“That’s a lovely reaction, dear.” Berry looked up at Archer. “I told you he was most articulate, did I not?”
“Sorry, Berry, I’m just so overwhelmed.” Wade frowned. “Did Dad know about this? Did you ever tell him?”
“I told him, yes,” Berry replied, “but not until he was grown. And he never knew Archer. By then, Archer was married and had children and, from all appearances, was enjoying a very happy life. Both Ned and I agreed that there was no need for Archer to know.”
“Another mistake on your part, Berry,” Archer said.
“Archer, we’ve been going around and around about this for the past two days. What good would it have done for me to have shown up on your doorstep with Ned? What would the news have done to your family?” Archer started to say something but she cut him off. “I know you like to think you’d have acknowledged him as your son, but it was asking too much of your wife. I know you must have loved her to have married her. I wouldn’t have put her through that pain. It was too late by then to change things—I’d made my bed, you see—and Ned didn’t feel right about contacting you to introduce himself. We both agreed to let it go for a while. I thought maybe the time might come, that when he got a bit older, perhaps he’d change his mind.” Her eyes filled up again. “But then, of course, Ned died so young and so suddenly.”
“So you never met our dad?” Wade turned to Archer.
“Not really. Oh, I saw him around St. Dennis from time to time, but I assumed, as did everyone else, that he was Duncan and Sylvie’s son. Sylvie and Berry were twins, you know, so it wasn’t odd that the boy looked like her. I just assumed he took after Sylvie.”
“So there you have it. My deepest, darkest secret. If you want to disown me now for all these years of deceit, I’ll understand.” Berry looked first at Dallas, then at Wade. “Just please don’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it.”
“How could you think for one minute that we could hate you.” Dallas put her arms around her. “I am so very sorry that you had to carry this secret all these years. And I’m sorry you weren’t able to acknowledge your son. I’m sorry for a lot of things, but this isn’t about Wade and me, Berry. It’s about you. And Archer, of course.”
“Dallas is right, Berry. This is between you and Archer,” Wade said. “And as much of a shock as this has been, it doesn’t change the way we feel about you. You’re our Berry. We love you.”
“That’s more generous than I had a right to expect from either of you.” Berry reached a hand out to both. “Words cannot express how dear you both are to me. Thank you.”
Berry turned to look at Archer. “I did tell you, did I not, that my boy and my girl are exceptional? That you’d be proud of them?”
“You did.” Archer nodded. “And I am.”
Wade sat and stared at Archer for a long moment. How odd to meet your grandfather for the first time.
“I don’t have many memories of Grampa Duncan,” Wade said. “Do you?” he asked Dallas.
“Not really. It seems whenever we visited St. Dennis, we stayed here, not with him and Gramma Sylvie.” She turned to Berry. “I guess she really wasn’t gramma, though, was she?”
Berry shook her head.
“Which explains so many things.” Dallas got up and went to the stove. She picked up the teakettle and filled it with water.
“Like what, dear?” Berry asked.
“Like how I always had the feeling she liked the other grandkids better. Like how her affection always seemed forced.”
“Yes, I know what you mean,” Wade agreed. “I always felt the same way.”
“I’m so sorry,” Berry told them both. “I hadn’t realized …”
“It’s okay, Berry.” Dallas sat the kettle on the burner and turned it on. “I never spent much time with them. We always wanted to stay here with you anyway. You were always much more fun.”
“Looking back, I guess it makes sense that Dad always brought us here to stay. We never stayed at our grandparents’ house,” Wade noted.
“I’m afraid I didn’t always appreciate how difficult I made things for my poor sister and her husband. Two mothers in the same family is an absolute recipe for disaster. I can’t even begin to understand the amount of chaos I must have caused in that family. Always taking Ned places but never his sisters. I’m embarrassed by my thoughtlessness and how unkind I was to those two girls.”
“I thought you said they were twits,” Dallas reminded her.
“Well, they were, dear, but I didn’t have to be unkind to them.”
Dallas laughed. “There’s the Berry we know and love.”
“Archer, I can’t help but wonder how you feel about all this.” Wade leaned on the back of one of the chairs.
“I’m adjusting to it, Wade. Finding out that you had a son you never knew—and knowing that you can’t get to know him now because he’s gone …” He shook his head. “It isn’t something that you process in a day or so. I’m sorry I never knew your father. I’m sorry that … well, I have a lot of regrets. I imagine it’s pretty near impossible to live as long as I have and not look back and wonder how things might have been.”
“Are you going to discuss this with your children?” Wade asked. “Not that it’s any of my business …”
“To be perfectly honest, I haven’t decided yet.” Archer’s face showed his conflict. “On the one hand, I want my children to know Berry, and to know you and your sister. I want all my grandchildren to know one another. On the other … well, I feel I need to get to know you both a little myself first.”
Wade nodded his understanding. He turned to Berry and asked, “Berry, I have to ask—why now?”
“Oh, well, with Dallas and Grant getting married and hopefully having a family, I thought they should know. I saw something on television last week or so about a young girl who was being treated for some very serious condition—I forget what it was. The doctors had difficulty in diagnosing her because whatever it was, it’s only transmitted genetically, but no one in her or her husband’s family had it. Which is how the girl’s parents came to tell her that she was adopted and helped her to search for her birth parents. And it got me thinking that perhaps Dallas needed to know since she’s getting married soon and hopefully will be adding to her family.”
“I’m not the only one,” Dallas told her with a smile. She pointed to Wade. “You tell her.”
“I asked Steffie to marry me,” he said.
“Oh, my dear,” Berry teared up—again. “How wonderful for you. She’s a darling girl.” Berry froze momentarily. “Please tell me she isn’t taking Scoop to Connecticut …”
“No one’s going to Connecticut.” Wade explained his recent decision.
“Perfect! We’ll have our brewery after all. Now, does this mean that Berry Beer might someday become a reality?”
Wade laughed. “It could happen.”
“Well, this has certainly been a big news day, hasn’t it? And it’s barely eleven in the morning,” Berry noted.
“Eleven?” Dallas blanched. “I have a meeting at eleven.”
“I have one in a half hour.” Wade glanced at the wall clock.
“Why don’t the two of you skedaddle? We can all catch up later. Dallas, be a dear and leave the kettle on. I think I need a nice cup of tea …”
Wade leaned down to kiss Berry and she took his hand. “Have you a ring for Steffie?”
“No. I need to do something about that, though.” Wade wasn’t sure how he’d accomplish that, since he wasn’t working and probably wouldn’t have any real income for at least a year. Good thing Berry wasn’t charging rent, he thought.
“I have several very lovely pieces that I no longer wear. You might want to take a look and see if there’s something you think she might like. I have a particular ring in mind that I think she would love, but of course, it’s up to you,” she assured him. “Looking at Dallas’s ring made me think that you might want to … that is, if you feel it’s appropriate.”
&
nbsp; “Totally appropriate, and wonderfully generous of you to offer, Berry.” He kissed her cheek. “I know that Stef will be thrilled and honored to wear a ring that belonged to you.”
He started toward the back door, then hesitated. Turning to Archer, he asked, “Do you have a middle name?”
“Yes,” Archer replied. “It’s Bowen. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.” Wade shrugged. “See you folks later.”
He smiled to himself as he went through the back door and down the steps.
Archer Bowen Callahan. ABC.
A long time ago, a smitten Berry had carved the initials of her love on one of the posts in the carriage house. Sixty-some years later, Wade—Archer’s grandson—had found them.
“Berry is your grandmother?” Stef’s eyes widened. “Did you say, your grandmother?”
“Shhhh.” Wade glanced around the dining room at Café Lola’s, where he’d met Stef for a late dinner.
“Sorry. But, wow. Just … wow.” Stef rested her forearms on the table and leaned closer. “You know, years ago there were some rumors about Ned being Berry’s son and not Sylvie’s, I remember hearing that, but I don’t know that anyone actually believed it. There was a lot of speculation about who Ned’s father might have been.”
He tasted the beer that the waiter had brought just a few minutes earlier, held the glass up, and said, “Not bad for a commercial brew. Not KenneMac quality, and I will go out on a limb here and predict that Mad Mac will be superior, but it isn’t bad.”
“Go back to Berry, if you please. Did she say who Ned’s father was? One of her handsome costars? A foreign director? A famous producer? A prince?”
“None of the above. Archer Callahan.”
“Archer … you mean … Judge Callahan?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, man. I should have guessed that. Does he know?”
“He does now.”
“How’d he take it?” she asked.
“He seemed to be taking it pretty well. They were in love a long time ago, and apparently still are. That might be influencing his reaction. He still loves her,” Wade said. “And it’s obvious that she still loves him.”
“They had a child together all those years ago.” Stef shook her head. “And yet they never married. Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”
He did.
When he finished, Stef sighed and said, “Oh, that’s just so tragic, isn’t it? To love someone and lose them and just go on with your life?” She sighed again. “I suppose people do that every day, though. They make choices and then they have to live with the consequences.”
She took a sip of wine. “It makes me wonder, what if you hadn’t stopped in St. Dennis. What if you’d gone right to Connecticut from Texas? We wouldn’t be sitting here together. We wouldn’t have had a chance to fall in love. We wouldn’t be planning a life together. All the chances we had in the past that we never took …”
“I don’t know why it took so long for us. Maybe other things were supposed to happen. Austin, for one. And maybe if we’d gotten together sooner, there’d be no Scoop.”
Stef shook her head. “There was always going to be Scoop. It was part of the plan.”
“What plan?” Wade frowned.
“My plan.” She held up one finger. “Marry the coolest guy in town.” Next finger. “Make ice cream.” Third. “Live happily ever after.”
“Well, I guess that seals it”—Wade grinned—“since I am the coolest guy in town.”
“Well, you were back then,” she said over the rim of her glass.
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not cool anymore?”
“Oh, you’re still cool enough,” she teased. “But other guys are cool, too. It’s tough to know who wears the crown of cool these days.”
“Well, then, since it’s predetermined that you’re to marry the coolest guy in town, I suppose I’m going to have to do something extraordinary to prove that I’m still worthy.” He reached across the table and took her hand in his. His other hand dipped into the pocket of his jacket. “Will this help seal the deal?”
He slipped a ring onto her finger, and she gasped.
“What? How did you … when did you …”
“At least look at it, why don’t you?” He laughed.
“Oh, my God. Is that thing real? Look at the size of that thing.” She held her hand up to her face and stared at the round Ceylon sapphire surrounded by diamonds. “It looks a little like Princess Di’s ring … only the big stone is round and the color is prettier.” She looked up at him. “Seriously? This is for real?”
He nodded. “It was Berry’s. She offered it—well, she offered my choice of several rings that she had. I liked this one the best, but if you’d rather look over the others, I won’t be insulted and she’s perfectly fine with it.”
“No, no,” Stef insisted. “I love this one. It’s exactly what I’d have picked if you’d asked me. I just can’t believe …” She stared at the ring. “But wow. I can’t believe Berry offered.”
“I think she liked the idea that Grant gave Dallas his grandmother’s ring. And while we won’t be announcing to the world that you’re wearing my grandmother’s ring, it’s given her a certain amount of satisfaction, I think, to know that she’s passed on something of hers to you.”
“I need to make her an ice-cream flavor. I did Berry Berry but I need something more special. Maybe for when her new movie comes out.”
“So you’re good with it?” he deadpanned.
“I’m more than good.” She grabbed his tie and pulled him closer and kissed him soundly on the mouth. “I’m fabulous.”
“You are. But the question remains: Who is the coolest of them all?”
“It would have to be you, Wade. That was the plan.” She kissed him again. “And see how nicely it’s all worked out? I am making ice cream. I am marrying the coolest guy. And I will live happily ever after.”
He raised her hand to his lips and promised, “We will live happily ever after.”
“Of course we will.” Stef smiled smugly. “Like I said—that was the plan …”
Diary ~
Well, love is certainly in the air in abundance around here these days! Who came into Cuppachino this morning sporting a huge sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring? Why, Steffie, that’s who! And I thought I had my finger on the pulse around here. I can’t say that I didn’t know there were sparks flying every time she and Wade got within ten feet of each other, but last I’d heard, he was headed for a new job in Connecticut. One minute I was wishing him well at his new job and reminding him that we expected to see him at the inn’s holiday party this year—the next, he’s going into business with Clay Madison right here in St. Dennis and slipping a ring onto Steffie’s finger! The ring is glorious, by the way—Steffie says it had belonged to Berry. Now that’s lovely, isn’t it? Berry having no children or grandchildren of her own, I’m sure she was delighted to pass something on to her grandnephew’s girl.
Dallas spoke to me about possibly booking the inn for her wedding, but I don’t know that we have the staff to handle a Hollywood wedding. I’ve asked Daniel—again—to speak with his sister about coming back to handle this sort of thing for us, but he’s reluctant. Every time I mention it to Lucy, she gets very … well, prickly, I suppose, is the word. I don’t understand it. Truly, I do not. I understand that she has a very successful event-planning business out there in California, and she’s rightfully proud of that. But for heaven’s sake, the family business needs her here! We’re booking weddings left and right and are in desperate need of someone with her vision and experience. I’m afraid if we can’t fill the needs of our brides, we’re going to start losing some of the business Daniel has worked so hard to attract to the inn. Oh, not the guests—we rarely have an empty room from April right through the first few weeks of September. But the catering and event planning—we need help! Perhaps if I asked Lucy to come back just to do Dallas’s wedding … I
mean, who wouldn’t want to be in charge of that event?
Add to that the fact that my dearest friend, Trula, tells me that she’s coming to town next week to discuss possible wedding plans for someone who is very near and dear to her—well, I don’t know how Lucy could pass up the chance to do that affair, Trula’s “near and dear” being who he is. How could anyone in their right mind turn down two such high-profile, sky’s-the-limit weddings—one a famed Hollywood beauty, the other an international business mogul. Goodness, if one were trying to build a portfolio and establish a reputation, either of those events would surely do it! Why, the publicity alone would be priceless.
I think I’ll call Lucy right now, before I … oh, I almost forgot! I am now in possession of Alice’s Ouija board, thanks to Vanessa—and I have to say, it’s every bit as lively as it was when dear Alice was alive. And I’ve learned so many fascinating things from it—not the least of which is that Horace Hinson and Alice were lovers! Just fancy that! How sad for her to have been so crippled with her condition that she couldn’t bring herself to come out into the world. Horace, apparently, brought the world to her. A tragedy, yes—but a true love story all the same.
That little board is just full of tales. I can hardly wait to see what it reveals to me next!
~ Grace ~
To Kate Collins—come what may
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, many thanks to the stellar team at Ballantine Books: Kate Collins, Linda Marrow, Scott Shannon, Libby McGuire, Kim Hovey, Gina Wachtel, Kelli Fillingim, Junessa Viloria, Scott Biel, Kirstin Fassler, and Quinne Rogers. (I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone!)
Once again, the ADWOFF raffle benefitting the Nora Roberts Foundation resulted in a reader having won the right to have her name used for a character in one of my future books. Cindy Sims, the future is now! And thanks to Phyllis Lannik’s kind heads up, Cindy’s mother made a cameo appearance. I hope Helen Kay Hinson would have approved.
Thanks as always to my agent, Loretta Barrett, and the crew at Barrett Books.
Many thanks to the crew at the Borders Express, Springfield Mall, Springfield, PA, but especially to Maureen and Jenn. You guys most certainly do rock!
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 94