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 (7 page)

Then there was the disturbing thought that—his protestations to his sister aside—he just might be more interested in Vanessa Keaton than he’d like to be.

In his mind he went back over the scraps of conversation he’d shared with her, and realized he’d learned
nothing about her except that she was Beck’s sister, but he’d already known that—Beck’s
half sister
, he recalled Mia saying—and that she owned a shop where she sold what she called “girlie things.” Well, she was certainly girlie—in the way that Mia was, anyway. They were both pretty and soft and feminine. Of course, he recalled, Mia was also a deadly shot and had been top of her class in martial arts.

He opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony and caught the salty night air, and wondered what more he might learn about Vanessa Keaton before the week was over.

“Here you go, Miss Grace.” Vanessa stopped in front of the old Federal-style mansion that had tall columns reaching to the third floor. It had been updated sometime in the 1800s by one of Miss Grace’s late husband’s great-somethings, adding porches to the second and third floors to match the one on the ground level. “Door-to-door service.”

“I appreciate the ride all the way out here, dear.” The older woman sat with her purse on her lap. “I wasn’t ready to leave the party when my son was. Daniel had to get the kids to bed early. It may have been a party night for us, but it’s a school night for them.”

“I didn’t mind a bit.” Vanessa smiled. “I love to come out here. I love the drive down that long lane and seeing this beautiful house sitting there with the Bay behind it. I think it was wonderful that your family turned it into an inn so that everyone could enjoy it.”

“Well, it was my husband’s family, not mine. But
yes, the old place makes for a fine inn. We spent many happy years here, running it, Dan and I did.” She nodded as if in satisfaction for those years. “Once he was gone, I didn’t mind turning it over to our son. Daniel has turned out to be an excellent innkeeper. He’s made some changes that I didn’t understand at first, but I bit my tongue. Turns out all that stuff—the playground, the guided nature walks, all those classes for children, the art classes, the yoga—it all made my head spin when Daniel first started talking about it, but I have to admit, it’s all been very profitable. Between all those activities and the children, he keeps very busy. Barely has a minute for a life of his own.” Grace stared out the window toward the Bay. “I’m sure you heard about his wife’s drowning …”

Vanessa nodded. “I did. It happened the year before I came to St. Dennis. It was such a sad thing.”

“It was a terrible tragedy.” Grace sighed as she unbuckled her seat belt. “I keep wishing that Daniel would meet someone. He’s too young to be alone for the rest of his life.”

“Well, maybe someday the right woman will walk through those big double doors and just knock him dead,” Vanessa said.

“Now that’s a happy thought for me to take with me tonight.” Grace reached over and squeezed Vanessa’s hand, then opened the car door. “You know, I’ve always prided myself on being quite the matchmaker—you wouldn’t believe some of the couples I’ve gotten together—but when it comes to my own son, I just don’t seem to have the right touch.”

“He’ll find the right person on his own, or she’ll find him,” Vanessa assured her.

“Of course, you’re right, dear.” Grace got out of the car, but before she closed her door, she said, “I’ve been meaning to tell you what a terrific addition Bling is to the shopping area. You’ve brought in some lovely things, Vanessa. Your windows are always such a pleasure to look at. We’re hoping you’re planning on staying for a good long time.”

“Thank you, Miss Grace. I appreciate that.”

“Will we see you for morning coffee tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Good. And thank you again for the ride.” Grace slammed the car door and walked to the Inn’s front doors.

Vanessa drove slowly down the long lane between the Inn and the main road that led back into town. It was all she could do not to shout “woo-hoo!” as she peeled out of the drive, still smiling with pleasure at Grace Sinclair’s compliment.

It hadn’t taken Vanessa very long to figure out that there were two St. Dennises. There was the St. Dennis of the tourists and the summer people, and there was old St. Dennis. Miss Grace was about as old St. Dennis as it was possible to be. Not just her family, the Abernathys, but the family she married into, the Sinclairs, were land-grant families, here since the earliest days. Of course, Hal’s family was, too, and Vanessa was certain that this fact had guaranteed that most people in town would be polite to her, if not accepting, since Hal had claimed her as one of his. But Miss Grace had always been just a little more warm, a little more kind, than most of the others had, at the beginning, anyway. These days, things were fine for Vanessa, better than fine, actually, with just about
everyone in town. But Miss Grace still somehow managed to go above the level of ordinary kindness, to make Vanessa feel as if she really did belong there.

On the drive home, she repeated the compliments.

… what a terrific addition Bling is … brought in some lovely things … windows always such a pleasure … hoping you’re planning on staying for a good long time
.

Thank you, Miss Grace. Yes, I’m planning on staying. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be
.

This is my home now
, she thought as she parked in her driveway.
Everyone and everything that matters to me … Hal, Beck, Mia, Steffie, my shop—my beautiful little shop—my wonderful little house … everything I love is here in St. Dennis
.

Oh, yes, Miss Grace, I’m not going anywhere
.

Diary
—

Attended a lovely party on Sunday afternoon for our own Chief Beck and his beautiful bride-to-be, hosted by the father of the groom, my dear friend Hal. Nice to have met so many of the bride’s relatives, all in from out of town (and all booked at the Inn for the entire week—Daniel couldn’t be more pleased that Beck recommended us). Mia’s people are all in the FBI, except for one brother who lives in Montana and, if talk is to be believed, is a bit of a tragic figure. The story is that he’s mourning the death of his wife at the hands of
his very own brother
! Tragic indeed! That is, of course, if it’s true.… Small-town talk being such as it is, well, who knows what the whole story—
the real story
—might be?

But I must say, for one who is supposedly grieving, he certainly seemed to be smitten with a certain young lady at the party. Not that anyone would blame him if he couldn’t take his eyes off her—the young lady in question is a beauty, and a personal favorite of mine, and one who has had more than her own share of heartbreak, so they say. Nothing would please me more than to see her meet a nice young man
.

So—we shall see what we shall see!

—
Grace

Vanessa was leaning on the counter next to her cash register, writing her shopping list for Thursday’s bake-a-thon, when it occurred to her that 252 guests times four cookies each equaled one hell of a lot of baking between now and Saturday. She picked up the phone and dialed Mia’s cell.

“I think we should start baking before Thursday,” she said when Mia picked up.

“Who is this and how did you get my number?” Mia asked calmly.

“I’m the person who’s trying to figure out how much lemon glaze we’re going to have to make to glaze all these damned cookies. And have you figured out how many cookies we’re talking about here?”

Before Mia had a chance to respond, Vanessa told her.

“One thousand and eight, that’s how many.”

“Divided by twelve equals … eighty-four dozen,” Mia told her. “So we take the recipe, which makes … let’s see, I think it was—”

“Five dozen. I have the recipe right in front of me.” Vanessa bit her bottom lip. “I don’t trust that to be
right, though. It’s only five dozen if you make them exactly the same size as the person who wrote the recipe, and that never seems to work for me.”

“Want to make ninety dozen, just in case?”

There was a long silence, after which both women began to laugh.

“Sure. Ninety dozen! What the hell!” Vanessa tried to make light of the task. “What’s a few dozen more?”

“It won’t take any time at all with both of us baking.”

“Seriously, I think you’re grossly underestimating the amount of time we’re going to need. Today is Tuesday. I’m thinking maybe we start tomorrow and plan to keep on baking right up to the rehearsal dinner, after which we return to our respective kitchens.”

“Maybe we need to do this in teams,” Mia suggested.

“That might work if we could recruit a few more bakers. Can you think of anyone else who could be talked into pitching in?”

“I can probably get Dorsey to make some,” Mia thought aloud. “And my cousin Aidan’s wife, Mara. She loves to bake.”

“What about your friend Annie? Isn’t the matron of honor supposed to help the bride out with all the last-minute details?”

“Yeah, but she’s in New Mexico on a case. We’re holding our breath that she gets back in time to make it to the wedding. Otherwise, you’ll be bumped from bridesmaid to maid of honor.”

“We’ll worry about that on Saturday. Today you
need to find out if Annie has a kitchenette in her hotel room. We need all the help we can get.”

“We’ll be okay. I’ll just ask Dorsey and Mara. Between the four of us, we should be fine.”

“Maybe. That breaks it down to”—she tried to mentally compute—“roughly twenty-two dozen cookies each, give or take a dozen or so. And this is going to take a lot of flour, sugar, and butter. I think I’ll call over to the Market Basket while I’m thinking of it to see if I need to make a special order. I doubt they have this much butter on hand.”

“Right about now is when you get to say, ‘You should have gone with the truffles.’ ” Mia sighed. “I guess this wasn’t such a great idea.”

“Of course it’s a great idea. You wanted to honor your mother’s memory and we’re going to do exactly that. I just thought I should point out that we should not wait until Thursday to start, and that we were severely understaffed.”

“If we start baking on Wednesday, they’ll be stale by Saturday.”

“No, they won’t. We’ll freeze them and put the glaze on them all on Friday. They’ll be fine.”

“According to the schedule you made up, on Friday we’re supposed to put them in boxes and tie on those pretty ribbons.”

“So we nudge the schedule a little,” Vanessa said to assure herself as much as she assured Mia. “We’ll get them into their little boxes and we’ll get the ribbons tied on and everything will be fine.”

The bell over Bling’s door rang and Vanessa looked up as a woman closed the door behind her.

“I’ll check with Ken at the market and get back to
you if there’s a problem. Meantime, think about maybe three cookies per guest. That would eliminate about twenty dozen cookies if my seat-of-the-pants math is right. Gotta run …”

She hung up the phone and replaced the receiver, then moved the phone to one side of the cash register. She smiled at the potential customer.

“Welcome to Bling. May I help you find something, or are you just poking?”

“Just poking,” the woman replied.

“Poke away,” Vanessa told her cheerfully. “Let me know if there’s something you’d like to try on, or if there’s something from one of the cases you’d like a better look at.”

The woman smiled tentatively.

Vanessa watched the customer without appearing to, appraising her unconsciously. The woman appeared to be in her early thirties, her hair colored light brown but not done well. Vanessa suspected that the woman had done her color herself but wasn’t very skilled at it. Her makeup was a little heavier than what she normally saw on the weekday tourists, who tended to be very conservative in their dress and appearance. This woman wore a long sleeved T-shirt with a mock turtleneck, long pants just a hair too tight, and faux-leather shoes that were far from new and probably rubbed her feet uncomfortably. She carried an out-of-season straw bag, and her unpolished fingernails were chewed to the quick. There was an air of hesitancy about her, as if she had just realized that she’d entered a shop where she couldn’t afford to buy anything. Vanessa was no stranger to that sort of
uncertainty because she’d felt it so many times before in her old life.

And
, she reminded herself,
there’d been more than one time in my life when I’d worn shoes very much like hers. I’ll bet hers are just as uncomfortable as mine were
.

Vanessa didn’t have to look at her own hands to know that these days, her nails were buffed and polished and kept pretty with a once-a-week appointment with a manicurist, but once upon a time, the sheer stress of her life had caused her to bite her nails down to nothing, and she’d never had time for polish.

The woman walked around the shop, her eyes darting from one item to another, but her fingers never reached out to touch any of the lovely items on display. In the way she hung her head and the wariness in her eyes, Vanessa recognized something else of the woman she herself had been, once upon a time. She’d have bet her entire week’s receipts that if she pulled up the sleeves of the woman’s shirt, she’d find the imprint of angry fingers bruised into her upper arms.

“It’s a gorgeous day, isn’t it?” Vanessa said, hoping to put the woman at ease. “I think spring is finally with us for real.”

“Yes. It’s real nice out.”

“Those shorts on the rack right next to you are on sale,” Vanessa pointed out.

The woman paused to look through them. She stopped at a pair of madras plaid, glanced at the price tag, then pretended that she hadn’t blanched when she read the number.

“Are you touristing today?” Vanessa asked.

“What?” The woman frowned. “Oh. Yeah. I’m just here for the day.”

“Where are you from?”

“Oh. Um … Baltimore.” The woman averted her eyes.

“What brought you to St. Dennis?” Vanessa persisted.

“I … I heard it was a pretty town, so I decided to take the day and check it out.”