Sea Glass Sunrise

by Donna Kauffman

  “Hannah,” she said, quietly now, so he knew she was in more pain than she’d been showing, making him pause. “I’m Hannah. McCrae.”

  “Calder Blue,” he responded.

  “Ah. Blue Harbor Farm,” she added, as if recalling the sign on his door. “Any relation to Jonah Blue?” she asked through barely moving bruised lips, eyes still closed.

  “Great-nephew.”

  “I thought I’d met all the Blues.”

  “Different branch of the family.”

  She opened her eyes then, and turned all that dark blue on him. Despite whatever pain she was in, and whatever worries she might have, her eyes were still surprisingly sharp, and quickly assessing. “You mean—as in Jedediah Blue’s branch?”

  “The very same.”

  “Your branches don’t talk to each other. For like . . . a hundred years.”

  “A little longer, but that is true, yes.”

  “How long have you been in Blueberry?”

  “Just heading in, actually.”

  She leaned her head back and closed her eyes again, but her lips curved upward just a hair and stayed that way, even when she winced at the pain.

  “Something amusing about that?”

  “Not at all. It’s . . . I just realized that your bombshell is going to be a lot bigger than mine.”

  Chapter Two

  “Dear Lord, what have you done to yourself and just days before the wedding. Sit down and let me have a look at you.” Barbara Benson pulled around the chair next to her beat-up metal desk and gestured to it.

  Hannah knew better than to offer even token resistance, and frankly, she found standing upright highly overrated at the moment, so she sank gratefully onto the thinly padded seat. Sergeant Benson was the closest thing Hannah had ever had to a mom. One she remembered anyway. Though she supposed where Barbara was concerned, “mom” was a relative term. Barbara was in her late sixties and had raised her own brood of children while simultaneously performing her duties as sergeant, receptionist, secretary, dispatcher, Mother Superior, and general savior of everyone’s asses in Blueberry Cove. She’d performed those duties for Hannah’s brother, Logan, as well as the previous three police chiefs. Hannah was pretty sure Sergeant Benson applied the same handbook to child-rearing duties as she did her police duties. And Hannah wouldn’t have changed a single thing about it.

  “I missed you, too,” Hannah said wryly, trying not to wince as she smiled.

  “Got word from Sal that you took out Carl’s sign with your fancy little hot rod.”

  “It’s not a hot rod,” Hannah said, dutifully tipping her face up for examination.

  “It’s not a pickup truck or a sport utility vehicle. Something useful.”

  “No. It’s actually fun to drive.” Or was. “In fact, it was a pickup truck that ran me into Beanie’s sign.”

  “Way I heard it, you ran the stop sign.”

  Hannah sighed. Small towns. And Blueberry was the smallest of the small when it came to everyone knowing everyone else’s business. She’d have to get used to that again. Though, admittedly, she’d learned that the Capitol Hill legal community was a close second when it came to high-functioning grapevines. It was a miracle no one here knew what had been transpiring in her life back in D.C. for the past six months. Just because she hadn’t told a single member of her family didn’t mean that somehow word wouldn’t make its way back to the Cove anyway. Hannah was certain it hadn’t though, because Barbara would have been the first one to call her if it had. And then, only if Uncle Gus hadn’t beaten her to the punch.

  Hannah had already planned to make up an excuse for why Tim wasn’t with her at the wedding. She’d come clean after the ceremony was over and Logan and Alex were off happily honeymooning, but not now. Not yet.

  “When did that happen, anyway?” Hannah asked. “The four-way stop, I mean. And all the way out there? Why? Fiona ran the damn thing, too. Darn thing,” she automatically corrected when Barbara gave her The Look. Hannah reached for her purse so she could dig out two quarters for the swear jar that had sat on Barbara’s desk for longer than Hannah had been alive.

  Barbara reached over and filched a dollar when Hannah opened her wallet, then dropped it in the jar. At Hannah’s raised brow, she said, “Price of swearing has gone up, just like everything else.”

  “You know,” Hannah said, mildly, “Fiona’s convinced that having a swear jar in a police station, even one as small as ours, probably put every one of your kids through college. What does the loot go to now that they’re all grown and married? The grandkids’ college funds?”

  Barbara leaned closer and examined the laceration on the bridge of Hannah’s nose, making clucking noises. Hannah knew from experience that was her version of swearing. “Always had a hankering to see Alaska,” Barbara said, as she finished her perusal and moved back behind her desk. She was still frowning at the state of Hannah’s face, but there was a decided twinkle in her eyes when she added, “Preferably from the deck of a cruise ship.”

  Hannah laughed, then flinched and gently put her hand over her nose and busted lip. “I can’t believe I have to play maid of honor with this. I don’t think even Fiona’s amazing cosmetic skills are going to save me. Logan’s going to kill me when he finds out. If Alex doesn’t first.”

  “What did Bonnie have to say about it?”

  “She said my head must have been jerking forward when the air bag exploded, because the impact was harder than it usually is. I bought an older-model car because I liked the look of it better, which made the air bag technology dated.” She raised a hand to stall the lecture. “I know, I know. Happens sometimes, apparently. So . . . lucky me. It’s not broken, thank goodness, just a deep laceration from the canister hitting me, three stitches. Lip isn’t pretty, but no stitches there, so there’s that. Bruised shoulder, but nothing worse.” Although . . . tell that to her shoulder, which felt as if it were on fire. “And I’m probably going to have two black eyes from the impact.”

  Barbara clucked again, but mercifully spared her the full-on safety lecture. “Trust your sister,” she said instead. “She can make anything look good.” At Hannah’s twist of a half smile, Barbara waved her hand. “You know what I meant. And Alex isn’t exactly one to worry about things like that and neither is your brother. Although he might not be too thrilled with you drag racing through town and wiping out the signage.”

  “I wasn’t drag racing,” Hannah said, letting the exasperation come through. “I wasn’t even speeding. I just . . . I didn’t see the stop sign, that’s all. I was distracted by the lupines.” And the wreckage that is my personal life. “So . . . why do we have a four-way stop there?”

  “It’s all the changes coming to Half Moon Harbor. Town council thought we needed to be a step ahead of the increase in traffic. There’s one at the other end of town, too, at Point Road. And talk of putting in a second light by the courthouse park.”

  Point Road. If it hadn’t been for the accident, she’d have already driven that long, scenic route around Pelican Bay out to Pelican Point, to home. She missed the rocky shoreline, the constant sea mist, the aging family home that had once been the lightkeeper’s station, the even older and more crumbling original keeper’s cottage. And oh, she missed her lighthouse. Hannah knew the Pelican Point lighthouse was well into its much-needed restoration, close to being done actually, last she’d heard, because Alex was the one heading up that project. She couldn’t wait to see it. For the first time in her life, it would be fully functional. She couldn’t even imagine it.

  The town was celebrating the tercentennial of its charter date later that summer, and the lighthouse was closing in on its bicentennial, so the idea had been to link the two together and celebrate their history and heritage at the same time. But the Cove as a whole was well north of the standard tourist trade, and neither a restored lighthouse nor their little town celebrations, no matter how important or historic, were going to bring a crush of outsiders, certainly not long enou
gh to warrant permanent traffic signs. She said as much to Barbara.

  “You’re right, it won’t,” Barbara said, scooting her chair in, lips pursed as she started methodically going through folders on her desk, filing things, shoving other stacks aside, clearly annoyed, but trying not to be. “It’s the schooner tours that will be operating out of the harbor and the new yacht club that will raise those kinds of issues.”

  “Right! The schooner! How did I forget about that? I guess it’s been bringing in sightseers already. It’s not every day you can witness a life-size version of a seventeenth-century tall ship being built. I can’t even imagine it, not really. I’m anxious to see it, and to meet the Monaghan who came to resurrect their shipbuilding heritage.” Along with the McCraes, the Monaghans were the other founding family of Blueberry Cove.

  “He’s a handful, that one. What they once would have called a scalawag,” Barbara said, but her expression made it clear that while she might like to hold his reputation against him, she simply couldn’t. Made Hannah all the more curious to meet him. “But he does fine work,” Barbara went on. “Very impressive. His forebears would be proud indeed.”

  “I look forward to seeing it. But tours on one boat out of Half Moon Harbor, even one that big, can’t mean a huge increase in—wait. Did you say . . . yacht club? What yacht club? Who here even has a yacht?”

  Barbara met Hannah’s gaze with a level one of her own. “It’s Brooks Winstock’s schooner, you know. Brodie is building it, just like his ancestors once did, but Winstock is the owner, and he’s the one who’ll be operating the tours. Or who will own the business that operates the tours. Winstock also happens to have a yacht. And lots of friends with yachts. So, he decided to build himself and his pals a club.”

  Now Hannah understood the annoyed look. “Brooks Winstock decided what? When did that happen?”

  Barbara’s expression became a bit more pointed, in a way that would have made Hannah squirm in her seat even if she weren’t hiding a big, fat secret.

  “Well, if you’d bother to come back home more often than once every few years, or keep in touch more regularly, you’d know when it happened.”

  There’s the lecture. Hannah knew better than to think she’d escape without one. Oddly, instead of irritating her, it made her feel . . . well, not comforted, but like she was home. Like she mattered. To someone.

  Barbara leaned back, but stopped short of folding her arms over her buttoned-up, uniformed bosom. Not that it mattered. Her steely gaze did much the same. “Speaking of which, what is Tim the Titan of Finance’s excuse this time? And don’t bother telling me he’s coming because it’s all over your face that he’s leaving you to pull wedding duty alone. At least he didn’t keep you from coming home this time.”

  “No,” Hannah said quietly, no longer annoyed by Barbara’s nickname for him. He had plenty of far worse ones now. “Tim isn’t here. He’s not coming to the wedding. It’s just me.” The urge to simply unload and tell Barbara exactly how truthful a statement that was, to tell her every last thing that had happened, was so strong Hannah wasn’t sure she could hold it in another second. Then she noticed, or made herself notice, the door to Logan’s office in her peripheral vision. No, you can’t. Not until after his wedding.

  Hannah knew that the mere mention of Tim by her family and loved ones would cause her to relive the heartache all over again. But she’d promised herself she wouldn’t shed so much as a single additional tear over him, and willed her eyes to stay dry now. Surprisingly, despite her thumping, battered heart, they did. Maybe it was the accident trauma. Maybe her body could only focus on handling one type of pain at a time.

  “I know you all were looking forward to finally meeting him, but he’s not why I haven’t been home.” Hannah could blame Tim for a lot, and did so, freely, but she’d never been one to push off blame that was rightfully hers on someone else, no matter how tempting. “I would have come without him, it’s just been really—”

  “Busy. Yes, so you’ve said for the past three Christmases.”

  “It hasn’t been three, it’s only been . . .” She trailed off, did the math, and felt . . . sad. And annoyed with herself. Had it really been that long? It felt, in some ways, like a lifetime longer. Hannah lifted a shoulder, then flinched, as she was reminded, quite painfully, that that was the shoulder the seat-belt harness had done a number on during the crash. “It’s not because I didn’t want to be here. And I’m sorry. I truly am.” That much was true. “It’s just, in my business, holidays are a big time for networking and I was—we were both—trying to make a name for ourselves in our respective firms. This is the time in our lives we had to strike if we wanted to climb. If you don’t make your mark early, you generally don’t make one ever. I just—” Used to think that was important. Her shoulders slumped a little under the weight of... all of it, not the least of which was the subterfuge she’d decided to continue upon her return. “Logan understood, and Fi. Kerry hasn’t been back for even longer, and—”

  “And she’s been on another continent at the opposite end of the earth,” Barbara commented pointedly.

  Hannah glanced down. “I’ve missed all of you, terribly.” She knew the statement sounded heartfelt and sincere, because it was. Never more than after the past six months. She looked back up. “I’m really glad to be home.” She felt tears threatening now, and it made her face hurt that much worse, so she frowned slightly to try to quell them, and said, “So, what’s the deal with Winstock and the yacht club? Where on earth could he even build such a thing? Between the Monaghan shipyard and Blue’s fishing docks, there isn’t much real estate right on the harbor—”

  “He took Delia’s place. Right out from under her. Tried to snatch himself part of Monaghan’s, too, but got his fingers smacked away from that particular cookie jar by a friend of Grace’s with deep pockets.”

  “Grace? Grace who?” Hannah’s temples began to throb in earnest. Maybe she should have had more to eat in the past fourteen hours than chocolate pretzels and Diet Coke.

  Barbara must have seen something of the pain because her expression softened and she leaned forward and placed a firm hand over Hannah’s. “Honey, you’ve got a lot to catch up on. And plenty of time to do it. Later. For now, you should head on out to the Point, see your brother, let Fiona fuss over you a little. Get some sleep. You’ve had too long a day already and some big ones coming up.”

  “I—Logan’s not still here in town?” She glanced at his office door again, which stood half open. She’d known he wasn’t in there or she would have already had the best big-brother bear hug ever, but she’d assumed he was in town somewhere. “That’s why I came here after seeing Bonnie. I figured he could give me a lift.”

  “No, he headed out early today, something about the restoration had him heading back. It’s almost seven now anyway, so he’d already be gone.” Barbara smiled, and her love and affection for Logan shone clearly in every line of her face. “He’s been a lot better about not spending all his hours working these days. Does a soul good to see it. I tried to radio him when I heard about your accident, but he must be outside somewhere on the property, because I couldn’t get a signal.”

  “That’s okay. Fi will fill him in. I spoke to her and she knows I’m okay.”

  “Ask me, I think he lit out of here to go make sure everything was ready at the Point. He’s so excited having the three of you back home all at once, but a little nervous, too.”

  “Nervous? What on earth for? The Point is our home. We grew up there together. And last I heard, Kerry won’t be here until the day before the wedding.” If she comes at all, Hannah thought, but kept that to herself.

  “His life has been turned upside down since you’ve last seen him. In a good way,” Barbara assured her. “The lighthouse, all the other restorations and renovations. Alex being out there with him now. It’s different—it’s a home to him in a new way.”

  “I—I guess you’re right.” Hannah let the realization sink i
n. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.” And she couldn’t. It was too much to think about it that way, like she was losing her childhood home. The truth of it was, the idea of her big brother, after all he’d been through, making a home there with Alex, the two of them taking the Point into a new generation, would—did—make her truly and sincerely happy. It was just . . . a lot, at the moment. Her eyes might have misted again, and she was afraid even happy tears would turn into the big, ugly kind, so she pushed them back once more.

  “I’m really glad they are happy. I’m dying to meet Alex,” Hannah said sincerely. Better to focus on the good things instead. “We’ve spoken several times about wedding stuff and I like what I know of her so far.” She smiled, ignoring the pain, inside and out. “She’s definitely got Logan’s number, and I’m a fan of anyone who can jerk a knot in him from time to time. He’s been the big kahuna long enough.”

  “You’ll like her even more when you meet her, I can promise you that. What about you?” Barbara asked after a beat. “Are you happy?”

  Barbara had caught Hannah off guard with that one, and though Hannah saw the love she’d missed even more than she’d realized, along with no small dose of concern in the older woman’s eyes, she wondered if maybe she’d been too hasty in assuming Barbara didn’t know anything. She knew Barb would be hurt when she found out Hannah hadn’t confided in her, and more than a little upset to learn Hannah hadn’t confided in anyone else, either. Feeling that burden a little too keenly, she ducked her chin.

  You’re getting pretty damn good at ducking things, she thought, then stuffed another dollar in the swear jar. Just because. “I’m happy to be home,” she said. At least that much was the truth. Then, after a short sigh and a little breath to help square her shoulders up again, she quietly asked, “Why didn’t you tell me all this was going on? With the club, and the diner? We talk at least once a month.”

  “More like every three or four this past year,” Barbara corrected, “and not at all since Christmas. But who’s counting?” She ignored Hannah’s abashed expression and instead reached across her desk and placed her hand over Hannah’s wrist. “Honey, I didn’t tell you because I knew you had a pretty good amount of something going on in your life as it was. It’s not like you to go that long without a call, even as busy as you are. I figured you didn’t need to get worked up over stuff going on here. It wasn’t like you could have done anything about it, anyway.”