“The worst crime scene I ever saw …”
“The dumbest guy I ever arrested …”
“There was this time I was sent to Maine to work on a serial-killer case …”
“I was in Arizona on a child abduction …”
Grady tuned it all out. He’d been a damned good agent in his day, but he left the Bureau because he found he could no longer separate the good memories from the bad. He’d found peace in his mountains, but even that was proving to have run its course. He’d told Mia that he’d made a life for himself there, and it was a good one. But if nothing else, being back with his family this week, seeing his old friends again, reminded him that the life he’d left behind hadn’t been so bad, after all. The thing was, he liked what he was doing, really enjoyed being a wilderness guide. He loved hiking, camping, and he’d found it easy enough to support himself doing just that. Of course, his expenses were minimal in Montana. He owned the house outright, and his car had long been paid for. His biggest expenses were food and enough wood to keep the woodstoves going in the winter when the oil truck couldn’t get through.
It both amused and annoyed him that his sister seemed to think that he spent his days sitting in a corner, sucking his thumb and watching game shows. Amused, because it was so far from the truth, and annoyed because, well, because it was so far from the truth that he couldn’t believe that she honestly believed it. He’d have to set her straight one of these days.
The entire wedding-week extravaganza amused him, as well. There’d been many weddings in their large family over the past few years, but none of them had taken a week to build up to. His own wedding to Melissa had been spur of the moment. They’d eloped, an act he’d later regretted when he realized how it had hurt his family to have been shut out. He’d never make that mistake again. Not that he was looking to get married again anytime soon, but still, these few days with his family reminded him why sharing the moments of your life with people you love who love you back was important. Sometimes you just needed a little tap on the shoulder.
He was enjoying spending some time with his brother and his wife, and was looking forward to the cousins all returning to St. Dennis over the weekend, a place he was enjoying as well. The town had a pace of its own, certainly different from Montana, and definitely different from any other place he’d lived in the past. He’d never lived near water before, but he was finding that he liked seeing the sun on the Bay every morning from the window of his room at the Inn. Yesterday, after his trip with Hal, he’d walked back down to the dock and watched the other fishing boats come in, and he’d lingered to listen to the banter of their occupants. There was an easy rhythm to life here in St. Dennis, one he found appealing.
He leaned back in his chair, one arm over the back of Mia’s, and watched her face as she looked up at Beck. There was such love in her eyes, and in the eyes of her future husband. He and Melissa must have looked at each other that way at one time, but he couldn’t remember. There were more and more days when it was harder to recall what her voice sounded like, or what her skin felt like against his. It wasn’t that he was trying to forget her, it was just that life moved forward, not backward.
Someone put money in the old jukebox at the far side of the room, and music began to play. Tables were pushed aside, and several couples—two middle-aged and a pair in their twenties—moved onto the makeshift dance floor and swayed to a song he didn’t recognize. Moments later, an older couple joined them. They appeared to be in their eighties, the woman spry, the man not so much. He moved slowly, his feet shuffling side to side, but he held the woman in his arms and held her gaze lovingly in his. They continued to sway together, the woman looking up at her partner as if he were the only man in the world.
Well, Grady thought, I suppose for her, he is.
The man leaned down and placed a kiss on his wife’s cheek, and Grady looked away. The moment had held such bright intimacy and love, it was almost blinding, like looking into the sun.
That’s what he wanted for Mia, he thought: The kind of love that lasted through all the years and all the changes and all the stages of life.
And for himself? He didn’t think the cards held a great love for him. He’d been more aware of his aloneness tonight than he’d been in a long time. He didn’t feel especially lonely, most times, but just, well, alone. He watched the other dancers on the floor for a few more minutes, his mind drifting along with the music. Another song began to play, this one soft and sensual, and it took his mind to other places. Like back to the dinner table, where his leg had been pressed up to Vanessa’s, and she hadn’t moved it away. He’d been trying to avoid thinking about her, but three truths came to mind, now that she was in his head. One was that he hadn’t felt so alone yesterday, at her house, when they’d shared cookie duty. The second was that he’d been very much attracted to her from the minute he first saw her. Pretending that he hadn’t been hadn’t made it so.
And the third was, if Vanessa had stayed, he’d have asked her to dance.
Chapter 8
When Vanessa strolled into Cuppachino a little before eight on Friday morning, she found a few of the Charles Street merchants already at the table they favored near the front of the room. She waved to them on her way to the counter to order her usual—half decaf, half regular, whole milk, half an artificial sweetener—and joined them after Carlo, the owner, served her in her personal mug. It was brown and had BLING! in pink in the same feminine script as on the sign that hung over the shop’s door and on the shopping bags in which her customers carted home their purchases. Carlo’s wife was a potter, and every merchant in St. Dennis who frequented their shop had their own mug decorated with the name of their business. He kept the mugs lined up on a shelf behind the coffee bar, in order of their geographic location on Charles Street.
“Morning, Vanessa.” Barbara Noonan, the owner of Book ’Em, the book and magazine shop several storefronts down from Bling, moved over to make room for Vanessa. “Grab a chair from that next table and sit for a few.”
“Yes, have a seat,” Nita Perry, whose Past Times sold antiques, chimed in. “Bring us up-to-date on the wedding.”
“It’s rolling right along,” Vanessa told them. She slid a chair across the floor from one table to the other. “So far, so good.”
“I was just saying how nice it was that Beck found such a lovely girl.” Grace Sinclair held her mug between her hands as if to warm them. Grace actually had two mugs on Carlo’s shelf, one for the Inn at Sinclair’s Point, which technically belonged to her son, Daniel, now that she’d signed it over to him, and one for the St. Dennis Gazette, the newspaper she inherited from her father. Today, in honor of the upcoming wedding, Grace was using the Sinclair’s Point mug.
“God knows he took his time looking.” Barbara grinned. “There’s going to be a lot of broken hearts in St. Dennis come Saturday.”
“There aren’t too many young, eligible men left,” Nita added. “I don’t know where these young girls are going to go to get a date.”
“I heard Wade MacGregor will be back for the wedding,” Grace said.
“That’s one, and he doesn’t count since he won’t be staying. Besides, that one always was a handful.”
“I always rather liked Wade.” Grace smiled.
“You didn’t live next door to him.” Barbara frowned with disapproval. “Him and that batty old aunt of his …”
“Great-aunt.” Grace corrected her. “Berry is his great aunt.”
“Beryl Townsend was nutty as a fruitcake when she was a girl, and she’s even nuttier now that she’s an old woman,” Barbara huffed. “My mother told me some stories about her that would singe your eyebrows.”
“Watch who you’re calling an old woman.” Grace’s eyes narrowed. “Berry isn’t so very much older than I am.”
“Yeah, well, you grew up.” Barbara raised her mug to her lips. “She never has.”
“Berry’s just a wee bit of a free spirit. Always has been. She was a
stage actress in her youth, you know,” Grace told them.
“I guess that’s where Dallas got the acting bug,” Nita chimed in.
“Dallas was always a lovely girl,” Grace recalled. “And Wade was a good boy. He was just a little unsettled. After all, his only sibling grew up to be a huge Hollywood star. I think after she became famous, people more or less forgot there was another Mac-Gregor. That couldn’t have been easy for the boy.”
“I still say he was a pain in the butt, regardless of the reason.” Barbara turned to Vanessa. “Now, where do you go to look for a nice young man these days?”
“Who, me?” Vanessa shook her head. “I’m not looking.”
“Pretty young girl like you ought to have lots of dates,” Barbara persisted. “You don’t want to end up an old spinster like me or Nita.”
“Speak for yourself,” Nita said. “Besides, I was married. Once.”
“Well, I think Vanessa has plenty of time to look for someone. When she decides she wants one.” Grace patted Vanessa’s arm. “Seemed to me that handsome brother of Mia’s had his eye on you at the wedding rehearsal.”
Vanessa felt a tinge of pink creep upward from her collar to her hairline.
“Oh, were you at the Inn last night?” she said to divert attention from her blush.
“I was on the veranda,” Grace explained. “I think everything is going to be beautiful once Olivia decorates the trellis leading into the rose garden and the chairs are all lined up on the lawn. I heard that the weather is going to be spectacular tomorrow.”
“We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
The door opened and a small crowd of tourists came into the coffee shop.
Barbara glanced at the newcomers, then at her watch. “It’s only eight-fifteen. Unusual for this time of year.”
“Well, as I said, the weather’s been glorious all week and it’s going to last right through the weekend,” Grace said. “All that sunshine always brings the visitors out.”
“I’ll bet if Beck had known that there’d be so much traffic coming into town today, he’d have gotten married last weekend. You know how he likes to keep an eye on things,” Nita noted.
“Well, he deserves to have a lovely wedding day.” Grace set her mug down. “I can’t remember when that boy took off more than a few days at a time. He deserves to have a week off.”
“Two weeks, actually,” Vanessa said. “He’s taking two full weeks.”
“Good for him.” Grace smiled. “Like I said, he deserves it.”
The door opened again and another group came in. The coffee shop was beginning to get crowded, the noise level rising.
“It looks as if you all have a busy day ahead of you,” Grace noted.
“From your lips to God’s ears, Gracie.” Nita toasted the older woman with her coffee. “The antiques business has been slow so far this year. Slower than I can remember.”
“Books are holding their own,” Barbara told them. “A little mystery, a little romance, a little crime fiction. Add a cup of good coffee, and for a lot of people, you have the perfect day.”
Vanessa had just raised her mug to her lips when she got that feeling of unseen eyes boring into her again. She turned in her chair and glanced around. The room was packed now, and she saw no one overtly staring in her direction.
“I should get going.” Vanessa stood and drank the rest of her coffee. “I need to get over to the shop and see what’s what before I open.”
“Ness, what do you have in dangly earrings?” Barbara asked.
“I have lots. What are you looking for?”
“Something fun to wear to your brother’s wedding,” Barbara explained. “Just because you’re not interested in Mia’s good-looking brother doesn’t mean no one else is.”
“He’s young enough to be your son,” Grace reminded her. “That makes you a dirty old woman.”
“The term these days is cougar.” Barbara pretended to be in a huff.
“Ugh. What a gross term. I don’t want to hear about it.” Vanessa covered her ears and grimaced as she made her way to the counter. She smiled at Carlo and handed him her mug. Once outside, she had to move to avoid a group of five or six women who were headed in.
“Be careful,” someone whispered in her ear, “or you’ll get knocked to the ground. I heard that the coffee stampede around here can get ugly.”
She looked over her shoulder and into Grady’s eyes.
“Hey, I know how it feels to need that first cup of the day.” She laughed.
“You’re on your way out?” he asked.
Vanessa nodded. “I have to get my shop opened.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have gone back for that extra forty winks. We could have had coffee together.”
“That would have been nice.” She moved out of the way of a couple who were intently studying the visitors’ guide. “So who won the dart game last night?”
“The game turned into a tournament. In the end, Hal was the last man standing. He beat Andy in the last round. That man can throw a dart.”
“I should have warned you. He and Beck play all the time. They’re both pretty good.”
“I noticed. Beck was the one who knocked me out in the second round.”
“So where are you off to so early?” she asked.
“Hal is taking me out on his boat to do a little crabbing. He said no one should visit the Bay without having eaten crabs he’s caught himself.”
She nodded. “That’s Hal’s idea of going out to pick up lunch. He knows all the best spots. You should have a good day.”
“You know, I never did get that tour of St. Dennis that you promised,” he reminded her.
“If you can wait until Sunday, I’d be happy to show you around.”
“It’s going to have to be early. I’m leaving on Sunday.”
“Oh. Well, you’ll be staying for brunch, right? Maybe we can fit something in then, before or after. Whatever works best.” She looked across the street to her shop, where several women were gathered in front of the window.
“I have to go. My customers are arriving before me.”
“I’ll see you tonight, then.”
“Right. Dinner at Lola’s,” she recalled. “Seven o’clock.”
“Seven. Right.”
She turned and crossed the street. She looked back while she unlocked her door, but he’d already disappeared into the coffee shop.
“Good morning, ladies.” She greeted the group who stood by patiently. “Welcome to Bling …”
It had been a hectic day. Vanessa called Nan to ask her to come in early, but she wasn’t available until two, and could only stay until six, which wasn’t ideal, but it was better than no Nan at all. Vanessa hoped for a break so she could reorganize things a bit, but the customers seemed to come in waves for hours. As Grace had noted earlier that morning, the warm weather brought the tourists. Well, St. Dennis was a great place to spend a few hours on a sunny day, Vanessa mused during one of her few brief lulls. You could shop, have a great lunch, take a walk along the dock, or, she smiled, you could shop.
She stepped into the back room she used for an office and saw the white eyelet dress still hanging there. She was tempted to return it to the floor, but hesitated, remembering how the woman’s eyes had shined when she looked at the dress.
It can wait another day or so, Vanessa reasoned. Just in case she does come back over the weekend. I’d hate for her to be disappointed. She looked like a woman who’d had her fair share of disappointments.
The bell jingled over the door and she went back out to the floor. Three very stylish-looking women clustered around the jewelry counter.
“Welcome to Bling.” Vanessa smiled. “Was there something you wanted to see in the case?”
“The wide silver cuff there … the one with the red stone.” One of the women pointed a well-manicured finger at the top shelf of the glass case. “That is silver, isn’t it?”
Vanessa slid behind the counter and unloc
ked the case. “The wide cuff with the big hunk of carnelian? Yes, that’s solid silver, and the stone is real. Would you like to try it? There’s a pendant that matches, by the way …”
Before ten minutes had passed, the bracelet and the pendant had been sold, along with a pair of long, dangly citrine earrings that Vanessa had thought to put aside for Barbara to try. She probably should have taken them out of the case when she first arrived that morning, but she’d barely had a minute to breathe. Who could have predicted such crowds on a Friday afternoon weeks before the season began?
Her last customers left at seven-ten. She’d hoped to have them out of the store sooner, but they’d lingered over the belts she’d unpacked earlier in the week, and she sold three of the pricey accessories to a woman who purchased one for herself and one for each of her daughters. Vanessa straightened up stacks of shorts and sweaters as quickly as she could, tucked all the hangers back onto their racks, checked the dressing rooms and the displays where handbags and scarves had been moved around. One last look to ensure that everything was neat for Nan to open in the morning, then she locked the cash in the safe and the front door behind her.
Vanessa dashed across the street to Lola’s, where Grady greeted her with a warm smile that sent a tingle down to her toes.
“I was just about to walk over to your shop to see if you’d forgotten,” he said.
“I was so busy today, I could hardly keep track of who was coming in and who was going out.” She looked for the waiter. “I could really use a glass of wine.”
Grady grabbed a bottle from the table. “Is white okay, or would you rather have red?”
“White is fine, thank you.” She eased into a chair and sighed as she slipped her feet out of her shoes.
“Would you like a glass, or should I ask for a straw so you can drink it straight from the bottle?”
“A glass would be fine.” She laughed.
The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge Page 11