Almost Home

by Mariah Stewart

  Wade, Clay, and Brooke began to make their way toward the marina.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you there.” Jesse started to walk away. “Unless you want me to pick you up?”

  “No, but thanks.” She shook her head no. “I may run a little late. If you get there before I do, just ask my dad how his efforts to clean up the Bay are going. That should keep everyone busy until I arrive.”

  “Will do.”

  Steffie went into the shop through the back door. Surprised at the number of customers awaiting service, since the ice cream they’d given out earlier had been free, she grabbed an apron and went to work.

  “So, how’s your new helper working out?” Vanessa came up behind her. Along with Grady, she’d stopped in to see if Stef needed any help cleaning up outside.

  “What new helper?” Stef frowned.

  “I noticed Jesse Enright helping you dish a while ago. Very cozy, you two.” Vanessa leaned in to whisper in Stef’s ear.

  Stef smiled, handed over her customer’s order, and turned around. “He was here when the crowd built up and my wrist was giving out. He offered to help, and I was desperate, so I let him, since my wrist was killing me.”

  “Did he ask you out?” Vanessa asked. “And what’s wrong with your wrist?”

  “We’re having dinner tonight with my parents, but no, it wasn’t his idea. It was my mother’s. Grant and Dallas had to cancel, so there was space at the table,” she explained. “And my wrist just got a bit overworked today. It’ll be fine.”

  “Hmm …”

  “ ‘Hmmmmm’ what?” Steffie asked

  “Oh, nothing.” Vanessa retied the strings of Stef’s apron in the back, where they were coming undone. “Just that, well, could be a coincidence, or, it could be because of—”

  “Do not even pretend it has anything to do with your …” Stef lowered her voice, eyeing Grady who was on the other side of the counter talking to his sister, Mia, who’d just come in the front door. “Does he know that you’re practicing spells? Or pretending to?”

  “No, and do not tell him. He’ll think I’m flaky.”

  “Gosh, ya think?”

  “And don’t be so smart-alecky about it. Had he asked you out before I …” Vanessa stole a glance at Grady. “Before … you know.”

  “I hadn’t even met Jesse … before. And,” Stef reminded her, “he didn’t ask me out. This is not a date. I repeat. This is not a date. My mother asked him.”

  “Same difference.” Vanessa walked to the other side of the counter and checked out the ice-cream flavors. “I don’t suppose there was any of the mint left over.”

  “There was, but I put it aside for Clay. I promised I’d save some for him, but I didn’t see him after the race.” She scanned the containers, then put two scoops of pineapple coconut into a dish.

  “He and Wade were talking outside for a while,” Vanessa told her. “And Brooke. The three of them took off together a while ago.”

  Steffie put two spoons into the dish and passed it over the counter to Vanessa. “On the house.”

  “Thanks. I suppose the two spoons means I’m to share. And I will, as soon as I can get Grady’s attention.”

  “Clay and Wade are old friends,” Stef told her. “Brooke’s all right. She had the hots for Grant for a long time, but now that she’s worked that out of her system, she seems okay. I don’t know if she’d dating anyone, but Jesse sure did give her the once-over.”

  “Why wouldn’t he? She’s really pretty.”

  Stef nodded in agreement. “Her son, Logan, is a doll. He and Dallas’s son are BFFs. They do everything together. Two peas in a pod, Miz Berry always says.”

  “I know. Dallas had both of them with her one day last week when she stopped in to pick up a top she’d ordered.” Vanessa leaned on the counter. “I still can’t get over the fact that Dallas MacGregor buys her clothes from me.” She paused. “Well, not all of them, of course, but some.”

  The bell rang and a new group came into the shop.

  “I’ll get out of your way. Thanks again for the ice cream. One day I’ll come in here and actually buy something from you.” Vanessa stepped away from the counter.

  “And one day I’ll let you. As soon as you stop giving me those fabulous discounts in Bling.”

  Vanessa smiled. “What are friends for?”

  “Ice cream and deep discounts on cool clothes.”

  “Exactly,” Vanessa said before making her way through the crowd to Grady.

  At five thirty, Steffie hung up her apron and tapped Tina on the shoulder. “If you and Claire are all right here, I’m going to head home. I’m meeting my mom and dad for dinner at seven, and I’m a mess.”

  “Go,” Tina told her. “The next few hours should be fairly light.”

  “Call me if you need to.” Stef grabbed her bag from the back room and made her way to her car in the municipal lot. Lately she’d been walking to work more frequently, but today she’d driven. She’d had a feeling she’d be tired by the end of the day, and the long walk back to her apartment would have felt endless.

  Fatigue tempted her to fall facedown across her bed, but she forced herself into the shower. By the time her hair was dry and she’d dressed and put on some makeup, she had just enough time to get to Captain Walt’s by seven.

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about her mother’s invitation to Jesse. On the one hand, she almost wished he’d said no. Oh, he was a nice enough guy, and it had been so thoughtful of him to pitch in this morning. She really had appreciated it. But frankly, she’d just as soon skip dinner and paint cabinets in her kitchen, which was, she had to admit, a sad commentary and a sure sign that her interest in him was nothing more than platonic. Now, if it had been Wade … well, that would certainly have put a little extra bounce in her step.

  If it were Wade, she’d be obsessing over what to wear, how to fix her hair, and her palms would be sweating with anticipation of seeing him. She hadn’t been thinking about Jesse when she pulled a plain black knit dress from the closet, or when she decided to leave her hair down, or when she leaned over her makeup mirror to put on mascara. She barely thought about him at all until she arrived at Walt’s and ran into him in the parking lot.

  “Hey, good timing,” Jesse called from the doorway.

  “What?” She looked up. “Oh, right. Thanks for holding the door.”

  Jesse followed her into the restaurant, through the short lobby, past the long horseshoe-shaped bar that ran along one side of the dining room. Seeing her parents, Stef turned her back on the bar and headed straight for them. It was only after she was seated that she looked across the table at her father and realized that she had a perfect view of the bar, and the two men seated directly in her line of vision.

  Clay and Wade sat a mere thirty feet away, deep in conversation, no doubt enjoying their burgers and beers. This was the second time today she spotted those two with their heads together. What, she couldn’t help but wonder, were the two of them up to?

  WADE swiveled slightly on his bar stool just in time to see Steffie walk into the dining room at Captain Walt’s. He was so busy watching her—he hadn’t seen her in a short skirt and high heels, her hair down, in a long time—that he almost missed the guy who was following her. His eyes narrowed. Enright, the guy who broke up a big moment the other night.

  He tried to tune back in to Clay, but it was tough to keep his eyes off her. He turned his head back to the bar and made another attempt to catch up with whatever it was that Clay was saying. Their conversation had started earlier in the day, when Clay asked about KenneMac and Wade started to tell him what had happened to the company.

  Of course, he didn’t tell him everything. He’d left out the part about Robin and Austin, but there’d been enough that Clay got the gist of it. Wade agreed to meet Clay at Captain Walt’s for dinner because Clay wanted to finish the conversation. Wade wasn’t sure what else there was to say, but all the same, here he sat, drinking beer and picking at a
pile of buffalo wings in Walt’s bar with Clay.

  It had irritated the hell out of him when he saw that Enright had been one of Steffie’s helpers that afternoon. Wade suspected that the lawyer was just that kind of guy, the guy who’s always handy and dependable and thoughtful. What a suck-up …

  What irritated Wade the most was that she hadn’t asked him to help her.

  “So does this mean you’re out of the brew business for good?” Clay had asked after they sat down at the bar.

  “Not really. I’m leaving after next weekend to work for a guy who has a microbrewery in Connecticut.” Even as Wade spoke, he reminded himself to call Ted about that contract he still hadn’t seen.

  “Working for someone else?” Clay’s eyebrows had risen. “Won’t that be tough after having been your own boss?”

  Wade shrugged. “Hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “Have you given any thought to starting up another brewery?”

  “It’s a complicated process.” Wade tried to brush it off.

  “How complicated can it be?” Clay had asked. “What-all do you need?”

  “Besides a lot of money to buy equipment and a place to set it all up?”

  “How’d you do it last time?”

  “I had a partner who had money to invest in the building and the equipment and the ingredients. We thought we’d be in business forever …” Wade’s voice trailed off. He and Robin had been planning on expanding KenneMac Brews right before the shit had hit the fan. Even now, it saddened him to remember the goals they’d sketched out for the company they’d both loved.

  “You just made a face,” Clay noted. “Why’d you make that face?”

  “Just thinking about hops.” Wade tried to smile. “We used to buy them from a guy out near Seattle, but right before we had to close down, we’d been looking to expand. We’d even been talking about finding some land and growing our own. We were thinking about starting a line of organic beer.” He could have added, That was right before we found out that our third partner had cleaned out our accounts and left us practically bankrupt, but he didn’t feel like going into all that tonight.

  “Organic beer.” Clay nodded. “I like the concept.”

  “Yeah, so did we.”

  It had been right about this time that Steffie, all legs and just the slightest sway to her hips, walked past to join her parents in the dining room. She was a knockout in a simple black dress with all that honey-blond hair curling around her face and over her shoulders. He felt his heart thud in his chest.

  “I’ve gotten into a lot of organics myself over the past few years,” Clay was saying. “You know I took the farm over from my dad before he died?”

  “I think I heard someone mention that. How’s that working out for you? I thought farming was a tough row—no pun—these days.” His eyes kept returning to the dining room. Stef had just arrived at her parents’ table and was kissy-kissy with Mom and Dad. Enright was all smiles and shaking hands with Stef’s father … but did he just actually hug Mrs. Wyler?

  Seriously, Enright?

  “Farming has always been tough,” Clay conceded, “but I never considered anything else. My parents insisted I go to college—and I did—but there was never been anything else that interested me and no question that I would farm. These days, a lot of farmers have it tough because it’s so profitable to become part of the ‘big agribusiness’ culture, you know? Grow corn or soybeans for one of the big conglomerates, but that restricts you in what you can do. Plus the whole genetically-modified-seed thing bothers me. I know there are pros and cons, but it just doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “So what do you grow?” Wade asked, one eye still on the dining room.

  “We’ve always grown corn, but it’s harder to find seed that hasn’t been genetically modified, so this may have been the last year I’ll do corn. We have the orchard, and we do a good business there. Plus, I’ve started to develop a solid business in organics.” Clay took a sip of his beer. “Which is why I was interested in your idea of making organic beer.”

  “It’s an idea whose time has come,” Wade told him. Across the room, Steffie was taking off her hot-pink jacket and Enright was draping it over the back of her chair. Wade eyed him suspiciously.

  “I’ve done a pretty good job getting the chemical fertilizers out of our soil these past few years,” Wade heard Clay say. “Lola down at the café asked me a couple of years ago to grow some organic herbs and lettuces for her. Then she wanted tomatoes. Then a couple of the other restaurant owners got wind of it, and asked me to grow for them, too, so I’ve been building up that business steadily over the past few years. It’s a lot of work, but it’s better than sitting behind a desk all day.”

  “I hear you.” Wade’s eyes wandered back to the dining room, where everyone at the Wyler table was laughing. It appeared that Enright was telling a story that everyone thought was pretty damned funny. Ha ha. Wade scowled.

  Clay turned on his stool to see what Wade was looking at.

  “Yeah”—Clay nodded—“little Steffie grew up real good.”

  Wade turned the scowl on Clay.

  “Oh, so that’s how it is.” Clay raised his glass to his mouth, a knowing smile on his lips.

  “We were talking about farming,” Wade reminded him flatly.

  “The future’s in organic.” Clay took a long drink from his glass before signaling to the bartender for another.

  “I thought the future was in plastics.” Brooke breezed into the bar. “Oh. Sorry. That was 1967.”

  “You weren’t even born in ’67.” Clay got off his stool and offered it to his sister.

  “True, but the movie was a classic.” Brooke tossed her hair over her shoulder and smiled at Wade.

  “And here’s to you …” He tilted his glass in her direction and she laughed.

  “The point I was trying to make is that organics are here to stay.” Clay resumed the conversation. “The locavore movement is coming on strong; more and more people are becoming interested in eating locally grown foods, and I’m one of them. Not just because it makes a great business for me or that the food’s better—that’s a whole ’nother discussion—but frankly, it’s more interesting to grow a variety of produce to sell locally than it is to sell one or two crops for the large agricompanies.”

  The bartender brought his beer and took Brooke’s order.

  “It’s gotta be more labor-intensive,” Wade pointed out.

  “Backbreakingly intensive,” Brooke said. “My brother’s addicted to pain.”

  Clay nodded. “Like I said, organic farming keeps my interest.”

  “So what did you grow this year?” Wade glanced back at Stef’s table and caught her eye as she looked up. For a moment they gazed at each other from across the room, and for a moment it was as if they were alone there, just the two of them. Until her mother tapped her on the arm and brought her back into the conversation.

  “Peppers—eight or nine kinds this past year; next year I’ll add a few more,” Clay was saying. “Cucumbers. Summer and winter squashes—seven or eight varieties there, too. Swiss chard. Eggplant. Tomatoes—fifteen varieties including a couple of heirlooms. More to come for next year. There’s a huge market for heirlooms. Oh, and I had over twenty different herbs.”

  “Madison growing herbs.” Wade shook his head. “Somehow that’s just wrong.”

  “Actually, I kinda enjoyed it.” Clay grinned. “But even if I tripled the organic crops next year, that would still leave me with a hell of a lot of fallow acreage and two barns filled with a bunch of unused farm equipment and a whole lot of air.”

  “And?” Wade wasn’t sure what the point of all this was.

  “And I have to find something to fill those empty acres.”

  Brooke’s eyes wandered first around the bar, then across the dining room.

  “Who’s the guy with the Wylers?” she asked. “I’ve seen him around town a couple of times.”

  “Jesse Enright. H
e’s their lawyer,” Wade said, refusing to give voice to the possibility that Jesse could be anything else.

  Clay turned around. “He’s Mike and Patti’s nephew. Joined the firm a while ago. Why’d you ask?”

  “Just curious.” Brooke shrugged.

  “I’ve had offers to rent out my fields,” Clay said, “but I hate that idea because I never can be sure what others are putting on their crops. And if they’re using GMO seed, it can cross-pollinate with what I grow. If they put crap fertilizers on their plants, it can blow onto mine or get into my soil, neither of which I want if I want to be certified as an organic farmer.”

  “What are your options?” Wade asked because he knew he was expected to, but it was hard to concentrate when he could see Steffie’s face so clearly.

  “I’ve been thinking about grapes,” Clay said. “As in wine grapes.”

  That got Wade’s attention.

  “Grow to sell to wineries?” he asked.

  “Maybe, to start. Or maybe to start up my own vineyard, who knows.”

  “It takes a while before the vines mature and the grapes are wine quality,” Wade told him.

  “About as long as it takes hops to mature?” Clay countered.

  “You can get hops the second year if you’re lucky, but from year three on, you’re good.” Wade studied the glass of beer the bartender had placed before him. “As long as you don’t get hop beetles or some other pest, and if you can stay disease-free.”

  “So the hop vines have to mature, too,” Clay pointed out.

  “They’re called ‘bines,’ by the way, but yeah, they need a year or two.” Wade paused for a moment, then asked, “Why the interest in hops?”

  Clay shrugged. “Seems to be a good business to get into right now, if you have the time and the patience and the place to grow them organically. All of which I have plenty of.” He picked up his burger, but before he took a bite, he added, “I figure now’s as good a time as any to explore my options. Microbreweries are doing well. I think a brewery is just what St. Dennis needs. Yeah”—he nodded—“I might want to try my hand. Maybe I can pick your brain while you’re here. Since you’re not interested in sticking around and doing it yourself, it’s not like we’re competing, right?”