“Yeah, so have mercy, okay, and tell me what this is all about.”
She told him.
“Are you sure the boy called Wade ‘Daddy’?”
“Yes.”
“Stef, I don’t know anything about this. I swear.”
“Dallas didn’t tell you?”
“I haven’t talked to her tonight. I left voice mail on her cell phone earlier, but you know her. Half the time she doesn’t even look at her phone unless she’s waiting for a business call. But Wade wasn’t there when I left yesterday, and she didn’t mention him at all last night, not even that he was coming home.”
“Well, when you hear from her, will you find out what’s going on so you can tell me?”
“Yeah, but I have a hard time believing that she wouldn’t have told me if Wade had a son. I think there’s some mistake.”
“Yeah, well, when you figure out what it is, give me a call, okay?”
“Sure.”
“And, Grant?” Stef bit her bottom lip. “I’m really sorry about Paige. Was she all right? About going back, I mean?”
“If you call not speaking to me once we crossed the Pennsylvania border into Ohio being ‘all right,’ then yeah, she’s fine with it.”
“I’m really sorry.” She added, “I’ll miss her, too.”
“Anything else, Stef? ’Cause I’m beat, and I want to get some sleep before I start the drive back in the morning.”
“No, that was it.” She felt compelled to apologize one more time. “I’m sorry, Grant.”
The call ended and she tossed the phone onto the sofa cushion and covered her face with her hands.
“I am shallow beyond all belief. I got so caught up in my own little drama that I forgot about Grant driving Paige back today. He should never speak to me again. I am a colossal … I can’t even think of anything bad enough.”
Vanessa rolled up a paper napkin and tossed it at Steffie, bouncing it off her head.
“Fine. You’re the worst person ever born. Get over it.” Vanessa went into the kitchen and retrieved another carton from the freezer. “Plum tart.” She held up the carton. “I love it when you bring leftovers.”
She took her seat again. “Look, Stef, if you’d realized that Grant was in Ohio and had just dropped off Paige and didn’t care about anyone’s feelings but your own, then yes, you would be a total bitch. But you didn’t, and Grant knows that you didn’t, so let it go.”
“But I should have remembered something that important.” Steffie picked up the napkin and dropped it into the bag with the empties. “I was only thinking about myself.”
“You’re allowed to do that sometimes, you know. Besides, you must have been really surprised when Wade came in with the kidlet.”
“Shocked is more like it.”
“I take it Grant didn’t know about Wade’s son, either.”
Stef shook her head. “He said Dallas has never mentioned it—which is really odd, when you come to think about it. But he didn’t talk to her today. He left voice mail for her but hasn’t heard back yet.”
“Strange that Dallas wouldn’t have told Grant something like that.” Vanessa appeared to ponder. “You’d almost think she didn’t know, either. But nah, Wade wouldn’t have kept something like that from his sister for two years, would he?”
“I don’t know. I used to think I knew him pretty well. But now …” Steffie shrugged.
“You’ve known Wade for a long time, right?”
“Forever, it seems. He used to sail with Grant at the marina. They were on the same team for the races. I’ve had a crush on him since I was nine and he was thirteen.” She picked at an invisible piece of lint on her denim shorts. “When I was fifteen, I was at a sleepover at a friend’s house, and she had a Ouija board. We were playing around with it, asking it questions, like what were we going to be when we grew up, and who would we marry.” Her mouth slid into a half smile. “My answers were always the same. I was going to own my own ice-cream shop and I was going to marry Wade MacGregor.” She lowered her voice as if sharing her deepest, darkest secret. “That was my game plan. It’s all I ever really wanted. Make ice cream. Marry Wade, have a family, live happily ever after right here in my little town.”
She went into the kitchen and sorted through the cartons until she found what she was looking for. She came back into the living room, holding up the container.
“Peanut butter carob caramel. This was the test run. It’s fabulous, if I do say so myself.” She opened the carton and reached for her spoon. “So I got half of what I wished for. Some people never get that much. And I am grateful … why are you staring at me like that?”
“I’m sorry.” Vanessa shook her head. “I’m still stuck back at the part where you said you wanted to marry Wade, have his babies, and live in St. Dennis forever.”
“Doesn’t make me a bad person.” Steffie dug into the carton.
“What it makes you is one big fat liar.”
“What d’ you mean?” Steffie said indignantly.
“Didn’t you tell me once that you’d die before you settled down like your sister did? That it was your worst nightmare to get married and settle into a routine?”
“Into my sister’s routine. It’s her life I wouldn’t want to live. Her husband is Mr. Boredom. Evie is Mrs. Boredom.” She paused. “I can’t imagine life with Wade ever being boring.”
“I’ll bet your sister feels the same way about her guy.”
Steffie rolled her eyes. “Trust me. My brother-in-law is boring. They live on a farm in Iowa and raise organic vegetables.”
“There are worse ways to live.”
“Yeah. Like spending your life alone while all your friends find their soul mates and they get to live happily ever after,” Steffie grumbled. “Not that I’m not happy for you, finding Grady and falling in love.”
Vanessa beamed. “Finding Grady was like … finding a gold bar in the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.”
“Aw, Ness, that’s so sweet.” Steffie rolled her eyes again. “I’ll be happy to sell your grandkids ice cream when I’m a lonely old spinster, living in my little place somewhere with a menagerie of pets, tending my garden. You and I can get together once a week for tea and talk about the good old days. Except, oh, right … I won’t have had any.”
Vanessa laughed.
“You go sell that ‘poor lonely Stef the Spinster’ tale to someone who’ll buy it.” Still laughing, Vanessa leaned over and patted Steffie on the knee. “Maybe we should ask the Ouija. See what it has to say now.”
“That would necessitate finding one at this hour.”
“Which would require traveling all the way to my kitchen.” Vanessa stretched out the leg she’d been sitting on. “I found one in the attic when I moved in. I tried playing with it a little, but it doesn’t seem to work very well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I read somewhere that before you ask it anything that you want to know, anything personal, you’re supposed to ask it who your guide is. Your spirit guide. And it just kept spelling ‘D-A-Z.’ Who ever heard of a spirit named Daz?”
“You mean, like dazzle?”
“I guess.”
“Who’d you do it with? Grady?” Without waiting for an answer, she grinned. “Maybe he was fooling with you.”
Vanessa shook her head. “I had to do it by myself. Grady said it was a waste of time, so he wouldn’t do it.” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe I should run in and get it. You and I could—”
“Not tonight.” Stef shook her head. “I need to get home and get to sleep. I’m back in the shop at five tomorrow to make ice cream. The stuff I sell isn’t delivered by truck every day, like some people’s merchandise is.” She stood and stretched. “I promised Berry Eberle that I’d have something lemony for her tomorrow, and I have to get working on it.”
“Think the way to a guy’s heart is through his great-aunt’s stomach?”
“I’m afraid someone else has won his heart, Ness.�
� Stef shrugged and shoved her hands in her pockets.
“Well, if I can’t sleep tonight, maybe I’ll see if I can get ‘Daz’ to tell me who that someone is.” Vanessa walked Stef to the front door and opened it. “If nothing else, you’ll know who the competition is.”
Steffie shook her head. “There’s no competition. The game’s over. Someone else won, and I lost.”
THE sun had barely started to burn off the early-morning fog when Wade slipped quietly through the front door for a run along River Road toward the center of town. Once he hit Charles Street, he passed the occasional vacant storefront and noted several shops that he was pretty sure hadn’t been there during his last visit home: Sweetie Pies, a bakery, and The Checkered Cloth, which, according to the sign out front, closed every day at three. He slowed at the window of the upscale pet boutique, Bow-Wows and Meows.
Did someone really think that was a good name?
Only his need for exercise kept him from stopping and staring at the display. Galoshes. Hoodies. Party clothes. T-shirts with clever sayings.
Halloween costumes. For dogs.
Shaking his head, he continued on, the soles of his feet slapping softly on the concrete. Across the street, lined up like old friends, were places he remembered: the market, an art gallery, an antiques shop, a bookstore. Next came Bling, a relatively new classy women’s clothing and accessory shop, and Sips, which sold only beverages. On his right, Cuppachino, the coffee shop where the townies gathered every morning for news and gossip before going about their workday, had been the Coffee Corner when he was a kid, but served the same purpose. Upscale Café Lola was still owned by ninetysomething-year-old Lola, who continued to go to the docks every morning to select her fish for the day’s entrées. Petals and Posies, the flower shop on the corner of Charles Street and Kelly’s Point Road, was now run by the original owner’s daughter. Wade turned right at the florist and headed toward the Bay.
The last of the mist was still rising off the pavement, the sun still not quite high enough to clear the trees and announce the new day. Bright lights illuminated the municipal building parking lot, where the police cruisers were lined up in their numbered spaces. The big public lot across the road was empty now, but by noon it would be filled to capacity as the day-trippers arrived for end-of-the-season shopping. Summer was over, and in leaving, it took most of the summer folks. The few who remained were mostly retirees, empty nesters, childless couples, or young marrieds. Soon they, too, would go back to wherever they’d come from once the weather turned cool and damp and the town lost some of its charm—well, to all but the residents. Those who were from St. Dennis loved her in each of her seasons.
Wade was partial to autumn. He loved the cool, crisp evenings and mornings that gave way to ample sunshine and warm afternoons. He especially liked mornings like this one, mornings with just a bit of snap to the air that hinted at the cool weather to come. The sky seemed bluer and the waves on the Bay—just a few hundred feet away—seemed to churn up whiter foam. At the end of Kelly’s Point Road he jogged onto the boardwalk that ran along the waterline as far as the marina, where many of the slips were empty, the fishing boats having already made their way out onto the Chesapeake, the crabbers long gone. Only the pleasure boats remained at dock, their owners having the luxury of sleeping late should they choose to do so. Those who made their living on the Bay had no choice but to rise before the sun.
In his youth, Wade had sailed these waters in every season and in all kinds of weather. He’d been the youngest member of a team that had won more than their fair share of sailing awards. Ironic that one of his old teammates was now chief of police here in St. Dennis, and another was dating his sister. Their biggest threat every year had come from the team headed by Clay Madison, who was Wade’s age but who was by far the best sailor in the bunch. Wade figured he’d run into Clay one of these days. Dallas mentioned he was living just outside of town on the farm that had been in his family for generations.
There was something comforting about being in a place where you could count on certain things staying the same, where the same families farmed the same fields or fished the same waters, where the names all had a familiar ring. Wade had liked Texas, enough to have stayed after grad school and build a business. He’d had some really good years there, but it was never home and he’d put down no roots. Sleeping beneath the roof of the old house his own family had called home for two hundred or so years had banished the restlessness that followed him since he left St. Dennis.
Funny to see Cody asleep in his old bed, though. Funnier still for Wade to have opened his eyes to find himself sleeping in his own father’s room, with Austin’s crib set up along the back wall. All in all, being back in St. Dennis soothed his battered heart and his weary soul, and he regretted that he wouldn’t be staying longer. Being with his family filled those places inside him that had felt empty for months. He hoped that before he left town, he’d be able to soak up enough of that calm to last him through the coming year.
At the end of the dock, he paused to catch his breath. Though he’d once been a runner who’d never missed a day, it had been several months since he’d been out for a morning jog, and he found himself out of shape. With no one to watch late-sleeping Austin in the early hours, Wade had had to make adjustments to his schedule. That many parents would give anything for a child who slept late was an irony that wasn’t lost on Wade. Only Dallas’s promise to listen for his son should he awaken made this morning’s run possible. Another early riser, Dallas had insisted that Wade tie on his running shoes and take off for a while.
“Cody did survive his babyhood, you know,” she’d told him when at first he’d declined her offer. “Chances are I’ll know what to do if Austin wakes up before you get back.”
“It isn’t that,” he’d protested. “I just hate feeling like I’m taking advantage of you.”
“Take advantage while you can.” Dallas had unlocked the front door and opened it. “And take your time. I’ll be here.”
Dallas was a peach, and that was a fact. The rest of the world might know her as a screen icon, an award-winning beauty with pale blond hair and lavender eyes, but to Wade, she was the best sister any guy could have. She was thoughtful and fun and more understanding than even he had given her credit for. Hadn’t she proved that last night?
She and Berry had been uncommonly understanding and nonjudgmental, under the circumstances. There’d been no jumping to conclusions where Austin had been concerned.
“As long as you’re sure this is what you what.” Dallas had reached across the table and taken his hand, and Berry had nodded her agreement.
“It is what I want,” Wade had assured them. “It’s the way it has to be.”
It was what he wanted. There’d been no question that he’d step up to the plate as soon as Robin had laid out the facts for him. It wasn’t how he’d imagined his life would play out, but there it was. Wade was okay with most of it—all of it, really, except for Robin dying.
As always, thinking about Robin made his heart ache.
It had been so strange last night, trying to explain everything to Berry and Dallas. So much was sheer emotion, so much was pain. Robin had been his best friend first, his business partner second. Hearing Dallas refer to Robin as his wife had given Wade a jolt. He’d never thought of her as his wife, didn’t think of himself as a widower, but technically, that was the story. He’d married Robin, which made her his wife. She died, making him a widower. The fact that he’d married her because she was dying didn’t change things.
But none of that mattered. What mattered was that Austin was safe, he’d always be safe now. He was Austin MacGregor, and so his mother could go to her rest without the torment of not knowing what was going to happen to her son.
Wade started back toward Kelly’s Point Road, running alongside the water on the boardwalk. Up ahead he could see lights through the last remnants of mist, then realized he was looking at the interior lights of One Scoop or T
wo. As he drew closer, he saw movement inside, and he knew who was bustling about, preparing for the day. With the temperature projected to edge into the mideighties later, Steffie would be busy from the minute she opened her doors until closing that night.
He wanted to knock on her door and explain things to her. Not that he owed her an explanation—it wasn’t like they were an item. They weren’t even dating. Frankly, he didn’t know what they were, so why, he asked himself, did he think he needed to explain anything to her? That he couldn’t define the source of his conflict annoyed the hell out of him. All he did know was that he’d seen the look on her face, the confusion in her eyes, when she realized that he was the daddy Austin had been calling for.
Because of Beck’s wedding, Wade admitted. That for a few hours that night, he’d allowed himself to put aside the drama that had been unfolding back in Texas and had responded to his attraction to Steffie without bothering to snap on the appropriate restraints. He’d left her standing confused and angry and hurt in the inn’s parking lot while he raced to the airport to make his flight. There’d been no question that he’d be leaving that night—not after he’d received that phone call—as much as he’d wanted to stay with Stef in St. Dennis and try to figure out what it was that they had between them since she was seventeen and had asked him to her senior prom. He’d taken her, but had kept his distance. Even then, he knew he was attracted to her, but she was just too young.
And then the night of the wedding he’d left St. Dennis—and Steffie—because Robin had needed him. Wade would have walked through fire to get back to Texas that night, even though he knew the price he’d pay for going: He’d probably be ruining any chance he’d ever have with Stef, but he’d had to go.
In the dark, Wade hesitated near the side of the building and watched Steffie as she hustled around inside. He wondered if he should stop in for a moment, just to say hello. He could tap on the window and ask her to unlock the door.
She did keep the door locked when she was there alone, didn’t she? Anyone could be prowling around at this early hour.
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