The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge

by Stewart, Mariah

  Ellie and Cam said their good-byes and strolled into the lobby, where once again, Ellie was overcome by a sense of having been in this place before. When Cam stopped to talk to an old friend, she took the opportunity to walk around the lobby and study its appointments. She paused before the massive fireplace and tried to remember where she might have seen its like before.

  “Is something wrong, dear?” Grace startled Ellie when she came up behind her and placed a hand on her back.

  “Oh, no. I just thought I’d look around a little. It’s crazy, but I keep having the feeling that I’ve been here before.”

  “Ah, but you have,” Grace said softly.

  “That’s impossible.” Ellie shook her head. “I’ve never been in St. Dennis before.”

  Grace took one of Ellie’s hands. “Ellie, your mother brought you here several times.”

  Ellie’s heart began to beat so loudly she was certain everyone in the inn could hear it, that any minute someone would call 911.

  “You know?” Ellie whispered. “How did you know? Did Violet …?”

  “No one had to tell me. I knew you the minute I saw you in Cuppachino,” Grace replied gently. “Lynley and Lilly used to bring you here for afternoon tea when you were just a toddler. Very often Lucy and I would join you. There are photographs somewhere. I’ll try to find them for you.”

  Ellie covered her face with her hands, trying to remember, but she couldn’t bring up a memory.

  “But you couldn’t possibly have recognized me.”

  “I knew you all the same, Ellis. Ellie.” Grace smiled. “Lilly just loved to dress you up and show you off around town. We had some lovely times here together. Lilly never had children of her own, you know, and she doted on you.”

  “I don’t remember being in St. Dennis.” Ellie tried, but there was nothing concrete. “Sometimes I think I might recognize some little thing, but I can’t say I have any real memories.” She hesitated, then said, “Miss Grace, I’ve just learned that my mother lived with Lilly in my house when she was young.”

  “Oh, yes.” Grace nodded.

  “Do you know why?” It might not have been the best time, or the best place, to have this conversation, but Ellie couldn’t keep the words from tumbling from her mouth. “I’m just beginning to realize how little I know about my mother, particularly her childhood.”

  Grace took Ellie’s arm and steered her from the main throng in the lobby. They stopped next to a window that looked out over a vast expanse of lawn where a gazebo stood. In the background, the Bay looked dark blue as a light mist began to fall. “Were you aware that Lynley had younger twin sisters?”

  “No.” Ellie frowned. “I was under the impression that she was an only child. I never heard her mention having sisters.”

  “I’m not surprised that it wasn’t something she’d talk about. They were not quite two when they died. One caught a lung infection that she shared with the other. They passed on within a few days of each other.”

  “Oh, my God. That’s horrible. I never knew.” Ellie felt blindsided, as if she’d just taken a fist to her stomach.

  “After they died, your grandmother—Evelyn—went into a terrible depression. Her husband moved the family to California thinking the change of scenery would help her to cope, but she seemed to sink deeper into her depression. Peter—that is, your grandfather—called Lilly and asked if he could send Lynley to live with her and Ted until Evelyn was well again.” Grace sighed. “Of course, Evelyn never did get better.”

  “My mother told me that her parents drowned in a boating accident, but other than that, she almost never spoke of them.”

  “Well, there’s not much question that they drowned, and it doesn’t surprise me to hear that Lynley didn’t have too much to say about them. Imagine how you might feel as a young child, being shipped off by your parents and never seeing them again. That must have had a terrible effect on Lynley. But whether or not there was an accident … no one will ever know for sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All we really do know is that Peter took Evelyn out on their boat, and they were never seen again. Weeks later, the boat was found miles down the coastline—no damage to the boat, but no one was on board. People around here figured that Evelyn had become suicidal and that Peter couldn’t stand to see her suffer so much, but he couldn’t let her go alone. I’m of the mind that he probably just ran the boat until it could run no more. He and Evelyn most likely eased themselves overboard and drowned together.”

  “Oh, my God.” Ellie felt sick. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because two weeks before the ‘accident,’ he mailed an envelope to Lilly which contained his will and other information one would need to probate an estate. Of course, it could have been a coincidence, but I believe he wanted to make certain that Lynley was well provided for.”

  “This is all so tragic.”

  “Oh, dear. I’ve upset you. I’m sorry, Ellie. I probably shouldn’t have been so blunt.” Grace took her arm and led her to a settee that stood near a doorway and urged her to sit.

  “No, no, please don’t apologize. I had no idea that my grandparents … or that my mother …” Ellie paused. “How old was my mother when all this happened?”

  “Well, let’s see.…” Grace appeared to be calculating. “I think she was around four or five when the twins were born, so she’d have been six or seven when they passed on. I think she stayed out west with her parents for another year or two, so I’m thinking she was around eight or nine when she came here to stay.”

  “My poor mother.” Ellie tried to imagine what Lynley must have been feeling. Rejected? Frightened? Unloved? Lonely? Surely all of that and more. “I had no idea. I’ve been reading Lilly’s journals in chronological order but I haven’t gotten past her young married life. Lynley wouldn’t have been born yet. All of this explains so much about my mother.”

  “Lynley had a difficult time when she first arrived in town, as I recall, but Lilly and Ted loved her as they’d have loved their own child, and in the end, it was most certainly for the best. They were much more stable than Lynley’s parents were. Evelyn was always very high-strung and, well, frankly, a bit of a drama queen. She was always quite self-absorbed.”

  “That explains my mother’s attachment to Lilly and the house and St. Dennis,” Ellie said thoughtfully. “I wonder if my father knew.…” For a second or so, she almost wished she hadn’t tossed Clifford’s letter into the Bay.

  Before Grace could respond, Cameron joined them.

  “You about ready to leave?” He placed a hand lightly on Ellie’s back.

  “Yes.” Ellie turned to Grace. “Thank you again for … for everything. Dinner was absolutely delicious.”

  “As always,” Cam added.

  “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed your meal.” Grace patted Ellie’s hands. “Now I should tend to our other guests and help Lucy get ready for the next seating. But promise you’ll come and have tea with me one afternoon. Just call. Anytime. We’ll have Lucy join us.”

  “I’d love that, thank you.” On impulse, Ellie hugged the older woman briefly.

  “Make it soon, dear.”

  “I will,” Ellie promised.

  She slipped into her jacket and made her way with Cameron through the crowd of similarly departing diners, trying not to think about everything Grace had told her. Once outside, she took a deep breath, filling her lungs with cold air that hinted at pine and the Bay beyond the trees.

  “Is everything all right?” Cameron asked.

  “Sure.” She nodded but didn’t trust herself to look at him.

  When they reached the pickup, she paused at the passenger-side door and said, “Thank you. This was one of the nicest days I’ve had in a long time.”

  “The day isn’t over,” he told her as she climbed into her seat. “As the poet said, there are miles to go. I think he was referring to miles of wallpaper that needed to be scraped. Miles of brushstrokes to be paint
ed on miles of walls.”

  “Look, about that.” She snapped on her seat belt. “We don’t have to do any of that today. I’m sure you have better things to do on a holiday than scrape someone else’s walls. You could use the rest, I’m sure.”

  “Nope. Nothing I’d rather do.” He closed the door and walked around the front of the truck.

  “I thought holidays were supposed to be days off.”

  “You took off yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but I was referring to you. Couldn’t you use a little downtime?”

  “I don’t do downtime.”

  Cam started the engine and backed out of his parking spot.

  “That was the most amazing dinner ever. I can’t remember the last time I ate that much.” Ellie leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. “I may not be able to get out of the truck.”

  “You and me both. We might have to spend the rest of the day here in the truck.”

  Cam turned on the radio and searched for something other than static. Ellie kept her head back and her eyes closed as her mind zipped back and forth through her conversation with Grace, trying to grasp it all. Her grandparents had lost not one, but two children, and Evelyn—her grandmother—had gone into a deep depression, so deep that her grandfather thought that Lynley would be better off on the other side of the country, being raised by a couple she barely knew. Had he felt that he had to make a choice between his wife and his daughter? Had he been trying to protect Lynley from what may have been a nightmare situation with an unstable mother? For years Ellie had wondered why her mother had been all right with sending her daughter off to boarding school at such a young age. Having been sent off herself as a child must have made such a separation seem normal.

  For the first time since the day her father had been led away in handcuffs, Ellie wished she could speak with him, if only to ask him what her mother might have told him about her childhood. Then again, there were still so many journals on the shelves. Surely Lilly, who wrote about everything, had written about the day her grandniece came to live with them.

  The truck came to a stop and the engine was cut. Ellie opened her eyes and began to unfasten her seat belt when she looked out the window onto an unfamiliar scene.

  “Where are we?”

  “At my place. I thought I’d stop and change my clothes if we’re going to try to paint out those kitchen walls.” Cam pulled the keys from the ignition.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind? I really didn’t expect you to spend your Thanksgiving working in my house,” she told him.

  “I spent the last two days taking down plaster walls. I’m looking forward to something sweet and easy.” He hopped out of the cab. “Want to come in while I change?”

  “Sure, but really …”

  He ignored her and went straight to the front door, which he unlocked and swung open. Ellie followed, her bag slung over her shoulder.

  “This is so nice.” She stopped about ten feet from the front porch and took a good look at the bungalow that was sided in brown cedar shakes and trimmed with crisp white paint.

  “Thanks. I’m almost done here,” he said as he held the door for her. “I only have the one big room on the second floor to finish painting and I’ll be ready to put it on the market.” He snapped on the hall light. “I just can’t decide whether I should put this one up for sale before your house or if I should wait until the sign goes on your front lawn.”

  He grinned and led her into the living room. “I don’t want to be caught without a place to live if this place should sell before you’re ready.”

  “I’m thinking I’ll be ready by May,” she told him.

  “If you put your mind to it, you could be finished well before then.”

  “No, May’s my target.” No reason for him to know she couldn’t sell it before then.

  He tossed his jacket over the newel post.

  “Can I get you anything? Something to drink, maybe …?”

  “No, no. I’m fine, but thanks.”

  “It won’t take me long to change. Make yourself at home,” Cameron said as he disappeared down a short hall.

  Ellie heard a door close softly. She stood for a moment before walking to the bank of windows that stood along the far wall. She drew aside a curtain and looked out onto a pond where dried cattails bent at odd angles to one another. Between the pond and the house was the driveway, at the end of which was a garage that was sided in the same cedar as the house. She walked to the back door, opened it, and stepped onto a porch where two rocking chairs faced the backyard and a marsh beyond. She wondered who sat in the second chair to watch the sunset with Cameron, who shared quiet mornings over coffee watching the red-winged blackbirds land on the reeds.

  “Here you are.” Cameron stood in the doorway in that well-worn plaid flannel shirt and the jeans with the hole in the back pocket. “For a moment I thought maybe you started home on foot.”

  “I was just enjoying the scenery.” She leaned against the railing, which she noted was much more secure than the one on her back porch. “It’s pretty here.”

  Cam nodded. “It’s a nice street and a quiet neighborhood. I think I’ll make out really well when I sell it.”

  “Have you done a lot of work here?”

  “A ton. All the mechanical systems replaced. New windows. New kitchen, new baths. Everything’s been painted except for that one last room. So yeah, I’ve done a lot of work.”

  “I’m surprised you want to sell it right away instead of staying and enjoying it. I’d think you’d be more attached to it after doing all that.”

  “I bought it with the intention of fixing it up and selling it.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Just like you’re doing.”

  Ellie tried to think of a quick retort but couldn’t.

  “Besides,” he went on, “this is what I do for a living. Buy, fix, sell.”

  “But you have a contracting business, too, right?”

  “I do. A couple of years ago, when business started to slow down, I had the opportunity to buy a run-down place out on River Road. I spent three months fixing it up while I lived there, then sold it for more than twice what I paid. I’ve been in the renovating business ever since.”

  “That’s why you want my house? To buy, fix, sell?”

  “I’d never sell that house.” He came out onto the porch. “That one’s for me.”

  He put an arm around her. “Having second thoughts about selling?”

  Ellie shook her head. “Not at all. And for the record, I’ll still give you the first shot at making an offer.”

  “I appreciate it.” He turned slightly toward her and reached down to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Tiny jolts of what felt like electricity trailed in the wake of his fingers. “Maybe you’ll come back and visit me there.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  He leaned down and kissed her, but this time she’d been waiting—hoping—for him to kiss her again. His lips were softly demanding, his arms pulling her closer until she was fully in his embrace.

  A strong breeze blew through the marsh and she shivered in spite of the warmth that had started to spread through her.

  “It’s getting chilly out here,” he said as he eased his lips from hers. “You’re not dressed for winter.”

  He took her hand and led her inside.

  “I think we need to get back to my place.” Ellie watched him lock the back door. “I think Dune will need some tending to.”

  “Good point.” He lit the lamp that stood on a table inside the front door and picked up the tools he’d left near the door. On their way to the driveway, Cam pulled up short and pointed to the sky, where a long ragged string of Canada geese was passing. “You know winter is coming when the geese start moving in flocks that large.”

  “Don’t they stay all year round?” she asked as she got into the truck.

  “Some do. A lot still migrate from the northernmost states. The diaries of th
e early settlers talk about huge flocks of geese arriving right about this time every year.”

  A light rain started to fall as they drove through several side streets to Bay View Road. Cam parked in Ellie’s driveway, close to the path leading to the front door.

  “Someone’s having a lot of company.” Ellie gestured to the row of cars that lined the road.

  “The Walshes have a big family thing over Thanksgiving weekend,” Cam told her as she unlocked her front door. “They have six kids and they’re all married and have kids and everyone comes back to St. Dennis for the long weekend.”

  “You know the family?”

  Cam nodded. “Jackie Walsh and I went to school together.”

  “And you lived on this street at one time, you said?”

  She slipped out of her jacket and hung it in the hall closet, then reached for his and hung it next to hers.

  “Right.” He walked into the kitchen, carrying the tools he’d brought from his house.

  Dune greeted them madly, running from one to the other in a happy dance of Welcome home now feed me walk me pet me. Cam offered to walk the dog while Ellie changed into work clothes. Ten minutes later, when Ellie came downstairs in her old sweats, she found Cam and the dog in the living room, seated together on the floor, in front of the bookcase, a stack of books by his side.

  “Thanks, Cam, for taking her out. I appreciate …” She’d taken four steps into the room. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Oh.” Cam seemed flustered. “I just remembered that this was here … I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  She knelt next to him on the floor and leaned into the now-empty shelf. Along the back wall, a hole opened in the wall. “Is that, like, a secret panel?”

  He nodded.

  “How did you know it was there?” she asked.