A Small-Town Reunion

by Terry McLaughlin

  He frowned as he remembered that awkward pause earlier when he’d opened the kitchen service door and they’d stood there, staring at each other like a couple of dumbstruck kids. She’d looked at him as if she’d expected him to slip a snake into her pocket or trip her as she walked up the steps. And he’d wondered how her expression would have changed if she’d known his thoughts involved something scarier than a slithery reptile and just as likely to knock her off balance.

  Now she dropped to her knees beside the damaged windows and plucked a few bits of glass from the carpet runner. “Is this everything that came loose?”

  “No. Most of it’s outside, on the ground beneath the foundation shrubs.” Geneva clasped her hands at her waist. “I wasn’t sure whether you’d need those fragments, so I left everything as I found it.”

  “How did this happen?” Addie peered more closely at the long crack in a wavy yellow panel. Beside that piece, dented metal framework outlined empty spaces. “Stained-glass windows are usually sturdier than others.”

  “One of the statues on the upper level fell from its pedestal. The tremors must have sent it rolling down the stairs, and it crashed against the glass, as you see.”

  Addie ran her fingers over a section of damaged lead. “How old are these windows?”

  “My husband had them installed when the house was built, shortly before he and I were married. So they’re at least fifty years old.”

  “I’ll take a look at the exteriors to see if there’s any sign of deterioration.” Addie leaned in closer to the glass. “I don’t see any signs of bowing, so it might be another twenty or thirty years before they need complete reconstruction.”

  “Reconstruction?”

  “You’re close to the ocean here. Salt in the air can cause the lead to deteriorate over time.”

  Addie frowned as she studied the windows. “I’m not going to be able to simply patch these up, you know. I’ll match the missing pieces as well as I can, but they may not be exactly the same. A lot of this is high-quality antique glass, and suitable replacements are going to be hard to track down.”

  “I’m sure whatever you can manage will be acceptable.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be pleased with whatever I ‘manage.’” Addie wiped her hands on her jeans as she stood, and then she leveled a bland look at Geneva. “And whatever that is, I assure you it will be a great deal more than acceptable.”

  Geneva gave her a tight smile. “Very well, then. When can you start?”

  “Once I find the glass I need and order it. This weekend, perhaps. More likely the week or two after that.”

  “Sooner would be better.”

  “I’m sure it would.”

  Dev smiled at the subtle clash of wills, grateful his grandmother had insisted he stick around for the show.

  “Well?” asked Geneva, raising one eyebrow. “Will it be sooner, then?”

  “I’ll need to arrange for some help getting these windows removed.”

  “You need to take the entire window?” Geneva stroked a hand over a curve of ruby-red glass. “Can’t you fix them here?”

  “Not without setting up a duplicate shop.” Addie trailed her fingers along a twisting length of lead, her gesture resembled Geneva’s. “And even then, I’d still have to remove the windows from their frames.”

  “Then take them.” Geneva inhaled deeply and squared her shoulders. “Do what you need to do. As quickly as possible. Devlin will help you.”

  “I need expert help,” Addie clarified, ignoring Geneva’s suggestions and his presence. “And I’ll need crates made to brace and transport them. I’ll call Quinn to come and take a look at what needs to be done.”

  Geneva hesitated and then nodded. “All right. I’ll have Devlin arrange for Quinn to meet you here, and then the men can get the windows out of the wall and into their crates.”

  Addie narrowed her eyes. “Quinn and I can take care of everything.”

  “I’m sure the windows must be quite heavy,” said Geneva. “Quinn will need Devlin’s help.”

  “If he needs any help,” said Addie, “he can—”

  “Don’t bother checking with me.” Dev crossed his arms and leaned against a newel post. “Just pretend I’m not here, that I have nothing better to do while you two make your plans.”

  Though she didn’t move so much as an eyelash in his direction, the flare of pink in Addie’s cheeks told him she’d noted the tone beneath his remark.

  “When I need your input, Devlin, I’ll ask for it.” Geneva turned and started down the stairs. “Addie, you can use the phone in my office to make your call.”

  Addie stared at Geneva’s back until the elderly woman stepped onto the marble foyer floor and disappeared around a corner. And then she shifted to face him, her expression completely shuttered, those wide, sapphire-blue eyes of hers devoid of the slightest hint of emotion or reaction as they settled on his.

  And then, for just one second—for a slice of time as narrow and fragile and sharp as one of the slivers of glass—she let him in. And on that lovely face of hers—a face that had slipped through his memories and drifted through his dreams—he could read the evidence of one more thing that hadn’t changed with the passage of all the years. She’d hidden it well enough throughout the morning’s appointment, but in that instant he could see it in every line of her ramrod-straight posture and in every puff of the icy vapor that emanated from her frosty exterior: Addie Sutton’s deep and abiding contempt.

  ADDIE HAD LEARNED a long time ago to surrender to her mother’s wishes when she didn’t have the energy, or time to spare, for a siege. So when Lena had called with a dinner invitation that afternoon, Addie had postponed plans with her friends and agreed to travel across town to the riverside apartment complex her mother managed in exchange for her rent. The rest of the bills got paid with the money she earned cleaning offices after hours.

  Her mother had once dreamed of a house of her own, Addie recalled, as she parked her truck in a guest spot in the complex’s lot. A house with a yard for a swingset and a place where Addie could leave her toys and crayons strewn about if she chose. But Lena hadn’t possessed any special skills or education, and the housekeeping job at Chandler House came with room and board, and a welcome for her daughter.

  After a time, Lena had begun night classes, studying to be a bookkeeper. She’d demonstrated a talent for spreadsheets, and when she’d graduated from the course during Addie’s sophomore year in high school, Geneva’s son Jonah, had given her a job in his office downtown. A good job with the area’s most important businessman. An opportunity to leave Chandler House, to renew her earlier dream of saving for a place of her own.

  But that dream had died three years later, shortly before Addie’s graduation. Jonah’s car had gone off a winding cliffside road. And in the days that followed, Lena had discovered sixty-two thousand dollars was missing from the business account—a sum she’d been accused of embezzling.

  She hadn’t been guilty; Geneva Chandler had agreed, refusing to press charges. But the mystery of the missing funds had never been solved. And Lena had never again found employment as a bookkeeper, not after such a big scandal in such a small town.

  Lena opened the ground-floor door and pulled Addie into a quick, tight hug. “I know you’re busy, and I know I’m being a pest, but I had to see for myself that you came through that quake all right.”

  “I told you on the phone,” Addie said as she eased out of her mother’s arms, “everything’s fine.”

  “You said some of your shop glass was broken.” Lena took the pink Bern’s Bakery box Addie handed her and carried it into her compact kitchen. “Did you file an insurance claim?”

  “I found another way to replace the supplies.”

  Addie took her usual spot at the tidy table set for two. Her mother had folded her faded cotton-print napkins into the foiled stained-glass rings Addie had made for a birthday present years ago. Addie ran a fingertip over one of the pretty bevels.
“I went to Chandler House today.”

  “Oh?”

  Lena could pack a sky-high load of meaning into that one syllable. Tonight, disapproval underlined her stone-faced delivery.

  Addie searched, as she so often did, for traces of herself in her mother’s features. When she was younger, Addie had imagined she could find her father in the differences. But she’d soon abandoned that game, once she’d figured out she’d probably never see the man. It seemed fitting to give up on him, since he’d never given her or her mother anything. No contact, no assistance. Lena had never told her daughter who he was—not so much as his first name—and Addie had long ago ceased to care.

  She could see her own saturated blue in her mother’s eyes and a bright hint of gold twining through the older woman’s darker hair. But Lena’s face was thinner, her cheeks less curvy and her jaw less sculptured. It was as though age and hard times and bitterness had worn her features.

  Addie lowered her eyes, guilty over her unkind thoughts. “Two of the stained-glass windows were broken,” she stated. “Do you remember the set on the landing between the main floor and the bedroom floor?”

  “The four seasons. Yes, I remember.” Lena ladled seafood chowder into a large bowl. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “She’s hired me to fix them.”

  “I suppose that means you’ll be spending a lot of time at the house.”

  “As little as possible.” Addie pulled her napkin from its glass ring as Lena set the bowl of soup in front of her. “I’ve already had the windows removed and delivered to my shop.”

  Lena took her own seat without comment.

  “She sent a ‘hello’ for you,” Addie said.

  “Who did?”

  “Geneva.”

  “Oh.”

  Addie cut off a sigh and leaned forward, hoping her mother would raise her eyes to meet her gaze. “She asked how you were.”

  Lena idly stirred her thick soup. “That was kind of her.”

  “She’d be more than kind to you if you’d give her the chance.”

  “I don’t want Geneva’s charity.” Lena lifted a basket of rolls and handed it to Addie. “Or her pity, or anything else she’d care to offer.”

  “I was talking about friendship.”

  “We were never friends.” Lena shredded one of the rolls on her plate. “We were friendly. There’s a difference.”

  “I don’t think Geneva ever saw it that way.”

  “She wasn’t your employer.”

  “She is now.”

  It wasn’t often that Addie disagreed with her mother. The silences that stretched through the tense times that followed their arguments weren’t worth the trouble. Jonah Chandler was dead; Geneva Chandler had become the focus of Lena’s bitterness and resentment.

  Addie sought a new topic, but the only thing that came to mind wasn’t a subject she particularly cared to discuss. “Did you know Dev was back?”

  “No.” Lena paused with a spoonful of soup near her mouth. “And even if I had known, it doesn’t matter,” she said with a meaningful glance.

  Addie was tempted to confess that it did matter. He still had an effect on her that she couldn’t control. But she knew her outburst would be followed by a lecture instead of sympathy. Lena had a lecture for every situation concerning the Cove’s most influential family.

  And all those lectures ended with one essential piece of advice: never get involved with a Chandler.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ADDIE PULLED INTO Charlie’s drive on Friday evening and parked behind Tess’s sporty car. She jumped from her truck, exercised her temper by slamming the door and marched along the short walk to the front porch.

  “Hi, Addie.” Rosie Quinn, the daughter of Tess’s fiancé, held one end of a chew rope. Charlie’s naughty black Labrador retriever, Hardy, growled and tugged at the other end.

  “Hi, Rosie. Staying for dinner?”

  “Yep. Tess said we could have a girls’ night.” Rosie didn’t bother to hide her delight at being included. “She brought a wedding video.”

  “Does Charlie know?”

  “Not yet.” Rosie worked the rope loose and tossed it across the yard for Hardy to chase. “Tess said we’d get some wine into her before we tie her to her sofa and make her watch.”

  Addie stepped up to the trim front porch and whacked the iron knocker hard against its panel on the Craftsmen-era door. Jack Maguire, Charlie’s handsome fiancé, swung the door open. “Hey, Addie,” he said with his Carolina drawl and megawatt smile. “Glad to see you’re all in one piece.”

  It was hard to resist Jack’s grin, especially when it deepened those grooves on either side of his mouth. His dark blond hair was still damp from a recent shower, and he smelled of a spicy aftershave. His dark blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he looked her up and down, making a show of checking for earthquake damage.

  Addie dredged up a strained smile of her own. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

  “If you say so.” He stepped aside to let her in. “Charlie’s back in the kitchen, watching Tess spoil a perfectly good rock cod with a mess of fancy fixings.”

  He trailed her through the house, and she noted his influence in the bright new paint on the wall behind Charlie’s dull brown sofa and the glossy new finish on her secondhand dining-room table.

  Addie halted in the kitchen doorway, her hands on her hips, and her eyes narrowed to slits as she glared at her so-called friends. “Why didn’t one of you warn me Dev Chandler was back in town?”

  “Because the earthquake sort of knocked that little detail from my mind.” Tess, seated at the kitchen table, sliced through a lemon and picked out a seed. “And because I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”

  “Well, it’s not,” Addie said.

  “Could have fooled me.” Charlie rinsed her hands at the farmhouse sink. Her thick, curly hair had been tamed in a braid hanging between her shoulders, but coppery tendrils escaped to twist and curl at her temples and nape. “Especially since you’re standing there looking like you can’t decide whether to kill us or yourself.”

  Addie tossed up her hands as she moved into the kitchen. “Okay, so I’m upset. Mostly I’m upset that I’m upset.”

  And that was the one basic fact at the heart of her personal storm: she shouldn’t care whether or not Dev Chandler had squandered his gifts and wasted all the advantages he’d been handed. “What’s he doing here, anyway?”

  “Visiting our grandmother is a likely guess,” Tess said, “considering he’s staying in her guest house.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” Tess set the knife aside and arranged lemon slices over a thick, pale fillet in a baking dish.

  “And what other little details might have gotten rattled loose and lost in the excitement over the natural disaster this week?” Addie asked.

  Tess shot her a sympathetic glance. “It appears he’s planning on staying there for a while. Maybe for another month. Or two.”

  “Great.” Addie threw her arms wide, narrowly missing clipping Jack’s jaw as she paced the kitchen. “Wonderful. Fantastic. I’ll have plenty of opportunities to run into him.”

  “And plenty of time to quit being so upset.” Charlie dried her hands and studied Addie with cool gray eyes. “I thought you were over him.”

  “I am. But it’s a heck of a lot easier being over him when he’s living somewhere else.”

  “You have a thing for Dev Chandler?” Jack asked.

  “No,” Addie, Charlie and Tess answered in unison.

  Tess shoved a platter of chips and salsa to the edge of the table. “So. You’re not actually over him. Not really.”

  “The teensiest of technicalities.” Addie plucked one of the chips from the platter and bit into it. “One of several, including the fact that there was never anything to be over in the first place.”

  Jack pulled a jacket from a rack near the rear patio door and cautiously circled Addie to brush a quick kiss across Charlie’s cheek.
He headed for the dining room.

  “Where are you off to tonight?” asked Tess.

  Jack froze. Something suspicious crept along the edges of his smile. “Out.”

  “Interesting,” Tess said. She glanced at Charlie. “Where, precisely, is this ‘out’ Jack is headed to?”

  “Don’t be so nosy.” Charlie grabbed a bottle of Chardonnay from a cupboard. “It’s just a friendly poker game. Quinn invited him.”

  “Now I’m twice as nosy.” Tess narrowed her eyes. “Quinn said exactly the same thing when I asked him where he was going tonight. ‘Out.’ He told me Jack had invited him.”

  Addie, Charlie and Tess stared at Jack.

  He shrugged into his jacket. “We kind of invited each other. At the same time. When the subject came up.”

  “How did this subject come up, I wonder?” Tess asked.

  “And where is this poker game taking place?” Charlie asked.

  “At Chandler House.”

  “Dev,” Addie said.

  Jack slid his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, he’ll be there, too.”

  “Convenient.” Tess drummed her nails on the table. “Considering the game’s at his place.”

  “This was all his idea, wasn’t it?” Addie asked.

  “It doesn’t matter whose idea it was.” Charlie filled a goblet with the wine. “They get a guys’ night out. We get a girls’ night in. Works for me.”

  Addie pulled out a chair, dropped into it and reached for more chips. Terrific. Poker games with her friends’ fiancés. Poker games would lead to barbecues, and those would lead to who knew what. An ever-expanding network of people who’d multiply the reasons and occasions for her to run into Dev throughout the long summer months.

  “Here,” Charlie said, handing Addie the glass of Chardonnay. “You look like you could use this.”

  DEV POPPED THE TOP on a beer Friday night and passed it to his old pal Bud Soames. Hard to picture Bud with thinning hair, a job at a bank, a house undergoing remodeling, a wife in real estate and a kid in elementary school. Nearly made Dev feel like an underachiever.