Home for the Summer Page 29

  “You’re serious? You’re moving your business here.…”

  “Right where you’re standing.”

  “Because you want to be with me?”

  “Every day of my life.”

  “I never would have asked you to do that. I wanted to, but I wouldn’t have.”

  “I know that. I know it had to be my decision. But once I realized how much I love you, there really wasn’t any decision at all. Except about the business, of course, and since everyone else agreed, everything fell into place.”

  “Say that part again, about how much you—”

  “Love you? I do.”

  “I love you, too. I always have.” Holding her, he swayed gently from side to side.

  “I wish I’d understood that, back when … when I was going through so much alone.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I know that now. Somehow things always work out the way they’re supposed to. I like to think that we were always meant to be together, and that fate made it happen.”

  “Whatever made it happen, I am eternally grateful. But you’re sure you won’t regret this? You worked really hard all those years to build up your business.”

  “No regrets,” she assured him. “Besides, the wedding business here in St. Dennis is pretty good and about to get better. I have at least two more weddings to work on.”

  “Whose weddings?”

  “Brooke and Jesse’s,” she said, “and ours. Assuming that you accept my proposal.”

  “You’re proposing to me?”

  “I am.” She nodded. “Will you marry me?”

  “That’s supposed to be my line. And I’m supposed to talk to Dan and your mother about it first, then I’m supposed to ask you.”

  “You can talk to them, but when you do, you make sure you tell them that I asked you first.”

  He kissed her full on the lips, then said, “Now it’s your turn to come with me. I have something to show you, too.”

  “What?”

  “I was allowed no questions, therefore you’re not allowed any either.”

  She laughed and locked up her new office space and went back to her car.

  “How did you arrange all that, by the way?” he asked as she pulled away from the curb.

  “Brooke had mentioned that the two floors above her shop were for rent, so I asked Madeline to go look at the space for me but not to tell anyone, not even Dan or Mom. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, you know?” she explained. “She measured the rooms and took pictures and sent them to me, and it looked pretty good. So I contacted the owner and had him draw up a one-year lease and that was pretty much that.”

  “I can’t believe you never said a word.” He shook his head.

  “It would have ruined the surprise,” she said as she turned into the drive at the farm.

  “Park back near the barn,” he told her.

  When she parked and they’d gotten out of the car, she said, “So what’s the surprise?”

  “Close your eyes.” He walked behind her, steering her straight ahead, then turned her toward the left.

  “Clay, where are you—”

  “Open your eyes.”

  “Oh, my God, Clay!” She laughed. “The chicken house! You built a new chicken house!”

  The small house was a replica of the original, with a Dutch door and windows on all four sides, and was surrounded by a tall fence.

  Clay opened the gate and held it for her. “Go look inside the house.”

  She peered over the top of the half door. “Baby chicks! Oh, look at them!”

  “There are several different kinds, see? I always liked the variety when my folks had them. There are a couple of Rhode Island Reds, a few Araucanas—they’re the ones that lay those pretty light blue-green eggs—and a couple of Barred Rocks.”

  “They are so cute.” She watched them peck and scratch at the feed in a pan on the floor, then looked back at Clay. “You did this for me. You built a henhouse so that there’d be chickens here again because you thought it would make me happy.”

  “Nah.” He shook his head and shrugged. “I did it because my carpentry skills were getting rusty.”

  Lucy laughed. “I am happy. Thank you.”

  “We’ll see how happy you are the first cold snowy winter morning when you have to get up and gather your eggs for breakfast.”

  “Those would be oatmeal days.” She nestled against his shoulder and stayed there, imagining herself living there on the farm where she’d always felt at home.

  “It’s funny how things work out,” she told him. “I came back here to run a couple of events at the inn, but I never dreamed of staying. But something happened while I was working on the Magellan wedding. I started to feel more and more a part of the community, like I had a place here. I hated that I missed Vanessa’s wedding. I wanted to be there for her and Grady. But the last straw was looking at those pictures you emailed me during the party Brooke had for Jesse. Looking at those made me feel apart from it all again, and I hated that because I knew I should have been there with all of you, celebrating. And I decided right then and there that I belonged here, with you and with my family, and I wasn’t going to ever feel like I don’t belong here again.”

  “You do belong here. You do belong with me.” Clay bent down and picked a white clover from a clump that grew outside the chicken pen. He took her hand and wrapped the thin stem around her finger, then tied it off. “It’s not much as rings go, but it will have to do until we can get something more permanent.”

  “It’s beautiful, and it’s exactly right for this moment.” She held up her hand. “Let’s go back to the inn and show Mom and Dan. I can’t wait to tell them I’ll be home for the summer, after all …”

  Diary ~

  Oh, my, what a happy heart I have these days! To say that my fondest wish has come true would be an understatement! My Lucy has come home for good! Yes, that’s what I said: LUCY IS HOME FOR GOOD!

  She and her partner have decided that three offices were better than one, and Lucy’s one would be right here in St. Dennis. Strictly speaking, from a business standpoint, it was a stroke of genius, because thanks in no small part to her, the Inn at Sinclair’s Point has become THE destination wedding spot on the Eastern Shore. And why not? I could modestly submit that we have everything one could want, but that’s a diary entry for another day. BUT—the big news is that she and Clay are engaged! Yes! There are those of us who have always known that the two of them belonged together—Clay certainly had no doubt. It just seemed to take forever for Lucy to figure it out. But figure it out she has. She’s rented office space and she’s moved her things from her L.A. apartment directly to the farmhouse, where she says she intends to stay. I’d always dreamed she’d be a springtime bride, but it’s looking like October might be the month. She says she has some fabulous ideas for the reception. All in autumn colors, she tells me—gold sunflowers and russet dahlias, orange and red zinnias, and other such things she saw growing in a field somewhere.

  It’s all happened so fast—funny thing, that. Why, Trula and I were just discussing the situation after Robert and Susanna’s wedding. She’d asked if I still had Alice’s journals—which, of course, I do—and asked me to show her. Well, of course, I didn’t mind sharing them with her. I know how discreet Trula is, how she’d never tinker with any of Alice’s spells because she knows how tempermental such things can be. Anyway, she was saying how I could probably help Lucy’s “situation” along if I had a mind to, but I assured her that I’d never interfere with any of my children’s lives like that—tempted though I have been on many, many occasions. I would dearly love to see Dan happily married again after these years as a widower, and few things would please me more than to have Ford settled—preferably here in St. Dennis, but what are the chances of that happening?

  But no—I held fast and refused to give in to the temptation. Besides, as I told Trula, I was just too tired after all the activity to even begin to
think of such things. A misread word, the wrong amount of herbs, and poof! Disaster! I excused myself to go to bed, and left her in my little sitting room, in a big cozy chair, with Alice’s journal on her lap. I’m sure she appreciated the opportunity to relax and have some peace and quiet. I’ll have to remember to ask her sometime if she found anything of interest in Alice’s journal …

  Anyway, I am a happy woman—and a very blessed one. Who knows what good fortune will follow next?

  ~ Grace ~

  Turn the page for a preview of the next entry in

  The Chesapeake Diaries

  By Mariah Stewart

  Available from Ballantine Books

  Chapter 1

  So this is St. Dennis.

  Ellis Chapman drove slowly along Charles Street—slowly enough to earn her a few short polite beeps from the cars following her. At the top of the street, where she’d turned off the highway, there’d been an old farmhouse and an orchard on the left side of the road, and woods on the right. Where the farmland ended, a residential area began with a long block of lovely old homes set on nice lawns surrounded by old shade, mostly maples and oaks. The fallen leaves had blanketed many of those nice lawns with yellow and red and brown, all just waiting to be raked into irresistible piles into which the neighborhood children would surely jump.

  The commercial district crept up gradually: It took a moment for Ellis to realize that the clapboard houses she’d passed were actually a restaurant, an antique dealer, a bookstore, a gift shop, a children’s clothing store, and a candy store. The heart of the district had a handful of storefronts. There was a cupcake bakery, a women’s clothing store, another restaurant with an upscale look about it, a coffee shop, a flower shop, and a small newsstand that apparently sold beverages, judging by its name, Sips.

  Nice, she thought as she drove along. All the basics, but with a slightly trendy touch.

  She continued on through the town, past a sign announcing a marina, yet another restaurant, and an ice-cream parlor.

  Looks like the people around here like to eat.

  “Works for me,” she murmured.

  The drive from Connecticut had taken longer than she’d anticipated, though she was still almost thirty minutes early for her appointment. She made a left turn and drove around the block. Once back onto Charles Street, she made a second pass through town, trying to decide how best to assuage her hunger. There was no time for a meal, but coffee and maybe a quick snack would be welcome. She parked across the street from the coffee shop—the sign read Cuppachino in a stylized script—and with her head down against the wind, she dodged the mid-afternoon traffic to cross to the other side.

  She pushed open the coffee shop’s red door and rubbed her hands together to warm them while she glanced around for an empty table. She was just about to head for one when a little wave from the teenage boy at the counter caught her eye.

  “I can take your order here,” he told her. He went on to explain, “We’re counter service only.”

  “Oh. Well …” She squinted to read the handwritten menu on the chalkboard behind him.

  “Take your time. No hurry.”

  “I’d like a large regular coffee with whole milk.” She paused to survey the edibles. I really shouldn’t indulge, she told herself, right before she heard herself say, “And one of the vanilla cupcakes with the pink frosting.”

  “Excellent choice.” The boy nodded his approval and poured her coffee into an oversized blue mug. “Cream and sweeteners are over on the cart there behind you.”

  “Oh,” she said for the second time, and turned to locate the station.

  She paid for the coffee and the cupcake and took both to a table that sat off by itself next to the wall, then carried the mug to the cart where she added milk and a packet of raw sugar. She sat, sipped, and took a bite from the cupcake.

  Bliss.

  It was excellent, with tiny bits of strawberries in both the frosting and the cake. The coffee was equally good, and she sighed. If St. Dennis had nothing else to recommend it, at least there were great coffee and baked goods to be had.

  The door opened and three chattering women entered the shop and went directly to the counter, where they were served coffee in mugs from what appeared to be a special shelf along the wall. Ellis watched surreptitiously while the ladies fixed their coffee at the station.

  “… so really, Grace, what else could I have done?” one women was saying as she added two pink packets of sweetener to her coffee.

  “I don’t know that I would have done anything differently, dear.” The oldest of the three—Grace, apparently—shook her head slightly. “Sometimes you just have to go with your gut.”

  “My gut would have told me to smack her over the head with something,” the third woman said dryly. “She’s lucky that you have more patience than I, because, really, Barbara …”

  The voices trailed away as the women passed by on their way to the table next to the front window. The woman called Grace, who had white hair tucked into a bun and a gentle face, turned to smile at Ellis.

  “Hello, dear,” she said softly without breaking her stride.

  Ellis returned the smile and felt an unexplainable lump form in her throat. She turned her attention back to the cupcake and her coffee. So far, it seemed that St. Dennis was much like her mother had remembered it: a small welcoming town populated by nice people. For about the one thousandth time, Ellis wished she’d accompanied her mother on at least one of her trips back, but for Ellis, there’d always been somewhere else to go.

  “Why waste your summer in some little nowhere place,” her jet-setting father would say, “when you could be in London.…”

  If not London, than Rome, or on the small island they owned off the coast of Greece. There’d been summer classes in Cairo when she’d been majoring in archaeology, and another in Paris the year she’d majored in art history. He’d take her anywhere she wanted to go, as long as it wasn’t St. Dennis, a place that no one who mattered had ever heard of. In retrospect, it seemed that her father had been manipulating both her and her mother for more years than anyone realized.

  Well, those days are gone—not just the travel, but the manipulation … along with her mother, and any chance Ellis might have had to see St. Dennis through her mother’s eyes.

  She downed the last of the coffee and bused her table as she’d seen another customer do, returning the plate and mug to the counter.

  “Thanks,” the young man told her. “Come back again.”

  “I’ll do that.” Ellis tossed her crumpled napkin into a nearby receptacle and started toward the door, stood back while other patrons entered, then stepped out into the sunshine. She was standing on the curb, waiting for the light to change, when she had the inexplicable feeling that someone was watching her. She turned back to the shop, and saw the white-haired woman seated next to the window. The woman raised her hand in a wave. Ellis waved back, then realizing that the light had changed, crossed and went directly to her car.

  She slid behind the wheel and glanced back to the window. The woman had turned from the glass and appeared to be once again engaged in conversation with her companions, but there’d been something about the way she’d looked at Ellis, almost as if she knew her. Impossible, of course, Ellis reminded herself, since she’d never set foot in St. Dennis before today.

  She pulled away from the curb and drove east, watching for the street where she’d make her turn. The sign for Old St. Mary’s Church Road was larger than the others because it also sported a plaque that marked the historic district. She made a right and drove the designated three blocks, made another right, and parked along the street, as per the instructions she’d been given. She got out of the car, locked it, and stood on the sidewalk reading the sign over the door on the brick Federal-style building.

  ENRIGHT AND ENRIGHT, ATTORNEYS AT LAW.

  This would be the place.

  Ellis took a deep breath and walked along the brick path to the front door
, which she pushed open. She stepped into a quiet, nicely furnished reception area where an elderly woman sat behind a handsome dark cherry desk. The woman looked up when she heard the door, glanced at Ellis, then did a double take.

  “I’m El … Ellie Ryder. I have an appointment with Mr. Enright.” Ellie Ryder, she reminded herself. From now on, that was who she’d be for as long as she stayed in St. Dennis, and possibly longer, depending on how long it would take before the shit storm subsided.

  “I believe he’s expecting you.” The woman at the desk smiled uncertainly and got up from her chair. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  The receptionist disappeared into a room across the hall and stood behind the half-closed door. A moment later, a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties emerged and came directly into the reception area, his hand outstretched to her.

  “Ellie, I’m Jesse Enright. How was your trip? Can we get you some coffee? Have you had lunch?” His hand folded around hers with warmth and strength, and Ellis—Ellie—felt herself relax for the first time in days.

  Reminding herself that he already knew the story, she smiled as she stood.

  “The trip was fine. I arrived here in town with time enough to spare for a stop at the coffee shop in the center of town,” she told him. “I had a great cup of coffee and a delicious cupcake.”

  “Vanilla with strawberry frosting?” he asked.

  Ellis nodded. “You had one, too?”

  “One last night and another at lunch. My fiancée, Brooke, is the baker.” He patted his waist. “It’s good news and bad news.”

  Jesse turned to the receptionist. “Violet, hold my calls, if you would …”