The Chesapeake Diaries Series (166 page)

“Makes sense.” He took another sip of beer just as the waitress appeared at the table.

“Are you ready to order now, Clay?” she asked, pad in hand.

“Rockfish and oysters for both of us,” Clay told her. Turning to Lucy, he said, “Unless you changed your mind.”

“No, no. That’s what I’m here for.” Lucy handed her menu to the waitress.

“Fried or raw?” the waitress asked. Smiling at Clay, she added, “I know you like yours fried.”

Clay nodded. “Nothing like a fat, lightly fried Chesapeake oyster the way they do them here.”

“How can I resist? I’ll have the same,” Lucy said.

“Two fried oyster and rockfish dinners.” Clay gave his unopened menu to the waitress.

After the waitress disappeared with their orders, Lucy said, “And speaking of beer, why don’t you tell me more about this new venture of yours?”

“Not much to tell at this point. We’ll be putting in our first crop of barley and hops as soon as the ground is right. We’re going to turn one of our old barns into a brewery so we’ll have the entire operation right here in St. Dennis.”

“It sounds very ambitious. Converting the barn, growing everything yourself. You’re going to be a very busy man,” she observed.

“Well, the barn conversion isn’t going to happen overnight, and the crops have to be planted and harvested, and that takes time, too. These first couple of years, we’ll be buying from other growers. The hops are going in this year, but they take a few years to mature.”

“So you buy seeds or plants from someone else …”

“From several someone elses, actually. There are hundreds of different varieties of hops, and we’re going to want to experiment with several.”

“What makes them different, and how will you decide which ones to grow?”

“The best varieties are disease-resistant, they have the right aroma, they have a high yield, they store well.” He studied her face as he spoke, watched for the telltale sign of her eyes glazing over. When they did not, he continued: “I’ve learned more about beer in the past six months than I have in my lifetime before Wade and I started talking about the possibility of going into business together. He knows so damned much about every stage of the process. I’ll be the one doing the planting, but he’ll be the one who decides which varieties of hops we grow.”

“You had the land, he has the knowledge,” she observed. “Sounds like a good partnership.”

“I think it’s going to be. I’ve had some dozens of acres lie fallow for a couple of years now, so I’m not losing anything in that regard. Wade’s got several years’ experience brewing, says he has a really good nose for it. Judging by the success of his last company, I’d have to say he knows his business.”

“I heard about how that business went down, about his partner falling for some con man who ripped off her and the business, left her pregnant, and disappeared.”

“Left her pregnant and pretty much penniless at that point. Wade said even with the money gone, they were willing to borrow and start over again—he really believed in his products—but then they discovered that Robin had terminal cancer. That took all the wind out of his sails. He spent the next couple of months taking care of her—she’d declined treatment
that could have prolonged her life for a short time because it would have caused the death of the baby.”

“Steffie told me Wade married her before she died so that he could raise her baby.” Lucy met his eyes. “That takes a big man with a big heart.”

Clay nodded. “If you didn’t know the story, you’d never suspect that Austin wasn’t Wade’s biological son. And to see Steffie with the kid, you wouldn’t know that she wasn’t his birth mother.”

“I like a story that has a happy ending, don’t you?”

“I do.” He raised his glass and tilted it toward hers. “Let’s drink to happy endings, LuLu.”

“Don’t call me …” She paused, then laughed and lifted her wineglass. “I give up. All right, to happy endings.” She took a sip of wine. “Though why I didn’t come up with a silly nickname for you when we were little—”

“You did,” he reminded her. “You called me Clay Pot Head.”

Lucy laughed. “Only until someone told me what that meant. Back in first grade, it just meant, you know, a clay pot. In fifth grade, it meant something entirely different, as Kevin McMillan explained to me one day on the playground. And that,” she said, her eyes twinkling, “was the end of Clay Pot Head.”

“Kevin McMillan.” Clay grumbled. “Sneaky little weasel was always trying to get your attention.”

“He succeeded. I went on my first date with him. Seventh-grade dance. He brought me flowers. Yellow and white daisies.”

“Don’t remind me.”

She laughed again. “Kevin was nice.”

“No, he wasn’t. He was nice to you because you
were the prettiest girl in the class and all the guys had a crush on you.”

“Jessie Linton was the prettiest girl in the class,” she corrected him. After a few seconds, she added, “And if memory serves, it was every guy but you.”

“Not true.” Clay shook his head. “At least, it wasn’t true after eighth grade.”

“Then what happened?” She rested her forearms on the table and leaned forward, her lips curved in a soft smile.

“Then hormones kicked in and you turned into a girl.”

“I was always a girl.” Her smile widened. “I never tried to pretend otherwise.”

“Yeah, but once we hit puberty, it got harder and harder to remember that we were buddies.” He put his glass down and caught her gaze. “Especially when the other guys would be fighting over who was going to ask you to go to so-and-so’s party, or to the movies.”

“Why didn’t you ever ask me?”

“Because we were supposed to be friends. Best friends.”

“We
were
best friends, Clay. You were the best friend I ever had.”

“So what happened, LuLu?” he asked softly. “Why did we stop being friends?”

For a moment, she looked stricken. Then she broke eye contact and stared at her wineglass for a long moment. When it looked as if she was about to speak, Candace appeared to serve their dinners.

“Okay, we have two rockfish and fried oyster combos,”
the waitress said as she placed a platter in front of both Lucy and Clay.

She put her hands on her hips. “What else can I get you? Another beer, Clay? Another glass of wine for you?” she asked Lucy.

“Oh, yes. That would be fine. Thank you.” Lucy nodded.

“I’ll take another beer, thanks, Candace,” Clay said.

“I’ll be right back with those.” Their waitress refreshed their water glasses before disappearing into the crowded dining room.

Clay and Lucy ate in silence for several moments.

“The fish is delicious,” she said at last. “Just the way I remember it. And the oysters are perfect. They just don’t taste the same from anywhere else.”

“True enough.” He’d thought about pressing her on his unanswered question—he’d thought for a moment she was going to finally shed some light on that subject—but decided to let it go. For now.

“Mom told me that you’ve been growing produce for some restaurants these past few years,” Lucy said, apparently happy enough to have been let off the hook. “Are you abandoning farming in favor of brewing beer?”

“No, growing barley and hops will be in addition to my produce business.” He put down his fork. “I was thinking the other day about how the farm has evolved since my ancestors arrived and claimed that land. You know, for almost three hundred years, the farm sustained my family. Today, it’s a hybrid operation of mostly organic produce that I sell to farmers’ markets and restaurants—including the inn. Tomorrow,
with luck, it will be as successful providing the raw product for MadMac Brews.”

“You don’t sell anything directly?” she asked.

“I sell directly to the restaurants. Almost all of the ones here in town buy from me, some in D.C., others in New York.”

“I meant, don’t you have a little veggie market on the farm?”

“No one to operate it,” he replied. “I work the fields, my mother’s moved out, and my sister is going to be moving in another few weeks.”

“Where’s Brooke going?”

“She’s moving into the old tenant house. Cam O’Connor’s doing the renovations, and he’s just about finished.”

“I remember that old place. There used to be an old guy who lived out there …”

“Mr. Littleton.” Clay nodded. “He worked for my dad back when we were kids. Sort of helped run the place.”

“I guess he’s moved on by now.”

“He died when we were in high school, don’t you remember? He was killed in a hit-and-run accident out on Charles Street. They never did find the car who hit him. My dad always suspected one of the politicians from D.C. who has a vacation home across the Bay. He figured any one of them would know how to hide the evidence.”

“I’d forgotten that.” Lucy frowned. “It’s not the type of thing I usually forget.”

“Well, you’ve been gone for a long time, Luce. It’s not surprising that some things have slipped your mind.”

“I guess.”

There was another silence that was only minutes away from becoming awkward when Lucy said, “Oh, by the way. I loved the tree you decorated in the inn’s library. It was perfect.”

“Is it still up?” He speared an oyster and raised the fork halfway to his mouth. “I’d have thought all the decorations would have been taken down and stored away by now.”

“Everything’s coming down tomorrow, but Mom left it all up for me to see. We had our Christmas last night. Ford called and we all got to talk to him for a few minutes, so I got to thank him for these.” She flicked a finger at one of her earrings and made the dangling part dance. “He sent these to Mom to hold for me.”

“I noticed them,” Clay told her. He
had
noticed. They caught the light of the candle much the way her eyes did, and brought his gaze back to her face again and again. “They’re very pretty.”

“I love them.” She touched them once more before picking up her fork. She seemed to aim at a piece of broccoli, but put the fork back down again. “Mom worries about me being in California alone—even after all this time—but it’s hell on her worrying about Ford. She can go weeks without hearing from him. It just breaks my heart sometimes when I think about how all she really wants is to have both Ford and me back here in St. Dennis, and neither of us seems to be able to make the move.”

“You both have your reasons,” Clay said. “You’ve invested a lot of time and hard work in your business. I’m sure that Ford believes in what he’s doing, and
you have to admire him for giving up what could be a much easier life to do something he thinks is right and important. Being a UN Peacekeeper isn’t the path most of us would choose to follow, but he has. He had all that special training while he was in the service, so he has skills that most of us don’t have.”

“All true.” Lucy nodded. “He’s well equipped for the places they send him, but still, you never know …” She picked up her wineglass and swirled the last bit of liquid around. “My mom worries that he’ll be in a bad situation someday and that he’ll be the one who saves everyone else but doesn’t get out alive himself. Even a cat only has nine lives.”

“Has he told you that he’s used up a few?”

“He tells Danny things, but he won’t tell me much. He’ll just say he’s in Africa, for example, but he won’t say that the country he’s in is in the midst of political turmoil and that villages are being annihilated and women and children murdered and raped and that he’s having a hard time keeping the lid from blowing off.” She stared at her glass. “I get all that from the news. I always hope to God my mom isn’t watching the same broadcast.”

“Where is he now?”

“He didn’t really say. Just sort of hemmed and hawed and talked past it. Which worries me as much as it worries Mom,” she admitted.

“Maybe he didn’t want to say too much in front of your mother,” Clay suggested. “Maybe you could give him a call when you get back to California.”

“I thought about that.” She nodded. “That’s probably what I’ll do.”

Clay looked down at his plate and was surprised to find he’d eaten pretty much everything on it.

“Wow,” he said. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“Me either. I haven’t eaten this much in … I don’t remember the last time I ate so much.” She laughed. “Oh, yes, I do. Last night. Huge dinner last night.”

“Christmas dinner, right.”

“I’ll need two seats on my flight back home.” She touched her napkin to her lips then folded it and placed it on the table.

“Which is when?”

“Sunday.”

“That’s great.” He grinned. “That means we get to do this again.”

“I think your email called for ‘dinner,’ not ‘dinners,’ ” she reminded him.

“A technicality.” Clay saw their waitress approaching. “Luce, do you want dessert? They still make the best cheesecake in town. It’s amazing stuff.”

“The best, is it? Sounds like we’ll have to get the inn’s new pastry chef to up her game,” Lucy replied good-naturedly. “But thank you, no. If I ate one more thing …”

“Just the check, please, Candace,” Clay told her.

She brought the bill and he paid it. At the coatroom, he picked up Lucy’s jacket and held it as she slipped her arms in. It was the closest he’d been to her all night, and for just a moment, he caught the scent of her hair when she flipped it out from under her collar. She smelled faintly of flowers and sunlight, even on this wintry night.

“Looks like the rain has stopped,” he said when
they stepped outside. “Want to take a stroll along the pier?”

“Wouldn’t hurt to try to walk off a bit of dinner. It really was a treat, Clay. Thanks so much.”

“My pleasure.” He took her hand and tucked it under his arm. “I waited twenty years for this date—and don’t break my heart by insisting this wasn’t a date, all right? Play along with me if you must. But don’t say—”

“I wasn’t going to. And for the record, it’s the best date I’ve had in a long time.”

“Now you’re just being nice. But I’ll take it.”

“No,” she insisted. “Really. It’s a pleasure to be with someone you’ve known all your life. Not at all like a first date with someone you’ve just met.”

“Ha! You said first date. The implication being that there will be another.”