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 (161 page)

“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.

Within minutes came his reply.

Lucy hit reply.

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

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?

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 wife 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.

Again, okay by Clay. He could look at Lucy all day. She had always had the best smile, still did. It lit her face and deepened her dimples and, well, it was just a pretty sight to see.

Lucy had always been petite—some of the kids in their class had nicknamed her “Runt”—but after Clay grew to his full height at sixteen, she seemed even tinier. Her hair was darker now, he noticed. When they were kids, it had been equal parts of gold and red. Now it was more a light auburn. The red and gold still there, but the mix was different. Today, it looked more …

She stood across the table, one hand waving in front of his face. “Clay, you in there?”

“Yeah. Hey, Lucy.” He tried to cover up the fact
that he’d not only been tuned out, but tuned out thinking about her. “How was your flight?”

“Okay. I got here.” She smiled, and for a moment, he could have sworn he’d heard his heart thump onto the floor. If she’d heard it, too, she gave no sign.

“Glad you did. So when’s your meeting?”

“Tomorrow at ten at the inn. Wish me luck.”

“Of course, but I’m sure you’ll knock ’em dead.”

“I hope so.” She leaned on the back of the closest chair. “I don’t know either of these people, so it’s going to be very tentative. All I do know is that Trula wants them to have the wedding here. I don’t really know what
they
want. For all I know, they’re only humoring Trula by meeting with me.”

“Nonsense.” Grace came up behind her daughter and handed Lucy a takeout cup of coffee. “Robert would tell her if he wasn’t interested.”

“I don’t know.” Lucy turned to her. “Trula’s awfully tough sometimes.”

“Robert and Susanna have been to the inn and they loved it,” Grace reminded her. “I’m sure when they see what sort of ideas you have for their wedding, they’ll be very pleased.”

“That’s just it, Mom, I have no ideas. I don’t know them, don’t know what they like and what they don’t like.” She turned back to Clay. “Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for me.”

“Will do.”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night. Seven, right?”

“Right. Lola’s or Captain Walt’s?”

“Captain Walt’s. You promised me rockfish and oysters, and I intend to make you deliver.”

“Walt’s it is. See you then.”

“So nice that you two are going on a date after all these years.” Grace smiled.

Lucy frowned. “It’s not a date.”

“Sure it is.” Clay grinned.

She turned back to him, the frown still in place. “No, it isn’t. It’s just dinner.”

“If you say so.” He was still grinning, and had the overwhelming feeling that she wished he’d stop.

She took her mother’s arm and steered her toward the door. He watched from his seat until her red coat disappeared from sight, then got up, took his mug over to the counter, and handed it to the waitress to be washed and replaced on the shelf, then waved good-bye to Carlo, who was on the phone. When he stepped out onto the sidewalk, Lucy and Grace were nowhere to be seen.