Return to Glebe Point

by Patricia Paris

  The invitation for a home-cooked meal had sounded great after a day of painting; and harmless—or so he’d thought—until halfway through dinner when he’d begun to scent a matchmaking scheme afoot.

  He’d been surprised when he arrived with his aunt this evening and saw the woman he’d run into earlier that week setting the table in Mary’s kitchen.

  She’d seemed a little embarrassed when she had looked up and seen him. He didn’t know why, maybe because their first encounter hadn’t been the friendliest. She had impressed him as prickly, a little snotty even, but now he wondered if her cool behavior stemmed from something else entirely.

  Not that it mattered. He’d be friendly and all, but it wasn’t likely their paths would cross much, and he got the sense she was even less interested in getting to know him any better than he was in her. Mary and Clara would probably be crushed and, in his mind, it would serve them right. He preferred to do the choosing himself when it came to the women he dated, and he wouldn’t choose someone like Charlie.

  He picked up a flattened oyster shell and skipped it out over the water, watched it jump three times across the surface, and smiled.

  “Not bad.” Charlie, which he guessed was a nickname for something she didn’t like as much, scanned the sandy shoreline next to the marshes.

  “You can do better?” He arched a brow at her in challenge. Not that he was looking to turn it into a competition—he’d just thrown the shell for something to do—but her comment suggested his skipping ability hadn’t impressed her much. He thought it was pretty good.

  She glanced around a moment, then picked up a shell and held it in front of him. “Watch and learn.”

  Turning it over a couple of times in her hand, she fingered it with her thumb and index finger until finding whatever fit she was after. Looking as if she might actually know what she was doing, she bent low, sighted a spot out on the water, and flicked her wrist. The shell leapt across the glassy expanse, seven, eight, nine skips before surrendering to the force of gravity.

  Cooper stood with his hands on his hips and watched the ripples flatten out over the water where her shell left its mark. “I’ve got a feeling I’m out of my league.”

  Charlie laughed as she brushed the sand off her fingers against the sides of her shorts. She had a great laugh. It leaned to husky, like her voice, but he didn’t get the impression she used it much.

  “Your shell was too light, too small for your hand, too.” She picked up another and handed it to him. “Here, try this one.”

  Cooper took it between his fingers.

  “No, not like that.” She took his index finger and wrapped it around the side of the shell, then positioned his thumb to the top, near the center. “You’ll get more spin this way.”

  He glanced down at her and lifted a brow. “Spin?”

  “Just trust me.” She put her hands on his shoulders and angled his body to the shoreline. “Now look out over the water. Pick where you want it to go and throw it, flat and low, as if you’re aiming for that spot.”

  He threw the shell and it sank like a bowling ball, not skipping once.

  Charlie grimaced, found another shell and held it in front of him. “Try again.”

  Skeptical, he held it the way she’d shown him anyway. Bending a little lower, he looked out over the water. Just as he was about to let loose of the shell she said, “Don’t throw so hard this time,” and broke his concentration. He straightened and scowled at her.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. Just throw it.”

  “Thank you!” He positioned himself again, found a spot on the horizon and let the shell fly. It skimmed the surface. When it skipped a fifth time before going under, Cooper pumped his fist. “Yes!”

  He shot her a victorious grin, feeling pretty good that he’d bested his earlier attempt.

  “Better.” She turned and started walking along the shore again.

  Cooper caught up to her. “Better? It was almost double my first toss.”

  She flicked him a glance. “Like I said—better. Keep practicing and maybe I’ll see you at the Ducks and Drakes challenge.”

  “What’s the Ducks and Drakes challenge?”

  She stopped and stared out across the marsh, and for a moment he wondered if she would answer. The sun burned low on the horizon, painting the water with bold strokes of pink and gold. He watched her drag in a breath of the salty air, as if she would fill her soul with it.

  Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back, took another deep breath. “A stone-skipping contest,” she said as she exhaled, her eyes still closed while the last of the day’s sun set across the landscape of her face.

  Cooper looked away. He didn’t want to find her attractive. She wasn’t his type. He liked easy, uncomplicated, carefree, and although she could toss a mean shell, she didn’t strike him as any of those.

  “Supposedly that’s what they call them in England, Ducks and Drakes.” She drew his attention again. “Don’t ask me why, I don’t know, but for as long as I can remember there’s been a stone-skipping contest every year at the Harvest Festival.”

  He narrowed his eyes on her. “Any chance you’ve competed in it before?”

  Her lips twitched, hinting at a smile that made him wish she’d let it loose. “Every year since I turned nine. I won it five times, including the last three before I went away to go to school.”

  “I think I’ll skip the Ducks and Drakes if I go and find something I stand a chance of winning.”

  “Like what?”

  “Holding up a tree while I down a couple of cold ones.”

  “There’ll be plenty of that going on, so you’ll have some stiff competition if it comes down to choosing a winner.” She turned and started to walk across the lawn, back up to the big house. “The mosquitoes are getting hungry, think I’ll head inside.”

  She was right; he’d already gotten a couple of bites. Once the sun started to set, the mosquitoes could get brutal, the greenflies just as bad, especially near the water. He glanced toward the house and then caught up to her. “Don’t let on, but I think we’ve got an audience.”

  Disregarding his advice, she looked directly at the kitchen windows where Mary and his aunt were peeking out through the curtains. Charlie lifted a hand and waved, at which point the two women ducked out of view.

  “Fair warning,” she said, angling him a glance. “Mary considers herself a matchmaker. I’m pretty sure I’m her latest target, which is probably why she suggested we take a nice walk after dinner while she and your aunt cleaned things up, and why they were peering through the window to see if their little scheme might be succeeding.”

  “My aunt’s just as bad. I started suspecting they were plotting something during dinner. Lucky for both of us, you’re not my type.”

  Charlie stopped in her tracks, looked up at him, shook her head, and then resumed walking with a little more stomp in her step.

  “Charlie, wait a minute,” he called after her. That hadn’t come out the way he’d intended. He rolled his eyes at his own stupidity and started after her. “I didn’t mean anything negative by that, it’s just—”

  She raised an arm in the air, over her head, and gave it a wave. “Forget it, Barone, you’re not my type either, so we’re even.”

  He watched her go through the back door, letting it slam behind her. When he walked into the kitchen a few moments later, Mary and Aunt Clara looked at him with matching frowns of incrimination.

  His aunt put her hands on her hips and pinned him with accusing eyes. “What did you say to that poor girl, Cooper Barone?”

  CHARLIE GOT up early the following morning, just after dawn, and took her first cup of coffee outside to enjoy on the patio. The marsh was already awake. Herons, little green and great blue, busied themselves alongside snowy white egrets going about the business of poking through the grasses in search of some breakfast.

  Overhead, an osprey let out a sharp cheep-cheep, then dove toward the water like a missile. A moment la
ter it flew off for its nest with a fish in its talons. Swimming up to the shore, a mother mallard with a late brood of ducklings led her charges up onto the beach where they promptly huddled into a singular mound of downy fluff on the wet sand.

  Charlie pulled her hair into a knot as a light breeze kicked up, and secured it to the back of her head. The wind blew a flurry of ripples over the marsh, turned pewter grey beneath a thick layer of stationary clouds that looked like they intended to hang around for a while.

  She inhaled deeply and smelled memories. Her mom had lost a long battle to cancer almost ten years earlier; five years later her father died of a heart attack when Charlie was away at school. After his funeral, she returned to Connecticut to finish her undergraduate studies, then her master’s, and had no intention of returning to Glebe Point to live, but Lord how she’d missed it. She hadn’t realized how much until she’d come back.

  The Bay, with all its moods, was in her blood and she loved it. How had she ever imagined she could leave it behind for good and not feel its pull, calling her home?

  Today the air hung heavy with promise for some much-needed rain. There hadn’t been any for weeks, and the local weather reporters said they were officially in a drought.

  Mary worried about her gardens, and since Charlie didn’t have a job yet, she’d volunteered to keep them watered. It wasn’t like she had much else to occupy her time, and it made her feel good that she could help Mary out.

  The Inn’s gardens were beautiful, an ever-changing display as plants came into bloom then bowed graciously out of blossom as new ones took center stage. Right now the phlox stole the show, tall and airy, some white as snow, others in varying shades of purple. Late-blooming summer clematis scurried up trellises to mingle with lush roses in the background. Soon the chrysanthemums would splash across the landscape, their bursts of gold, purple, red, and orange persisting well into the fall.

  Charlie lifted her cup for a sip of coffee and heard the telltale buzzing of hummingbird wings. A male had appeared and hovered next to the red glass feeder she’d hung on a shepherd’s hook right in front of the patio the first week she’d moved in. As she watched it, another zipped in and the two chased each other off, neither getting a drink. Charlie shook her head. She enjoyed them, but they were so territorial. Sometimes she felt like calling after them, there are four feeding stations, guys and gals, plenty of room for everyone.

  After finishing her coffee, she decided to walk up to the main house to see if Mary needed any help. Saturdays were usually busy, with guests arriving, checking out, and rooms to be made up; it could get hectic.

  Mary was always dropping off cookies or inviting her up to the main house for dinner, and although Charlie knew her hostess enjoyed fussing over her, she didn’t want to take advantage of the woman’s good heart. Helping out around the Inn was the least she could do, especially since she didn’t have a job yet.

  She’d known getting a decent one in her field wouldn’t be easy. She didn’t have any practical experience other than an internship in college, and that had been almost seven years ago. But after two weeks of looking, she’d thought she might at least have found some kind of entry-level position that would allow her to get her foot in the door.

  The only callback she’d gotten so far was an invitation to work with a volunteer staff doing wetlands restoration. Yes, she would have enjoyed the work, thought it was important, and it would give her some much-needed field experience, but she would earn exactly zero dollars. Zero dollars would provide her with exactly nothing to find a more permanent place to live and support herself on.

  When she walked into the big, open kitchen in the main house, she was surprised to see Blake and Justin sitting at the table eating breakfast. Mary was at the stove, and she turned and waved at Charlie with the spatula she was holding.

  “Good morning, Charlie. I’m making blueberry pancakes. Pull up a chair and I’ll have another stack ready in a jiff.”

  “Thanks, Mary. They smell wonderful. Can I do anything to help?”

  “No, no, you just sit your sweet self down and visit with Blake and Justin. Coffee’s hot if you want some.”

  Charlie walked over and helped herself to a cup from the large carafe on the counter and then turned around and leaned her hip against the edge, eyeing her cousins.

  “You two are here bright and early.”

  Justin cleared his throat. “We’re here to discuss a business proposition with you.”

  Charlie looked back and forth between them and immediately became suspicious. They wore matching cautious expressions that told her whatever proposition they wanted to discuss wasn’t a proposition at all, but something they’d done that concerned her without talking to her about it first.

  She joined them at the table and sat down. She knew they were worried about her, which was why she still hadn’t told them where or what she’d been doing the last couple of years. If they knew the truth, she was afraid they’d worry even more. She wouldn’t be able to stand having them think she was fragile, or broken. They’d wonder why she hadn’t left Phillip sooner, had ever gotten involved with him in the first place, and she’d be hard-pressed to explain since she often wondered the same thing.

  She was stronger now, though. She wanted to forget she could have ever been so weak and malleable, forget the last couple of years ever happened, forget Phillip ever happened, and just move on. And that’s what she intended to do. So no, she wasn’t going to dredge it all up and dump it in their laps and have them question her and her judgment. She’d figure out something to tell them when she was ready that wouldn’t be a lie but would put an end to the questioning glances and worried looks.

  “I’ve got a feeling this is going to be one of those act first, apologize later propositions.”

  Blake leaned his elbows on the table and wove his fingers together. “You know you’re more like a sister to us than a cousin, Charlie.”

  “I know that, now just tell me why you two are here before nine o’clock on a Saturday morning when you should be home enjoying breakfast with your families.”

  “I’ll tell her since I’m the one who initiated it. If she wants to yell at one of us, she can yell at me.” Justin pushed a platter of fresh mini cinnamon buns Mary had made that morning toward her. “Have a cinnamon roll while you’re waiting for your pancakes; they’re still warm.”

  “Are you offering me one of those because you want me to have my mouth full of dough when you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Probably.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “Blake and I bought that empty building in town so you could open a bakery in it.”

  Charlie gaped, first at one then the other. “You what!”

  “We bought the building. We made an offer Friday morning and it was accepted. It’s in a good location, just needs a little fixing up, and we can do that ourselves for next to nothing, so it’s a good investment.”

  She pushed up out of her chair and paced around the table. “I don’t have the kind of funds needed to start a business. I told you that. And I can’t pay rent on a building! Any rent money I pay out is going to have to go for a place to live.”

  “We’ve already figured that out.” Justin looked at Blake and his twin nodded. “You open your cupcake business, which Delaney and Gab are sure will be successful. We take fifteen percent of the profits in lieu of rent, not to exceed an amount we all agree on if the business really takes off.”

  Mary carried a plate of pancakes over to the table. “Here you go, Charlie. I’ve got to go check to see if I need to put out more juice and sweet rolls for the guests.” She bustled off toward the front room, calling over her shoulder as she left the kitchen, “Just help yourselves if you want anything else.”

  Charlie ignored her plate. “Well, I’m glad Delaney and Gab are so confident I’m going to be a success, but I could just as easily go under and take your good intentions and investment with me. And the rent isn’t the only thing. There’s equipment, inventory,
licensing, everything I need to produce a product, and probably a dozen other things I’m not even aware of.” She lifted her palms to the sides of her temples and pressed her fingers against them. “You shouldn’t have done this!”

  “Charlie, look,” Blake said. “We’re just trying to help. If the situation were reversed, you’d do it for either of us. If things go well, we all benefit. The owner’s a friend of ours, and he agreed to let us get in right away to start fixing the place up. We’re going over tomorrow night to get our first look around. At least take a look at it with us.”

  “Your first look! You mean you haven’t even seen the place, and you put an offer on it?”

  “We were both too busy to get down and see inside yet, but the owner dropped the key off at my office yesterday and said we could go ahead and start any renovations we needed to make. Like I said, we know the seller, Charlie. He told us we’d probably need to rework the space, but the building was in good shape, and we trust him on that.”

  “Plus, he knows that we know where to find him,” Blake threw out jokingly.

  Charlie wove her fingers through her hair, working them through the thick curls as she tried to understand why they were pushing this.

  “Look, I know both of you are just trying to help, but you don’t seem to be hearing me. I can’t afford this, even if I don’t have to pay rent. I’m sorry you’re going to be stuck with an empty building to figure out what to do with now, but you really should have talked to me first.”

  She hated to rain on their parade, but she just didn’t think marching down this route with them was a good idea, especially when it meant they’d be risking their own money. “Maybe you can back out of the deal.”

  “We’re not backing out,” Justin said. “It’s still a good investment, and we talked about what we’d do if you didn’t take us up on our proposition, so forget that part of it. It won’t hurt you to take a look at the place. And it wouldn’t hurt you to accept a little help from your family until you can get on your feet.”