The Chesapeake Diaries Series (23 page)

“Well, here’s a little did-you-know. The commanding officer wanted a really huge flag to fly over the fort, so he commissioned a woman from Baltimore to make one. And it
was
huge, like thirty feet high and forty-two feet long. That was the flag that Key saw the next morning.”

“I did pay attention in my American history class. Major George Armistead was the commander. He wanted to make sure that the British could see the flag from their ships.” Grady added, “I suppose it was the 1814 equivalent of getting in someone’s face.”

“Do you know the name of the flag maker?” she countered.

“No. Do you?”

“You betcha. Mary Pickersgill. There’s a book in the Historical Society library that talks about how she was asked to make that flag and she only had a very limited time to do it. The flag is in the Smithsonian now.”

Grady had made a move to take her hand but she walked with both hands linked behind her back so they were out of reach. When her arms grew tired, she switched her shoulder bag to her left side and looped her hand through the strap to occupy it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want that casual contact with him—she did. In fact, she’d been aching to touch him all day. But he’d be leaving town in a matter of hours, and a public display would only invite questions. She was under constant scrutiny by the police department, and all day long, people she knew had been driving past and waving. She couldn’t bear the looks of pity she knew she’d get when she walked into Cuppachino in the morning. Or the questions that would inevitably come, the speculation that would be made. St. Dennis was still, after all, a small town, and there was little that could stop the gossip once it got rolling. There’d be enough attention on her in the coming days, with her shop having been the victim of the first burglary since the town started trying to attract tourists. To have that same light shining on her love life right now would be overkill.

“This area up here, we call the square,” she continued. “The houses on each corner were among the first built when the town was officially laid out in 1685. Before that, there were land grants, maybe around 1650 or so, that pretty much defined the village area. The brick was all locally made, and the wooden sections that you see were all from trees cut down to clear the area.” She smiled. “Sometimes I like to walk along here and try to picture the way it was back then, with only those few houses, and dirt paths between them. No roads, no cars … just horses and a
wagon here and there.” She pointed beyond the square. “You see those woods off to the right? There are trees there that have been standing for more than three hundred years. It’s believed that’s the last of the forest that the early settlers found when they first came here.”

“You’re really into this, aren’t you? Hard to believe you’re not a native.” He seemed so casual, so nonchalant, yet Vanessa could not fail to notice that his eyes were constantly moving, from the passing cars to other pedestrians.

“I’ve learned a lot from Hal. His family has been here since the early 1700s. Imagine that? Being able to trace your family back that far?”

“I guess it’s easy if no one ever left town. There’d be records in the churches of births, marriages, deaths,” he pointed out. “And depending on how well the town kept records of the deeds changing hands, you could trace that, too.”

“I suppose. But for someone …” She stopped herself from saying
someone like me
. “… someone whose family records are scattered or missing or inaccurate, or just plain unknown, it’s a revelation to find out that some people even know who their first ancestors were who came to this country, and even what ship they came on.” She shook her head and added, “I’ve never even met my real father. I took Keaton from a step-father, but my real dad … I know his name but I don’t know anything about him.”

“Maggie never told you?”

“There’s a lot Maggie hasn’t told me,” Vanessa said drily.

“Have you asked her?” He stopped at the corner when she did. “About the things you don’t know?”

She shook her head from side to side. “I always figured if she felt like talking about him, she would.” She made a face. “Maybe that’s not really true. Maybe I was afraid to ask because—oh, I don’t know. Because she’d blow me off, or maybe not tell the truth, you know, maybe just tell me what she thinks I want to hear.”

“What do you want to hear?”

“Just the truth.” She was taller in the four-inch heels she wore, but still not eye to eye with him. “I would like to know about my father. I always told her it didn’t matter, that I didn’t want to know, but it does matter. I do want to know.”

“If you weren’t honest with her, why would she be honest with you?”

Vanessa frowned. “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours.” He took her arm when she wouldn’t give him her hand. “If you want the truth, ask for it. Don’t assume people can read your mind. That’s game playing. I didn’t figure that for your style.”

She crossed the street and started walking back toward town, and he kept in step with her.

“Ness?”

“I heard you.”

“I can see that I upset you,” Grady said. “I’m very sorry. But you brought up—”

“I know I did.” She exhaled a long breath. “I’m not upset with you. I’m upset with myself.”

“Why?”

“Why?” She snorted. “Why should I feel annoyed
with myself for telling a man I slept with last night all my deepest secrets?”

“If you can’t share something of yourself with the man you sleep with, maybe you shouldn’t be sleeping with him.”

“We don’t ‘sleep with’ each other. We slept. Past tense,” she corrected him. “We just slept together last night.”

“So you’re telling me I was just a one-night stand?” He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “I feel so … cheap. So … used.”

“You’re not funny.” She kept walking.

“What do you expect me to say?” He caught up with her in one stride. “Ness, I don’t do one-night stands.”

“Of course you do.” She brushed him off. “All guys do.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You stayed with me last night. You’re leaving today,” she pointed out. “One night.”

“So if I leave town today, that means I can’t come back?”

“You mean, like once a year? Or whenever you felt like it?”

Grady whistled, long and low. “You really have a low opinion of men, don’t you?”

When she didn’t answer, he said, “Every guy isn’t out to love you and leave you, Ness, or to hurt you if he stays.”

They walked along in silence for a while.

“You are the oddest man I have ever known.” She shook her head, then fell silent again for the rest of the walk back to the center of town.

“Want to stop for coffee?” he asked as they approached Cuppachino.

She shook her head.

“How ’bout we stop in the art gallery across the street and just take a look around?”

“It won’t open for another few weeks. Rocky, the guy who owns it, usually doesn’t come back to St. Dennis until June first. He has a home in Arizona, and he stays there except for the summer. Anyway, don’t you have to get going?”

“Are you trying to get rid of me? Tired of me already?”

“You said you had to leave St. Dennis by three. It’s almost that now, and you still have to go back to the Inn to get your stuff and check out.”

“I’ll get to it.”

They crossed the street, and Vanessa stopped in front of Bling. She hadn’t noticed last night, but one of the side windows must have been cracked, because it was boarded up on the outside. Through the front window she could see the mess. There was yellow crime-scene tape wrapped around the entire building, and she noticed several passersby stop to speculate. She wrapped her arms around herself and willed herself not to cry.

“Maybe they’ll let you go in soon and clean up,” Grady said. “Maybe Hal can speed that up for you.”

“He said tomorrow I could go in. I asked him this morning. After the shock of seeing him walk in with Maggie wore off.”

“That bothers you, doesn’t it? That Hal and Maggie seem to have so much to talk about?”

“How is it that you just always seem to know exactly
which scab to pick at?” He’d just played on her last nerve.

She walked ahead of him and turned up Cherry Street without looking at him. He walked alongside her, his hands in the pockets of his Dockers, his dark glasses hiding his eyes.

When they got to her house, he said, “I just seem to set you off, no matter what I say. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry or get into your business, but when you throw stuff out there, you shouldn’t be surprised if I pick up on it. That’s part of the whole conversation thing. You say something, I listen and say something back to you that pertains to whatever it is that you said. Then you say something else, and voilà. A conversation.”

“I’m not used to talking about … certain things … with anyone. I don’t know why my mouth has been so free this morning. I don’t talk about my father, and I rarely talk about my mother, and as for this …” She placed a hand on her scar and shook her head. “So I don’t know what’s gotten into me. You seem to bring out the blabbermouth in me.”

“Sometimes it’s healthier to talk about things, than to not.” He smiled. “You can blabber on to me anytime you want.”

And I probably would, if you were sticking around
, she thought.

“Now, here, all this time, I’d been led to believe that you were the strong, silent one. The loner. The recluse.” She snorted. “I swear I never met a man who asked as many questions or who talked about as much stuff as you do.”

“How else do you get to know someone?” Grady
shrugged. “Besides, I like to talk to you. You’re not like most of the women I’ve known.”

“Yeah, well, back atcha there, pal.”

He laughed, and she found herself laughing, too.

She tugged on his hand.

“Come on in and get some cookies to take with you for your hike. I must have miscounted my batches, because I had some left over.”

“There were cookies here last night and you didn’t bother to mention it?”

“You were busy checking for intruders,” she reminded him as she unlocked the door.

His hand was on the small of her back while they walked toward the kitchen.

“Coffee or milk?” she asked.

“With cookies? Not even close.”

She opened the refrigerator and took out a carton of milk.

“Glasses are in the—” She stopped short, her attention drawn to a box wrapped in white paper and tied with red ribbon that sat in the middle of the kitchen table. “Did you put that there?”

His eyes followed her gaze to the table. “No. Maybe Hal dropped it off. Does he have a key?”

She nodded. “He does. Maybe it’s from Beck and Mia. You know, like a thank-you for being their unofficial wedding planner.”

She put her purse on the counter and unwrapped the present. When she opened the box and looked inside, she stood for a moment, staring at the contents.

“What is it?” Grady asked.

She reached into the box and held up crudely torn strips of white eyelet.

“It used to be a dress,” she told him. She dropped it back into the box. She looked up at Grady. “I think I know who broke into my shop. There was a woman in Bling the other day who came in and tried on this dress. She wasn’t sure if she wanted it or not, so I put it in the back to hold it in case she came back.”

“Get Hal on the phone,” Grady told her. “Tell him what you just told me.”

She did, and Hal arrived within minutes of her call.

She wasn’t as happy to see Maggie as she was to see Hal.

“Are you riding shotgun in the cruiser these days?” she asked her mother, who trailed into the house with Hal.

“Don’t be a smart-ass,” Maggie replied. “I have the right to worry about my daughter.”

“Don’t start with me.” Vanessa had led them into the kitchen.

Hal went straight to the box. “Ness, I’m assuming you opened this. Grady, did you touch it?”

“No. I doubt you’ll find any prints on there except Vanessa’s,” Grady told him.

“This was here when you came back from your walk?” Hal asked.

Vanessa nodded. “We came in through the front door—”

“Which I’m assuming was locked?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea how someone could have gotten in?” Hal asked her.

“Back door,” Grady said. “The lock was picked. Expertly done, I might add.”

Grady walked through the small back entry and
pointed to the door. “An amateur would have taken out the lower glass pane and turned the latch. The door was unlocked as you see it when we came in, but it wasn’t obvious until we started looking after Ness found the box.”

“So tell me again about this woman you mentioned on the phone. When she was in the shop, what she looked like, any conversations you might have had with her.” Hal took out a pad and pen.

Vanessa ran through the woman’s visit to the store.

“She said her name was Candice,” she told him as she finished up, “but that’s probably not her real name. Oh, and Steffie saw her coming out of Sips yesterday when she—Stef—was on her way to the Inn for the wedding.”

“How did Steffie know who she was?” Hal asked.

“Stef was there the other day in the shop when ‘Candice’ came in.”

“I’m going to want to stop down and have a chat with Steffie, then, see if she can add anything to what you told me.” Hal folded the notepad and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

“She might. I went into the back of the shop for a moment while Stef was there, so they might have had some conversation,” Vanessa recalled. Then, thinking about how considerate she’d been to her would-be customer, she began to steam. “You know, I felt sorry for her. She just looked so … I don’t know, unhappy or downtrodden.”

“Like she was having a bad day?” Maggie asked.

“More like she was having a bad life. I offered to hold the dress for her—and I did, it was still on the hold rack in my office yesterday. And I even offered to
give her a nice discount on the price because I felt sorry for her.”

“Why?” Grady stuck his hands in his pants pockets and leaned against the wall.

“Because the dress was a little on the pricey side, and I thought it might make it easier to make the sale.” Vanessa stared at Grady for a moment, then added, “Oh, all right, it was because she wasn’t dressed well and she looked like someone who didn’t have a lot of nice things and she said the dress had looked nice on her when she tried it on. She sort of lit up a little when she brought it back out of the dressing room. I wanted her to have it, okay?”