A Small-Town Reunion

by Terry McLaughlin

  Addie watched her friend climb into her bright red roadster and speed off toward the waterfront. Tess had Quinn; Charlie had Jack. Currently, Addie had Mick O’Shaughnessy, a baseball-playing carpenter on Quinn’s construction crew—though she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. Their relationship seemed to be skidding from romantic to platonic.

  Addie also had bridesmaid duties to perform and bills to pay. She switched on her aging disk player, popped in a CD of Motown classics and reached for her sketches for a new set of window ornaments.

  Five minutes later, the sun had burned through the morning fog to fire summer light into every corner of the shop, and a honeymooning couple had wandered in to admire a hummingbird and rose done in filmy opalescent and clear textured glasses. She excused herself when her desk phone rang.

  “A Slice of Light, Addie Sutton speaking.”

  “Hello, Addie.”

  She stiffened. It had been several years since she’d heard Geneva Chandler’s voice on the phone. “Good morning, Mrs. Chandler.”

  “Must we be so formal?” Geneva, Tessa’s grandmother and the wealthiest woman in Carnelian Cove, had once employed Addie’s mother as housekeeper. Addie had lived most of her childhood at Chandler House, playing quietly in a corner of the enormous kitchen or tucked up in her attic bedroom.

  Or romping in Tess’s suite, when her friend had come north to visit. Tess had grown up in San Francisco, but she’d spent school holidays and long summers in Carnelian Cove. Geneva had often claimed the two of them were a matched set, like night and day.

  “Formal?” Addie twirled a strand of hair around a finger so tightly her knuckle turned white. “No, I don’t suppose so. What can I do for you, Geneva?”

  “Two of my windows were damaged last night during the quake. I’d like you to come out today and see about repairing them for me.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Two of the set over the entry stair landing. You know the group.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Addie had spent dozens of hours nestled in one corner of that landing, her picture books propped on her bony knees and her toes digging into the thick, richly patterned carpet, while rainbows flooded through the glass to drench her in color. She’d studied the intricate webbing of lead, had observed the infinite effects created by sunlight as it played through the waves and streaks and bevels. She’d told herself stories to bring the patterns and pictures to life as they’d painted her skin in jeweled tones and pastels.

  Those windows had been her secret, silent joy. They’d kept her company and given shape to her dreams—and now two of them had been broken. It was as though pieces of her childhood had been chipped and fractured.

  “Can you come?” asked Geneva. “This morning, if possible. I’d like to get an expert opinion on how to proceed with the repairs. And, of course, I’d like you to make those repairs for me, Addie.”

  “Yes, I’ll come.” Of course she would. Her special, magic windows needed her skills.

  And Addie had always known there’d come a day she’d be forced to deal with the Chandlers.

  HALF AN HOUR BEFORE she’d agreed to meet Geneva at Chandler House, Addie stared at the mirror hanging above her bathroom’s wall-mounted sink and tugged her fingers through her long, curling hair. It was a simple matter of basic grooming and good manners, she reasoned as she twisted together a few tendrils and caught them up with two tiny, spangled shooting-star clips. Looking put together on the outside would help her feel put together on the inside—even if the butterfly horde in her stomach was flapping hard enough to propel a space shuttle into orbit.

  She wasn’t trying to impress Geneva, she told herself as she slipped thin gold hoops through her ears. Even if she’d wanted to, it was impossible to impress a woman who had more power than anyone else in town. The Chandlers had made their fortune in the timber industry and then earned several more through marriages to heiresses and investments in a number of Carnelian Cove businesses. There were few citizens of Carnelian Cove who hadn’t benefited, directly or indirectly, from the family’s employment opportunities or charity projects.

  Addie smoothed a hand over her powder-blue short-sleeved shirt and stared at the toes peeking through the ends of her sandals, wondering if another layer of lotion would pass for a pedicure, and then decided her canvas deck shoes were more appropriate for the visit.

  Her old truck sputtered and shuddered as she backed out of her alley parking spot, and its idle seemed rougher than usual as she waited to pull on to Main Street. Time for another tune-up, she thought with a sigh—and where was she going to find the cash for that?

  From her bill for the repair on Geneva’s windows, she realized. She’d ask for a deposit and use some of the funds to replace her broken supplies. Chances were she’d need those supplies to make the repairs, anyway.

  Sunlight pierced the shadows beneath the bluff’s redwood grove and flashed across the windshield as her truck groaned and complained about the climb up the winding road. She passed the crooked, scarred rhododendron that Tess at sixteen had swiped with her new roadster and remembered the way she’d screamed as the shredded purple blooms exploded in their faces. There was the turn to Danny Silva’s house—the infamous scene of the poolside party where Addie had lost her bathing suit top after a clumsy dive.

  And there, near the top of the bluff, was the entrance to the Chandler estate. It seemed days rather than years since she’d driven through these tall, wide, iron gates. Nothing had changed—the flowers and ferns spilling over the edges of fat stone urns, the lawn flowing like an emerald river from the slate-edged porches of the shingle-style house, the dramatic backdrop of tall trees and black cliffs.

  No, she thought again as she tickled her clutch through a downshift—there was one thing here that had changed. She had changed. She was no longer the daughter of the housekeeper; she was an independent businesswoman here on a job.

  She slowed as she neared a fork in the drive. One paved path led to the front of the house, swinging past the grand front porch before it curved beneath a porte cochere at the side. The other veered toward the rear, widening to form a courtyard connecting the service entrance with a separate two-story garage building. Surrendering to sentimental habit, Addie pulled to a stop near the kitchen door.

  She climbed the concrete steps and hesitated at the narrow landing. She’d never before knocked on this door; her mother or Julia had always been on the other side.

  Julia was still here, Addie knew, well into her sixties and as territorial as ever. It was nearly impossible to imagine the Chandler House kitchen without Julia in command, waving one of her wooden spoons like a baton to emphasize whatever point she was making. Geneva’s cook had seemed ancient to Addie when she’d first seen her that afternoon more than twenty-four years past. Lena had plopped her five-year-old daughter on one of the kitchen stools, handed her a box of worn crayons and a few scraps of paper and warned her to stay out of the cook’s way.

  Addie had lowered her head, terrified of the sour-faced, wire-haired woman who shuffled around the room, banging her wicked-looking utensils against her shiny copper pots and muttering in her scratchy, booming voice. Eventually, Addie grabbed her very best pink crayon for security, escaping into a fantasy world of fluffy clouds and ponies and castles. A few minutes later, a plate of sugar-coated cookies slid into view across the wide central island, and Julia had asked her to draw a picture of a fairy princess with a crown of stars. In pink, of course.

  Addie checked her star-shaped hair clips and smoothed a hand over her wrinkled shirt. She’d spent a sizeable chunk of thirteen years in Julia’s kitchen, from shortly after her fifth birthday until she was ready for college at eighteen. Would Julia be here this morning? Certainly someone would hear the bell, Addie told herself as she pressed the small button centered in a shiny, ornate brass plate.

  A few seconds later, the dark green door swung open to reveal a tall, lean man with long, bare feet, a white shirt hanging unbutton
ed over a pair of ragged jeans, shower-dampened black hair, a half-eaten piece of toast slathered with jam and a wicked smile.

  A man who had her smothering a startled cry and feeling as though she were missing vital pieces of her wardrobe along with every bit of her composure. A man who’d always been able to make her feel small and out of place. A man who’d also been the subject of most of her preteen daydreams and starred in far too many of her adult fantasies.

  Devlin Chandler.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FOR A MOMENT ADDIE FORGOT why she had come to Chandler House. And why she could never, ever think of something to say to Dev to get past him and over him and forget him and move on with her life. Because he’s Dev Chandler, and he’s simply the most beautiful man you’ve ever met. Look at him, standing there the way he is, acting as if he owns the world—or all the best parts of it, anyway.

  And in the next instant Addie reminded herself that she had forgotten him, and that she’d made an excellent start on getting over him. That she was here because his grandmother had asked her to come—because she had talents and abilities and had made a damn good life for herself.

  But she still had to get past him.

  “Who is it?” boomed a familiar voice from the kitchen.

  Dev’s mouth curved at one corner with one of his devil’s spawn half grins. “Good question.”

  Julia shoved him aside with a muttered curse, and then her homely face creased in a wide, long-toothed grin when she saw Addie. “If it isn’t Miss Addie. Come in, come in. Just look at you, so neat and trim in your pretty summer things. If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes. And it just so happens I’ve got some of your favorite cookies sitting in my jar, just waiting for you to finish them up.”

  She latched on to Addie’s arm with one of her knobby-fingered hands and tugged her inside. The scents of cinnamon and nutmeg rode on the thick, warm kitchen air, but Addie’s skin prickled with the icy awareness of Dev’s stare.

  “You settle yourself on that stool, right there,” Julia insisted, “just like old times, and I’ll pour us both a cup of hot tea. And you can tell me what you’ve been up to.”

  “Go ahead,” said Dev as he tossed his unfinished toast into the sink. “Don’t mind me. I can get my own tea and cookies.”

  “That’s right,” said Julia with a wink for Addie. “We won’t mind you one bit. And you keep your sneaky mitts off those cookies.”

  “The cookies sound great,” Addie remarked. “But I’m not here to visit. I have an appointment with Mrs. Chandler.”

  Julia turned with a frown, the plate of cookies in her hand. “Did you say ‘Mrs. Chandler’?”

  “I’m here on business,” Addie said. “To take a look at the damage to some windows.”

  Dev nipped the plate from Julia’s hand. “I’ll take those.”

  Julia snatched them back with a scowl. “You’ll take Addie to find Geneva, is what you’ll do. Now get out of my kitchen. You’ve been pestering me all morning, keeping me from getting my work done.”

  Dev darted to the side and stole a cookie. “I’ve been keeping you company, you old windbag.”

  Julia pulled the towel from her shoulder with a practiced move and snapped it at Dev’s arm.

  “Ow.” The cookie fell to the floor.

  “Is Geneva in her office?” Addie asked.

  Dev began to button his shirt. “I’ll take you.”

  “You don’t have to. I’ll just—”

  “I said I’d take you.” He unfastened the top snap on his jeans and stuffed his shirt into his waistband. Behind his back, Julia rolled her eyes and muttered something about manners.

  “If she’s not in her office,” he said, ignoring the cook, “what are you going to do—hunt all over this place for her?”

  Addie crossed her arms. “I thought I’d start by checking out the windows.” She glanced at his bare feet. “I take it the area has been cleared of any broken glass?”

  “Nope.” He shot her another crooked grin. “We thought we’d leave that to the expert. Ow,” he said again as he darted out of towel range.

  “When you’re finished upstairs,” Julia told Addie, “you come right back here. I want to hear all your news.”

  Addie followed Dev through the sunny breakfast nook and cavernous dining room toward the marble-floored foyer. She caught a glimpse of new wall-covering in one room and reupholstered chairs in another, but everything else was as it had always been. The scents in the formal parts of the house were the same, too—citrus polish, lavender water, old books and wool carpets.

  And then there was Dev. The same wide shoulders set in a perpetual slouch, the same slightly wavy hair in need of a trim, the same casual gait stuck somewhere between a shuffle and a swagger. The heir apparent of Chandler House; the only son of Geneva’s only son. She wondered why he was here, how long he’d stay, whether he was married—no, he wasn’t married. She was sure she’d have heard the news from Tess, his cousin.

  But why hadn’t Tess mentioned he was back in town?

  Addie slowed and paused when they reached the grand entry to the front parlor, staring up at the set of stained-glass windows depicting the four seasons. She couldn’t see any damage from this angle; maybe things weren’t as bad as she’d feared.

  Dev stopped, too, and when she finally lowered her gaze from the glass, she found him watching her.

  “What have you been up to, anyway?” he asked.

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “Are you married? Divorced?”

  For one second, a ridiculous wave of joy rushed through her at the fact that he seemed interested enough to ask, to make an attempt to start a conversation with her. And in the next instant, her pitiful little thrill whirled down the drain as she realized he didn’t know the most basic facts about her—and that he’d never cared enough to find out.

  “I beg your pardon?” she asked.

  He frowned and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Never mind.”

  “No, I—” She shook her head, knocked off balance by her over-the-top reaction and his serious expression. “No, I’m not married.”

  He waited, as if he expected her to say something else. His dark-eyed gaze roamed over her features, assessing, testing. And then the corner of his mouth tipped up in one of his cocky grins. “Go on up to your windows, if you want to,” he said with a jerk of his chin toward the stairway. “I’ll tell Geneva you’re here.”

  DEV SOFTLY KNOCKED on one of the tall, paneled pocket doors leading to the old smoking library his grandmother used for her private office and waited for her invitation to enter. Instead, one of the doors slid aside on silent casters. “Is Addie here?” asked Geneva.

  “She’s in the entry, waiting for you.” He turned to head back to the kitchen.

  “Wait.”

  Geneva angled through the narrow opening, commanding her pack of whiny, yappy little Yorkies to sit and stay behind. She wore casual, caramel-colored slacks and a sporty linen top on her tall, amazingly youthful frame. But the pearls at her ears and the elegant twist of her upswept gray hair reminded him she was a no-nonsense woman who expected proper behavior in all things, at all times. “I’d like you to hear what she has to say,” she said.

  As he followed his grandmother back toward the entry hall, he wondered what the old lady was up to. She was up to something—Geneva’s demands were never eccentric and sometimes Machiavellian. He didn’t like being caught like a cog in her current machinations, but he didn’t know how to avoid it as long as he was taking advantage of her hospitality.

  And he’d continue to take advantage of the situation because he was up to something, too. Several somethings, he mused as Geneva greeted her beautiful—and single—stained-glass specialist. For the time being, he was content to remain exactly where he was, following his grandmother’s lead.

  Trailing after the ladies provided an unexpected bonus. At about eye level, Addie’s shapely butt swayed back and forth as she climbed to the landing be
tween the first and second floors. Nice. She’d always been a looker—and it seemed he’d always been looking in her direction. Hard to avoid it, with her attending the same schools and spending so much time in the same house. No point in avoiding it, not when the looking was such a pleasure.

  And Dev had never seen the point in avoiding pleasure.

  He’d done his best to avoid Addie, though. At first it had been easy—she was just a kid, three years younger and a useless female. A timid little thing with big, watchful eyes, a golden-haired mouse who’d scurry out of his way whenever he entered a room. He’d been confused and lonely after his parents had divorced, lonelier still after his father had wrangled custody from his mother and then left him, for the most part, in Geneva’s strict care.

  So Dev had vented his frustrations on the naive girl who was his most convenient target. Even if he hadn’t already ruined the possibility of a friendship with his bullying, he’d never have lowered himself to seek the companionship of a shy, dreamy kid who spent her time drawing pictures.

  Beautiful pictures. Fanciful, dreamlike scenes. Yes, he’d done his best to avoid her, but he’d been smitten with her all the same.

  And years later, after he’d discovered females weren’t entirely worthless, he’d realized Addie had more to offer than most of them. Her dreaminess had blossomed into a creativity that intrigued him. And her shyness had transformed into a calming presence that attracted him with its promise of peace.

  But there’d been no point in making a bigger mess of his life than necessary. Geneva had warned him about putting the moves on the housekeeper’s daughter, and Addie’s mother had given him a silent version of the same message. Addie herself had flashed the hands-off signal like a neon skyscraper on the Vegas strip. This morning’s chilly exchange had let him know nothing had changed.

  Nothing but the passage of twelve years since his high school graduation, a mouth-watering deepening of her sexy voice and a refinement of the padding on those interesting feminine curves. And his own deepened and refined appreciation for both her curves and her attitude.