Sweet Haven

by Shirlee McCoy

  “I’m assuming because I’ve seen it before. Been there, done that. Not going to repeat it.”

  He wanted to ask her who she’d been there with. That brainy guy she’d hung out with when she was a kid?

  Alec? Adam?

  The bell rang and a group of teenagers ran in, giggling and laughing as they joked about how much chocolate they could eat.

  Adeline got busy ringing up orders, and Sinclair figured he should get busy at his brother’s place.

  He didn’t want to go, though.

  He wanted to stay for a while, watch Adeline laugh and chat with the people who came into the shop, see what it was about this life and this place that she loved so much.

  Because he wouldn’t mind finding what she had. Wouldn’t mind being as certain as Adeline that he was exactly where he wanted to be with exactly the people he wanted to spend his time with.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gavin returned Tiny at five thirty.

  Adeline pretended that she wasn’t disappointed that Sinclair hadn’t been the one to bring the puppy back.

  She was good at pretending: pretending she was doing just fine running the shop, pretending that she was excited about being in May’s wedding, pretending that it didn’t matter that she still didn’t have a date to the nuptials.

  Pretending that she was excited about having dinner at her mother’s house.

  Scratch that.

  She wasn’t excited about it, and she didn’t care if Janelle knew it. If she could have thought of a good excuse not to go, she would have. Sadly, she’d come up blank, so she’d given Chase the closing checklist and left.

  He had her cell phone number. If he had any trouble, he was supposed to call. Otherwise, he’d close at six, make a few dozen white chocolate wedding favors, and then head over to Adeline’s place. She’d given him a key, because that had been part of the agreement he’d drawn up with the sheriff. Byron and May wouldn’t press charges, the sheriff’s department wouldn’t press charges, but there were some things Chase had to do while he was in town. One of them was find a place to stay.

  Addie had offered that. She’d also given him three weeks’ pay up front.

  He’d been unhappy, but the sheriff had taken him to the bank, watched as he’d deposited the check, and then taken him to have the new carburetor ordered.

  She didn’t know what the two had talked about while they were gone, but Chase was quiet when he returned. He’d stayed quiet all day, and she was worried that maybe he’d do exactly what Byron and Sinclair said he wouldn’t: run.

  One more thing to add to her list of worries.

  She tugged on black slacks and slipped on a sweater set that Willow had sent her for Christmas. Cashmere. Definitely not something she could run through the wash. It was pretty, though, the color a muted purple that Addie would never have chosen for herself.

  Her cell phone rang, and she glanced at the caller ID.

  Janelle. Of course, because it was quarter of six, and Adeline wasn’t there.

  Too bad.

  Dinner was being served at six. She’d be there at six. Hopefully her mother would be too busy picking her future son-in-laws’ brains to ask Adeline about her date for the wedding.

  She grabbed her pumps from the closet.

  Pump?

  There was only one sitting on the rack.

  She looked under the bed, went in the office, searched it.

  No sign of the shoe.

  She had another pair, but they were bright red stilettos that Brenna had given her for her birthday.

  Not quite her style.

  “Tiny!” she called. “You didn’t get in my closet while I was in the shower, did you?”

  The puppy trotted in, a massacred shoe hanging limply from his mouth.

  “You did!” she shouted, and poor Tiny scrambled under the bed, the shoe still in his mouth.

  Or he tried.

  Only his head went under.

  His butt hung out, his tail thumping wildly.

  “This is not a game!” she yelled. “I have to be at Mom’s house in five minutes, and you’ve destroyed the only pair of heels I can actually walk in.”

  Tiny’s tail thumped even more wildly.

  “Darn it, Tiny! I need this like I need another hole in my head.” She reached into the closet, grabbed the first thing her hand landed on. A dress of some sort. Soft gray. “I can’t wear red and purple either. You know what my mother will do. Comment on the choice in front of the girls’ handsome, successful dates. You know? The thing I don’t have!?” she shouted, irritated way out of proportion to the crime.

  It was just a black pump, after all.

  And not an expensive one.

  But, God!

  She was tired, and she had to go to dinner and then to the hospital, and when she got home an eighteen-year-old kid was going to be there.

  She discarded the slacks and sweater, tossing both onto the bed, then tugged on the dress she’d pulled out. Another one of Willow’s picks, it slid over her breasts and hips, clinging to every curve she had.

  She scowled at her reflection as she shoved her feet into the stilettos. On one of her sisters the look would have worked. She just looked like a kid playing dress up.

  She ran a brush through her hair, put on lipstick and a little blush, dragged Tiny from the bedroom, and slammed the door.

  “Go ahead,” she told him. “Enjoy the leather shoe, but we have company coming over tonight, so you’re going into the laundry room until I can introduce you.”

  A little dog food, and Tiny was convinced that the laundry room was the place to be. She put a sign on the door so that Chase would know not to open it, and ran outside, her ankles wobbling as she hurried to her car.

  She was already two minutes late.

  Janelle was probably sitting at the table, talking about how thoughtless Addie was being.

  “Shit,” she breathed, as she buckled her seat belt and skidded out onto the road. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Nehemiah was out on his front porch.

  He waved as she drove by, and she slowed down, because she’d hate to hit an elderly person or a kid or even a dog just because she was in a mood and driving too fast.

  She pulled up in front of Janelle’s house ten minutes late, limped up the driveway in heels that were never meant to be worn by someone like her, and walked into the house that she’d always felt just a little out of place in.

  She heard voices.

  Just as she’d predicted, everyone was gathered in the dining room.

  “Is that you, Adeline?!” Janelle called.

  “Who else would it be?” she murmured, then called, “Yes. Sorry I’m late. The shop—”

  “Come on in and sit down. Dinner is getting cold.”

  Right.

  Dinner.

  She walked into the dining room, the space glowing with candlelight and ambience, the table nearly overflowing with food. A wine bucket sat at one end of the table, the silver gleaming in the dim light.

  There was a couple on either side of the rectangular table. Brenna and Dan. Willow and Ken. Beautiful and handsome . . . every single one of them.

  Both sisters stood as she walked in, both ran to her.

  And then they were all hugging the way they’d done hundreds of times before, and it seemed as if all the years when they hadn’t really been part of each other’s lives didn’t exist.

  “I’ve missed you both,” she said, pulling back to look at them. Willow looked tired, her cheeks even more hollow than usual, her eyes shadowed. Brenna looked . . . tense, as if she wanted to be anywhere but there.

  Join the crowd, Addie wanted to say, but two men that she barely knew were watching, so she kept her mouth shut.

  “Dan. Ken. How are you?” she asked.

  That was enough to open the flood gates.

  Ken loved to talk about his real estate business, and Janelle loved to join in. Next thing Addie knew, everyone was eating and chatting and it wa
s almost like being a normal family except that neither of her sisters seemed thrilled to be there.

  She met Willow’s eyes, wanted to reach over and touch her hand, ask what was wrong and why, when her life seemed perfect, she looked like she wanted to cry.

  “How are things going for you, Addie?” Willow asked, picking at the salmon that a caterer had prepared.

  “Great,” she lied. “The shop is running pretty smoothly.”

  Janelle interrupted her conversation with Ken to cut in. “You know that Byron is being released on Monday, right?”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “And you know that he is refusing to go to the convalescent center?”

  “I know that too.”

  “He told me that he is staying with you.”

  Uh-oh. They were moving into dangerous territory. There was nothing Adeline could do but walk right into it. “That’s right.”

  “I wish that you had informed me of that fact. I had to pull strings to get him into Good Sam’s. People went to a lot of effort to make sure there was a spot, and—”

  “Granddad is a grown man,” Brenna interrupted. “I think he’s perfectly capable of deciding where he wants to recover.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, Brenna,” Janelle said. “You’re not the one who is going to be taking care of him. Adeline is.”

  “If she wants to do it, I still don’t see what the problem is.” Brenna wasn’t going to back down. She never did.

  Adeline had always loved that about her, the way that she fought for what she believed in, went after everything wholeheartedly. She was the youngest and the toughest.

  Dan leaned over, whispered something in her ear, and she frowned, reaching for her glass of wine.

  After that, she didn’t say a word, just shoved salmon into her mouth like she’d never eaten before.

  Addie, on the other hand, was picking at the fish, the salad, the bread, the couscous. She didn’t want to call attention to her diet, but she couldn’t afford to eat the massive amount of food her mother had piled on her plate.

  “As I was saying,” Janelle continued, “Byron is going to need a lot of help, and Addie won’t be home much. She’s so busy with the shop and with her accounting business. Dan, did I tell you that she is an accountant?”

  “I believe you did,” he said, smiling at Adeline.

  She should have liked the guy. Her sister loved him, for crying out loud!

  But the handful of times she’d talked to him, she’d found him to be a little too bigheaded, a little too confident, and a little too fake. Four years after he’d started dating Brenna, he still hadn’t given her a ring. Adeline had a feeling tonight was the night. That was the way he was, the kind of guy who’d want to make a big deal out of the moment, have people watching his grand gesture.

  If he really knew Brenna, he’d have known she didn’t like being in the limelight. Just because she’d modeled in New York and in Europe didn’t mean she liked everyone knowing her business.

  All in all, she was a private person who didn’t share much of herself with anyone.

  Maybe not even Dan.

  Addie eyed the guy.

  “And you’re a plastic surgeon,” she said, because she’d rather not talk about her accounting job when she was sitting with an attorney, a doctor, a model, and a real estate mogul.

  “I am. Shocking that your sister and I ever met, considering that she refuses to let me do any work on her.”

  Maybe it was supposed to be funny.

  Addie wasn’t laughing.

  Neither was Brenna.

  Her full lips were pinched tight, her fingers wrapped around the stem of the wineglass like it was Dan’s neck and she wanted to break it. “Not a good topic for the dinner table,” she said tightly, and Addie wondered if things were okay between the two of them. She’d never liked Dan, but from the moment Brenna met him at a modeling gig, she’d been smitten with the guy.

  “A joke, honey,” Dan said, patting her shoulder and smirking like she was too stupid to understand things. “Relax.”

  “I am relaxed,” she bit out, but anyone sitting at the table could see it wasn’t true.

  “How about we have some dessert?” Janelle said, ringing a small silver bell that sat next to her plate.

  Seconds later, the catering team was there, clearing plates and refilling water glasses.

  One more course, and Addie could make her excuses and leave.

  She’d catch up with her sisters when their mother wasn’t around.

  And when talkative Dan and Ken weren’t there.

  And when all of them were relaxed enough to really connect.

  Which might be several decades from then.

  She frowned, sipping her water and half listening as Dan described the facelift he’d given a celebrity whose name he could not mention.

  She barely noticed when the doorbell rang, didn’t pay much attention when her mother left the table. She was too busy eyeing the cream pies that the caterer had brought in.

  Pies as in plural. As in more than one.

  As in, she wanted to dive headfirst into the coconut one, because Janelle had gotten it from the local bakery, and Addie knew exactly how the coconut cream pie would taste.

  She was salivating. Seriously. And if she didn’t leave the table, she might just pull the entire pie onto her plate and dig in.

  She stood. “I think I’ll go see if Mom has any diet soda,” she said to anyone who was listening, and then she ran into the kitchen.

  * * *

  Sinclair had been inside the Lamont house once or twice when he was a kid knocking on doors and begging for work because he’d needed money to buy food. Janelle had let him cut the grass a few times. On really hot days, she’d invite him into the kitchen for a cold glass of pop or some water.

  The place was as posh and perfect as he remembered, everything in its place, and everyone looking stunning. Willow and Brenna hadn’t changed much. They still had Lamont red hair and blue eyes. Both were classically pretty. Beautiful, really, but not nearly as intriguing as Adeline.

  “Where is your sister?” Janelle asked, gesturing for Sinclair to sit in a chair beside Willow.

  He waited, because he wanted to know where Adeline was too.

  She was the reason he’d come.

  Not the property that he’d been thinking about while he cleaned out his grandfather’s mess, not the hope of some amazing desserts. He’d come because he hadn’t heard the rest of Adeline’s story about the guy she’d been down the road with.

  He wanted to hear it.

  He wanted to listen to her talk about the guy that Gavin said had been an asshole in the first degree.

  Yeah. Sinclair had asked.

  He’d picked his brother’s brain while they’d cleaned out their grandmother’s dresser. A dresser filled with things that had surprised Sinclair. Pretty baubles and trinkets, nice quality antique jewelry, old photos of people long gone.

  He’d put everything in boxes and brought it to the apartment. He had a feeling a few of the pieces had value. He had a friend who was in the antique business. She lived in Seattle, but might be willing to drive in to see the things he’d been finding. All the junk his grandfather had collected had hidden some really nice pieces.

  “Addie went to get some diet soda,” Brenna said, standing and stretching. She was tall. Just a few inches shy of Sinclair’s height and as lean as a racehorse. “She should be back in a minute.”

  “Diet soda? With a meal like this? The girl is addicted to the stuff.” Janelle shook her head, obviously disgusted by her middle daughter’s choice. “I’d better go talk to her. She’ll probably bring the entire bottle to the table.”

  “God forbid,” Willow intoned, and Janelle frowned.

  “We had salmon, Willow. And couscous. And asparagus salad.”

  “I know what we had, Mother, but I don’t see why Adeline can’t have what she wants to drink.”

  “I agree with Willow,�
�� the man sitting next to her said. He looked to be around Sinclair’s age, his blond hair cut in some trendy style, his clothes obviously expensive.

  “I’m sure you do, Ken,” Janelle said with a broad smile. “She’s your fiancée. I’d be disappointed if you did anything else.”

  “Not just because of that,” Ken said. “She’s a beautiful, intelligent woman, and I appreciate her insight.” He smiled at Willow, and she lowered her gaze, poked at a piece of pie her mother had set in front of her.

  It didn’t take a hell of a lot of insight to see that she wasn’t buying the phony compliment, but far be it from Sinclair to point it out.

  “One of the things I like about you, Ken,” Janelle continued, Adeline apparently forgotten in Janelle’s bid to impress Willow’s husband-to-be, “is that you are supportive of Willow. I’m sure that being in a relationship with a prosecuting attorney isn’t always easy, but . . .”

  Sinclair walked out of the room, following the sound of clanging pans into the kitchen.

  Four people were there. Three of them wore black slacks and shirts. Adeline wore a dress made of some kind of soft fabric that hugged everyone of her beautiful curves.

  He could have crossed the room right then, slid his hands along her sides and let them settle at the narrow curve of her waist. He could have pulled her into his arms and kissed her the way he’d been wanting to do just about from the moment he’d seen her, but she looked miserable, her red hair hanging limply around her face, her expression grim.

  “Troubles?” he asked.

  She shrugged, walking out the back door and onto a wraparound porch that looked out onto a well-lit yard. Small lights on either side of a paved path led the way to a beautiful gazebo, but Adeline stayed where she was, shivering in the crisp cold breeze.

  “Maybe outside isn’t the best idea,” Sinclair murmured, rubbing his hands along her arms.

  “I’d rather freeze than spend another minute at that table.”

  “Your mother?”

  “My sisters. They aren’t happy. Neither am I, because I can’t stand the men in their lives.”