That Chesapeake Summer (Chesapeake Diaries Book 9)

by Mariah Stewart

  And how shattering it had been to find the letter that had been hidden in the back of her father’s desk drawer.

  “Wait. You mean you didn’t know?” Dan’s eyes widened.

  “No. There’d never been a hint.”

  “That must have been . . . I can’t even think of a word. Earth-shattering.”

  “Try soul-shattering.”

  “Wow. That’s huge.” He fell quiet for a moment, then asked, “So how does Curtis Enright fit into this story? He does somehow.”

  Jamie nodded. “Curtis and my dad went to law school together. He arranged for my parents to adopt me right after I was born.”

  Dan frowned, and she could tell he was trying to connect the dots.

  She did it for him. “My birth mother was from St. Dennis. I learned that much when I called him after finding the letter, though he wouldn’t tell me anything else. But he made a comment that made me believe she still lived there.”

  “So you decided to come to St. Dennis and look for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without any clue as to who she was or what she looked like or her name?”

  “Right.”

  “How did you plan on finding her? I mean, unless you asked around—and I’m assuming that didn’t happen, since I didn’t hear about it—did you really expect to locate her?”

  “I don’t know what I expected, but I did find her. At least I discovered who she is. I haven’t contacted her yet, though, so in that respect, I really didn’t ‘find’ her.”

  “You figured out . . . How in the name of God did you do that?”

  She told him about finding the photos and asking questions of Grace.

  “I knew she had to have a hand in this somehow.”

  “She knew all along, Dan. She said she knew who I was the day I arrived in St. Dennis, and she knew why I was there. But she couldn’t tell me what I wanted to know, she couldn’t interfere.”

  “But in a way, she did.” Dan sat back, a half smile on his face. “How did you know about her archiving project?”

  “She mentioned it in passing.”

  “In passing? Like, casually dropped it into a conversation?”

  Jamie thought it over, then shrugged. “More or less, yes. And with her knowing I was searching . . . Yes, I suppose she could have set it up so that I’d offer to help. But how could she have known what I’d find?”

  “Are you kidding?” He snorted. “My mother knows everything that’s happened in that town for the last half century. If she knew those photos were in the papers and knew you’d see them, she’d have been counting on you to ask the right questions. Which, apparently, you did.”

  “Huh.” Jamie thought about it. “She did say she knew what I was looking for.”

  “Never underestimate Grace Sinclair.” Dan grinned. “She is a wily old bird. But I still don’t understand why you left St. Dennis the way you did, and why you felt you couldn’t tell me.”

  “I came to find answers, but it never occurred to me how I’d feel if I actually found what I was looking for. Once I figured it out, I felt so overwhelmed, so unsure of what to do next. I didn’t want to intrude on her life. I didn’t want to upset her if she didn’t want to know me. I mean, she does know me, but she doesn’t know I’m her daughter.”

  “Wait a minute, you know her?”

  Jamie nodded. “So do you. Which is why I didn’t want to tell you. She had me when she was sixteen and handed me over to my parents right after I was born. I know you like her, and I didn’t want you to think differently if you knew about her past.”

  “Why would I feel differently? It’s her business, not mine.”

  “But it’s my business now, and if you and I are to . . .” She left the rest unfinished.

  “You and I are going to . . . whatever you were going to say. But I promise you, I would not think less of her. I think the thing you need to find out now is whether or not she wants to know you. I just don’t know how you’ll go about determining that.”

  “I sent a letter to the county court where I was born and asked them to contact her and ask if she would agree to release the information about her that was sealed when I was adopted.”

  “So if she says yes, that’s like giving you the green light to go to her. Introduce yourself. So to speak.”

  “And if she refuses to sign the consent, then I’ll know that she wants to keep me a secret, and I will have to respect that. Which will make it extremely difficult for me to be in St. Dennis, to know who she is and not be able to let her know that I know. I don’t know that I would be able to go back, Dan.”

  “How long before you hear something?”

  “I sent the request at the end of April. The state has something like a hundred and twenty days to contact her, then they have to contact me with her decision.”

  “So you should be hearing something soon, right? Assuming that whoever handled it for the court did the job.”

  “Right. It’s just a matter of waiting.”

  “I can see it would have been hard for you to wait in St. Dennis, knowing what you know, but I wish you’d confided in me.”

  “I was so confused, I couldn’t have discussed it rationally, Dan. I just wanted out of Dodge.” She paused. “You realize you haven’t asked me who she is.”

  “You’ll tell me when you’re ready. But now we wait. I guess you’ve been haunting the mailbox since you got home.”

  “I have.” She paused. “Mail usually comes in the morning. I should go see what came today.” She rose and went toward the house. Dan gathered the wine and beer bottles and followed her as far as the courtyard.

  Within minutes, Jamie returned with a stack of mail. “Magazines—we can weed these out. Junk mail—why?” She rolled her eyes as she pulled the obvious offenders from the stack. “Bills. Bank statements.” She set them on the nearest table. Her eyes fell upon the white envelope with the return address: County of Lehigh.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God . . .” Jamie dropped the rest of the mail and ripped open the envelope with shaking hands, then skimmed the letter for the information.

  “She did it. She consented to unseal the records and authorized the court to release her name.” With tears in her eyes, she held up the letter. “She did it. She wants me to know. She wants me to find her.”

  She handed Dan the letter, and he read it through to the end. When he got to the name of her birth mother, he smiled.

  “Somehow it’s fitting, don’t you think?” He put an arm around her. “That Barbara the bookseller would be the mother of Jamie the writer.”

  “I thought about that. Thought about how kind she’d been to me, setting up the book signing for me. She’s such a nice woman, I didn’t want to intrude into her life if she didn’t want . . .” Jamie buried herself in Dan’s chest, and the dam burst as the tears began to flow. “She wanted me to know it was her,” she sobbed. “She’s okay with letting me know.”

  “But she doesn’t know it was you, Jamie Valentine, who was making the inquiry, does she?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know how she would.”

  “So you have to tell her.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” Panic rose in Jamie’s chest.

  “Of course you do. You’ll say, ‘Barbara, I’m Jamie. I’m your daughter.’ Everything else will fall into place after that.” He reassured her with his smile and with his words. “Look, why don’t you go throw some things in a bag, and we’ll head back to St. Dennis, and you can—”

  “I’m not ready. I need a little time. I need to think about what I’ll say.” She looked up into his eyes. “Will you stay with me tonight? We can go tomorrow, but tonight . . .”

  “Sure. I’ll stay.” He kissed the side of her mouth. “Tomorrow’s plenty soon enough.”

  Chapter 18

  I�
�LL drive my own car,” Jamie told Dan as they prepared to make the trip to St. Dennis.

  “Nope. You’re too jumpy. You’re going to sit back and relax, and I’ll get you there in one piece.”

  “But then I won’t have a car,” she protested.

  “If you need a car, you’ll take mine. If you want to come back in a few days to get your car, I’ll drive you back. But there’s no way you’re driving those three hours by yourself.” He grabbed her suitcase and opened the front door. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how many times you got out of bed last night.”

  “I was rehearsing what I was going to say.”

  “We can do that all the way to Maryland. In my car. With me driving.” He went out to his car and tossed her bag in the backseat, then returned to the house and asked, “You ready?”

  “I just have to lock the back door.” She went from room to room, checking the French doors and locking the one she’d used right before dawn to walk down to the lake.

  “All set?” Dan stood in the doorway, watching her. “How much coffee have you had this morning?”

  “Two cups. Why?”

  “You’re all over the place.” He paused. “I know this is a big deal. I know you’re nervous about what you’re going to do. But I think you’re scaring yourself.” He lowered his voice. “Babe, it’s going to be fine. I’ve known Barbara all my life. She’s a good person, an honest person. She wouldn’t have signed that consent if she didn’t want you to know who she was. That paper is your invitation to knock on her door.”

  Jamie listened, then nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I am right. She’s just waiting for you. I think she’s been waiting a long time.”

  Jamie forced a smile. “Then let’s not keep her waiting any longer.” She swung the strap of her bag over her shoulder and checked the tote to make sure she had everything she needed—her laptop, her notebooks—­should she decide to work. One last glance around, and she closed the door and locked it. Dan had already started the car, so all they had to do was get in and go.

  “Music?” Dan asked as he backed out of the driveway.

  “Sure.” Jamie strapped herself into her seat.

  “What’s your preference?”

  “I like pretty much everything. My parents were children of the fifties and sixties, though, and musically never moved past that era, so I am a little partial to the old bands.”

  He opened the console and handed her a pack of CDs and said, “See if you can find something you like.”

  She glanced through the selection, which was heavy on British rock—the Who, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones—but nothing appealed to her. She returned the CDs to the console. “Maybe the radio,” she suggested.

  He turned it on and let her scroll through the stations. Finally, she turned it off. “I guess I’m not in the mood for music after all,” she told him. “Unless you—”

  “No, I’m good.”

  Jamie sighed and leaned against the headrest.

  “So tell me about your books,” he said. “How’d you come to that whole ‘honest life’ thing?”

  Jamie smiled. “One too many bad relationships. It seemed to me that no one in my life operated on a fully honest level. At the time I thought my parents were the exception, but we both know how that turned out.”

  “Everyone knows that people lie. They lie to hide things, and they lie to make themselves appear smarter. They lie about where they’ve been and what they’ve been doing. Why’d you decide to write about it?”

  “The first book was supposed to be a sort of exposé on exactly that type of behavior. When I started it, it was mostly an exercise for myself, a way of blowing off steam after I found out that my boyfriend at the time was seeing someone else who also thought she had the exclusive. A friend of mine read it and asked if she could send it to her cousin who worked in publishing. The cousin—now my editor, RaeAnne—asked me if I’d write it in a more conversational form, but at the same time, treat the subject a little more seriously. I did what she asked, and the book was published, and somehow captured a lot of attention, and bam! Instant career.” She paused to reflect. “I think it’s what you pinpointed—the reasons why people lie—that resonated with a lot of people. Some people are afraid to tell the truth for different reasons; that’s a different thing. The kid who goes to school with a black eye but lies to the teacher so that no one knows his father beats him. The woman who doesn’t want anyone to know that her partner is rough with her because she knows he’ll make things worse for her.”

  “Even when telling the truth might get them out of a bad situation?”

  “When you’re in a bad situation, you don’t believe there’s a safe way out.”

  “Voice of experience?”

  “No. But I’ve spoken with a lot of women who were victims of abuse, and their stories all had a similar thread. That’s an entirely different subject, though, one I’m not qualified to address. I wouldn’t presume to write about domestic abuse.” She thought for a moment. “And then there are people who just like to lie. Even when there’s no reason for it. Everyone knows people who embellish every story they tell.”

  Dan grinned. “I know several people in St. Dennis like that. Even when they know that you know they’re not telling the truth, they just keep right on going.” He changed lanes to pass a slow-moving van. “What’s the book you’re working on now? Another variation on truth?”

  “Same house, different room. I’m playing around with the idea of truths we keep to ourselves, truths we don’t share with others. Actually, I got the idea from a really wise woman.” She smiled and looked at him across the console. “Your mother.”

  “My mother?”

  Jamie nodded. “She even gave me the title. The Truths We Never Tell.”

  “There will be no living with her now.” Dan’s phone rang, and he pulled it from his pocket to answer it. “Sorry,” he told Jamie, “but after being AWOL for the past two days, I should probably take this.”

  “Take it,” she agreed. “Go back to work.” She reached for her notebook and began to jot down a few lines that had been swirling in her head for the past twenty-four hours. By the time they reached St. Dennis, she had an outline of a new chapter, and Dan had confirmed the hiring of a new assistant manager, told the chef to take over the interviewing of his new sous chef, ordered a new tennis net, and agreed to his contractor’s price on renovations for the boathouse.

  The inn was bustling, as usual, and Dan showed Jamie to the room he’d ordered prepared for her. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get you back into your suite, but the minute you left, it was booked for the next two weeks,” he said.

  “No need to apologize.” She looked around the room, which had a bed and a private bath, though no balcony. “This will be fine.”

  “And it’s just down the hall from me.” He pulled her close and kissed her.

  “From you and your mother and your two kids,” she reminded him.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Where there’s a will . . .”

  “There is definitely a will,” he assured her. “But right now I’m needed in a meeting downstairs.” He took the Jeep keys from his pocket and handed them to her.

  “I probably won’t go until later, like tonight,” she told him.

  “Take them anyway. If you change your mind or feel like taking a drive, you have the car.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Sure thing. Just don’t run off and forget to come back.”

  “That will never happen.”

  And it wouldn’t, she thought after he left. I am here, and I am going to do what I came to do.

  She freshened up from the drive and went downstairs, no destination in mind, but when she got to the lobby, it occurred to her that she didn’t know where Barbara lived. She knocked on Grace’
s door.

  “It’s open,” Grace called. She looked up and smiled when she saw Jamie. “Oh, you’re back.”

  Jamie nodded.

  “I assume you have a plan.” Grace took off her glasses and placed them on top of the desk.

  “I’m going to see Barbara tonight, I think. But I don’t have her address.”

  “Oh, she’s easy enough to find. She’s four houses away from the Enright place, same side of the street. I don’t recall the number, but it’s a pale yellow clapboard house with blue shutters. You can’t miss it.”

  “Oh, you pointed it out to me that morning we went to Cuppachino and we took a drive after. I remember the house.”

  “So you decided to take a chance and talk to her?”

  “She signed the consent form, so I’m assuming she’s all right with being contacted.”

  “I’m happy to hear it. She’s been grieving far too long.”

  “Grieving?” Jamie frowned. “I was under the impression that she never even talked about me.”

  “Which doesn’t mean she hasn’t thought about you, dear. You’ve always been in her heart, but I suppose that will mean much more coming from her.” Grace leaned an elbow on the desk, chin in hand. “Just be yourself, Jamie. And whatever comes of this, know that you did the right thing by pursuing the truth.”

  Jamie nodded. “Thanks. Dan loaned his car to me, so I think I’m going to take a ride and clear my head.”

  “If you haven’t had lunch yet, why not drive out to Blossoms for a change of pace?”

  “I think I will. Thanks for the suggestion.”

  “And if I don’t see you, remember that you have roots here.” With both hands, Grace gestured for Jamie to come to her. From her chair, Grace reached up and hugged her, holding her for a very long moment.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Grace whispered. “Believe it. Trust.”

  Jamie nodded and left the office, closing the door behind her. She found Dan’s Jeep in the parking lot and drove into town. At Old St. Mary’s Church Road, she made a right and drove slowly toward the end, where the Enright mansion stood. The yellow clapboard house with the blue shutters wasn’t hard to spot. Jamie stopped in front of the house next door and put the Jeep in park.