“You mean, there really are rattlesnakes around here?” She cast dubious glances at the ground.
“Sure. You’re in the woods.” He looked up and saw her uncertainty. “It’s okay. I checked. It’s safe.”
She sat but looked uncomfortable.
“So how do you feel?” he asked.
“Seriously?” She looked up at him and he nodded. “I’m tired, I’m hungry, thirsty, and I do not like snakes.”
“Other than that, what do you think of the view?”
“It’s beautiful,” she admitted.
She looked out across a green valley. Overhead a hawk circled, and in the trees somewhere behind them, a bird was singing. “I do understand why people like to do this. Other people, though, not necessarily me.”
He took off his backpack, opened it, and handed her a bottle of water.
“Don’t drink it too quickly,” he warned. “Just sip it.”
She did her best not to chug it. It was lukewarm but tasted wonderful. Amazing how good water can taste when you are truly thirsty.
“And look, Ness.” He pointed off to her right and grabbed her hand. “That’s a bald eagle. Look at the wingspread …”
“Oh.” She stared at the huge bird that had soared up from below the rocks. “I’ve never seen one that close. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one at all. It’s … it’s breathtaking.”
They watched it rise, then glide across the valley.
“That was a moment.” She smiled up at him. “One I will remember for a long time.”
“Good.” He squeezed her hand. “Now, are you ready for lunch?”
“Oh my God, I thought you’d never ask.” She leaned back on her elbows and held her face up to the sun.
“Here you go.” He put something in her hand.
She opened her eyes and looked down.
“Normally, I’d be the last person to turn down a candy bar,” she told him, “but I’m starving and I need real food, so I hope you have something fabulous in that backpack of yours.”
“It’s not a candy bar, it’s an energy bar. And it is lunch.”
“This”—she held up the wrapped bar—“is lunch? I walked for two hours and this is all I get?”
He nodded calmly.
“See all the good stuff it has in it?” He turned the bar over and pointed to the list of ingredients but she appeared not to notice. He shrugged, then unwrapped his bar, took a bite, and began to chew. “It’s really good. Honest. I take them out on the trail with me all the time.”
“Why don’t we have real food?”
“Because it’s easier, more convenient, and certainly lighter in weight. You’re getting all that your body needs between the nutrition in the bar and the water.”
She continued to stare at him.
Finally she said, “Grady, do you remember when we were making cookies at my house before the wedding?”
“Sure.”
“And you said that Mia didn’t know you had a job and if I promised not to tell her that you’d buy my silence—your words—with anything I wanted?”
“Right.”
“Well, I never told her, so the offer is still good. I mean, it’s still open, right?”
“Uh-huh.” He took another bite. If he was worried about where this was leading, it didn’t show.
“And it was anything I wanted, right?”
“That was the deal.”
“Here.” She held out her energy bar. “You’re going to need it.”
“Why?” He frowned and took the last bite of his.
“Because I know what I want.”
“I always pay up. Go ahead. What is it?”
“I want you to carry me down off this damned mountain and buy me a burger.”
Diary—
What a week this has been! First, Harbor Fest was a rousing success! There were so many people pouring into town that Chief Beck had to set out some hastily prepared signs directing people away from the docks and down to the park. The mayor said if this keeps up all summer, we’re going to need to hire more police just to direct traffic. Daniel’s thinking about investing in a van to use as a shuttle between the Inn and the town so that his guests don’t have to drive their cars to shop or visit the historic sites where they’d have to fight to park.
Who’d have thought that one day those old houses and churches up on the square would be considered “historic”? Heh.
I must say there are some happy merchants on Charles Street, though. Lots of visitors mean lots of shoppers and diners.
Now this is the big news, and personally gratifying to me: Grady Shields is back in St. Dennis! I saw him in Cuppachino on Friday where he was picking up lunch to take to Vanessa at Bling because she was too busy to leave the shop. Isn’t that sweet? I asked him if he was just visiting for the weekend and he said he thought he’d be staying longer than that. Then he said he wanted to come down to the paper later to take out an ad for his wilderness guide services because he’s thinking of offering some hiking and camping tours in the Appalachians.
Well, you can imagine what was going through my mind at that moment!
Yes, of course, I secretly rejoiced that I’d remembered the right words in the right sequence and that I did find all the proper herbs. I’d have felt simply terrible if I’d turned that handsome young man into a toad.
Of course, it’s possible that this extremely promising development had nothing to do with me … that Vanessa and Grady would have gotten back together on their own, and that the little ritual in which I’d engaged on their behalf was really nothing, after all, but words whispered while burning some smelly old vegetation.
I, however, like to think that the old girl still has it.
—Grace
Read on for a preview of the next novel in the Chesapeake Diaries series by Mariah Stewart
Home Again
Available in Fall 2010 from Ballantine Books
AT the precise moment Dallas MacGregor was picking up her son, Cody, from school, the home video starring her soon-to-be-ex-husband and two of his female production assistants had already been uploaded to the Internet. By the time she arrived at her gated Hollywood Hills home—she’d stopped once on the way from the set of her latest movie promo shoot to pick up dinner—the five-thousandth viewing had already been downloaded.
The phone was on overdrive when she walked into her kitchen.
“Miss MacGregor, you have many messages. Two from your aunt Beryl.” Elena, her housekeeper, cast a wary glance at Cody and handed her employer a stack of pink slips. “Something about Mr. Emilio …”
“Would you mind answering that?” Dallas slid the heavy paper bag onto the counter. “And why are you still here? I thought you had to leave by four?”
“Yes, miss, I …” Elena lifted the receiver. “Miss MacGregor’s … oh, hello, Miss Townsend. Yes, she’s home now, she just arrived. Yes, I gave her the message but … of course, Miss Townsend …”
Elena held the phone out to Dallas.
“It’s your great-aunt,” she whispered.
“I figured that out.” Dallas smiled and took the cordless receiver from Elena. “Hello, Aunt Berry. I was just thinking about …”
“Dallas.” Her aunt cut her off sharply. “What the hell is going on out there?”
“Not much.” Dallas paused. “What’s supposed to be going on?”
“That numbskull you were married to.” Berry’s breath came in ragged puffs.
She was obviously in a lather over something. Not unusual, Dallas thought. At eighty-one, it didn’t take much to rile her aunt these days.
“What’s he done now?” Dallas began emptying the bag, lining up the contents on the counter.
“Not what as much as who.” Berry was becoming increasingly agitated.
“Mommy.” Cody tugged at her sleeve. “Why are all those cars out there?”
“Berry, hold on for just a moment, please.” Dallas glanced out the side window.
There were cars lined up on the other side of the fence, cars that had not been there five minutes ago when they pulled through the gates. It wasn’t especially unusual for paparazzi to follow her home, but she hadn’t noticed any cars following her today. She raised the blinds just a little, and saw more cars pulling up even as she watched.
“I don’t know, Cody. Maybe the studio put out something about Mommy’s new movie. Maybe we should turn on the television and see.”
“No!” Elena and Berry both shouted at the same time.
“What?” Dallas frowned and turned to her housekeeper, who stood behind Cody. She pointed to the child, then raised her index finger to her lips, their silent code for not in front of Cody.
“Berry, why don’t you tell me …?”
“Are you saying you don’t know? Seriously?”
“Know what?”
“That idiot ex of yours …”
“Not ex yet, but soon, please God …” Dallas muttered. “And it’s long been established that he’s an idiot.”
“… managed to get himself filmed doing … all sorts of things that you will not want Cody to see …” Berry was almost gasping. “… with more than one person. It was disgusting. Perverted.”
“You mean …” Dallas’s knees went weak and she sat in the chair that Elena wisely pulled out for her.
“Yes. A sex tape. Not one, but two young women. I was shocked. Appalled!”
“Wait! You actually saw it?”
“Three times!” Dallas could almost see Berry fanning herself. “It was vile, just vile! You know, Dallas, that I never liked that man. I told you when you first brought him home that I …”
“Berry, where did you see this?”
“On my computer. There was a link to a site …”
“Hold on for a moment, Berry.” Dallas put her hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Elena. “Would you mind cutting up an apple for Cody? Cody, go wash your hands so you can have your snack.”
After her son left the room, Dallas took the phone outside and sat at one of the tables around the pool.
“Dear God, Berry, let me get this straight. Emilio made a sex tape and it was put on the Internet? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Yes, and not just any sex tape. This one had …”
“Wait a minute, they allowed you to download the whole thing?”
“No, no, not all of it, just a little bit. You had to pay if you want to see the whole thing.”
“And you did? You paid to watch …” Dallas didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The thought of her elderly aunt watching Emilio and his latest conquests burning up the sheets was horrifying and crazy funny at the same time. “Wait—did you say three times?”
“Yes, and it was …”
“Berry, why did you watch it three times?”
“Well,” Berry sniffed. “I had to make sure it was really him.”
The rest of the evening went downhill from there.
Dallas made every attempt to remain calm lest Cody pick up on the fact that she was almost blind with anger at the man she’d been married to for seven years.
Seven years, she repeated to herself. Seven years out of my life, wasted on that reprobate. The only good thing to come out of those years was Cody—and Dallas had to admit that she’d have weathered a lifetime of Emilio’s amorous flings and general foolishness if she’d had to in order to have her son. When she filed for divorce three months ago, following the latest in Emilio’s long line of infidelities, he hadn’t even bothered to beg her to reconsider: they’d done that dance so often over the years that even he was tired of it.
She managed to have a normal evening with Cody and ignored the cars that parked beyond their protective fence. They had a nice dinner and watched a video together, then Cody had his bath and Dallas read a bedtime story before she tucked him in and turned off the light.
It wasn’t until she went back downstairs, alone, that she permitted herself to fall apart.
There was no love lost between her and Emilio. She’d long since accepted the fact that he’d married her strictly to further his own career. For a time, she’d bought into that, insisting that her husband be signed to direct her movies, and for a time, she’d been blind to his affairs. Lately it had occurred to her that she well might be the last person in the entire state of California to catch on to Emilio’s faithlessness.
For the past five years, she and Emilio battled over the same ground, over and over until Dallas no longer cared who he slept with, as long as it wasn’t her. Looking back now, she realized she should have left him the first time he’d cheated on her, when the tabloids had leaked those photos of Emilio frolicking with an up-and-coming Latino actress on a sunny, sandy beach in Guatemala when he’d told her he was going to Cannes, but it had been so much easier to stay than to leave. There was Cody to consider: Emilio may have been a cheating jerk, but he did seem to love his son. Besides, Dallas’s schedule had been so hectic for the past three years that she’d barely had time to read the tabloids. She’d had the blessing—or the curse—of having had parts offered to her in several movies, wonderful parts that she’d really wanted to play, so she’d signed for all of them, and had gone from one set right onto the next, leaving her time for nothing and no one other than her son. It had only been recently that Dallas admitted to herself that she’d been deliberately overworking herself to avoid having to deal with her home situation.
Well, avoid no more, she told herself as she dialed her attorney’s number. This time, Emilio had gone too far. When the call went directly to voicemail, Dallas left the message that she wanted her attorney to do whatever she had to do to speed up the divorce.
“And oh,” she’d added, “we need to talk about that custody arrangement we’d worked out …”
While she waited for the return call, she logged onto the computer in her home office. She searched the web for what she was looking for. The link to the video appeared almost instantaneously, along with a running tally of how many times the video had been watched. Her stomach churning, she clicked on the link and was asked first to confirm that she was over eighteen, then for her credit card number.
“Great,” she muttered. “For the low, low price of nineteen ninety-five, I can watch my husband … that is, my almost ex-husband, perform daring feats with his production assistants.”
The video began abruptly—“What, no music?”—and while the lighting could have been better, there was no question who was the filling in the middle of that particular sandwich. As difficult as it was to watch, she forced herself to sit through it, commenting to herself from time to time (“Emilio, Emilio, didn’t anyone ever tell you to always keep your best side to the camera? And, babe, that is decidedly not your best side.”).
When the phone rang before it was over, Dallas turned off her computer and answered the call.
“Hey, Dallas, it’s Norma.”
“Thanks for getting back to me right away.” Dallas leaned back in her chair and exhaled. Just hearing Norma’s always cool and even voice relaxed her.
“I just got in and I was going to call you as soon as I kicked off my shoes.” Norma was not only Dallas’s attorney, she was also her friend.
“So you heard …”
“Is there anyone in this town who has not? So sorry, Dallas. We knew he was a colossal shithead, but this latest stunt even beats his own personal best.” Before Dallas could respond, Norma said, “So we’re going to want to see if we can move the divorce along a little faster and we’ll file a motion to revise those custody arrangements we’d previously agreed to.”
“You read my mind.”
“I’ll file first thing in the morning. If nothing else, I think we should ask for sole custody for a period of at least six months, given the circumstances, which of course we’ll spell out for the judge in very specific terms.”
“Would it help to know that that little forty-two minute production was filmed in his house?”
“Really?�
�� Norma made a “huh” sound. “Are you positive?”
“I picked out that furniture,” Dallas replied. “Along with the carpets and the tile in the bath and the towels that were dropped around the hot tub.”
“That was really stupid on his part. Now you can say you don’t want Emilio to have unsupervised custody because you don’t know who will be in the house or what they’ll be doing. Or who might be filming it.” Norma paused. “How are you doing?”
“On the one hand, I feel devastated. Humiliated. Nauseated. On the other, I feel like calling every reporter who chastised me for being so mean and unforgiving to poor Emilio when our divorce was announced and yelling, ‘See? I told you he was a jerk!’”
“Anyone you want me to call for you?”
“No. I’m not making any statements to anyone. This is strictly a ‘no comment’ situation if ever there was one.”
“You know you can always refer people to me.”
“I may have Elena start doing that tomorrow. Thanks.”
“How did Cody react?”
“He hasn’t. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“You didn’t tell him?”
“Of course not. Why would I tell him about something like that?”
“Do you really think you can keep him from finding out? Isn’t he in school?”
“He just turned six. He’s only in kindergarten.” Dallas frowned. “How many of the kids in his class do you think caught Emilio’s act?”
“They could hear their parents talking, they could see the story on TV. It’s going to make the news, Dallas.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.” Dallas bit a fingernail. “At least, I hope it won’t be. But if he hears about it, I’ll have to tell him … something.”
“Well, good luck with that. In the meantime, if you think of anything else I can do for you, give me a call.” Norma’s calls always ended the same way, with the same closing sentence. She never bothered to wait until Dallas said good-bye. She just hung up.
What, Dallas wondered, would she tell Cody, if he should hear something?
The Chesapeake Diaries: Coming Home Page 30