“I’m so hungry, I almost don’t care what it is,” Steffie told her. “And you’re my best friend. You wouldn’t bring me something I don’t like.”
“True.” Vanessa opened the bag. “It’s grilled chicken, Swiss, and tomato from the new place around the corner from Book ’Em.”
“That’s one of my two most favorite sandwiches.”
“I know.” Vanessa handed over the bag and Steffie peered inside.
“And an iced tea. How did you know I was dying for iced tea today?” Steffie hugged her, then turned to wash her hands at the sink.
“Daz told me,” Vanessa deadpanned.
Steffie shot a quick glance over her shoulder and Vanessa laughed. “Kidding. It just seemed to go with the sandwich.”
Stef dried her hands and unwrapped the sandwich, then looked back into the bag.
“There’s only one sandwich in here,” she noted.
“I know. I ate mine on the way down here. I had a really busy morning, so I had to multitask if I wanted to eat.” Vanessa rested her elbows on the worktable. “I had one delivery after another this morning, which was a good thing because I sold out of so much stuff on Saturday. The charity run was good for business, Stef. Everyone was talking about it this morning.”
“Good. I’m glad. I love a win-win. Money for research, business for the merchants.”
“And we’re all looking forward to another big weekend coming up, with all the Hollywood people coming for Dallas’s party. Grace was saying this morning that her son told her they were totally booked from Thursday right through until Monday,” Vanessa told her. “Barbara heard the other two inns and all the B-and-Bs were booked as well. And Carlo told us that every table at every restaurant in town is reserved for Friday and Sunday nights. Someone booked Let’s Do Brunch for Saturday and Sunday—both days, for the entire time they’re open.” Nessa’s eyes were shining. “Of course, that’s only from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon, but still, that’s a lot of guaranteed business.” She sighed. “I hope there will be lots of those Hollywood types stopping in at Bling.”
“There will be if Dallas tells everyone that she shops there.” Steffie took a bite of her sandwich, thinking that she should make extra ice cream as well. The forecast was for unseasonably warm weather. She knew from experience that the warmer temperatures alone would increase her business. Add an extra hundred people to the mix and she would run out early if she didn’t prepare in advance for the increase in foot traffic. “This is delicious, thanks. I appreciate it.”
“What are friends for?” Vanessa paused before adding, “Besides, I promised everyone I’d pump you for info on Saturday night.”
“I told you, I didn’t have a date with Jesse. Didn’t you tell everyone that?”
“Yes, but apparently half of St. Dennis was in Walt’s on Saturday night. The other half was in the parking lot.”
“Oh. That.” Another exercise in frustration that she didn’t feel like reliving right then.
“So …?”
“So he walked me out to my car and he caught me in a lip-lock.”
“And …” Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Am I going to have drag every little detail from you?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On what you’ve already heard.”
“Brooke stopped in at Bling this morning, and she said that her brother and Wade were eating at the bar and they saw you with Jesse, and Wade looked put out about it.”
“She said that? Wade was put out because I was with Jesse?”
Vanessa nodded.
“So what else did she say?”
“She said that you and Jesse stopped at the bar on the way out, and she got into a conversation with him about something to do with her will, and that when she looked up, you and Wade were gone.”
“True enough. Brooke did seem interested in Jesse, and he sure seemed interested in her,” Stef told her.
“That’s not the way it’s supposed to happen.” Vanessa frowned.
“The way what’s not supposed to happen?”
“Unless …” Vanessa bit her bottom lip. “Unless somehow Brooke was walking past the house …”
“What are you talking about?”
“The”—Vanessa looked around, then lowered her voice—“incantation wasn’t intended to draw anyone into Brooke’s life. It was supposed to draw them into yours.”
“I’m having a really hard time keeping a straight face right now, Ness.” Steffie looked up from measuring ingredients. “I just thought you should know.”
“Skeptic.”
“Well, at least you can feel vindicated that Brooke and Jesse really hit it off.” Stef bit back a grin. “So even if your … incantation went haywire, at least you know it hit home somewhere.”
“Very funny.”
“I guess it was the universe that brought everyone together at Walt’s on Saturday night,” Stef said. “Clay and Wade were at the bar after I sat down at my parents’ table, then Brooke joined them. I wondered what they were talking about. They had their heads together for a long time.”
“Beer.” Vanessa took another swipe at the chocolate. “They were talking about beer.”
“Why?”
“Brooke said Clay might be interested in starting his own brewery here in St. Dennis.”
“And he wanted to hire Wade to work for him?”
Vanessa shook her head. “He wanted Wade to tell him some of his beer-making secrets, I think. Since Wade will be leaving next week to go to his new job, he and Clay wouldn’t be in competition.”
Steffie put her sandwich down on the paper it had been wrapped in.
“He’s leaving next week?”
“So he told Clay, and Clay told Brooke.” Vanessa and Stef stared at each other. “He didn’t tell you, did he.” It wasn’t a question.
Stef shook her head.
“Crap. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.” Vanessa frowned.
“No big deal.” Stef waved it off. “What difference does it make if he goes next week or next month? The bottom line is that he’s going.”
“Still …”
“It’s okay. Really.” Steffie took a sip of iced tea and checked her watch just as the timer went off.
“What’s the timer for?”
“The chocolate’s ready.” She removed a cold canister from the freezer.
“I have to get back to the shop and you’re busy.” Vanessa hiked up her shoulder bag. “Stef, I’m really sorry.”
“Ness, it’s fine.”
“Maybe some night this week we could have that sleepover we talked about,” Vanessa said from the doorway. “Grady took a group hiking in Idaho and he won’t be back until Friday afternoon.”
“Sounds good to me.” Stef looked up and smiled. “The sleepover, not the hiking.”
“I’ll talk to you later.”
Steffie nodded. “Thanks again for bringing me lunch.”
“Anytime.” Vanessa looked about to say something else, but apparently had second thoughts. She closed the door behind her without another word.
Stef put the pot of chocolate on a trivet on the table and wondered how long she’d feel as if she had a stake through her heart. She heard the bell ring in the shop several times and was glad that Claire was there to serve her customers, because she really didn’t feel like seeing anyone right then.
Get a grip, she told herself. You had no reason to believe he’d be sticking around.
She almost wished there was something to that spell of Vanessa’s. It would certainly make life easier, one way or another. Either Wade would be falling at her feet, or else she’d be able to wave good-bye to him knowing that something better was right around the bend, and it wouldn’t hurt so much that he was leaving. And it did hurt that he hadn’t told her himself that he’d be gone soon. Just as it had hurt when he’d pulled away right as she was thinking about dragging him home with her, though now she was beginning to think she understo
od why.
Secretly, she’d thought that maybe this time, he’d stay around for a while, at least long enough for her to get him out of her system once and for all. And secretly, in her heart of hearts, she’d harbored the belief that he was the one. Somehow she must have projected that, he’d picked up on it, and he’d decided to put the skids on things before they went any further. She supposed she should thank him for that.
“Time to say good-bye to my Wade fantasy for good,” she muttered. “I may have obsessed about him when I was a kid, but I haven’t pined for him since high school. I’m not going to start now.”
The wall phone rang and she rose from the stool to answer it.
“One Scoop or Two. This is Steffie. How can I help you …?”
Diary ~
You’d think that once the season had ended, we’d have seen the last of the tourists, but no! Not this year! Dallas MacGregor is celebrating her birthday here in St. Dennis next weekend, and the guest list is a veritable Who’s Who in Hollywood. Why, on Monday evening, I happened to answer the phone at the inn’s reservation desk—don’t ask me where Becky was, she wasn’t at the desk when I walked by—and who was on the other end but Sidney Warren! At least, that’s how he identified himself! He wanted to book a suite of rooms from Friday through Sunday, and I had the disappointing task of telling him that not only do we not have suites, but that we were totally booked for the weekend. Oh, the pain of having to turn away a genuine heartthrob (and my heart was throbbing!). I did, however, direct him to several other establishments and I told him to check back later in the week in case there were cancellations (fat chance, but one can hope!). He left his phone number for us to call in the event that something opened up.
And it’s been like that all over town for the past two weeks—stars and superstars and famous directors and producers, and yes, even tabloid reporters all calling for rooms. Well, we all—the hoteliers here in town, that is—got together and decided not to book rooms for anyone who worked for one of those sleazy papers. Dallas deserves to have a happy birthday in the company of her family and friends without the rest of the world watching.
So who’s next? The paparazzi??
Oh—and Vanessa stopped in on Sunday afternoon and dropped off all of Alice’s journals. Some, but perhaps not all. I imagine as she finds others, she’ll pass those along to me as well. I admit that I do feel better now, knowing they’re safely in my keeping. Bless the girl for remembering that I’d asked for them.
~ Grace ~
HEY, buddy, where are you going?” Wade followed his son’s toddling steps across Berry’s backyard.
“Geeses.” Austin pointed a chubby finger in the direction of the river.
“Yes, those are geese. Did Cody teach you that?”
“Uh-huh.” Austin’s head bobbed up and down. “Cody.”
Austin continued down to the dock with Wade close behind. When he came to the end, the little boy lay down on his stomach and peered slowly over the edge.
“What’s down there?” Wade lowered himself to the deck beside his son.
Austin looked up, and with one finger across his mouth, he whispered, “Fishies.”
Wade craned his neck and looked over the side of the dock.
“See?” Austin pointed into the water. “Fishies.”
“I see,” Wade said, earning a “shhhh” from his son.
Wade stretched out alongside Austin and watched the river below.
“Crabbies,” Austin said softly. “See?”
Wade nodded. “I see.”
From the opposite side of the river, a great blue heron rose, startling them both.
“Ooh!” Austin exclaimed. “Big bird!”
“That’s one big bird, all right,” Wade agreed. “That bird is called a heron. They like to walk along the edge of the river and eat the little fish.”
“My fishies?” a horrified Austin asked, and Wade nodded.
“Bad bird.” Austin scolded the heron whose wide wingspan had taken him to the mouth of the river, where he set down and began to troll the waters at the edge of the Bay. “Bad, bad bird.”
“Hungry bird,” Wade corrected him, then realized that his son was probably a little young for the food-chain talk. “Let’s see what else we can find out here on the river today.”
They resumed their places, both on their stomachs watching the river slowly roll by, and soaked up a bit of sunshine. The morning was tranquil, and for a quiet while, father and son simply enjoyed time in each other’s company. Several boats went by, one speeding by earning an emphatic “shhh” from Austin.
Wade turned onto his back, folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. It smelled like autumn again today, like falling leaves and the last of the summer annuals and the pine needles that had dropped to form a soft carpet beneath the branches. The nursery on the highway already had hay bales and pumpkins and mums for sale, and he’d heard Dallas telling Berry that Olivia the florist was carving out pumpkins and filling them with flowers for the centerpieces on the tables for her birthday party.
With Austin curled up next to him, Wade moved one arm to hold the child close to his body. Within minutes, Austin was asleep, his head on his father’s biceps, his breathing warm and gentle on Wade’s skin. Wade was aware now that Austin was not just an important part of his life, but a necessary one, and that every decision he made and would make for the next eighteen years or so would be done with Austin’s interests in mind. That reality had been waking Wade in the middle of the night for the past week. For one thing, it hadn’t been something he’d fully comprehended when he’d promised Robin he’d raise her son as his, but it had become a fact of his life. No regrets, but still, for someone who’d pretty much winged it for most of his life, having a constant was somewhat heady. The responsibility overwhelmed him when he thought about it, so he’d tried not to think about it very much. He’d long since come to believe that some things were better off left alone.
But along with the responsibility had come a sense of purpose he’d not expected, and he’d found that he enjoyed Austin more and more as time went on. He was pretty sure that most parents felt that way, but since he’d not had much preparation for becoming a father, so much had come as a surprise. Like the way his heart bounced just a little when Austin’s face lit up when Wade came home from being anywhere for any amount of time, be it several hours or fifteen minutes. Or the way Austin’s laughter made him smile every time he heard it, or the pure and simple love Wade felt when, every night before he went to bed, he checked Austin’s crib to make sure he was covered and that his favorite stuffed giraffe was nearby.
To say that the child had blindsided him might be an understatement.
Austin was so happy here in St. Dennis that Wade was starting to wonder how leaving would affect him. His son had grown so close to Cody, and he was doted on by both Dallas and Berry. How would it affect him to lose them as part of his daily life so soon after having lost his mother? And what if he couldn’t find anyone in Connecticut who could provide the kind of child care Austin had always had? Ted had made his offer to Wade long before they came to St. Dennis, before Wade saw how the growing child adapted to his new environment and how quickly he’d bonded with the new people in his life. Before St. Dennis, for the most part, Austin’s inner circle had consisted only of an increasingly ill Robin, and Wade. Occasionally their upstairs neighbor, Mrs. Barker, watched Robin and Austin when Wade had to be somewhere else, like when he’d made the trip to St. Dennis for Beck and Mia’s wedding. It had been Mrs. Barker who’d called Wade that night to let him know that he needed to come home, that Robin had taken a turn for the worse, and that she didn’t want to be there alone with the little boy if his mother passed that night in her sleep.
Child care was only one of the things Wade would need to investigate when he arrived in Connecticut on Monday. He hated to admit it to Dallas, but he was becoming increasingly concerned about the contract that Ted kept promis
ing to send him but that hadn’t arrived. The day after Dallas had raised questions—good questions, issues that hadn’t occurred to Wade—he’d called Ted and asked to have the contract overnighted so he could take a look at it. That was last week, and it still hadn’t come. He’d e-mailed Ted two days ago, but despite the promise, Wade had yet to receive it. So what, he had to ask himself, was this guy hiding? And wasn’t it a bad sign to begin a business relationship with someone you were starting to think of as “this guy”?
Well, soon enough Wade would know what was what. He planned on touring the brewery on Monday and the town of Oak Grove on Tuesday, look for child care and living accommodations on Wednesday. He knew the day-care center at the plant was an option, but he wasn’t sure how Austin would fare in a group setting after having lived with adults—very few adults—for his entire life. Yes, there was Cody, but he was older than Austin and wasn’t exactly a peer. Austin had never been around a lot of other kids his own age, and Wade didn’t know enough about parenting to tell when a kid like his, who was pretty shy, would be ready to join such a group.
Did all parents anguish over this stuff, or was it just Wade? And how did moms always seem to manage, anyway? Maybe he should talk to Dallas before he left on Monday. Then again, he had the feeling that any doubts he might express would likely raise her hopes that he’d changed his mind.
And then there was Steffie.
Nothing in his life had ever created as many conflicted feelings in him as Steffie. Deciding to claim Austin as his own had been a piece of cake compared to figuring out where—if anywhere—he fit into Stef’s life, and where she fit into his. When it came to her, the only thing Wade knew for certain was that he didn’t have a clue. Oh, yeah, and that his body temperature rose and his ability to think clearly diminished in direct proportion to his proximity to her.
Bottom line: he’d been a fool to think he could stand that close to the fire and not feel its heat.
Like it or not, he was beginning to suspect that his concerns about the new job—the contract and about the move being too upsetting for Austin and the child care maybe not being what he wanted it to be—maybe it was all a smoke screen for the fact that more and more he was beginning to think that there was more for him in St. Dennis than he’d realized.
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