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

by Stewart, Mariah

  Better to just reply to his email. No chitchat necessary. No polite inquiries. Just a short and sweet “thank you.”

  She went into her office, opened her laptop, and began to type. But once she’d typed “thank you,” she realized it wasn’t enough. It was too cool, too impersonal. The words looked too lonely on the screen. She deleted what she’d written and tried again.

  Clay—I don’t know how to thank you for helping Mom get the inn ready for the house tour. So nice of you.

  Lucy

  There, she thought. That should be just fine. She reread it, reconsidered, and added, Hope you have a wonderful holiday.

  She reread it again, then grumbled, “For crying out loud, you’re thirty-five years old. Just send the damn thing and be done with it.”

  She hit send, vowed to not second-guess herself again, and was on her way back to the conference room when she heard the ping that announced incoming email. She stopped, then went back into her office and turned the laptop around to face her.

  My, that was fast.

  You can thank me by having dinner with me the next time you’re home.

  Clay

  Lucy sat on the end of the desk and reread his note. In her mind’s eye, she saw Clay in the library, the room where they had spent so many hours together, the room that had, years later, become her safe place. She thought of the bookshelves that all but reached the ceiling, that held the books in which, as a troubled teenager, she had sought refuge, some books brought there by her great-great-great-grandmother Cordelia when she married the first Daniel Sinclair, the one who’d built the original section of the inn. There were the books Cordelia had brought with her from her native England, volumes of Shakespeare and Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, their leather bindings dry and fragile but always handled with great care. Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift sat beside Longfellow and Hawthorne, and on lower shelves, Hemingway and Faulkner. The Sinclairs had always been lovers of literature, and as a young girl, Lucy had been the beneficiary. She’d loved that room for as long as she could remember, and she recalled that Clay had loved it, too. Enough, apparently, to have spent a Saturday afternoon helping her mother dress it up for Christmas. Hanging wreaths. Cutting greens. Stringing lights on the tree. She could almost see his tall lanky self dragging in the tree, could almost hear his deep voice humming the Christmas carols she knew would have been playing. Something about the scene brought a lump to her throat.

  It’s just nostalgia, she told herself. That’s all.

  She sat at her desk, and pulled the laptop closer. Clay’s email was still open on the screen. Lucy hit reply, typed, “It’s a date,” then hit send before she could change her mind.

  She closed her laptop and returned to the conference room and the preparations for the wedding that would keep her up for most of the night.

  On the second of January, Lucy smacked her alarm clock when it had the audacity to ring at six A.M. She’d worked nonstop for the past month, and this morning, damn it, she was sleeping in until at least eight. She rolled over and kept her eyes closed, but the damage had been done. Once awake, she stayed awake, so after twenty minutes of trying unsuccessfully to fall back to sleep, she got up and headed for the shower. Another twenty minutes and she was in the kitchen, towel wrapped around her wet hair, hunting for the coffee beans she knew she’d bought the last time she’d gone food shopping. When that had been, she wasn’t certain, but she did know she’d bought the coffee. When her search proved fruitless, she gave up and put a kettle of water on the stove to boil for tea. While the water heated, she checked email on her phone.

  Most fabulous wedding EVER, wrote the mother of the New Year’s Eve bride. Total perfection! Your reputation is well earned!

  “Not to mention hard earned, after having to deal with you and your nut-bar daughter—not to mention your two sisters and their idiot daughters—for the past eight months,” Lucy muttered.

  Gorgeous right down to the last tiny detail, enthused her Christmas Eve bride. I’ll cherish the memory of every moment forever!

  “Except, perhaps, for the moment your maid of honor found her fiancé on the coat-closet floor with one of the waitstaff.”

  The teakettle began to whistle. She poured water into a mug and dropped in a tea bag. When her phone rang, she glanced at the number, then answered the call.

  “What are you doing up so early?” she asked.

  “Probably the same thing you’re doing,” Bonnie replied. “Old habits die hard.”

  “I was thinking of coming in late today,” Lucy told her.

  “I was thinking of closing the office completely. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s the best idea you’ve had in a very long time. I’m exhausted,” Lucy admitted.

  “Me, too, and I didn’t even have to work yesterday. How’d the Palmer wedding go, by the way?”

  “Without a hitch, for the most part. But the band the groom insisted on using, the one we weren’t familiar with?” Craving caffeine, Lucy blew on the tea, hoping to cool it. “They lived up to my worst fears.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  “Just dreadful. I hope we don’t get blamed for them.”

  “Of course we will. Live and learn.”

  “I learned that lesson a long time ago, but neither the bride nor the groom wanted to hear it. Anyway, it’s done, and we don’t have another gig until Saturday.”

  “Hallelujah.” Bonnie sighed. “By the way, have you heard from Mr. Gazillionaire?”

  “Robert Magellan?” Lucy took her mug into the living room and eased herself into a chair. “He wants to meet with me next week.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him whatever was most convenient for him was convenient for me,” Lucy replied. “Which turned out to be Thursday.”

  “Fabulous. Coming on the heels of Dallas MacGregor’s wedding, this is huge. We’ve enjoyed a great reputation for years, Luce, but these two weddings are the icing. One of the first things I want to do is revise our fees for 2012.”

  “One of the first things I want to do is hire a few more people. We just can’t keep trying to do everything ourselves, Bon. Neither of us will make it to forty if we don’t slow down.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing. We need at least three more assistants just to handle the events we have on the calendar going right on through until the fall.”

  “I think Ava is ready to start taking on events by herself, and I heard that Corrine over at Walton’s firm is looking to move on,” Lucy told her.

  “Can’t say that I blame her. Yvonne Walton is a witch. I worked for her when I first came out here. I shudder every time I think back on those days. Who told you about Corrine, anyway?”

  “We have the same hairdresser.”

  “Always a reliable source.”

  “Okay, so let’s talk to Corrine, and let’s talk to Ava and see if we can staff up. And we need a few more day-of hands, while we’re at it. I think it’s likely that Robert Magellan’s wedding will be sometime in June, and I imagine that will keep me busy for a while.”

  “That’s prime time,” Bonnie acknowledged. “June is still the most popular month for weddings. So yeah, we’ll see if Corrine really is interested in making a move, and we’ll offer Ava a promotion. How ’bout we meet with her in the morning at nine?”

  “Perfect. She’s earned it. We just need to remind her that she needs to enhance her time management skills.” Lucy covered a yawn. “Gosh, maybe next year one of us will get to have a real Christmas. Could that really happen?”

  “If we play our cards right, maybe both of us will have Christmas,” Bonnie mused. “How long has it been since you were home during the holidays?”

  “Too long.”

  “Let’s make an executive decision right now not to take on any event for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, 2012, unless Ava or Corrine—or whoever we end up hiring—is the consultant.”

  “Wow. That’s a revolutionary concept.”


  “I know. Let’s do it. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” Lucy paused, then said, “I’d like to take a few extra days off next week while I’m home. I feel guilty about not being there with my mom, especially with my brother Ford being away for so long.”

  “Go ’head and take the time.”

  “There’s a twenty-fifth anniversary party that weekend, Bon.”

  “I booked it, I’ll handle it. Besides, it’s a small affair,” Bonnie assured her. “We owe your mother bigtime for the weddings she’s steered our way. When you come back, maybe I’ll take a few days off myself, fly up the coast to see my ex.”

  “Seriously? Are you talking about Bob?”

  “He’s the only ex I have. But yeah, we’ve been talking on the phone for a month or so now, and we’re both wondering … well, we’re just wondering if we did the right thing when we split up.”

  “Take a week,” Lucy told her. “Take two.”

  “A few days, maybe. Anyway, I’ll see you in the morning. Get some sleep. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  The first thing Lucy did after she hung up the phone was to call her mother and tell her she’d be staying on for a few days after her meeting with Robert Magellan. The second thing was to send an email to Clay.

  Meeting potential client at the inn on Thursday morning, staying through the weekend. Thank-you dinner at your convenience.

  Lucy.

  Within minutes came his reply.

  Thursday night. Will pick you up at seven. Your mother wants you to bring home a coat this time. Baby, it’s cold outside.

  Clay

  Lucy hit reply.

  You told my mother we were going to have dinner?

  A quick tap to send, and she stared at the screen awaiting his response.

  Don’t shoot the messenger. Saw her at Cuppachino yesterday & she mentioned you were coming home soon & she hoped you’d remember to bring a coat with you.

  Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was for her mother to get ideas about her and Clay. More than she already had, that is. She figured she wouldn’t mention it at all until she got home, lest her mother read more into this dinner than was there.

  After all, she reasoned, it was only a friendly dinner with an old classmate, right?

  Chapter 6

  His coffee mug refilled and half a fat croissant on its plate nearby, Clay took a folder from his briefcase and spread it open on the table. At ten o’clock on a January morning, Cuppachino was much more subdued than it had been at eight. His table was one of only three that were inhabited.

  “This,” he said as he removed a piece of graph paper, “is what we need to be thinking about.”

  Wade MacGregor, Clay’s partner in MadMac Brews, stared at the hand-drawn structure. “It looks like one of those old-fashioned hop barns.”

  “That’s exactly what it is. And it’s what we’re going to be working on once we get the hops in the ground.”

  Wade picked up the sketch and studied it. “What do you mean ‘we’?”

  “I mean you and me.” Clay leaned back in his seat and took a sip of coffee. “We can’t afford to hire someone to build it, so we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”

  “I have no carpentry skills,” Wade said bluntly.

  “Fortunately, I do,” Clay assured him. “And since you seem like a reasonably intelligent guy, I’m betting you can learn.”

  “Maybe we can get Cameron O’Connor to give us a hand.”

  “And we’ll pay him … how?”

  “We’ll pay him in beer.” Wade grinned. “We both know that Cam really likes a good beer.”

  “Which we won’t have in any real quantity for about, oh, three years if we’re lucky. If the Eastern comma larvae don’t eat our hops and we don’t get hit with powdery mildew.”

  “Someone’s been studying up,” Wade said.

  “Someone has to.”

  “Hey, give me a break. I just got married, been back from my honeymoon for all of”—Wade looked at his watch—“sixteen hours.”

  “Time enough to get to work.”

  “Okay, supposing I agree that the two of us should build a hop barn. I’m assuming we’d build it there on your farm?”

  Clay nodded. “Plenty of room.”

  “So what are we going to use as material? As you pointed out, we don’t have a whole lot of discretionary funds to work with.”

  “Barn boards.” Clay took a bite out of his croissant.

  “Barn boards?” Wade frowned.

  “Sure. Those, I have plenty of.” He leaned forward. “There are three barns on the farm. One I use primarily to store equipment. The other—the biggest one—we’re going to turn into our brewery.”

  “For which we’re borrowing the money from my sister.”

  “Right. And the third barn, the one that’s seen better days, we’re going to tear down and reuse the boards to build the hop barn.”

  Wade nodded. “I guess I know better than to ask who’s going to take the barn down.”

  Clay laughed. “The dismantling process will take some planning so that we don’t pull it down on top of ourselves. I think we’ll need Cam’s help there, too.”

  “Maybe if we asked him to be our official taster, he won’t charge us too much.”

  “The idea has possibilities. But it just occurred to me to offer him some of the old barn boards that we don’t use.”

  “What would he want with those?”

  “We’re talking about heart-pine boards that are over one hundred years old here, champ.”

  “Okay, so you’ll have a lot of old wood left over. Still don’t get why Cam would want that instead of cash.”

  “In his spare time, Cam makes furniture. Tables, mostly. He prefers to work with old woods. Old heart pine if he can get it, which is rare.”

  “So what you’re saying is that the barter system is alive and well in St. Dennis.”

  Clay nodded. “I bet Cam would jump at the chance to get his hands on all that old pine. The tables he makes are works of art, by the way. My mom just bought one for the dining room in her new house. It really is one of a kind. My sister liked it so much, she asked him to make one for her.” He paused as a thought occurred to him. “It would be really cool if Cam made one for her from the boards from our old barn.”

  “Nice housewarming gift,” Wade noted.

  “Yeah, I’ll have to talk to him about that, sooner rather than later. Brooke’s planning on moving into the old tenant house as soon as it’s finished. She’s hoping maybe as soon as next month.”

  Wade pulled Clay’s sketch closer and took another look. “What about this rounded top piece? How would we make that?”

  “Traditionally, a cupola sits over the drying area, and I thought it looked pretty cool. I think we can make it with shingles, maybe a metal roof. That’s something we’d need Cam for.”

  “So okay, we meet with him as soon as we can set it up. Meanwhile, while I was away, I ordered some barley seed.”

  “You were ordering barley seed while you were on your honeymoon?” Clay stared at Wade. “What did Steffie have to say about that?”

  “Nothing, since she went off in search of a wholesaler for macadamia nuts. She had some while we were in Hawaii that she thought were superior to the ones she was using, so of course, she had to track down the source.”

  “You two deserve each other.” Clay laughed. “You’re two of a kind.”

  “Hey, the woman makes the best ice cream on the eastern seaboard. I make …” Wade paused, and a cloud momentarily crossed his face. “I made one of the best beers in the country.”

  “And as soon as we get MadMac off and running, you’ll be making the best once again,” Clay assured him.

  “That’s the plan, Stan.” Wade glanced at his watch. “I gotta run. Time to pick up Austin from preschool.” He stood and finished his coffee in one long gulp. “How long do you suppose I have to live in St. Dennis before Carlo’s w
ife makes me a mug with my name on it?”

  He pointed to the shelf behind the counter where a line of handmade mugs stood.

  Clay shrugged. “She only makes them for regular customers.”

  “I could be a regular customer.”

  “Put up or shut up.” Clay turned his mug around so that his name was front and center.

  “Or we could buy mugs with our names on them and hold our morning meetings out at the farm, or over at my place. Steffie makes her ice creams early, so she’s usually at Scoop before seven.”

  “True enough, but we both make lousy coffee.”

  “Good point. Okay, tomorrow. Same time. Same place. See you then.” Wade nodded in the direction of the kitchen, where Carlo, the owner, was bellowing at one of the busboys. “A real friend would put in a good word for me where it counts.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Clay waved off the waitress who roamed the room offering refills.

  “Your friend’s leaving already?” the waitress asked.

  “He has to pick up his son from school.”

  Before Wade’s late business partner died, he’d married her to give her young child a home and a parent who could be counted on. Austin had just turned two, and had been welcomed into the MacGregor family—and all of St. Dennis—with open arms.

  Clay returned the sketch of the hop barn to the folder and was just about to drop it into his briefcase when the door opened and Grace and Lucy came in. They were both a bit windblown by the wind coming off the Bay, and they both paused to chat with Wade. Lucy having served as planner on Wade’s recent wedding, Clay figured there would be a round of thankyous all over again.

  Well, that was all right. He liked looking at Lucy.

  Right now she stood with her hands in the pockets of her coat—apparently, she’d heeded her mother’s directive—her head tilted at an angle as she looked up at Wade and smiled. Clay guessed Wade was telling her once again how much he and Steffie had loved everything Lucy had done to pull off their wedding in a very brief period of time. Grace was beaming like the proud mama Clay knew her to be, so he figured it was safe to say the praise was still being heaped on.