Chesapeake Bay Saga 1-4

by Nora Roberts

  “She’s not there. This is her afternoon for running errands, then she’ll pick Deke up from school and drop him off for his piano lesson and so on and so on. I don’t know how she does it all. I’ll take them to her,” Aubrey added. “Flowers will take some of the sting out of missing you today.”

  “Tell her I’ll try to get by tomorrow, otherwise I’ll see her Sunday.” He carted the box from his trunk to the snappy little blue pickup.

  Aubrey laid her flowers in the cab with her mother’s. “You’ve got some time now. Let’s go get Cam and show off your car. I tell you, he’s going to break down and sob like a baby. I can’t wait.”

  “You’ve got a mean streak, Aub.” Seth slung his arm around her shoulders. “I like that about you. Now, tell me what you know about the flower lady. Drusilla.”

  “Aha.” Aubrey leered up at him as they walked toward the building. “So that’s the way the garden grows.”

  “Might.”

  “Tell you what. Meet me at Shiney’s after dinner. Say about eight. Buy me a drink and I’ll spill everything I know.”

  “You’re underage.”

  “Yeah, like I’ve never sipped a beer before,” she retorted. “A soft drink, Daddy. And remember, I’ll be legal in less than six months.”

  “Until then, when I’m buying, you drink Coke.” He tipped down the bill of her cap, then dragged open the door to the noise of power tools.

  CAM didn’t break down and weep, Seth thought later, but he had drooled a little. Nearly genuflected. Right before, Seth mused as he parked in front of Shiney’s Pub, Cam—being bigger and meaner than Aubrey—snagged the keys and peeled off to take it for a spin.

  Then, of course, they spent a very satisfying hour standing around admiring the engine.

  Seth glanced at the pickup beside his car. One thing about Aubrey, she was always prompt.

  He opened the door to Shiney’s and felt yet one more homecoming. Another constant of St. Chris, he thought. Shiney’s Pub would always look as if it needed to be hosed down, the waitresses would always be leggy, and it would offer the very worst live bands to be found in the entire state of Maryland.

  While the lead singer massacred Barenaked Ladies, Seth scanned the tables and bar for a little blonde in a fielder’s cap.

  His eyes actually passed over her, then arrowed back.

  She was indeed at the bar, urbane and curvy in unrelieved black, her burnt-honey hair spiraling down her back as she carried on a heated conversation with a guy who looked like Joe College.

  Mouth grim, body poised for a confrontation, Seth headed over to show College Boy just what happened when a guy hit on his sister.

  “You’re full of it.” Aubrey’s voice snapped like a whip and had Seth’s mouth moving into a snarl. “You are so absolutely full of it. The pitching rotation is solid, the infield’s got good gloves. The bats are coming around. By the All-Star Game, the Birds will be playing better than five-hundred ball.”

  “They won’t see five hundred all season,” her opponent shot back. “And they’re going to be digging another level down in the basement by the All-Star Game.”

  “Bet.” Aubrey dug a twenty out of her pocket, slapped it on the bar.

  And Seth sighed. She might’ve looked like a tasty morsel, but nobody nibbled on his Aubrey.

  “Seth.” Spotting him, Aubrey reached out, hooked his arm and yanked him to the bar. “Sam Jacoby,” she said with a nod toward the man sitting beside her. “Thinks because he plays a little softball he knows something about the Bigs.”

  “Heard a lot about you.” Sam held out a hand. “From this sentimental slob here who thinks the Orioles have a shot at climbing their pitiful way up to mediocre this season.”

  Seth shook hands. “If you want to commit suicide, Sam, get a gun. It’s got to be less painful than inciting this one to peel every inch of skin slowly off your body with a putty knife.”

  “I like to live dangerously,” he said and slid off the stool. “Take a seat. I was holding it for you. Gotta split. See you around, Aub.”

  “You’re going to owe me twenty bucks in July,” she called out, then shifted her attention to Seth. “Sam’s a nice enough guy, except for the fatal flaw that encourages him to root for the Mariners.”

  “I thought he was hitting on you.”

  “Sam?” Aubrey gazed back toward the tables with a smug and female look in her eye that made Seth want to squirm. “Sure he was. I’m holding him in reserve. I’m sort of seeing Will McLean right now.”

  “Will?” Seth nearly choked. “Will McLean?” The idea of Aubrey and one of his boyhood pals together—that way—had Seth signaling the bartender. “I really need a beer. Rolling Rock.”

  “Not that we get to see each other that often.” Knowing she was turning the screw, Aubrey continued gleefully. “He’s an intern at Saint Chris General. Rotations at the hospital are a bitch. But when we do manage the time, it’s worth it.”

  “Shut up. He’s too old for you.”

  “I’ve always gone for older men.” Deliberately, she pinched his cheek. “Cutie pie. Plus there’s only, like, five years’ difference. Still, if you want to talk about my love life—”

  “I don’t.” Seth reached for the bottle the bartender set in front of him, drank deep. “I really don’t.”

  “Okay, enough about me then, let’s talk about you. How many languages did you score in when you were plundering Europe?”

  “Now you sound like Kevin.” And it wasn’t nearly as comfortable a topic to explore with Aubrey. “I wasn’t on a sexual marathon. I was working.”

  “Some chicks really fall for the artistic type. Maybe your flower lady’s one of them, and you’ll get lucky.”

  “Obviously you’ve been hanging around with my brothers too much. Turned you into a gutter brain. Just tell me what you know about her?”

  “Okay.” She grabbed a bowl of pretzels off the bar and began to munch. “So, she first showed up about a year ago. Spent a week hanging around. Checking out retail space,” she said with a nod. “I got that from Doug Motts. Remember Dougie—roly-poly little kid? Couple years behind you in school.”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Anyway, he lost the baby fat. He’s working at Shore Realtors now. According to Doug, she knew just what she was looking for, and told them to contact her in D.C. when and if anything that came close opened up. Now, Doug . . .” She pointed toward her empty glass when the bartender swung by. “He’d pretty much just started at the Realtor’s and was hoping to hook this one. So he poked around some, trying to dig up information on his prospective client. She’d told him she’d visited Saint Chris a couple times when she was a kid, so that gave Doug his starting point.”

  “Ma Crawford,” Seth said with a laugh.

  “You got it. What Ma Crawford doesn’t know ain’t worth knowing. And the woman’s got a memory like a herd of elephants. She recalled the Whitcomb Bankses. Name like that, who wouldn’t? But they stuck out more because she remembered Mrs. WB from when she was a girl visiting here with her family. Her really seriously kick-your-butt-to-Tuesday rich family. Whitcomb Technologies. As in we make everything. As in Fortune Five Hundred. As in Senator James P. Whitcomb, the gentleman from Maryland.”

  “Ah. Those Whitcombs.”

  “You bet. The senator, who would be the flower lady’s grandfather, had an affection for the Eastern Shore. And his daughter, the current Mrs. WB, married Proctor Banks—what kind of name is Proctor, anyway?—of Banks and Shelby Communication. We’re talking mega family dough with this combo. Like a fricking empire.”

  “And young, nubile and extremely wealthy Drusilla rents a storefront in Saint Chris and sells flowers.”

  “Buys a building in Saint Chris,” Aubrey corrected. “She bought the place, prime retail space for our little kingdom. A few months after Doug had the good fortune to be manning the desk at Shore Realtors when she walked in, that place went on the market. Previous owners live in PA, rented it to various merc
hants who had their ups and downs there. Remember the New Age shop—rocks, crystals, ritual candles and meditation tapes?”

  “Yeah. Guy who ran it had a tattoo of a dragon on the back of his right hand.”

  “That place lasted longer than anybody figured it would, but when the lease came up for renewal last year, it went bye-bye. Doug, smelling commission, gives the young WB a call to tell her a rental just opened up on Market, and she makes him salivate when she asks if the owners are interested in selling. When they were, and a deal was struck, he sang the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’ Then she makes him the happiest man in Saint Chris when she tells him to find her a house, too. She comes down, takes a look at the three he shows her, takes a liking to this ramshackle old Victorian on Oyster Inlet. Prime real estate again,” Aubrey added. “No flies on flower lady.”

  “That old blue house?” Seth asked. “Looked like a half-eaten gingerbread house? She bought that?”

  “Lock and stock.” Aubrey nodded as she crunched pretzels. “Guy bought it about three years ago, snazzed it up, wanted to turn it.”

  “Nothing much around there but marsh grass and thickets.” But it rose over a curve of the flatland river, he remembered. That tobacco-colored water that could gleam like amber when the sun beamed through the oak and gum trees.

  “Your girl likes her privacy,” Aubrey told him. “Keeps to herself. Courteous and helpful to her customers, polite, even friendly, but carefully so. She blows cool.”

  “She’s new here.” God knew he understood what it was like to find yourself in a place, one that had just exactly what you wanted, and not be sure if you’d find your slot.

  “She’s an outlander.” Aubrey jerked a shoulder in a typical Quinn shrug. “She’ll be new here for the next twenty years.”

  “She could probably use a friend.”

  “Looking to make new friends, Seth? Somebody to go chicken necking with?”

  He gestured for another beer, then leaned in until his nose bumped hers. “Maybe. Is that what you and Will do in your spare time?”

  “We skip the chicken, and just neck. But I’ll take you out in the pram if you’ve got a hankering. I’ll captain. It’s been so long since you manned a sail, you’d probably capsize her.”

  “Like hell. We’ll go out tomorrow.”

  “That’s a date. And speaking of dates, your new friend just came in.”

  “Who?” But he knew, even before he swiveled around on the stool. Before he scanned the evening crowd and spotted her.

  She looked sublimely out of place among the watermen with their wind-scored faces and scarred hands and the university students with their trendy shoes and baggy shirts.

  Her suit was still crisp and perfect, her face an oval of alabaster in the dull light.

  She had to know heads turned as she walked in, he thought. Women always knew. But she moved with purpose and easy grace around the stained tables and rickety chairs.

  “Classy” was Aubrey’s one-word summation.

  “Oh yeah.” Seth dug out money for the drinks, tossed it on the bar. “I’m ditching you, kid.”

  Aubrey widened her eyes in exaggerated shock. “Color me amazed.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said, then leaned down to give her a quick kiss before strolling off to intercept Dru.

  She stopped by a table and began speaking to a waitress. Seth’s attention was so focused on Dru it took him a moment to recognize the other woman.

  Terri Hardgrove. Blond, sulky and built. They’d dated for a couple of memorable months during his junior year of high school. It had not ended well, Seth recalled and nearly detoured just to avoid the confrontation.

  Instead he tried an easy smile and kept going until he caught some of their conversation.

  “I’m not going to take the place after all,” Terri said as she balanced her tray on the shelf of one hip. “J.J. and me worked things out.”

  “J.J.” Dru angled her head. “That would be the lowlife, lying scum you never wanted to see again even if he was gasping his last, dying breath?”

  “Well.” Terri shifted her feet, fluttered her lashes. “We hadn’t worked things out when I said that. And I thought, you know, screw him, I’ll just get me a place of my own and get back in the game. It was just that I saw your For Rent sign when I was so mad at him and all. But we worked things out.”

  “So you said. Congratulations. It might’ve been helpful if you’d come by this afternoon as we’d agreed and let me know.”

  “I’m really sorry, but that’s when . . .”

  “You were working things out,” Dru finished.

  “Hey, Terri.”

  She squealed. It came flooding back to Seth that she’d always been a squealer. Apparently, she hadn’t grown out of it.

  “Seth! Seth Quinn! Just look at you.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “It’s going just fine. I heard you were back, but now here you are. Big as life and twice as handsome, and famous, too. It’s sure been some while since Saint Chris High.”

  “Some time,” he agreed and looked at Dru.

  “Y’all know each other?” Terri asked.

  “We’ve met,” Dru said. “I’ll leave you to catch up on old times. I hope you and J.J. are very happy.”

  “You and J.J. Wyatt?”

  Terri preened. “That’s right. We’re practically engaged.”

  “We’ll catch up later. You can tell me all about it.” He took off, leaving Terri pouting at his back as he caught up with Dru.

  “J.J. Wyatt,” Seth began as he stepped beside Dru. “Offensive tackle on the Saint Chris High Sharks. Went on to crush as many heads as he could manage at the local university before even his bulldog skill on the football field couldn’t keep him from flunking out.”

  “Thank you for that fascinating slice of local history.”

  “You’re pissed. Why don’t I buy you a drink and you can tell me all about it?”

  “I don’t want a drink, thank you, and I’m getting out of here before my eardrums are permanently damaged by that amazingly loud and untalented band’s horrendous version of ‘Jack and Diane.’ ”

  He decided it was a point in her favor that she could recognize the mangled song, and pulled open the door for her.

  “The flowers were a hit.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” She took her keys out of a streamlined, buff-colored purse.

  He started to suggest they go somewhere else for a drink, but could see by the irritated line between her eyebrows that she’d just shut him down.

  “So, you’ve got a space to rent?”

  “Apparently.” She moved, dismissively, to the driver’s side of a black Mercedes SUV.

  Seth got his hand on the handle before she did, then just leaned companionably against the door. “Where?”

  “Above the shop.”

  “And you want to rent it?”

  “It’s empty. It seems like a waste of space. I can’t drive my car unless I’m inside of it,” she pointed out.

  “Above the shop,” he repeated, and brought the building back into his mind. Two stories, yeah, that was right. “Bank of three windows, front and back,” he said aloud. “Should be good light. How big is it?”

  “Nine hundred square feet, including a small galley-style kitchen.”

  “Big enough. Let’s take a look.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Show me the space. I might be interested.”

  She gave the keys in her hand an impatient jiggle. “You want me to show you the apartment now?”

  “You don’t want to waste space, why waste time?” He opened her car door. “I’ll follow you back. It won’t take long,” he said with that slow, easy grin. “I make up my mind pretty quick.”

  FOUR

  SHE MADE UP her mind quickly as well, Dru thought as she backed out of the pub’s lot. And she had Seth Quinn pegged.

  A confident man, and a talented one. Each aspect probably fed into the other. The fact that his rou
gh edges managed to have a sheen of polish was intriguing, something she was certain he knew very well.

  And used very well.

  He was attractive. The lean, lanky build that looked as though it had been designed to wear those worn-out jeans. All that burnished blond hair, straight as a pin and never quite styled. The hollowed cheeks, the vivid blue eyes. Not just vivid in color, she thought now. In intensity. The way he looked at you, as if he saw something no one else could see. Something you couldn’t see yourself.

  It managed to be flattering, jolting and just a bit off-putting all at once.

  It made you wonder about him. And if you were wondering about a man, you were thinking about him.

  Women, she concluded, were like paints on a palette to him. He could dab into any one of them at his whim. The way he’d been snuggled up with the blonde in the bar—a little play she’d noted the instant she herself had walked in—was a case in point.

  Then there’d been the way he’d smiled at the waitress, the terminally foolish Terri. Wide, warm and friendly, with just a hint of intimacy. Very potent, that smile, Dru mused, but it wasn’t going to work on her.

  Men who bounced from woman to woman because they could were entirely too ordinary for her tastes.

  Yet here she was, she admitted, driving back to the shop to show him the second-floor apartment when what she really wanted to do was go home to her lovely, quiet house.

  It was the sensible thing to do, of course. There was no point in the space staying empty. But it galled that he’d assumed she’d take the time and trouble simply because he wanted her to.

  There was no problem finding a parking space now. It was barely nine on a cool spring evening, but the waterfront was all but deserted. A few boats moored, swaying in the current, a scatter of people, most likely tourists, strolling under the light of a quarter moon.

  Oh, how she loved the waterfront. She’d nearly howled with glee when she’d been able to snag the building for her shop, knowing she’d be able to step outside any time of the day and see the water, the crabbers, the tourists. To feel that moist air on her skin.