Silver Linings

by Mary Brady

  Hunter gave his attention to the man who must have been a couple years ahead of him in school but wasn’t the Miller who’d run the store back then.

  “Yes, thanks.” He handed a twenty to Miller.

  When they finished the transaction, Hunter gave one last glance at where the little girl was pleading her case to her mother. Apparently, the “pink shiny one” was the favorite of the child but not the mom.

  He headed toward the front door. That could have been his child. If he hadn’t made the decision to put himself first, ahead of her. He’d needed to leave Bailey’s Cove and Delainey had needed to stay in Maine—and he had been unable to promise her that anything would change. If the question arose today, he still couldn’t make any promises.

  What they had together when he came back to settle his grandmother’s estate had been so unexpected, but it had seemed so real to him. It had felt like love that first day, that first kiss. When he had been back in Chicago for a while, he’d accepted the ridiculousness of falling in love in a day.

  They had kept up friendly communications until he’d received the almost formal email. He remembered it word for word.

  Hunter, I enjoyed the time we spent together, but I have someone else in my life now and I just wanted to say goodbye. Delainey.

  She had always signed her emails Deelee. This one had closed the door between them. Until he had received that email, he hadn’t figured out just how much the few weeks they had spent together had meant to him.

  Now she seemed settled in her life, happy with her child. He was here for a while and then he’d be gone. The changes that had occurred in their lives since that last summer would do nothing to alter things between them now. In fact, the last thing his life could accommodate right now was an innocent woman and her child.

  He pulled the collar of his coat up to keep some of the snowflakes out.

  Was the child his? Probably not, he had to admit. Did he plan to find out for sure? Absolutely.

  The wind that had been blowing hard when he arrived at Miller’s was now filled with enough snow to make the weather forecaster’s threat of a storm seem more real.

  For some unfathomable reason, he wanted Delainey to take her little girl and go home now, where they would be safe.

  * * *

  DELAINEY AND BRIANNA had been home only an hour and already over two inches of snow had fallen. Brianna squealed and threw another handful of the powdery snow at her mother. Delainey retaliated with her own handfuls of snow and Brianna ran for the shelter of a tall white pine tree.

  After Delainey had dinner snugly started in a Crock-Pot, Brianna suggested they play out in the snow again. Delainey agreed because she thought it might keep her mind off Hunter. He had met her daughter but had given no sign of relief or even disappointment. He had reacted with only extreme politeness.

  She had no idea what she had expected. After college he had come back and then after three weeks he’d had to go. They had not had the time to make any life plans, but she had thought those three weeks had meant something. They had to her.

  Suddenly, a clump of snow hit Delainey on the back of the head and sent the remnants over her shoulders and down the front of her coat.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “AUNT CHRISTINA,” BRIANNA SHOUTED.

  Delainey turned to see her sister, but the snowball had come from Sammy. He must have arrived early, but Delainey didn’t even feel bad that she’d thought he might never show up at all in Bailey’s Cove.

  “Hey, sis. Hi, Sammy.”

  He put his arm around Christina, gave her a squeeze and held a bare palm up to the falling snow. “Heck of a welcome for a guy just looking for some warmth and good lovin’.”

  From the look on Christina’s face, he had already had some of both. He made her happy and that was all she would ever ask of a man for her sister.

  “You want to play snowball fight, Aunt Christina?” Brianna stood with her mittened hands wrapped around as much snow as she could hold. It wasn’t good packing snow, so she hadn’t managed any real snowballs, only snow puffs.

  “Oh, let’s go inside,” Sammy piped up. “Uncle Sammy brought a bottle of wine to warm us up.”

  Brianna’s face fell.

  Christina elbowed him and stepped forward. “And Aunt Christina brought a new deck of Go Fish cards, and these have ball gowns and tiaras and stuff like that.”

  Christina bent down and whispered something in Brianna’s ear and the girl beamed.

  “What?” Sammy demanded.

  “Oh, it’s not for guys to know,” Christina teased.

  Once inside the house, Christina and Brianna headed to Brianna’s room, leaving Delainey to deal with Sammy on her own.

  “Where are your glasses?” Sammy asked as he pulled open the doors of the nearest cupboard.

  “How about I make some lunch?” Delainey offered.

  “I’m cool with that,” Sammy said as he opened more cupboards until he found glasses. He brought out three, unscrewed the wine’s top and poured.

  Delainey turned away and wrinkled her nose. There were many great wines that came in screw-top bottles from many fine vintners. In fact, many wine aficionados touted the screw top as a way to keep unused wine fresher.

  She was also sure any wine Sammy brought was not from any such great place. The wine would be simple, sweet, a little off tasting—okay, a lot off tasting—and cheap.

  “Hey, did you hear they found a treasure map in that old house they tore down?” Sammy asked as he poured.

  Delainey held in a groan. No, she had not heard. “It’s probably somebody playing a joke on those guys doing the demo,” she said because that was an entirely likely scenario.

  “Naw. They said some lady...ah...Loch, Heather Loch, from the museum told them it might have merit. Merit is good enough to go on as far as I’m concerned. So what’s with this Loch woman? She have any credibility?”

  The best. She’s the local expert, seeing as how her ancestor buried the treasure—allegedly. “Um, she— Well, before we talk about town stuff, how about telling me how you’ve been?”

  From then on, whenever Sammy tried to stray too close to things she didn’t want to discuss, she asked another question about his life or Cora, Dora and Rose.

  Delainey was finishing making tuna salad when Christina came back into the kitchen to find Sammy sitting at the table with the three glasses of poured wine, his glass almost empty.

  During lunch Sammy behaved in a more civilized manner; he was even appropriate to Brianna. As soon as their ice cream was finished, he pleaded with Christina to leave and they did.

  Delainey stood on the porch and watched as Christina and Sammy drove away in Sammy’s oversize SUV. At least the vehicle could handle the snow, but that didn’t mean Christina would be safe.

  After the SUV disappeared around the corner, Delainey went back inside. Brianna had gone into her room and when Delainey wanted to come in and see what she was doing, Brianna begged for more time and Delainey gave it to her.

  She tried to sit in the living room under a warm quilt and read, but her mind wouldn’t focus. When her thoughts traveled to one place over and over, she leaned her elbows on the table to watch the snow and gave in to thinking about Hunter. She had seen him study Brianna, watched his eyes follow her. If she hadn’t been mistaken, there’d been a sadness, regret, in his eyes.

  Sadness the child was not his? Regret they had ruined things between them or that he had left and she had not gone with him?

  Would they have had a wonderful life if he had stayed until he had to leave that summer and they’d agreed upon a location where they could both live? They were so young and thought they were so grown up.

  The snow continued to fall and so two hours later when Christina showed up again, she was surprised.
<
br />   There were snowflakes in her sister’s eyelashes and tears in her eyes.

  “What’d he do?” Delainey asked when they were both seated at the kitchen table with mugs of hot tea.

  “You know him so much better than I do. He doesn’t like them, any of them. Dora, Cora or—”

  “What did he say?”

  “He suggested I might want to reconsider and move to Boston with him. He had been so enthusiastic over the phone. He quit his job to come and help me.”

  “Will he stay?”

  “I hope so. I really hope so.”

  “If he doesn’t, we’ll make do. I have lots of old clothes that would be perfect for scraping and painting.”

  Christina reached across the table and patted her arm. “I love you, Deelee. Sometimes I wonder what I see in him. Maybe we should adopt a sister and the three of us can live in my houses.”

  Delainey was proud of herself for not starting one of Brianna’s pro-and-con lists for her sister about Sammy. Instead she claimed Cora as the home of her spinsterhood.

  “Hey, not fair.”

  “Sorry, I called it first and there isn’t anything you can do.”

  “Fine. We’ll put a deck and a hot tub at Dora’s and I claim her.”

  Delainey laughed. “Now I want Dora.”

  “You have a dream life, a beautiful daughter, you’re going off to school.”

  “Don’t I, though?” Delainey gave her sister a dreamy-eyed look and then said, “Hunter met Brianna today.”

  “Whoa. How’d that go?”

  “It was almost like it didn’t happen.”

  Delainey related the meeting at Miller’s.

  “So he didn’t make a scene or demand a DNA test in front of her or anything. That’s good.”

  “I would have been more comforted if he had said he could see that there was no way she could be his child, or even that it didn’t matter, ’cause he wasn’t interested in knowing. His reaction was so emotionally controlled, so secretive attorney, I have no idea what he was thinking.”

  “But?”

  “But there was a time when I would have instantly known what he was thinking, even if I didn’t have a context. He’s closed. I can barely find any of the old Hunter in this one.”

  “What about you?”

  “What do you mean me?”

  “How much of the high school Delainey is left?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “Oh, I hope enough to let me teach my daughter how to be smart and be okay with it.”

  Christina laughed. “She’s got the smart part down. Did she tell you what I brought her?”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “Not even. I’ll give you a hint. She’s making something for you, but now you have to be absolutely surprised when she shows it to you.” Christina gave her an exaggerated evil smile. “You have to wait for it. It’s a Mother’s Day present.”

  Delainey burst out with a loud laugh. “She’ll never make it till Mother’s Day. I give her two weeks before she makes up some special occasion just so she can give it to me. Grandma got her birthday present on Thanksgiving Day as a special Turkey Day gift because Brianna thought waiting two weeks longer was just unfair to Grandma.”

  “We’ve thought of that. When she wants to give it to you before Mother’s Day, she’s supposed to call me and I’ll talk her down.”

  Christina’s phone burbled. She checked the caller ID, made a face and answered it anyway.

  Delainey didn’t have to guess who it was. She could hear Sammy’s voice loud and clear. He wanted Christina to run down to the diner and get Mandrel’s pie for him before she came home. Since Christina was living in an apartment up the hill west of the old church and the town’s diner was on the south end of town, the trip would be out of her way.

  “I thought he’d sleep for hours after his big declaration of disdain and the two glasses of wine. Apparently, I was wrong.” Christina stood and put her coat back on.

  After Christina left, Delainey rotated the laundry and folded the towels by herself because the quiet little mouse was still busy in her room. She cleaned the beleaguered vegetable bins in her refrigerator and added a flour-and-broth slurry to the Crock-Pot so it would make gravy over the next hour.

  Just after she wiped the flour from her hands, her phone rang.

  “Delainey, this is Lenny Gardner. Christina isn’t hurt badly, but she’s been in a car accident and taken to the clinic. She asked me to let you know.”

  “Are you sure she’s okay?”

  “She was awake and talking when the ambulance left.”

  “Lenny, I’m going to have to see if my mom can take care of Brianna. I hate taking her out in this. I might be able to be there in a half hour and...” Delainey was babbling and she knew it, and she stopped and took a breath.

  “They are closing the dry cleaner’s early, so Monique is finished with work. I was just going to pick her up. I can see if she’ll come and stay with Brianna. Then I could drive you out to the clinic.”

  The Officer Gardner tone he spoke in soothed her and helped her to take a deep breath.

  “Yes. Thank you. If Monique would do that, I’d be so grateful. Lenny, you’re the best.”

  “Christina will be fine, Delainey.”

  “Of course she will. I’ll see you soon.”

  Of course her sister would be fine. Of course she would. Lenny had said so. Lenny was a good friend and he would not tell her a lie to placate her. It was for Monique and Lenny’s wedding that she and Brianna had picked out the beautiful pink satin fabric this morning.

  He wouldn’t fail her.

  Christina had to be all right.

  “Brianna, honey, I need to talk to you,” she said as she tapped on her daughter’s door a few minutes later.

  * * *

  DELAINEY TUGGED THE curtain aside to see a nurse leaning over Christina, who was still and pale against the white sheets. Her lips were swollen as if she’d been punched in the mouth, but there was no blood. An ice pack had been wedged against her shoulder and another sat on top of her knee.

  The nurse read the alarm on Delainey’s face and smiled and motioned for Delainey to follow her.

  “She’s meditating,” the nurse whispered. “Says it puts her in the right mind-set so she’ll heal fast and there won’t be any pain.”

  “Is she all right? What happened?” Delainey tried to keep the panic out of her voice, but she was sure she was failing.

  “She hit a tree while avoiding a dog and she’s fine.” This was her sister’s voice coming from behind the curtain.

  Delainey rushed back inside and grabbed her sister’s hand. Her first instinct was to gush and behave in a worried-relative manner. For that she knew Christina would clout her.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay.” She brushed Christina’s long hair back and gently touched the bruise on the side of her sister’s face. “After all, I can’t do all the work on your houses.”

  Christina put her fingers to her swollen lips. “Don’t make me smile. These don’t work very well.” She put the small ice pack on her mouth.

  “What about the dog?”

  Christina’s eyes brightened. “If the dog hadn’t been there, I’d have hit a car that had lost control. Instead I just hit a tree. Then the other car managed to get back on its own side of the road and the brown dog wandered off into the snow.”

  “If she had hit the other car it would have been a head-on collision and things would have been a lot worse,” Lenny Gardner said. Officer Gardner had suddenly appeared beside Delainey, a notebook in hand. “Sorry, Ms. Talbot, I just need a little more information. I need to see your driver’s license.”

  Christina looked at Delainey and pointed to her purse perched on a chair beside the
gurney.

  “How do I look?” Christina asked when the nurse and the police officer had gone.

  Delainey leaned in and said in a low voice, “Like a collagen injection gone wrong. How are your teeth?”

  Her sister probed the situation with her tongue, feeling first her teeth and then her lips. “I’m feeling pretty lucky, but I think my car’s totaled. Have you seen it?”

  “We drove by, but it’s snowing too hard. I couldn’t see much.”

  “I called Sammy.” She laughed a short, almost sad burst. “Luckily he didn’t ask about his pie. It’s probably on the floor of my car.”

  I’ll give him pie in the face, Delainey thought. “The only thing we need to worry about now is you.”

  “You don’t need a thing more to worry about, so I’ll worry about myself, thank you. You should get back to Brianna. Who’s with her?”

  “Monique Beaudin.”

  “She’s Officer Gardner’s fiancée, isn’t she?”

  “And lives two houses down from us. Moved in a couple years ago. Brianna loves her. Used to call her Monkey Lady because the first time they met, Brianna was four and they played monkeys in the backyard. Brianna had been afraid to try crossing the ladder bar on the swing set. Apparently, as a monkey, you can do those kinds of things.”

  The curtain whipped back and Sammy appeared looking harried. Maybe this was his pieless look. She should give the guy a break. He was here and right now he was leaning over her sister, kissing her face and making worried-lover sounds. She hoped this might give him the jolt he needed to think about someone else first for a change.

  She let herself out of the cubical. In the waiting area near the room labeled Triage, Lenny stood speaking with his partner, Officer Doyle. Delainey thanked the officers again for coming to get her.

  “We’ve got another call to go out on.”

  “No problem. My sister’s boyfriend is here. He can give me a ride home. And thank you again.”

  The officers hustled away. The police force here was a group of great people. At least, they were to the law-abiding citizens. From working at a law firm, she knew there was many a criminal who thought otherwise.