Home for the Summer

by Mariah Stewart

  “I am. I’ll be in the office bright and early on Monday morning. In the meantime, if anything comes up—”

  “I’ll call. Oh, and I’ll email the report we received today regarding the ice-skating sweet sixteen party. You can have a rink built instead of a pond, which the contractor you called is recommending. He’s gone over the Tollivers’ property and says there’s no good place to build a pond, what with runoff and all that. I told him you’d be in touch.”

  “I’ll read over the report and give him a call before I call the Tollivers.”

  Lucy opened her laptop and scrolled through her mail. She found and read the note from the contractor, then reworded it in less technical terms to send to her client. Surely Beverly Tolliver would understand the difference between over $100,000 to have a pond constructed—not counting maintenance—and the number the contractor brought in for the rental and setup of the temporary ice rink. She hit send, scanned the rest of her emails, then opened a new general file for the Magellan-Jones wedding.

  Using her scribbled notes as a guide, she typed all of the bride and groom’s wishes for their big week. Then she organized her notes under different headings and set up a separate page for each day, listed the day’s events, then started a new page for each separate event. By the time she was finished, she had more questions than answers—especially after reading Daniel’s most recent text message that said simply, No luck.

  June wasn’t looking good.

  July and August were notoriously hot and often steamy on the Eastern Shore. Would Robert and Susanna agree to postpone their wedding until later in the summer if Daniel continued to be unsuccessful in convincing his regular guests to reschedule their vacation weeks? Some of the flowers that Susanna wanted might not be available late in the season—peonies, for one, were all but impossible to find in August and didn’t stand up to heat very well. Hydrangeas and roses, she could get. She’d have to speak with Olivia and find out what would be in abundant supply. Susanna did mention she loved flowers and wanted them everywhere. It was going to be tough enough to tell the happy couple that their choice of month wasn’t going to work, but telling Susanna that her flowers wouldn’t be available was only going to make things more difficult. If Lucy had fabulous floral alternatives to offer, it might dull the pain a little.

  Of course, that could be the deal breaker. Lucy was well aware that they could easily go elsewhere, someplace where Susanna could have her first-choice date and her flowers.

  This could be tricky.

  Lucy made notes reminding her to talk to her mother about finding babysitters for that week—hopefully Grace or some of her friends would know of high school girls in town who’d be available—and lining up tennis, swimming, and golf teachers. A charter boat and a captain … next to that, she added a reminder to herself to talk to Hal Garrity about chartering his cruiser, the Shady Lady.

  Of course, she paused to reflect, she’d need a definite date before she could line up any of the events and vendors that Susanna wanted. And she’d have to get Daniel on board to allow her to delegate some tasks to Madeline, and she’d need someone in her L.A. office to do as much research as could be done by phone or email as possible. Lucy knew that with their event schedule she couldn’t possibly do it all herself. Not if she wanted to maintain any semblance of sanity.

  She made a few more notes. Invitations (Contact Molly Nixon about sending some samples). Tokens for the local shops (what amount was Susanna planning on designating for each token?). Lucy needed to talk to the shop owners directly about this and get them on board.

  She had just finished listing the shops that Susanna had mentioned—Scoop, Bling, Cuppachino, Book ’Em—when Grace poked her head into her room.

  “I just wanted to see how you were doing,” her mother said. “It’s getting late and I didn’t know if you were going to want to change before your date with Clay.”

  “Mom—”

  “It’s a prearranged meeting to get together for dinner. Therefore, it’s a dinner date.” Grace shooed away Lucy’s protest before she could voice it. “I don’t know what the big deal is. He’s a wonderful guy and darned good-looking, too. There’s not a single girl in St. Dennis who wouldn’t be more than happy to take your place tonight.”

  “I’ve no doubt.” Lucy smiled. No point in reminding her mother that most of the “girls” she referred to were, at the very least, over thirty, the ones from her own class having hit thirty-five this past year. Grace was old school: women Lucy’s age would forever be girls.

  “You just keep that in mind when you’re busy brushing him off,” Grace said.

  “I didn’t brush him off. It’s just that …” Lucy paused. What, exactly, was it? “Well, it’s just that I live out there, and Clay lives here.”

  “So?” Grace came into the library.

  “So, it’s really impossible to have any kind of relationship with someone who lives so far away. Too difficult to get together, and all that.” She hastened to add, “Not that I want a relationship with Clay. I’m just saying.”

  “But you’ll be in St. Dennis a lot this year,” Grace reminded her. “So you won’t always be on the other side of the country.”

  “But when I’m here, I’ll be working on the wedding.”

  “You’ll have time for the occasional dinner, though,” Grace noted. “Like tonight.”

  “Mom.”

  “I know. I’m giving you a headache.” Grace smiled. “I just thought you might need reminding of the time.”

  “I do.” Lucy glanced at her watch. “I had no idea it was so late. I need to run up and change.”

  “Wear that lovely green sweater Trula sent you for Christmas, why don’t you?”

  “I just might do that.” Lucy started toward the door, then turned and kissed her mother on the forehead. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “For …?”

  “For reminding me about the time. And … for caring that I have a life.”

  “Of course I care. I care about everything that touches you. You’re my girl.” Grace reached out and straightened a strand of Lucy’s hair that had worked its way from her ponytail.

  “I know, Mom. And I am grateful to have you as my mom. It might not always come across that way, but I am.” Lucy paused once more before leaving the room. “By the way, I think you and Clay did a great job decorating in here.”

  “Clay did most of the work,” Grace pointed out. “By that hour of the day, I was winding down.”

  “It’s all lovely. I love the way you moved that big leather chair to stand between the tree and the fireplace. It looks homey and warm. Christmas-y.”

  “Clay’s idea.”

  “It was a good one.”

  “Maybe you might want to tell him that.”

  “Maybe I will …”

  Clay parked the Jeep outside the inn and turned off the wipers. Of course it would rain on the night he was taking Lucy out. He just hoped the cold front the local weather forecaster mentioned on the six o’clock news would hold off until they’d had dinner and he’d gotten her back home. He’d hoped to take a walk along the pier with Lucy after dinner and didn’t know how she’d feel about a stroll in the snow. It was the sort of thing she’d liked when they were younger, but he didn’t know if she still did. There was a lot about her now that he didn’t know.

  He went into the lobby and was surprised to find her there waiting.

  “Right on time,” Lucy noted.

  “Wow. You look great. Wow.” The words tumbled from his mouth before he could stop them. Way to sound like a fifteen-year-old, he silently chided himself.

  “Thanks.” She smiled and picked up her jacket from a nearby chair. “Shall we?”

  “Let me give you a hand with that.” Clay reached out to help her on with the jacket, but she had already slipped her arms into the sleeves.

  “Got it, but thanks.” Lucy buttoned up and tied the jacket’s belt around her waist. “Is it still raining? Do I need to find an umbrella
?” She frowned and stepped behind the registration desk. “Mom used to keep a few back here but I don’t see any …”

  “It’s raining but not too hard, and I’m parked right outside the door,” he told her. “If it’s still raining when we get to the restaurant, I can drop you off in front while I park the car.”

  “That’ll be fine.” She walked to the door and he trailed just slightly behind her, thinking that she really did look pretty, well, wow, in that green sweater that set off her coloring and her eyes, jeans that were just skinny enough, and black boots. She wore sparkly earrings that swung just a little when she moved her head, and her hair curled around her face and made her look almost cherubic. He caught up with her to open the door but she was already through it.

  She was, he was beginning to realize, a woman who was used to doing things for herself.

  “So how did your meeting with Magellan go?” Clay asked after they’d arrived at the restaurant and were seated, at his request, at a table overlooking the Bay. They’d given their waitress, Candace, their drink orders, and Clay was hoping to avoid any awkward silences. Talk about her work, he thought. That might break the ice. “What’s he like?”

  “The meeting went really well,” Lucy replied. She closed the menu she’d been scanning and placed it to the side. “And he’s …” She paused as if to think. “He’s very different from what one might expect from one of the dozen wealthiest men in the country.”

  “In what way?”

  “He’s very much allowing his fiancée to take over the wedding planning. As long as it isn’t too formal or too girlie—his words—he’s fine with whatever she wants.”

  “Aren’t most men like that? They don’t care about the details as long as she’s happy? I mean, aren’t most weddings all about the bride?”

  Lucy smiled. “I’ve done weddings where the groom called all the shots, and I’ve had weddings where both parties had to be in perfect agreement about every little detail. And of course, I’ve had weddings where the bride is the one who decides what’s what. Sometimes the bride’s mother gets involved, and sometimes her sisters, her best friends …” She made a face. “Those are the toughest.”

  “Too many cooks?”

  “Way too many. Frankly, any more than two is too many. Everyone’s vision is different, and the only vision that really matters to me is that of the bride and the groom. I always want what my clients want, but life is so much easier when I can sit down with just the couple being married. So I have to admit I was relieved when Robert totally deferred to Susanna. When you’re talking about an affair as elaborate as this one is going to be, the fewer opinions you have to navigate, the better.”

  “But that’s your specialty, right? Big, elaborate, fancy affairs?” He’d learned this much from the tabloid reports following Dallas MacGregor’s wedding in December. Secretly, he’d read every one of them that mentioned Lucy or her company.

  “I’ve done fancy in more ways than you can imagine, but this one isn’t fancy in the way you’re thinking. At least, it isn’t starting out that way, but then again, who knows? I’ve seen wedding plans take crazy turns between the first meeting with the clients and the actual day. Right now Robert and Susanna just want fun, sort of casual but elegant.”

  “How can you be casual and elegant at the same time?” Clay asked.

  Lucy looked around the room for a moment, then nodded toward the window. “See that sailboat in the first slip?”

  “Doc Benson’s Tonight Tonight. She’s a beauty.”

  “She is,” Lucy agreed. “All that lovely wood, and that graceful mainsail. Would you consider her elegant?”

  He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, very elegant. She has beautiful lines, and if you saw her skimming the water, you wouldn’t even have to ask.”

  “So she’s elegant, but you wouldn’t take her out for a spin around the Bay wearing a tux, would you?”

  “Well, there have been some fancy parties on some of the boats out there in the marina, but no, I would not want to crew her in a tux.” He nodded. “I get it. Elegant and casual.”

  “The inn is that way. She dresses up very nicely, but she does casual just beautifully, just like that boat out there,” she noted. “This wedding is going to be outside, overlooking the Bay. There will be flowers everywhere and a string quartet and champagne and waitstaff in black tails—just as elegant as you please—but the vibe will be low-key.”

  “The MacGregor wedding was sort of like that.” He took a sip of wine. “Well, Wade and Steffie’s was. Dallas and Grant’s was more formal.”

  “The best weddings reflect the personalities of the bride and the groom. In Dallas’s case, we had an A-list Hollywood star, a very sophisticated guest list, and then there was the fact that she and Grant were older and were both married before. You expect some glamour there. For Wade and Steffie, you had a younger bride and groom, first-time wedding for each—well, if you don’t count Wade’s marriage in Texas to his business partner—and a younger guest list. Different personalities. Different vibes.”

  “Are you allowed to talk about what your new clients are going to have or is that a breach of wedding planner etiquette?”

  “So far, there’s not much to talk about. We only talked in generalites for the most part. We’ll talk more about the specifics the next time we get together.”

  “When will that be?” he asked casually, as if it didn’t really matter when she’d be back in St. Dennis again.

  “I’m hoping to put it off until the week after next. Susanna would be happy if I met with her every week, but I do have other clients who are getting married or having some special life event that they’ve paid me to organize, so I can’t put everyone aside for Magellan. But Susanna wants to meet often, so somehow I will have to accommodate her, whether or not it’s a hardship for me to keep coming back here.”

  “Is it a hardship? Coming back here?” He leaned back in his chair to watch her face. If it attracted him in sunlight, by candlelight it mesmerized. He couldn’t look away if he tried.

  “Not in the sense that I don’t like St. Dennis. It’s my hometown. My family is here, my roots. But I lose a day of work traveling each way, there’s no way of getting around that. Plus, there’s a lot on the to-do list for this wedding, and it would be easier for me if the wedding was in L.A. instead of St. Dennis. But I’m lucky to have landed this one. It’s huge.” She paused. “At least, I’m hoping I have it. We can’t sign a contract until we have a date and Danny’s still working that out. There’s a lot I could be doing right now, and I feel pretty secure that it’s going to work out, but until we’ve all signed, I hate to invest the time.”

  “Makes sense.” He took another sip of beer just as the waitress appeared at the table.

  “Are you ready to order now, Clay?” she asked, pad in hand.

  “Rockfish and oysters for both of us,” Clay told her. Turning to Lucy, he said, “Unless you changed your mind.”

  “No, no. That’s what I’m here for.” Lucy handed her menu to the waitress.

  “Fried or raw?” the waitress asked. Smiling at Clay, she added, “I know you like yours fried.”

  Clay nodded. “Nothing like a fat, lightly fried Chesapeake oyster the way they do them here.”

  “How can I resist? I’ll have the same,” Lucy said.

  “Two fried oyster and rockfish dinners.” Clay gave his unopened menu to the waitress.

  After the waitress disappeared with their orders, Lucy said, “And speaking of beer, why don’t you tell me more about this new venture of yours?”

  “Not much to tell at this point. We’ll be putting in our first crop of barley and hops as soon as the ground is right. We’re going to turn one of our old barns into a brewery so we’ll have the entire operation right here in St. Dennis.”

  “It sounds very ambitious. Converting the barn, growing everything yourself. You’re going to be a very busy man,” she observed.

  “Well, the
barn conversion isn’t going to happen overnight, and the crops have to be planted and harvested, and that takes time, too. These first couple of years, we’ll be buying from other growers. The hops are going in this year, but they take a few years to mature.”

  “So you buy seeds or plants from someone else …”

  “From several someone elses, actually. There are hundreds of different varieties of hops, and we’re going to want to experiment with several.”

  “What makes them different, and how will you decide which ones to grow?”

  “The best varieties are disease-resistant, they have the right aroma, they have a high yield, they store well.” He studied her face as he spoke, watched for the telltale sign of her eyes glazing over. When they did not, he continued: “I’ve learned more about beer in the past six months than I have in my lifetime before Wade and I started talking about the possibility of going into business together. He knows so damned much about every stage of the process. I’ll be the one doing the planting, but he’ll be the one who decides which varieties of hops we grow.”

  “You had the land, he has the knowledge,” she observed. “Sounds like a good partnership.”

  “I think it’s going to be. I’ve had some dozens of acres lie fallow for a couple of years now, so I’m not losing anything in that regard. Wade’s got several years’ experience brewing, says he has a really good nose for it. Judging by the success of his last company, I’d have to say he knows his business.”

  “I heard about how that business went down, about his partner falling for some con man who ripped off her and the business, left her pregnant, and disappeared.”

  “Left her pregnant and pretty much penniless at that point. Wade said even with the money gone, they were willing to borrow and start over again—he really believed in his products—but then they discovered that Robin had terminal cancer. That took all the wind out of his sails. He spent the next couple of months taking care of her—she’d declined treatment that could have prolonged her life for a short time because it would have caused the death of the baby.”