“Owen, you be sure to tell Tommy to take back that extra case of orange soda he left here last week.” Ruby stopped in the doorway and called to Owen, who was sitting in her chair at her table. “Don’t know why he be bringing that here. Never did sell much of it.”
“Sure thing, Gigi.” Owen looked up from the newspaper he was reading.
Ruby stared, squinting at him from across the room.
“If you don’t look like your great-granddaddy sitting there.” Ruby shook her head. “Hm-hm. Just like my Harold.”
“I do?” Owen put the paper down.
“You do. And I’m going to tell you ’xactly what I used to tell him.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t be getting too comfortable in my seat.”
Lis laughed out loud and followed Ruby out the door.
“We can take our time,” Lis said as she opened the passenger-side door. “We’re a little early.”
“A little early be better than a little late.” Ruby got into the car with minimal assistance, but she did need a little help with the seat belt.
Once Lis had Ruby safely strapped in, she started the car and drove slowly onto the narrow two-lane road that wrapped itself around Cannonball Island. They crossed into St. Dennis, the tires bumping along on the grate of the drawbridge.
“How old do you suppose that bridge is?” Lis asked after they’d crossed.
“Well, now, let me put my mind to that.” Ruby looked out the window. “I watched it be built, back in the day. Guess I be around nine or ten. So maybe 1925 or so. Before that, you couldn’t go straight around the island. If you were in a boat in the river over beyond the store, you would have to turn around, go all around the point, then all along the far side of the island. Guess at some point, someone got tired of it and said the bridge should open up.”
“Who built it?”
“The state of Maryland built it. They had a couple of engineers come around, studied the area. Built a bunch of those small drawbridges around the shore, I heard.”
They reached the turnoff for the Inn at Sinclair’s Point and Lis made a left to follow the long, winding drive. Once they’d reached the back of the building, Lis found a spot close to the back door and parked, then helped Ruby from the car and across the parking lot without appearing to be helping.
“Hold my hand, Gigi.” Lis took Ruby’s hand in hers.
“You think I need help walking?”
“I like to hold your hand, like I did when I was little and needed help crossing the road or walking on the jetty.”
“You think I don’t see what you’re saying there?” Ruby held Lis’s hand despite her protest, even giving it a squeeze.
“I know you better than to think that there’s anything that you don’t see.” They reached the back steps and Lis waited for Ruby to climb them with her.
Alec was so right to move her downstairs when he did, Lis thought. Sooner or later, she would have killed herself, falling down those steps in the store. At the very least, she could have broken an arm or a leg.
They reached the landing and a bellhop rushed to open the door for them. After they stepped inside, Ruby pointed to the grand staircase in the lobby. “Those be the steps Grace fell down last year. Broke her arm and her leg.”
Lis smiled to herself, no longer questioning how it seemed that Ruby could pluck words or phrases or thoughts from her mind.
“There you are, my friend.” Grace greeted Ruby with a broad smile and open arms. “I’m so glad you’re here. I wanted your advice about something . . . oh, and Lis, dear. Happy to see you, too, of course. Can you stay and join us for lunch? The chef is making crab cakes with a little extra spice, just the way you like them, Ruby.”
“I’d love to join you, but Alec asked me to meet him at the cottage after I dropped Gigi off. He said he has a surprise for me.”
“Well, who doesn’t love surprises?” Grace’s eyes sparkled. “You never know what that nephew of mine has up his sleeve.”
“Knowing Alec, he probably got in a shipment of windows.” Lis laughed. Alec had been happily showing off the materials for the cottage’s renovation as they were received.
“Is he ready to put in windows already?” Grace shook her head. “My, it seems like only yesterday he was telling Dan that he wasn’t sure any of that place could be saved.” She leaned closer to Lis. “Of course, I knew he could do it. It means the world to him to be able to do this for you, you know.”
Lis nodded. She knew.
“And I can’t wait to see it once it’s finished, can you, Ruby?” Grace took the arm of her old friend.
“I know just how it be looking,” Ruby said simply. “Boy be doing it right.” She and Grace exchanged a long look that spoke volumes, but Lis couldn’t understand a word.
Lis sighed. It was always like this when Ruby and Grace got together. The two women just seemed to know things.
“Well, I should get going, see what Alec wants to show me.”
“I’m sure it will be a happy something, whatever it is.” Grace smiled.
“Alec always makes me happy, Grace.” To Ruby, Lis said, “I’ll be back around two or so. Call me if there’s a change.”
Lis hummed all the way back to the island. It was still hot, still summer on the Chesapeake. While the mornings might have just a touch of crispness and the evenings might come just a little sooner, summer hadn’t quite said good-bye to the Eastern Shore. Some of the maples and the oaks on Charles Street had begun to drop a leaf here or there, but fall was still a good month or so away. Maybe later she and Alec could take out a couple of kayaks or his old rowboat and head to the sound to do a little crabbing. They’d caught a couple of jumbos last week, and Grace talking about crab cakes made her think about catching a few more.
Up ahead on the left, a flashy little sports car was pulling into the old Mullan place behind a line of trucks. Lis waved as Cass got out of her car juggling her briefcase, a three-ring binder, and a cup of coffee. She returned the greeting with a smile and nod of her head.
“Looks good,” Lis called, pointing to the frame of the house that was going up, the first of the new homes to be built on Cannonball Island in many years.
She’d heard from Owen—who said he just happened to be walking past the Mullan place the other day when Cass just happened to be there—that they might use that first house as a spec house. Cass, he went on to tell her, was thinking about building one of those new places for herself, but she hadn’t decided on a location yet.
“Maybe she’ll want to buy Poppa’s old place, next to the old chapel.”
“A, that place is mine, and B, that place is mine.”
“Yeah, I guess it would be a hard sell, being that it sits right next to a graveyard where the most reviled man ever to set foot on the island is buried.”
Owen had snorted. “I think Cass could handle Reverend Jeremiah Sharpe, on either side of the grave.”
Yeah, but can you handle Cass? Lis wisely chose not to respond.
Lis was still smiling when she pulled onto the grassy area in front of the cottage and parked next to Alec’s Jeep.
“Alec?” The front door stood open and she stepped inside. The walls were down to the studs and there were gaping holes where the new windows would be, but the floor beneath her feet no longer sagged.
She went into the kitchen, where the cabinets and the counters had been removed and the floor torn up. Here, too, as in the great room, the windows were missing. With Cass’s help, the redesigned kitchen included a bumped-out back wall that enlarged the space and made room for an island and a greenhouse window, and French doors opening to the back where a patio would eventually be built. The space would be bright and cheery, and Lis couldn’t wait to cook on the new stove she’d ordered the week before.
Every inch of the cottage was going to be
glorious, made more so because she would be sharing it with Alec.
She heard noise upstairs and took to the steps.
“Alec?”
“Up here, babe.”
“So it looks like we’ll have windows soon.” She reached the top of the steps and looked around. Alec was standing in front of the cabinet where they’d found her grandmother’s ball and jacks. “What are you doing?”
“I found something I must have missed when we looked in here before.” He turned around with a small box in his hand.
“Oh, what is it?” She peered over his shoulder. “Something that belonged to my grandmother?”
“No.” He turned to her and opened the box. “Something that belonged to my mom.”
“To your . . .” Lis looked down at the open box, at the sparkly ring that sat upon the dark blue velvet interior, and her mouth dropped open.
“It’s the engagement ring my dad bought for my mother.” He took the ring from the box and dropped to one knee. “I know she would be so happy to pass it on to you. Will you marry me, Lis?”
“I . . . well, I . . . I . . .” She couldn’t seem to get a word out that made any sense.
“Was that a yes I, or a no I?”
“It’s a yes. Of course it’s a yes.” Her hand trembled as he slid the diamond onto her finger. “Yes, of course . . .”
Alec stood and wrapped his arms around her. “Kiss me to seal the deal,” he said, and she did.
Lis held her hand out in front of her, staring at the pretty stone.
“It’s beautiful, Alec. I love it. And I love it even more knowing that your mother wore it first. But how . . . where . . . ?”
“My aunt kept it in the safe-deposit box in the inn. I always knew it was there, along with some other jewelry of Mom’s that Aunt Grace saved for me. It was just waiting for me to find the right girl.” He held her close and rested his chin on the top of her head. “It was waiting for you to come back. To come home.”
“I am home. We are home. This is home.” She smiled and looked into his eyes. “Ruby knew. She knew all along that I’d be back.”
“A wise woman, that Ruby Carter.”
“Oh.” Lis pulled away slightly. “She knew. About the ring. She and Grace both knew.”
“Of course they knew. I had to ask Aunt Grace for the ring,” he reminded her. “Do you care? That they knew before you did?”
“Grace and Gigi?” Lis laughed. “Knowing the two of them, they knew long before you knew.”
Diary~
I always look forward to my mornings with my friend Ruby—she is just a font of knowledge. Besides the obvious—if she doesn’t know about it, it never happened on Cannonball Island. Naturally, since my nephew and her Lisbeth have finally found each other—and didn’t we wait long enough for that to happen!—we got to talking about family: Ruby about her Kathleen, and me about my brother Cliff. He was such a good man—imagine him, a lifelong bachelor, taking in a young boy the way he did. Daniel and I were set to bring Alec to the inn to raise him along with our three, but Cliff said no, Alec was meant to be with him. And so it was, and it was best for both of them. Next to Alec, I don’t think anyone mourned Carole the way Cliff did, but that’s not what’s on my mind tonight.
Thinking about Cliff got us thinking about Eb Carter—I guess because Eb used to spend so much time hanging around the boatyard, passing the time of day with Cliff, having a beer or two, and chewing the fat, as my brother liked to say. Of course, everyone knew about Eb’s lost love, Annie Gregory—the love of his life, the woman he’d named his skipjack for—and how she disappeared one night and was never heard from again.
Anyway, the conversation this morning went something like this:
Me: You think they’ll ever find out what happened to Annie?
Ruby (without so much as the blink of an eye): I know what happened to her.
Me: You do?
Ruby: Course I do. Annie took off with one of the Mason boys, I forget which one. Andrew, maybe. Or Peter. One of them.
Me (aghast): Huh! Eb always swore that Annie just disappeared out of that house in the middle of the night, like she’d been spirited away.
Ruby: Annie never wanted to marry Eb in the first place.
Me: Here he always said he didn’t know what happened.
Ruby: Well, I don’t think he did.
Me: You didn’t tell him? Wasn’t he your Harold’s brother?
Ruby: Sure enough he was, but what good would telling that tale have done? Man’s heart be broken, don’t need to know why. Long as he don’t know, he can put the blame on someone else.
Me: But he might have moved on, found someone else to love.
Ruby: Not Eb. He never had eyes for anyone but Annie. Sometimes it’s best to just let things find their own way.
Which is Ruby’s way of saying that things will always turn out the way they’re supposed to without any interference from anyone else. In other words, best to mind your own business—something that’s deeply ingrained in Ruby’s philosophy of life.
“Nobody’s business but theirs,” she likes to say.
Which is probably why it’s taken Alec and Lis so long to find each other. There have been times when I’ve been tempted—so tempted—to move fate along just a little tiny bit. Now, I’m not talking about a grand spell here. I just thought maybe a pinch of this or a little of that (nothing I haven’t done successfully before, mind you, and always with the best intentions). But no, Ruby said. “They be together, by and by. Don’t be meddlin’, Gracie. They’ll find their way.”
Well, when Ruby says don’t meddle, I don’t meddle. I didn’t, and she was right, of course. They’re finding their way.
So was I surprised when that nephew of mine asked me if he could open the safe-deposit box? Hah! Of course I gave him the key, and of course I knew what he was after. He held up the ring Allen had bought for Carole so long ago and asked me if I thought it would be all right if he gave it to Lis. Well, I told him that I knew his mother was standing right there, smiling, and I don’t mind saying that we both shed a tear or two.
And for the record, my sweet sister was there, and she was smiling to see her boy finding his happiness, just as she had found hers. Love is a celebration of life, and I know that wherever she is, Carole is still celebrating with Allen and Cliff.
Now, the big news everyone’s been talking about is that there’s going to be development on the island. Of course, we’ve been discussing it, Ruby and I have, since we saw the winds of change picking up about a year ago. It won’t change the character of the island, but it will bring new people in, and that can be a good thing.
Ruby’s Owen is back and he’ll be staying longer than he thinks he will—Ruby says he has a “comeuppance” on the way, which is long overdue, if you ask me. That boy was a wild one when he was young. No reason to believe he’s changed, but Ruby says all will be well in its time. He’ll be around to take over the store when Ruby . . . well, when she’s moved on.
Now, she can’t see how much more time she has, but lately, I’ve had glimpses. I wish I didn’t know, wish I hadn’t seen what’s coming—it makes my heart so very sad. Even though it isn’t imminent, I cannot imagine not having her counsel and her friendship. Ruby always says that she’ll always be there if I need her, on this side or on the other, but it won’t be the same.
That’s life, I suppose—and since Ruby isn’t leaving us anytime soon, well, as she would say, I won’t be worrying about what I can’t change, what’s past or what will be.
Grace
PS. Of course, Lis and Alec will move into the cottage when it’s finished, but that doesn’t mean my brother Cliff’s house will be empty for long. Ruby says Owen will be staying there for a time—not all of that time alone. I, for one, can’t wait to see how that will play out. As Ruby would say, there be mischief afoot .
. .
More heartwarming, charming romance from Mariah Stewart's Chesapeake Diaries series!
Jamie Valentine is the wildly successful author of self-help books, but when she finds out her own life has been a lie, she'll set out on a journey for truth that will upend everything she thought she knew, and let her open her heart to a new truth—and a new love.
That Chesapeake Summer
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About the Author
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY NICOLE LEIGH
MARIAH STEWART is the award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of numerous novels and several novellas and short stories. A native of Hightstown, New Jersey, she lives with her husband and two rambunctious rescue dogs amid the rolling hills of Chester County, Pennsylvania, where she savors country life, tends her gardens, and tries to avoid running the Amish buggies off the road with her SUV. Visit her website at www.mariahstewart.com, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AuthorMariahStewart.
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