by Mary Brady
The door to the conference room burst open and the man himself burst in. Rotund, fringe of white hair, scalp red, face flushed and cigar stub between his teeth.
“They found something.”
The group stood as one. “We have to go,” Camden Flynn announced as he pushed his chair back in under the table and did the same for Maxine, who had sat next to him.
“Maybe you should come with us, Mr. Morrison.”
“I believe I’ll be staying here. You can call me if you need me.” He gave them each a business card with his mobile phone number on it.
“You hold on to that package for us,” Mr. Hammond said as he waved a finger at Hunter. “We’ll be back for it. Make no mistake about that.”
* * *
BRIANNA WAS MORE than excited. The week was over and the wedding day had arrived. While the brides and grooms, with their close family and friends, were off at the tiny old church-turned-museum getting hitched, the guests gathered.
The wedding reception, which would have been in Pirate’s Roost if the small crowd hadn’t grown to a throng, was now in the “new” hall. It was constructed in the 1950s when fire destroyed the old city buildings.
The hall was spacious and decorated like a fairyland by the townsfolk who wanted to wish four of their valued citizens good luck and happiness.
“Oh, look, Mommy.” Brianna pointed excitedly. “There are two cakes with a bride and the man on each.”
“Groom. The men are the grooms.”
“That one’s Monique and Officer Gardner.” Brianna pointed to the groom next to the bride with curling blond hair. “Can I go look?”
“Let’s go together.” Delainey was unsure if Brianna’s “looking finger” might get out of control and snatch a bit of frosting.
Brianna wore a pair of white gloves with her pink belted dress with a full skirt, matching sash and rose at her waist. She carried a drawstring purse with a couple of tissues and heaven knew what in it.
Delainey wore the blue dress. All of her family and all of her friends knew the little blue dress. She should probably stop wearing it because she’d bought it eight years ago, and it was more apt for a twenty-one-year-old. Short, open-weave silk with accent tufts running vertically, scoop neckline with a loose bow and capped sleeves. Hopelessly out of style, but it had a certain quality that still garnered compliments, especially when she wore her open-toed three-inch black heels.
“Why, don’t you two look like princesses,” Christina said when she came to join them to inspect the cakes.
She and Brianna traded compliments. They did look great.
Christina wore a fashionable green silk dress. The lace neckline came up high in the front and dipped below her scapula in the back. The hemline made her look all legs. With her hair swept up, she looked stunning. The contrast between her and her sister pointed out how hopelessly small-town Delainey was.
“Christina, you look amazing,” Delainey told her sister.
“Thank you. Mom and Dad will be here shortly.”
Christina nabbed a tasty-looking hors d’oeuvre from a tray passed by one of the doting Pirate’s Roost waitstaff. The red-bearded waiter then did a quick squat so Brianna could make a choice. Brianna slid off a glove and obliged. “Monique and Mia were so kind to invite them.”
“Mommy, there’s Janis. Can I go over and see her?” There seemed to be a budding friendship between her daughter and the child who had given her so much trouble.
“Are you sure?” Delainey wanted to give her daughter a moment to think before she got into something she couldn’t get out of.
“Yeah. I think she’s just sad sometimes.”
“Then go for it.”
Brianna headed across the room, clearly proud of how cute she looked.
“What’s that all about?”
“Janis has been mean at school and I think Brianna wants to see if she’s all right.”
“Bright child.”
“She is. She is the reason I can get out of bed in the morning and work all day and do it all the next day. So still no Sammy?”
“He’s gone for good.” Christina’s sigh sounded like relief.
“And you’re all right with that?”
“I am. In fact, this town seems to have options.”
“Do tell.”
Christina nodded her head in the direction of Gregory Miller, who was helping his grandmother into a chair. He looked up and grinned at Christina.
“I see. Good choice. I like him.”
“What’s up?” Christina asked, and then added, “And don’t act all innocent. You’ve been acting distracted for days now.”
“Hunter asked if he could adopt Brianna.”
“Isn’t that a bit odd?”
“He says he wants to be a part of something real.”
“Odder still. Why doesn’t he move here?”
“He never wanted to be here when he was younger and I think he’s afraid to get too close to anyone after Callista.”
“What did you say?”
“I haven’t said anything yet. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to tie him to us and have him regret it someday.”
“Yeah, like that’ll happen. He loves the two of you like crazy.”
Delainey gave a brief laugh. “I’m not sure he’s capable of that. He’s afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Giving up Chicago for the backside of nowhere,” Delainey said, and sighed.
“Like you’re afraid to give up the backside of nowhere,” Christina countered.
“That woman frightened both of us. I know the world isn’t all as crazy as she is, but seeing her with Brianna shook Hunter. Shook me, too.”
“Oh, honey. I wish there was some way things could work out for you two, you three, really.”
“Brianna—”
“Comes first. I know. You’re such a good mom. Oh, look.” Christina pointed.
It seemed as though every police officer and firefighter in town and two soldiers, all in uniform, were setting themselves up in two lines. At the end of one line was Chief Montcalm and at the end of the other was Officer Doyle. The formal wedding pictures must have been over and the happy couples’ arrival imminent.
Brianna came running back. “I told Janis she looked very pretty today and she said she thought my dress was gorgeous. We were like friends.”
“Good, sweetie. Friends are worth the trouble.” She hugged Brianna close and then squeezed her sister’s arm.
“Here they come.”
Monique Beaudin Gardner and Officer Lenny Gardner led the way. Monique’s long white dress flowed and sparkled, and at Monique’s side, Lenny’s uniform made him look more movie star than police officer. So beautiful and handsome the couple was.
Applause burst from the crowd.
Mia Parker MacCarey and Daniel MacCarey came next. Mia’s sleek long-sleeved white dress gave her a regal quality, and Daniel MacCarey’s dark tux made him handsome enough to take one’s breath away.
“What a well-matched pair of couples,” Delainey said.
“I’m drooling here,” Christina responded. “They are all so good-looking. Is it true Daniel came here to destroy Mia’s life?”
“Haha, not intentionally, but they’ll have some fun stuff to tell the grandchildren.”
Brianna started to giggle and Delainey saw why. Brown Dog was strutting behind the newly married MacCareys. When the crowd began to titter, Big Charlie Pinion ran up, swept the animal into his arms and ran out of the hall red-faced and whispering to the dog.
“Perhaps we know who feeds Brown Dog,” Delainey said.
“Do we get cake now?”
Delainey laughed, as it was Christina who’d asked and not Brianna, but her dau
ghter was listening closely for the answer.
“The brides will decide when we eat cake, my sweets,” she said, encompassing them both. “First we get to go in line to congratulate the happy couples.”
“Here you are.”
“Gramma!” Brianna leaped up to hug her grandparents.
“We were just about to go get in the reception line,” Delainey said.
“I think your mother will sit for a while,” Delainey and Christina’s father said as he helped his wife to a chair.
Both sisters turned to their mother as she struggled to sit.
“Mom, what’s the matter?” Delainey asked.
“It’s nothing, dear.”
“She fell getting to the car and now she can hardly walk.”
“You’re exaggerating, dear,” Helen Talbot said to her husband.
“Christina, would you take Brianna to the reception line?”
The two of them departed, leaving Delainey with her parents.
“Talk to me, Mom. Honestly. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Her doctor told her to have her hip replaced two years ago and she keeps thinking none of us can do without her.” Edward Talbot sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“Mom.”
“Who will take care of Brianna? During fishing season your dad won’t be able to.” Her mother was almost in tears.
Delainey scrambled for some solution to offer her mother and the only thing she could come up with was, “Hunter offered to support Brianna. I can use the money for someone to help me look after her.”
“Honey.” Her mother sat forward with a wince of pain. “Does this mean he thinks Brianna is his?”
“He said he didn’t care and he didn’t want to know unless he had to.”
“Maybe you should see these.”
Her mother dug in her large purse and came up with an envelope. She handed it to Delainey.
Inside were several photographs of a woman, by herself and with other people. The studio photograph showed Delainey one truth. Brianna’s intense dark eyes came from her side of the family.
“It’s my great-great-grandmother Ethel Mann. Isn’t she pretty? Look at all that hair. It could be Brianna’s hair.”
Her daughter’s dark eyes did not come from Hunter’s ancestral uncle, nor his great-grandmother. The eyes of her daughter came from Ethel Mann, from her own side of the family. Darkness wrenched her heart. More evidence Hunter was not her daughter’s father. Until now she hadn’t recognized how hard she had clung to the belief Brianna could be Hunter’s.
“Can I borrow these?” Delainey held out the photos.
“Certainly, dear.” Her mother put an arm around Delainey’s shoulder.
“Did you hear? Did you hear?” Christina and Brianna came running up to the table, hair flying and eyes bright.
“Hear what?” her dad asked.
“They found the treasure. They actually found the treasure of Liam Bailey. It’s at Little Cove Park.”
“What exactly did they find?” Delainey asked. She felt in a contrary state of mind right now.
“Three coins. Old ones. One gold and two silver. They were just where Joseph Bradish’s map said...in a safe harbor, near a big tree where the rocks pointed to a cave.”
Delainey found no excitement in something the town had been searching for for almost two hundred years. Liam Bailey did have a treasure after all. As a Bailey’s Cove resident, she should have been thrilled. “Okay, so why isn’t the place going wild?”
“Hmm, aren’t you grouchy?” Her sister tugged on a lock of Delainey’s hair.
“Christina, can we see the treasure?”
Delainey was sure their mother asked the question to intercept Christina’s attention.
“They’re looking for the rest.”
“So all they found were the three coins?” their dad asked.
“Ah-yuh. A treasure of three.” Christina snorted. “But we’re hopeful.”
Delainey stopped listening and looked out into the crowd. After a few minutes she understood the hope in her heart was searching for Hunter.
A moment later someone took her hand.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“YOU LOOKED AS if you could use a dance,” Hunter said to her as he pulled her to the dance floor. He was dressed in the charcoal suit he’d looked so devastatingly alpha in the day she had hiked her skirt up and sat on his desk. The brides and grooms had taken to the floor and started the dancing and had asked their friends to join them.
“With anybody but you,” she responded. Go. Please go, she thought. This is hard enough. She could not love him any more, so his gallant gesture was wasted on her.
He spun her around and pulled her against him, raising their clasped hands for a slow dance. “Deelee, you’re so grumpy.”
“Sorry, I’m worried about my mother.” She tried to breath normally and still keep her breasts from pressing against his chest.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Only if you can convince her to have the hip replacement she needs.”
His body swayed with hers in a way that would soon drive her mad with wanting him.
“Your mother will do what she needs to do. She’s like you, Delainey.”
His gaze challenged her when she was about to retort and then he brought the back of her hand to his lips for a quick kiss.
“I have some good news. I don’t know that it will cheer you up at all, though.”
Chicago fell into Lake Michigan and you’re staying here?
“They caught the man Callista hired to put antifreeze into one man’s drink and to slash the tires of another. She’ll be put away somewhere for a very long time.”
“How did she find out you were in Bailey’s Cove? You said it couldn’t be your secretary.”
“Apparently, my secretary has a sister who was in desperate need of money and to Callista that was Stalking 101. She bribed the sister, who often frequented our offices in Chicago.”
“I’m sorry all those things happened to you.”
“Callista White didn’t do the worst thing. I did.”
“What did you do?” She couldn’t hold herself away any longer and relaxed against him. When she did, the hand at her back moved up a few inches and pressed her to him as he dropped his chin to the top of her head.
Please save me now, she thought. The slow self-destruct was agonizing.
“I came here and messed up your nice ordered life.” He coughed and cleared the roughness in his voice. “I caused you more pain than I ever intended.”
She didn’t say anything and he put his fingers under her chin and lifted ever so gently until she had to look at him.
“I’m fine, Hunter. At least, I’m going to be fine. Brianna and I still have a great life. I’ll get to school and it will get even better.”
“What else is going on?”
He still held her chin, but now he rubbed his thumb gently back and forth.
“Hunter, my dear friend.” She put a hand flat on his chest. “My mother has some pictures. They are of her great-great-grandmother. The woman could be Brianna’s mother, she looks so much like her.”
“So those large dark eyes do not come from my great-grandmother.”
“For all the trouble it would cause you, I can’t help but feel sad about that.”
“Brianna is your child and I’ll be there for her in any way I can. No trouble. Ever.”
She leaned back and studied his face. “This isn’t an ultimatum, but I’ll sign the adoption papers if you agree to a DNA test.” She had to know for sure what his reaction was.
“I know.” A tiny smile curled his lips and his deep blue gaze assured her his words were the truth in his he
art. “I just wasn’t ready to give up everything. The DNA test seemed as though it would be so final. I guess I was afraid you would kick me out of your lives if I had no claim to Brianna.”
“I’ve been trying to get rid of you for fifteen years and it hasn’t happened yet. The only way you’ll ever get completely out of our lives will be by your choice.”
His arm tightened around her and with one hand, he tenderly pressed her cheek back to his chest.
When the music stopped and they started to head toward where her parents sat, he handed her the papers from his pocket. “These will get things started.”
She stopped and opened the packet. “You have adoption papers on you?”
“I’ve had them on me for several days.”
“You left the father’s name blank.”
“I told you. I don’t care who her father is. Even if he’s a scummy reprobate,” he teased.
She nudged his arm, giving him a wry smile and acknowledging his humor.
“Would you like to say hi to my folks?”
“I only have a few minutes left. I’m leaving for Chicago in a few hours and I have to drive to Portland. I’d like to see Shamus and Connie before I go.”
“This is it? You’re leaving for good right now?”
“There doesn’t seem to be a good time. There’s work I need to do on the Hale case and I don’t think I can do it here. Morrison and Morrison will get a large finder’s fee for the case. Shamus and I have already worked it out.”
“For sure, Hunter, I wasn’t worried about that.” She chided him with a smile.
“Also, there’s a pair of struggling attorneys from Portland who would like to spend a few years helping Shamus bring Morrison and Morrison back into the black.”
“Two?”
“They are a package, man and wife, and she’s expecting.”
“You seem to have settled everything. I’ll walk you to your car.” If she had only a few minutes left with Hunter, she didn’t want to share it with anybody, even Brianna, but then, she had already established she was the worst mother.
Mia smiled and stepped away from a group of people as she and Hunter approached her. She looked stunning as her long sleek dress seemed to flow with her movements.
