change the subject. “It was in a pond down the road where the marsh begins. I watched it fish for a minute or two. I think it might have been Big Blue.”

  “That’s his ’hood. You’ll find him there most mornings. He spends afternoons in the creek in the marsh down behind the inn’s boathouse.”

&nb
sp; “How do you know it wasn’t a different heron?”

  “Blue is very territorial. He chases the competition away. He’s been around for several years, so most of the other birds know to keep out in the mornings.”

  Jamie had started to move toward the steps. She was sweaty and hoped that neither Dan nor anyone else got close enough to figure that out.

  “Anyway, next time take the helmet, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Looking forward to your book signing this afternoon?”

  “I am.”

  “Good luck. Looks like you’re going to have a good crowd. There are signs up around the inn, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Oh. No, I hadn’t. That was nice of you.”

  “Nice of Mom. She likes to drum up interest in local happenings. Usually, she puts something in the newspaper, but there wasn’t time. So she’s making everyone promise to show up at Book ’Em today.”

  “That’s really nice of her.” Jamie’s heart sank. The more people who showed up, the harder it would be for her to check out the locals.

  “You know my mom.”

  “I’m beginning to.” Jamie thought about what the old woman in the general store had said about Grace. She wondered if Dan knew the local gossip about his mother and her eye.

  “Hey, did you wear sunscreen this morning?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You’re going to have a nice burn on the back of your legs and across your neck, from the looks of things.” His attention was diverted by a large group checking in, and he was off to the front desk.

  Jamie frowned and looked over her shoulder at her calves, wondering how Dan could tell she was going to have a burn. On her way to her room, Jamie counted off all the blunders she’d made so far today: No helmet. No water. No sunscreen.