by Anne Calhoun
“How does the roast look, Delaney-dear?” The endearment was automatic; Delaney once told him she thought her name was Delaneydeer until she started kindergarten and realized they were two separate words and her middle name was Marie.
“I’ll just check it, Mom. You catch up with Adam.”
She did just that, taking his arm with a surprisingly firm grip and giving him a sound kiss on the cheek. “We’re so glad you’re home,” she said. “Safe and sound and for good. When do you start school?”
They discussed the architecture program while Delaney and her father set the dining room table with four places. “Delaney seems okay,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” she said, watching her only child fondly. “She wasn’t, for a while, you know. You took us all by surprise. Some folks think you repaid a decade of loyalty pretty poorly.”
He could always count on Walkers Ford to rush to judgment. “I wasn’t the right man for Delaney,” he said.
She looked at him, her head wobbling but her pale blue eyes sharp. “Don’t you think that was for her to decide?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said noncommittally, watching Delaney precisely align knife and spoon at each place. Her blond hair slid forward against her cheek. She tucked it back, revealing skin the color of cream. Even here Delaney absorbed whatever animosity her parents felt toward him. The engine of the Walker house hummed smoothly. Even before he produced the ring box, this Marine fit in here, knew who he was, who he would be. Delaney’s husband, the father of her children, a much-needed professional in the larger community.
And now? Where does this Marine belong now?
“She had her friends,” Delaney’s mother said, ending his train of thought. “And Keith. You’ve all been friends for so long. I hope this won’t affect that. In the end, relationships are what matters in life. Family, friends, people you love and who love you.”
Spoken like someone facing a slow decline and an early death. “Yes, ma’am,” he said again.
“Stop that, Adam,” she said, but fondness eased the exasperation.
Delaney appeared in front of them, holding the roast on her mother’s wedding china platter. “Adam, would you escort Mom to the table?”
He locked his elbow and offered it to her. Delaney and Mr. Walker followed with the potatoes, squash, peas, and rolls. Adam took his seat next to Mrs. Walker with Delaney opposite her mother, at her father’s left hand. They were in the process of passing food when the front door blew open. Rain and wind pushed Keith into the foyer, where he stood dripping on the welcome mat.
“I thought you couldn’t get away in time!” Delaney exclaimed. She pushed back her chair and hurried to Keith’s side, giving him a quick kiss after he took off his coat.
“Opposing counsel called at the last possible moment,” he said. “The hearing’s off, at least for now.” He crossed the tile, his hand held out. “Don,” he said to Mr. Walker, then bent to give Mrs. Walker a kiss on the cheek. “Marie,” he said. “How are you feeling? I hope you don’t mind if I join you.”
Delaney was already returning with the bottle of wine and a plate and silverware for him. There was no mistaking the pleasure in her eyes. He shook Adam’s hand across the table then took his seat next to Delaney.
“What’ve you been up to?” he asked as he helped himself to roast beef.
“Getting settled,” Adam said just as genially. “I looked at some apartments in Brookings a couple of days ago. Sorting boxes in my mother’s garage.”
Delaney exchanged a quick glance with Keith, who managed to look both sheepish and overworked at the same time. “Did you . . . ?” Delaney asked.
“We need to talk about tux fittings,” Keith said easily. “Meet me for breakfast tomorrow?”
Adam kept his expression utterly even. “Sure. Heirloom at eight?”
“Perfect. What did you think of Brookhaven?” Keith asked.
An interesting choice of conversation topics. “She’s done an incredible job,” Adam said.
“I thought the same thing,” Delaney said. “She’s certainly poured her heart and soul into the renovation. My goodness, the sheer size of that house. It’s at least the size of the clubhouse. So much work.”
“I never thought she’d pull it off,” Keith said. “She made any progress on that paneled wall?”
Adam wondered if God would strike them all down if they used her name. “Marissa said she’s got it under control,” he said mildly.
“It is a pretty amazing turnaround,” Keith said. “The house was trashed for years, then the next thing you know it’s like a movie set for one of those PBS Masterpiece shows. Except for the missing wall.”
The next thing you know was more like hours and hours and hours of equity sweated into the house by a five-foot-eight-inch, hundred-and-twenty-pound woman who’d taught herself everything she needed to know. She’d rebuilt that house on the strength in her back and arms.
“How did you find out about Brookhaven?” Adam asked Delaney.
“Dad mentioned how far along the renovations were,” Delaney said. “He’d been out to the house on business.”
Delaney’s father was the latest member of the Walker family to serve as president and chairman of the board of Chatham County Bank and Trust. Most everyone in town banked there, although the national banks were making inroads into rural communities. Adam had an account with one such national bank in Brookings, and transferred money into his mother’s account at the CCB&T. If Mr. Walker went in person to Brookhaven, it was to verify the property was worth enough to secure a loan. The fact that Marissa had a home equity line of credit for the renovation wasn’t surprising. Mr. Walker’s recent visit to the property was.
Her father, normally silent in the presence of his wife and daughter, spoke. “Delaney and Keith wanted to get married as quickly as possible,” he said in measured tones. “The club wasn’t available until February. I thought perhaps we could make a deal with Miss Brooks.”
“It’s perfect,” Mrs. Walker said. “The room, so romantic in candlelight, and such a unique venue. The whole county will be talking about it.”
“As long as she gets that wall repaired. She’s been working on the house for forever, and it’s still not done. I’m glad you let me add the partial repayment clause to the contract, Don.”
“It was the prudent thing to do,” Mr. Walker said. “She’s made great strides on Brookhaven. Whether she can follow through to the finish, or meet a payment schedule, remains to be seen.”
Everyone in Walkers Ford would see Keith’s care for the wedding, his attentiveness to Delaney. Adam saw the son of the town’s lawyer and the daughter of the town’s banker up against the daughter of the man who lost the last remaining symbol of a fantastic East Coast inheritance. Adam’s jaw set. “Does she miss deadlines on paid projects?” he asked, striving for a mildly concerned tone.
A quick glance between Delaney and her mother. “Not that I’ve heard,” Delaney said. Her mother nodded. “Everyone who’s hired her has been pleased with the results.”
“Good thing Brookhaven just jumped to a paid project,” Adam said.
The clink of silverware against china reigned for a few moments, then Delaney spoke. “What’s she going to do out there in that big house?” she mused. “It’s so isolated.”
“Maybe she’ll give the country club a run for its money,” Keith said carelessly. He’d finished his wine and poured what remained of the bottle into his glass as he slumped back in his chair.
“Maybe she’ll get married again,” Mrs. Walker said. “Her husband might love Brookhaven as much as she does.”
“She’s a Brooks,” Mr. Walker said with the unerring confidence of a big fish in a small pond. “Their hearts belong to that piece of land, to that house, even when they can’t muster the financial wherewithal to take care of what they own. Maybe she’s the Brooks who can hold on to the house. They’ve lost that property in stages since Josiah Brooks died.”
“If she can
’t . . .” Keith rubbed Delaney’s thigh under the table. “You want to raise kids in the country, sweetheart?”
“We just put the down payment . . . oh,” she said, then glanced at Adam. “You’re teasing me.”
Mrs. Walker explained. “They’ve bought the house just around the corner.”
“We’re getting some painting done, new carpets laid, while we’re on our honeymoon,” Keith said.
“The backyards are practically touching,” Delaney said.
Adam could fill in the rest. Adjoining backyards would come in handy when Delaney wanted to send the kids to see her parents. She could watch from the deck as they ran through the grass to Grandma and Grandpa Walker. She’d moved out of their house, to an apartment more centrally located for her school psychologist’s duties, but moved back in after her mother’s Parkinson’s diagnosis.
“The wine’s good,” Keith noted in the silence, then picked up the bottle and looked at the label. “Where did you get it?” he asked Mr. Walker.
“Adam brought it,” Delaney said.
Keith looked at Adam. “A grocery store in Brookings,” he said.
“Oh,” he replied casually. “Find an apartment?”
“Not yet.” He laid his napkin on the table, and Delaney rose to collect plates. He bent low to Mrs. Walker, struggling to get to her feet, and said, “I’ve got it, ma’am.”
He stacked the vegetable dishes on top of the roast platter, and followed Delaney into the kitchen. When he went back for the rest of the plates, Keith and Mr. Walker were in a low-voiced conversation about a land deal. Back in the kitchen, Delaney was rinsing plates into one sink while running hot, soapy water into the other side. Mrs. Walker’s wedding china couldn’t go in the dishwasher.
“Thanks,” she said. “No, don’t help me wash. I’ve got a system.”
He leaned against the counter, keeping one eye on the conversation taking place in the dining room, and watched her for a minute. “Are you happy, Delaney?”
She swirled the sponge around a plate, then rinsed it before she answered. “Yes,” she said.
“Your mom said you had a hard time of it for a while.”
“I did,” she said simply. “I wasn’t ready for what happened.”
“I suppose not,” he said. He watched Keith for a moment, bent forward in his suit coat, his elbows on his knees, making points in a low-voiced, emphatic manner to his soon-to-be father-in-law. It didn’t escape Adam’s notice that Mr. Walker hadn’t spoken to him all evening, or, for that matter, at Brookhaven the night he got home.
“Good thing Keith was there for you.”
She ducked a plate under the running water, and her diamond winked as soapy bubbles dripped off her hand. “I don’t regret being engaged to you. I’m sorry it wasn’t right for you.”
She’d never been one for regrets, for second-guessing, perhaps because she’d never done anything regrettable in her life, or because she’d always followed her heart. “Good,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
He strode back to the dining room. “Thanks for supper,” he said with a nod for Delaney’s father. “It was good to see you all again. Good night.”
“Wait,” Mrs. Walker called. “Where’s your jacket?”
“Don’t need one, ma’am,” he said with a grin, just for her. Then he headed into the rain-swept night, thinking about one woman’s heart and where she belonged.
10
MARISSA HAULED OPEN the library’s front door just as Alana came around from behind her desk, dressed for the weather in an ankle-length raincoat, a laptop bag slung over her shoulder and another tote dangling from her elbow. “I had a feeling I’d see you today,” Alana said, one eyebrow lifted.
She was too tired to maintain any emotion above resignation about Alana’s giving her books to Adam. She was trying to be helpful, but she didn’t know the whole story, and getting angry at her wouldn’t change anything. “I would have been here earlier but I had to load siding. It took longer than I thought.”
Alana crossed the library’s flooring, her boot heels clicking in the silence. “Adam gave you the books, right? He said he’d see you.”
He saw her, all right. It was like old times, driving around with him, and new experiences. Grownup experiences. Apartment shopping, having supper at a new restaurant. Having sex. It was everything they’d done and everything they hadn’t done, rolled into one night. The memories alternated between making her smile and gripping her heart in a tight fist. “I told you to send them back.”
“I thought you should take a look at them,” Alana said. She crossed the floor and tapped down the light switches, leaving only a single light burning behind the circulation desk to ward off the fall gloom. “You didn’t bring them back already. Tell me you looked at them.”
“No,” Marissa admitted. She couldn’t bring herself to return them. Not yet.
Alana’s gaze softened, then she opened the front door. “Have you eaten?”
“Not since breakfast. It was a very long day.” Loading the siding, piece by piece, into her truck, then unloading it onto pallets in Mrs. Carson’s side yard, was all her in a race against daylight. Dull, hot pain stretched from her shoulders to her lower back.
“Come on. I’ll cook,” Alana said, and locked the library.
She followed Alana three blocks into town and parked on the street in front of the small house Alana rented from Chief Ridgeway. In the kitchen Alana shed her coat, then turned up the heat and put a kettle on to boil water before ducking into the bedroom. Marissa shed her flannel-lined Carhartt coveralls, leaving her in jeans and a sweatshirt, then eased into a chair at the kitchen table, and rested her head on her folded arms.
“Feel good to sit down?” Alana asked, now wearing a pair of fleece pants and a belted wool cardigan. She turned off the flame under the kettle and opened a cabinet for tea bags and mugs.
“You have no idea,” Marissa said without lifting her head. Water from the tips of her wet braids beaded on her red fleece. She’d get up and help with supper in a minute.
A moment later Alana set a cup of tea in front of her, then turned on the local NPR station for background noise while she poked around in the fridge. “Stir-fry okay?” she asked.
“Sounds great.” The announcer moved to a story about four dead Marines in Helmand Province, and she cocked her head slightly to catch all the details until she remembered Adam was home, whole and sound.
When she refocused on the kitchen around her, Alana was watching her, a knife in her hand and a head of broccoli on the cutting board. “I get the feeling I shouldn’t have given him the books. I asked him how well he knew you and he said he’d known you all his life. I thought he knew.”
“He would have, if I’d been interested in sailing before he left. All I talked about then was Brookhaven. I guess it doesn’t matter, because he’s not staying. He says he is, but he isn’t. Can you see him living here? He’s totally out of place now.”
Alana looked at her, then added oil to a nonstick pan and turned on the heat under it. “Because it’s so strange that someone would want to live here, in the flyover states?”
“No. This is my home. Five generations of my family have lived here. But . . . what’s here for him?”
“His mother and a graduate degree?” Alana swept the broccoli into a bowl and went to work on a red pepper. “I seem to be missing a key point. Maybe you better start at the beginning.”
A spicy-sweet aroma drifted up from the tea. Marissa inhaled, then sipped. Warmth spread down her throat and into her stomach. “Now that he’s home, I’m sure someone with good intentions filled you in on the history.”
“Several someones,” Alana said. She scraped pepper innards into the trash, then dumped mushrooms onto the cutting board. “I prefer to hear it from you. Is this a Hatfields-versus-McCoys thing?”
Marissa laughed. “It’s more of a grasshoppers-and-ants thing. The Walkers are ants, through and through. They work hard, save wha
t they make, marry prudently, live quietly. The Brookses, on the other hand, are grasshoppers. We sing all summer, and we throw the best parties,” she said, looking over at Alana. The other woman smiled at her. “Always have. I have pictures from Brookhaven in the twenties when there must have been a hundred people staying at that house. They pitched tents in the backyard, bathed in the creek. Some of the old-timers around here remember those parties, or remember their parents talking about them. The way Brookhaven used to be.” The way the Brookses used to be. Flying high, and taking everyone else along for the ride.
Mushroom caps fell to slices under Alana’s deft hands. “What happened?”
“The stock market crash, for one. We never really recovered from that. Droughts. A series of investments that went bad. Like grasshoppers, we made big leaps, usually in response to the last crisis, always in the opposite yet somehow wrong direction. Whatever scheme failed, we came up with a bigger, better dream. That’s why my mom left. She was from Rapid City, and married Dad on nothing more than promises and dreams. She left when she figured out she couldn’t count on him for anything more. She married a rancher in Wyoming. Dad finally couldn’t even pay the taxes and we lost the house when I was fifteen.”
“But you bought it back.”
She watched Alana add sliced beef to the hot oil. The meat sizzled for a few moments, then Alana tipped the bowl of vegetables into the pan as well. “Because my husband, Chris, got an inheritance. He wasn’t much better than I am when it came to practicalities. He was in construction. Buying it back so we could renovate it and use it as a showpiece was my idea. He could teach me what I needed to know.” She stopped for a second. “He died five months after we got the deed.”
And I lied to him. I never, ever would have sold Brookhaven.
“Why even bother to renovate it after he died?”
