“Organic beer.” Clay nodded. “I like the concept.”
“Yeah, so did we.”
It had been right about this time that Steffie, all legs and just the slightest sway to her hips, walked past to join her parents in the dining room. She was a knockout in a simple black dress with all that honey-blond hair curling around her face and over her shoulders. He felt his heart thud in his chest.
“I’ve gotten into a lot of organics myself over the past few years,” Clay was saying. “You know I took the farm over from my dad before he died?”
“I think I heard someone mention that. How’s that working out for you? I thought farming was a tough row—no pun—these days.” His eyes kept returning to the dining room. Stef had just arrived at her parents’ table and was kissy-kissy with Mom and Dad. Enright was all smiles and shaking hands with Stef’s father … but did he just actually hug Mrs. Wyler?
Seriously, Enright?
“Farming has always been tough,” Clay conceded, “but I never considered anything else. My parents insisted I go to college—and I did—but there was never been anything else that interested me and no question that I would farm. These days, a lot of farmers have it tough because it’s so profitable to become part of the ‘big agribusiness’ culture, you know? Grow corn or soybeans for one of the big conglomerates, but that restricts you in what you can do. Plus the whole genetically-modified-seed thing bothers me. I know there are pros and cons, but it just doesn’t sit right with me.”
“So what do you grow?” Wade asked, one eye still on the dining room.
“We’ve always grown corn, but it’s harder to find seed that hasn’t been genetically modified, so this may have been the last year I’ll do corn. We have the orchard, and we do a good business there. Plus, I’ve started to develop a solid business in organics.” Clay took a sip of his beer. “Which is why I was interested in your idea of making organic beer.”
“It’s an idea whose time has come,” Wade told him. Across the room, Steffie was taking off her hot-pink jacket and Enright was draping it over the back of her chair. Wade eyed him suspiciously.
“I’ve done a pretty good job getting the chemical fertilizers out of our soil these past few years,” Wade heard Clay say. “Lola down at the café asked me a couple of years ago to grow some organic herbs and lettuces for her. Then she wanted tomatoes. Then a couple of the other restaurant owners got wind of it, and asked me to grow for them, too, so I’ve been building up that business steadily over the past few years. It’s a lot of work, but it’s better than sitting behind a desk all day.”
“I hear you.” Wade’s eyes wandered back to the dining room, where everyone at the Wyler table was laughing. It appeared that Enright was telling a story that everyone thought was pretty damned funny. Ha ha. Wade scowled.
Clay turned on his stool to see what Wade was looking at.
“Yeah”—Clay nodded—“little Steffie grew up real good.”
Wade turned the scowl on Clay.
“Oh, so that’s how it is.” Clay raised his glass to his mouth, a knowing smile on his lips.
“We were talking about farming,” Wade reminded him flatly.
“The future’s in organic.” Clay took a long drink from his glass before signaling to the bartender for another.
“I thought the future was in plastics.” Brooke breezed into the bar. “Oh. Sorry. That was 1967.”
“You weren’t even born in ’67.” Clay got off his stool and offered it to his sister.
“True, but the movie was a classic.” Brooke tossed her hair over her shoulder and smiled at Wade.
“And here’s to you …” He tilted his glass in her direction and she laughed.
“The point I was trying to make is that organics are here to stay.” Clay resumed the conversation. “The locavore movement is coming on strong; more and more people are becoming interested in eating locally grown foods, and I’m one of them. Not just because it makes a great business for me or that the food’s better—that’s a whole ’nother discussion—but frankly, it’s more interesting to grow a variety of produce to sell locally than it is to sell one or two crops for the large agricompanies.”
The bartender brought his beer and took Brooke’s order.
“It’s gotta be more labor-intensive,” Wade pointed out.
“Backbreakingly intensive,” Brooke said. “My brother’s addicted to pain.”
Clay nodded. “Like I said, organic farming keeps my interest.”
“So what did you grow this year?” Wade glanced back at Stef’s table and caught her eye as she looked up. For a moment they gazed at each other from across the room, and for a moment it was as if they were alone there, just the two of them. Until her mother tapped her on the arm and brought her back into the conversation.
“Peppers—eight or nine kinds this past year; next year I’ll add a few more,” Clay was saying. “Cucumbers. Summer and winter squashes—seven or eight varieties there, too. Swiss chard. Eggplant. Tomatoes—fifteen varieties including a couple of heirlooms. More to come for next year. There’s a huge market for heirlooms. Oh, and I had over twenty different herbs.”
“Madison growing herbs.” Wade shook his head. “Somehow that’s just wrong.”
“Actually, I kinda enjoyed it.” Clay grinned. “But even if I tripled the organic crops next year, that would still leave me with a hell of a lot of fallow acreage and two barns filled with a bunch of unused farm equipment and a whole lot of air.”
“And?” Wade wasn’t sure what the point of all this was.
“And I have to find something to fill those empty acres.”
Brooke’s eyes wandered first around the bar, then across the dining room.
“Who’s the guy with the Wylers?” she asked. “I’ve seen him around town a couple of times.”
“Jesse Enright. He’s their lawyer,” Wade said, refusing to give voice to the possibility that Jesse could be anything else.
Clay turned around. “He’s Mike and Patti’s nephew. Joined the firm a while ago. Why’d you ask?”
“Just curious.” Brooke shrugged.
“I’ve had offers to rent out my fields,” Clay said, “but I hate that idea because I never can be sure what others are putting on their crops. And if they’re using GMO seed, it can cross-pollinate with what I grow. If they put crap fertilizers on their plants, it can blow onto mine or get into my soil, neither of which I want if I want to be certified as an organic farmer.”
“What are your options?” Wade asked because he knew he was expected to, but it was hard to concentrate when he could see Steffie’s face so clearly.
“I’ve been thinking about grapes,” Clay said. “As in wine grapes.”
That got Wade’s attention.
“Grow to sell to wineries?” he asked.
“Maybe, to start. Or maybe to start up my own vineyard, who knows.”
“It takes a while before the vines mature and the grapes are wine quality,” Wade told him.
“About as long as it takes hops to mature?” Clay countered.
“You can get hops the second year if you’re lucky, but from year three on, you’re good.” Wade studied the glass of beer the bartender had placed before him. “As long as you don’t get hop beetles or some other pest, and if you can stay disease-free.”
“So the hop vines have to mature, too,” Clay pointed out.
“They’re called ‘bines,’ by the way, but yeah, they need a year or two.” Wade paused for a moment, then asked, “Why the interest in hops?”
Clay shrugged. “Seems to be a good business to get into right now, if you have the time and the patience and the place to grow them organically. All of which I have plenty of.” He picked up his burger, but before he took a bite, he added, “I figure now’s as good a time as any to explore my options. Microbreweries are doing well. I think a brewery is just what St. Dennis needs. Yeah”—he nodded—“I might want to try my hand. Maybe I can pick your brain while you’re he
re. Since you’re not interested in sticking around and doing it yourself, it’s not like we’re competing, right?”
Before Wade could respond, Clay went on: “And the more I think about it, the more I think St. Dennis needs its own beer.”
“That’s what Berry said. She suggested it be called ‘Berry Beer.’ ”
Clay nodded. “I like it.”
Wade frowned. “Guys are not likely to drink a beer named ‘Berry.’ ”
“The ladies would, though,” Clay noted. “Nothing wrong with focusing on the ladies.” He followed Wade’s gaze across the room. “Which you don’t seem to have a problem doing.”
“She’s just in my line of vision, that’s all,” Wade told him, then wished he hadn’t. Clay wasn’t stupid, and it was obviously a lie.
“I say go for it, Wade.” Brooke patted him on the back. “Haven’t you and Steffie always had a thing of sorts going on?”
“Of sorts,” he acknowledged.
“Just something else you’re going to leave behind when you go,” Clay pointed out. “Don’t be thinking you’ll lure her up north with you. Steffie’s got Bay blood in her veins and a damned fine business that she built for herself, by herself. No way that girl’s going anywhere. If you’re thinking about making a move in that direction, you’d best be thinking about sticking around, because right now she’s fair game, and you’re not the only guy in town who’s interested.”
“Obviously,” Brooke said. “And who could blame them? Stef’s a doll, and a very successful one, at that. And hey”—she poked Wade—“the two of you are almost family now.”
“Almost.” Wade tried to smile.
“Well, if you want my advice—” Brooke began.
“If he did, he’d ask for it,” Clay interjected.
Wade smiled and nodded to Brooke to go on. He’d take any advice he could get right now.
“Like I said, go for it.” Brooke’s expression changed, her eyes somber. “Life is short, Wade, it’s unpredictable. Don’t think there’s always tomorrow, because sometimes, there isn’t.”
Clay put down his beer and rubbed his sister’s back, and Wade knew that Brooke was thinking about her husband, who’d been killed in Iraq a few years back.
“I’m all right,” Brooke told Clay, “but thank you for the comfort.” She turned back to Wade. “I just want you to understand that it can all turn on a dime. You always think there’s time, but you—”
“Hey, guys.” They’d not seen Steffie’s approach.
“Oh, hey, Stef.” Brooke reached out a hand to her and Wade hoped Brooke wouldn’t tell her that she’d been the topic of their conversation for the past five minutes. He needn’t have worried, though. “You look terrific, girl. All that ice cream is doing you a world of good.”
“I walk it off.” Stef smiled, then turned to introduce Jesse to Brooke and Clay.
“I was just saying to my mother the other day that I needed to get a will made,” Brooke told Jesse.
“Stop in at the office anytime,” he told her. “I’d be happy to draw one up for you.”
Brooke launched into an explanation of how she wasn’t sure of the best way to protect her son’s interest in a business that had been owned by her late husband and one of his brothers.
“So,” Wade said, tugging on Steffie’s hand to get her attention, “did you have a good dinner?”
“We did. Walt’s chef does the best seafood in town.” She eyed the plate that was next to his elbow on the bar. “Who orders buffalo chicken in a seafood restaurant?”
“I guess I lost my head.” Looking at you, he could have added, but he was afraid the corn factor might be too great for even Steffie to handle. Instead, he said, “So, what’s with you and Enright?”
He hadn’t meant to be quite so blunt, but there it was.
“My mom asked him to join us,” she explained. “He is her lawyer, you know.”
“And yours.”
“Yes, and mine.” She leaned forward just enough so that her leg was touching his, and whispered, “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were just a teeny tiny bit jealous.”
“Maybe,” he whispered back, “you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“Apparently not.” She stood back, looking pleased.
“Stef,” Clay was saying, “can I get you a drink?”
“No, but thanks, Clay,” she declined. “I had a glass of wine with dinner and I think that was my limit tonight. I am flat-out exhausted.”
Her parents were leaving and they stopped at the bar to chat with everyone for a few minutes. After they left, Stef said, “I think I’m going to call it a day as well.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Wade said. “Unless you came with …” He pointed to Jesse, who was engrossed in conversation with Brooke.
“I drove.”
They said good night to the others, then walked out into the parking lot.
“It’s a beautiful night,” Wade said as they walked to her car.
“Chilly, though.”
He put an arm around her and pulled her close. “Better?”
She nodded. They were almost to the car, and she searched her bag for her remote. She unlocked the doors, and the lights blinked. Wade walked her to the driver’s side and leaned against the door, thinking that it would be a shame to waste all this moonlight.
He pulled her to him and covered her mouth with his. Her lips were soft and full, and she tasted faintly of wine and smelled like lavender. He felt that jolt he always felt when he was close to her, a shot straight to the gut, and he drew her closer and kissed her again, his tongue exploring the inside of her bottom lip. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and she leaned back against the car, and he eased into her body. There was no question as to where this could lead if she were willing.
Wade was pretty sure she was willing.
Clay’s words—Steffie’s got Bay blood in her veins … no way that girl’s going anywhere—stuck in Wade’s head, because he knew they were true.
He kissed the side of her face and very slowly stepped back.
“We should call it a night,” he said as he opened her car door. “Be careful driving home, Stef.”
The look of surprise on her face was followed by one of confusion, but she covered up well.
“You, too. See you around.” She angled behind the wheel and he closed the door.
He stepped back from the car and watched her drive from the parking lot and up around the bend until her lights disappeared, and still he stood there.
He drove back to River Road and found Austin and Cody asleep across Cody’s bed and Dallas and Grant in the kitchen going over the RSVPs for Dallas’s birthday party and making last-minute changes on the menu the caterer would serve their guests. Berry’s friend Archer’s car was in the driveway, but neither was to be seen. Wade chatted with Dallas and Grant for a few minutes before wandering out onto the dock, where he stood at the end looking out toward the Bay.
It was so quiet and peaceful on the river, especially now that the summer people were gone. The night air had a definite chill, an augury of the frosty nights just ahead. He lowered himself to the wooden deck and leaned back against one of the pilings and looked up into the night sky, much as he had done when he was a child and newly come to St. Dennis, a child who wasn’t sure where he belonged.
Some things never change, he told himself wryly. Even as an adult, he still wasn’t really sure.
When he was younger, he’d moved back and forth between St. Dennis and Dunellen, New Jersey, the town his mother called home. She’d fallen apart after his father died suddenly, and Berry had insisted that the children, Dallas and Wade, come to stay with her for that first summer. And Berry being Berry, she’d wanted them to return the next summer, and the one after that, until spending the summers in St. Dennis became the routine. Then Roberta met a handsome polo player and eloped with him to South America. Dallas was already out of high school and Wade just about to begin. Berry in
sisted Wade should go to school in St. Dennis, not in a foreign country, and Berry, as always, got her way.
Up until then, Wade had gone back and forth between Dunellen and St. Dennis. In Dunellen, his father’s loss was felt most keenly: the empty chair at the dinner table, the newspapers that were delivered to their door every day but went unread, the chores that Wade took on because his father was no longer there to do them. The heart had gone out of their family, and the house where they’d lived together was never the same. It never again felt like home to Wade.
It had taken him a long time to feel that he belonged in St. Dennis. He’d made friends with some of the local kids, but it was understood that he was a temporary resident, not quite a townie, not quite one of the summer people. He long understood that the fact that he was a really good athlete as well as the grandnephew of the town’s only celebrity gave him a status he otherwise would not have enjoyed. The year Wade started high school in St. Dennis was the year that Dallas moved to Hollywood. By his junior year, she’d made several films, and was on her way to becoming an icon in St. Dennis, much like Berry had been years before. Wade’s identity was now Dallas MacGregor’s little brother, Berry Townsend’s nephew. There didn’t seem to be a place in town for him without them. With high school graduation came freedom, and he headed for the farthest college that accepted him, which was, as fate had it, in Texas.
He thought about those first few days after he arrived on campus, meeting Robin, becoming such fast friends. Without her friendship, he wouldn’t have felt like he belonged there, either, for all his sports and his involvement in campus life. After college, he built a career for himself in Texas, but deep down, he’d not been at home.
Now a person like Steffie, he told himself, has always known where she belonged. She had deep roots here and had no intention of pulling them up. Clay was right about that.
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 81