“You’re coming back for your stuff?” she asked. Before he could respond, she said, “I guess you found a house that you like.”
“Actually, there were several that I liked. One more than the others, but they’re all in the same really nice neighborhood. Lots of kids Austin’s age, it’s not too far from the brewery, the elementary school is just three blocks away.”
“Great.” She tried to sound enthusiastic. “So it sounds like everything’s a go for you. The job, the child care, the housing situation …”
“Yeah, everything’s even better than I could have hoped.”
“I’m glad things are working out the way you need them to. You deserve a couple of breaks after, well, after everything that’s happened over the past couple of months.”
“Thanks, Stef. I appreciate hearing you say that. Hey, maybe we’ll stop down when we get home. Austin needs his ice-cream fix. There’s nothing up here even remotely like Scoop.”
“Of course there isn’t.”
Wade laughed. “We have an early flight, so I’ll see you soon.”
“You know where to find me.”
She hung up and put the phone on the counter, her heart still beating a little faster at the sound of his voice and the prospect of seeing him tomorrow. No matter what, she told herself, she was not going to let him see her cry. She’d thought long and hard over this, thought about what it would be like if for some reason she lost Scoop and had to go to work for someone else. It would be hard enough to leave her business behind without having someone she cared about getting all weepy on her. She knew exactly what it was like to work your butt off to build a business that you loved, one you were proud of, one you’d given everything to. She was pretty sure she could figure out what it would take from her if it was lost to her. She understood all that. But she didn’t have to like it or the hole Wade’s absence was going to leave in her heart.
She heard the front door open and she jumped. She tiptoed to the doorway and peeked into the hallway.
“Ness, you scared the crap out of me.” Steffie exhaled the breath she’d been holding.
“Sorry. I saw the lights on and thought I’d come in and help you clean up so that we could get over to my house and change into our pj’s and get our little party started.”
“And you’re how old?”
“Chronologically old enough to legally buy a very nice bottle of champagne to share with my BFF,” Vanessa told her, “but mentally, I’d have to say thirteen tonight.” She reached into her shoulder bag. “Wait till you see the movies I picked up. Horror classics.”
She pulled out several DVD cases from her big leather tote. “Night of the Living Dead. Scream. Psycho. Nosferatu.”
“Have you seen that last one?” Steffie frowned.
“No, but my sister-in-law said it was really creepy.” Vanessa grinned. “Actually, they were all highly recommended by Mia, and after nine years in the FBI, she knows horror. But I also got Ghostbusters in case we wimped out.”
“Any one of those will make you afraid to close your eyes, so we’ll probably be up all night.” Stef put the lid back on the open paint can.
“Good. More time to eat junk food.”
“And soon we shall. As soon as I clean this brush.”
Stef finished cleaning up while Vanessa wandered through the house.
“The heart on the dining-room wall is just killing me.” Vanessa strolled back into the kitchen.
“I know, right? Old Horace was a romantic. Who knew?” Stef dried off her brush.
“And you have three fireplaces! You expect one in the living room, but I love that there’s one in the dining room. And in your bedroom, too—woo-hoo! At least, I’m guessing that’s the room you’re going to use, the one with the fireplace and the bathroom.”
“Good guess.”
“That’s the one I’d pick, too.”
“I’m done,” Stef told her. “Let’s just get the ice cream and we can lock up.”
“What kind did you make?”
“Butter brickle …” Stef removed the containers she’d earlier placed in the freezer.
“One of my favorites.” Vanessa smiled.
“… and s’mores.”
“S’mores ice cream?”
“Yup.” Out of habit, Stef checked the back door to make sure it was locked.
“Genius.” Vanessa followed Steffie out the front door. “Stef, seriously. That’s sheer—”
“Hey, Steffie, is that you?” A man called from the sidewalk.
Stef looked up from the lock. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me. Greg. From Scoop?” He stepped out of the shadows near the sidewalk. “Sorry. Did I frighten you?”
“No, I …”
“I did. I’m sorry. I was out for a walk and saw you coming out the door …” He appeared much chagrined. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting to see anyone,” Stef told him.
“Is this your house?” he asked.
“Uh, no. It’s my mother’s cousin’s. I was just doing a little painting for him.”
“That’s nice of you.” He gave Vanessa the once-over.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you around …” Stef said as she went to her car.
“Right. I hope so.” He smiled at Vanessa as he walked on.
“Ness, I’ll meet you at your place,” Steffie said under her breath, as if afraid of being overheard.
“Are you all right? You look rattled.” Vanessa looked after the departing figure. “Who was that guy?”
“Tourist. He’s been in Scoop a couple of times this week.”
“Has he been, like, stalking you?”
“No.”
“Then why’d you lie? Why’d you tell him this wasn’t your house?”
“I don’t know. It just came out.”
“Do you want me to say something to Beck? Because he can—”
“No, no. The guy just startled me. He was sort of just there when we came out of the house. I overreacted. He really seems like a nice guy.” Steffie slammed the back car door and opened the driver’s side. “I’ll follow you to your place.”
“Okay.”
They decided to forgo the sleeping bags in favor of the sofa.
“Grady said we could use a couple of his sleeping bags, but they smell like pine and, I don’t know, bears, maybe, to me.” Vanessa stood in the living room in her bare feet. “Which end would you like?”
“Either is fine.”
“You’re the guest, so you get to choose,” Ness told her.
“In that case, I choose the end closest to the fireplace.”
“Good choice.” Vanessa plopped her pillow on the opposite end of the sofa and curled up. There was a big bowl of popcorn drizzled with melted chocolate on the coffee table and two wineglasses. “So what about that guy freaked you out?”
“Greg?” Steffie shrugged. “He didn’t freak me out. Like I said, it was just that he sort of popped out of the darkness. It was just sort of creepy.”
“He was awfully cute, though. Maybe the universe sent him, you know, in response to my …” Vanessa pondered.
“Stop it. This is going to be a woo-woo-free night.” Steffie reached for a handful of popcorn.
“Boring,” Vanessa told her. “Besides, if you believe, as I do, that everything happens for a reason, you’d know that the universe brings you what you need.”
“True enough there. Hence, popcorn and wine.”
“He—Greg—is here for a reason, Stef.”
“Right. It’s called vacation. Now pass the bowl over and slip one of those movies in so we can get the crap scared out of ourselves.”
“I want ice cream first.”
“Of course you do, my little thirteen-year-old friend.” Steffie got up and patted Vanessa on the head. “I’ll get it.”
A few minutes later, when Stef returned with two bowls, Vanessa asked, “What kind to start with?”
“The but
ter brickle. I thought we’d save the s’mores for when we have—ha-ha—s’mores.”
“I do like the way you think.” Vanessa held up a hand and Steffie placed a bowl in it as she walked past. “Oh, hey, I almost forgot. I found Alice’s diary.” She leaned over and grabbed a leather-bound volume the size of a paperback book from the table. “I called Miss Grace to let her know I had it and I was going to give it to her, but she got talking about her daughter and the diary got lost in the shuffle.”
“What about Lucy? Is she all right? Last I heard, she was an event planner in California.”
“She still is. Miss Grace was just saying how she doesn’t understand why Lucy won’t come back to St. Dennis and do the event thing at the inn, because they’ve lined up some heavy-hitter weddings and Daniel doesn’t have anyone who he thinks can handle them. She said Lucy gets testy whenever she brings it up.” Vanessa placed a throw pillow behind her back and leaned against it. “I told her maybe it was just, you know, the normal mother-daughter thing that everyone goes through.”
“I didn’t. I’ve always gotten along with my mother. And Lucy’s what, thirty-five now? You’d think she’d be over whatever issues she might have had with her mother by now.”
“I don’t know her, so I can’t say. But anyway, I forgot to give Miss Grace the diary, which is why I still have it.”
“So what’s with the diary?”
“It seems Alice had a lover. Listen to this: ‘He came to me again last night. I cannot put into words the love I have for him and the joy he brings me. But even that great love fails me when I try to imagine myself joining him out in the world as he begs me to. The thought of leaving my own walls terrifies me to my soul. I would do anything—anything—to be released from this fear that grips my soul and my mind. What dark forces have inflicted this evil on me?’ ”
Vanessa looked up. “Alice was agoraphobic; you know that, right?”
Stef nodded. “What’s the date on that entry?”
“April 1934.”
“I wonder if people understood agoraphobia then? Did they even have a name for it in 1934?”
“I don’t know. Doesn’t it sound as if she thinks she’s under some sort of spell?”
“I think you’re under some sort of spell.”
“Seriously. ‘I would do anything to be released from this fear.’ ‘What dark forces have inflicted this evil on me?’ Doesn’t that sound like someone who thinks she’s been cursed?”
“Maybe.” Steffie thought it over. “If she did, maybe that’s why she started studying … oh, listen to me. I’m starting to sound like you.”
“Think for a minute. If you don’t know what agoraphobia is, and you’re afflicted with it, how would you explain it, even to yourself?”
“That’s a reasonable question.”
“Why, thank you,” Vanessa said drily.
“It would be interesting to know when Alice first started to be fearful of leaving her house.” Stef ignored the sarcasm. “Was this the only diary you found?”
Vanessa nodded. “But there could be more. There are so many trunks in that attic, Stef. I’ve gone through maybe half of them, but there are more.”
“Maybe I’ll ask Miss Grace if she remembers how old Alice was when she stopped going outside.”
“I’ll try to remember to take this”—Vanessa held up the diary—“to the shop tomorrow.”
“Well, give it here. Daniel’s making copies of some of the pictures that Miss Grace took at the party. She said she’d drop them off in the morning.”
“It’ll be interesting to see what she has to say about Alice’s mystery lover.” Vanessa passed over the diary and Steffie dropped it into her bag.
“It may not have been a mystery to Miss Grace.”
“True enough,” Vanessa agreed.
“So how should we scare ourselves silly?” Stef pointed to the stack of DVDs.
“Let’s do the scariest one first and get it out of the way.”
“Which one would that be? They’re all pretty scary. Do we want to be up all night, too terrified to sleep? Or do we want to be able to get into our respective shops on time tomorrow?”
“Hmm. Good question. One I hadn’t thought through. Usually scary movies are okay during the week when Grady’s here, which is generally the only time I watch them.” Vanessa pondered their dilemma. “He won’t be back until tomorrow, though.”
“Wade either.”
Vanessa’s head swiveled in Stef’s direction. “Wade’s coming home tomorrow?” Vanessa’s foot gave Stef’s thigh a punch. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Stef shrugged. “I’m trying not to make too much of it. He’s coming back to pick up all his stuff.”
“What did he say about the job?”
“The job’s perfect, the child care is perfect, and the house he found is perfect.”
“Oh, well, damn.” Vanessa frowned. “Well, we can skip the scary for a minute and we’ll just make a fire and snack and drink. You decide.” She got up and searched the mantel. “Grady laid the fire before he left so that all we had to do was light it.”
“Grady’s a hell of a guy.” Steffie looked through the stack of movies and settled on Ghostbusters.
“Isn’t he? I don’t think I ever loved anyone in my life the way I love him, you know?”
“I do.” Steffie hugged her pillow to her chest and watched Ness start the fire. “I think I do …”
“Is the L-word rattling around in your brain?” Vanessa stopped and turned around to stare at Stef.
Stef nodded. “I’m beginning to fear it might be so.”
“Wow. Just … wow.”
“Yeah.” Stef nodded and reached for the champagne bottle to open it. “Wow.”
“Did you tell him that while you were … you know, the other night?”
“Are you crazy? You don’t tell a guy who’s leaving town that you’re in love with him. It’s against the rules. Everyone knows that.”
“So you’re just going to let him go off and make a life for himself someplace else, without you?” With the fire going, Vanessa returned to the sofa and plopped down. “Without telling him?”
Stef nodded. “I don’t have much of a choice.”
“I’ll bet a guy made up that rule.” Vanessa studied a fingernail. “So what are you going to do?”
“Well, you have a fire going, so I’m going to make s’mores.” Stef handed the bottle to Vanessa and went into the kitchen. “And then I’m going to get drunk on champagne and watch Ghostbusters till I pass out.”
“I like it.” Vanessa nodded and filled both glasses with champagne. “Count me in.”
“My, but don’t we look a tad ragged this morning.” Tina studied Steffie’s eyes.
“Stop shouting.” Stef opened the refrigerator in the back room. “No Pepsi. Tina, if you’d run up to Sips and get me a very large Pepsi—lots of ice—it would save your job.”
“How do you figure?”
“This headache is going to kill me. Without me, there is no Scoop. No Scoop, no job for Tina.”
“You told Claire she could have it if you died. She’s my sister. She’ll have to hire me.”
Steffie gave her a withering look.
“Okay. One very large Pepsi, lots of ice.”
“Run like the wind, T.”
“I’m on it.” Tina put on her jacket. “By the way, what were you drinking?”
“Champagne. It looked so benign in those pretty girly glasses that Vanessa has, you know?”
Tina laughed and left the shop, Steffie calling after her, “Hurry back.”
Steffie couldn’t remember the last time she flat-out did not feel like making ice cream. She checked the freezer and thought maybe she had enough to hold her over till tomorrow. She felt like absolute death, but Vanessa had had her sleepover, and truth be told, a headache was a small price to pay to have heard her friend say, “I don’t feel at all bad about not having been invited to any sleepovers when I was a k
id, because no one I knew back then was as much fun as you are.”
“Nicest thing anyone ever said to me,” Stef muttered, and looked out the front window.
A few sailboats had braved the morning’s chill to head into the Bay, and they skipped briskly across the water. The sun erupting from behind the clouds all but blinded her, and she fumbled in her bag for her sunglasses. She was still wearing the shades when Tina returned.
“Thank you. You may have saved my life.” Stef reached for the paper container and took a long drink.
“Better?” an amused Tina asked.
“It will be,” Stef told her. “Give it time.”
By eleven, Stef felt almost normal, and since they’d served exactly one person all morning, she told Tina she could take the afternoon off if she wanted.
“Normally I’d stay,” Tina told her as she gathered her things, “but I do have a few errands I’d like to run, so I’m just going to say thank you as I head out.”
“Enjoy the afternoon.”
The shop was very quiet with Tina gone and no customers and not even the sound of an ice-cream maker running in the back room. Stef was thinking maybe she’d make something after all when she remembered Alice Ridgeway’s diary. She took it out of her bag and flipped through it as she searched for Grace’s phone number on her cell. Something fell from the back of the book and landed on the table. Stef put the phone down and carefully picked up the dried bit of vegetation. Once upon a time, it had been some sort of flower. She stared at it for a long moment, then realized what it was, and what it meant.
Son of a gun.
She was just about to call Vanessa to tell her what she found—and what it meant—when the bell over the door rang. She turned just as a small voice called, “Steppie!”
“Why, Austin MacGregor, is that you?”
“Austin.” He nodded, then pointed to Wade. “Daddy.”
“Hello, Austin.” She smiled. “Hello, Austin’s daddy. That must have been one heck of an early flight.”
“It was. Crack of dawn. We came right here from the airport. Austin couldn’t wait to see you.” He ran one hand up her arm. “And neither could I.”
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 88