by Mary Brady
“Congratulations,” Hunter said as he took her offered hand and kissed her on the cheek.
“Hunter, it’s Bailey’s Cove’s loss that you’re leaving.”
She looked at Delainey and then leaned in to give her a hug of understanding.
Mia was called away by her mother, and Delainey and Hunter headed outside into the warmish air of a prespring sunny afternoon.
When they got to Hunter’s car, she pulled him into her arms. “I’ll miss you. I can’t tell you how much fun it is having you so nearby.”
“I’m sorry, Deelee.” He hugged her to him. “I’m just sorry it works out this way.”
“I know, Hunter.” She pushed up onto her tiptoes and put a soft kiss on his lips. “If you ever need me, need us, we’re here. Be very good to yourself. You are very special to me.”
She wanted to promise to bring Brianna for a visit, but she couldn’t. She could not see him for a long time. Maybe she’d invite him for graduations or send Brianna there for a visit when she was a teenager.
She let go and walked away. And I love you.
When she got to the door, Christina met her. “You two looked close.”
“He’s on his way back to Chicago.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know how I feel about it. There was no chance he was going to stay. The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted him. Now I need to see my daughter.”
“She’s dancing with her new friend Janis.”
Indeed, her dark hair bounced as she hopped and swung her arms. The girls were having fun and she did look the most adorable in her new dress. And she didn’t need to share her mother’s angst.
She and Christina headed back to the table where their parents sat, but before they got there, Christina was intercepted by Gregory Miller. The way the two of them smiled at each other, Sammy the heartbreaker was now far in the past.
“Pardon, folks.” Chief Montcalm’s authoritative voice filled the hall. Quiet spread out in waves across the room. “I would like to propose a toast in honor of the happy couples.”
People started to clap.
“You can wait till I’m finished.” Now there were several chuckles.
“To the beautiful brides, Mia and Monique, and to their worthy grooms, Daniel and Lenny, in the spirit of the Legend of Bailey’s Cove, may every day for these four be better than gold and may all problems in their lives have silver linings.”
The chief raised his glass, as did everyone who could get a hand on one. “Hear, hear!” the crowd shouted, and clinked their knives against their glasses.
Each groom kissed his bride and the love flowing between them filled the room with emotion and many an eye with tears, followed closely by a round of cheers.
* * *
WHEN MONDAY AFTERNOON CAME, Delainey was so proud of herself for surviving two whole days post-Hunter. Luckily, someone had closed his office door. She tried not to think of him being so far away. It would not help to see his empty desk.
Christina was expecting her and Brianna. To help with stripping wallpaper in Dora. When they arrived, there was a lot of noise coming from Cora, more than just Christina could make.
“Wait here on the porch for a couple minutes, Bria. I’ll be out soon.”
Inside, Charlie, Stella and Rufus from Pirate’s Roost were busy peeling wallpaper and stripping paint from woodwork.
Delainey wasn’t sure how her sister got these people, but she was happy for her.
Christina came into the reception hall where Delainey was watching the work going on.
“Who did you choose as a contractor?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“But you have workers.”
“Compliments of the new Mr. and Mrs. MacCarey. I have them for all the demo work on Cora. They are stripping out where the fireplaces have been covered, removing areas of plaster and lath where there’s too much damage, and taking away every modern light fixture in my Cora.”
“Wow. Why?” Delainey looked around at the work they had already gotten done.
“Mia Parker, I mean Mia MacCarey, said these three did demo really well. She also said she’s so excited about what I’m doing she wanted me to get a good start. Best of all, she’s loaning me the money to pay them. She also gave me the name of Henry Markham of Markham Construction, and he’ll be my third bidder for the project.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Mia said to come and see her or call anytime I had a question or needed anything.”
“Why aren’t they on their honeymoon?”
“Lenny and Monique are gone and Mia and Daniel will leave after he testifies in court tomorrow about some forensic stuff he did. I don’t question too much about what he does, ’cause it’s creepy. Pot shards, I don’t mind so much, but the bones.” She shuddered.
“They did net him a wife with whom he is madly in love.”
“Lucky man.” Her sister sighed. “Say, why don’t you look around in here. I want a couple of words with Brianna.”
“She’s on the porch.”
“She’s on the porch with her face pressed up to the glass.”
Delainey turned and the two of them laughed at the squashed nose against the window.
Christina and Brianna had an animated conversation for about a minute and a half, including interesting hand gestures by Brianna. When they were finished, they came hand in hand to get her.
An hour later when they were in Dora, knee-deep, so to speak, in wallpaper removal, her parents showed up for a surprise visit.
“We have news, girls.”
Delainey stepped down off the ladder and washed the old paper paste from her hands. Christina followed suit.
“What’s up?” Christina asked when their parents were sitting at the kitchen table.
“Your mother is having surgery in three weeks on a Tuesday morning in Portland.”
“Mom, I’m so proud of you,” Delainey said, and got up to hug her mother. “Way to take care of yourself.”
There were childcare options, Delainey had found, but no real nibbles so far. Everything would be all right. It had to be.
* * *
THERE WAS ANOTHER letter from the university when Delainey got home. More of the general info usually sent out to new students. She remembered this stuff from when she was starting out as an undergraduate.
She opened the letter anyway.
Dear Delainey Talbot,
Congratulations! It is my pleasure to inform you...
She had already been accepted to the program. Maybe the letter was a duplicate.
...the Law Scholarship Committee has selected you to be a recipient of the Mary Jane Hicks Memorial Scholarship in the amount of 100 percent (in-state, resident) tuition for your Juris Doctor degree. A living stipend will be provided for your room and board. Again, congratulations on your achievement.
Delainey dropped to her knees.
“Mommy, Mommy, what’s wrong?” Brianna wrapped her arms around her mother.
“I’m happy. I’m just so happy.”
“What did we win this time?” Brianna’s guarded expression held concern and Delainey knew she was responsible for that.
“I got good news from the university. They’re paying for me to go to law school. They’ll let me go for free.” I’ve got to call Hunter, she thought.
Hunter.
Hunter had done this. He’d paid for her tuition and room and board or somehow influenced the selection committee.
This was too much. She couldn’t let him do this, and wow, she should not have told Brianna. What if she couldn’t accept it?
“Hey, sweetie. Would you go play in your room while I make a phone call?”
“Okay,
” her daughter said agreeably, and took off down the hallway to her room.
She called Hunter’s mobile number. “This is Hunter Morrison. Please leave a message.”
“Hunter, I got the letter from the university today. They gave me a scholarship for tuition and room and board. I don’t know what you did to make that happen, but if the money is yours, please take it back. You’ve already done so much. I appreciate it, I really do, but I can’t take more of your money.” Shut up. “Thanks.”
The sound of Hunter’s voice had made her miss him more than she ever had in her life.
He was gone, but his influence in her life would last forever. She had sent the DNA sample from Brianna to the lab where he had set up payment. He had already put a generous amount of money into her checking account for Brianna’s care, which she in turn had transferred to a college fund.
But he was always going to be somewhere else. If not Chicago, then another city in the huge wide world. It wasn’t supposed to hurt so much when your friends were happy and successful.
“Mommy.”
She found a smile for Brianna and sat down on the sofa. “Hey, sweetie pie, whatcha got there?” She pointed to the oddly wrapped gift with the frilly pink bow on top in her daughter’s hands.
“It’s for you. It’s for your celebration.”
“My celebration?”
“Because the ’versity is paying for your law school.”
Delainey pulled Brianna up onto her lap and took the package. “Wow, is this what you’ve been working on so hard in your room?”
“Aunt Christina helped me get the stuff to make it.”
Delainey hefted it. “So what is it?”
“I can’t tell you. You have to open it.”
“Is it a sweater?”
“It would be bigger and squishy if it was a sweater. Open it.”
Delainey pulled a string to open it but stopped. “Is it a new pair of shoes?”
“I can’t make shoes. Open it, Mommy.”
Pulling the ends of the ribbon, Delainey opened it this time. It was a small heart-shaped box with shells and beads glued all over the outside.
“It’s beautiful, sweetie. You made this for me?”
“It was supposed to be for Mother’s Day, but I couldn’t wait.”
Delainey squeezed her daughter. “I love it. What do you suppose I could put in it?”
“How about some of your jewelry?”
“Let’s go get my jewelry box and see what I should put in there.”
When Brianna opened the box, Delainey thought about the photo of Micky Johnson.
Her daughter stood looking into the box, holding the lid open with one hand.
“Mommy, I want a daddy.”
Delainey took her daughter’s hand off the box. “I know you do, sweetie.”
“I thought Hunter could be him. He liked us, didn’t he?”
“He likes us a whole bunch.”
“So why can’t we get him?”
“He lives in Chicago.”
“Is that very far away?”
“I’d say very, very far away.”
“Why?”
* * *
HUNTER REVIEWED THE CASES he had been given. Small problems, relatively speaking, things easily dealt with if you knew the laws and the precedents, which he did. He’d yet to be given anything with meat.
Three weeks had passed since he’d landed in Chicago. When he’d gotten to the office the next day, his secretary had been reassigned, his boss had been promoted and the Hale case was being picked apart by the partners as one of the most substantial cases of the year.
Every person he would have called friend had moved on to other jobs, other parts of the world, other friends.
The phone on his desk rang.
“Morrison,” he answered.
“Mr. Morrison, Mr. Hale is here to see you.”
“Send him in.”
“Mr. Reed Maxwell from Maxwell Investments is due in ten minutes.”
Maxwell was based in Montana and Hunter trusted the man completely, but he needed to give Hale some reassurances.
“It’s all right, Margie. Send him in.”
He stood and came around his desk to greet the beleaguered investment fund manager.
In the tangle of threads that made up Hale and Blackenstock, Hunter was still not sure if the man was a wronged businessman or another Ponzi scheme operator who was looking to cover his assets because the whole thing was about to come crashing down on his head. Only time and a lot more digging were going to uncover this one.
“Mr. Hale,” Hunter said as he reached out to shake the man’s hand.
“I only need a minute. I just wanted to say there isn’t as much attention to detail as I expected from your firm, Mr. Morrison.”
“What can I do for you right now, Mr. Hale?” Hunter went around his desk and sat down. Hale took a chair on the other side. He didn’t behave like the schmoozing swindler type, but many a better man than he had been fooled. That was exactly why they got away with billions of dollars a year of other people’s money.
“You can take back control of things.”
“Much of what is done here is compartmentalized and handed out to those who will best handle a situation.” What he could do about that was to play the corporate game, get a partnership and then have enough power to accomplish getting things done the way he saw fit, but he wasn’t going to tell that to Hale. “I can see if there’s anything I can facilitate, but in the meantime, is there anything else I might help you with?”
“Does the SEC’s oversight of counterparty credit risk exposure have any teeth yet?”
“There’s been progress, but the oversight data is just coming in and still needs to be analyzed. And as you know, the funds under Hale and Blackenstock have not been transparent, which should always be an SEC trigger.”
“I guess I’m tired of pacing my hotel room. I keep feeling I should be doing more.”
“Realizing that things were off course and doing something about it is the right thing to do for now. I wish I had reassurances but I don’t at this point.” All he had were platitudes. Without control, there wasn’t a decent thing he could tell the man.
When leaving the office, Hale greeted Reed Maxwell as a friend. That was one stroke in Hale’s favor. He’d need a lot more before Hunter would be giving him a seal of approval.
After his day’s appointments, meetings and paperwork, he took a taxi to his condo overlooking Lake Michigan and sat in front of the windows staring out at the city.
With a flick of the remote, he shut down all the lights in the living room. In the darkness he could see the airliners out over the lake heading for Milwaukee and points north. To the south the lights of Navy Pier, always burning, sparkled in the night. During the day he’d see the endless colors of the lake, calm and quiet, predictable compared to the ocean.
Delainey would love the view. Her eyes would get big and magical and she’d ask a million questions. She’d want to know what everything was, what every light lit, what all the people were doing. If he took her to the Magnificent Mile, the Old Water Tower would interest her more than the shopping along Michigan Avenue.
Like some lovesick teen, he’d listened to her voice mail twice—all right, three times. He couldn’t call her yet, talk to her, though she’d been brave enough to call him. He’d been right: she could get over him again if he just got out of her life.
He realized he hadn’t had even one conversation that came close to being personal all day long. He hadn’t, in fact, had one in the three weeks since speaking with Shamus and Connie after he left Delainey at the wedding reception.
He had no idea what was going on in the lives of the people he now worked with. There was no bath
room broadcasting system at a law firm in downtown Chicago. It had never occurred to him before to be interested in the lives of his colleagues.
Most of his day was spent overseeing mergers, delving into businesses to see if they were viable and participating in conferences about the latest from the SEC or financial regulators or the newest Wall Street reform law.
A mention of honesty or morality never entered the equation unless specifically asked for. What was legal and ethical one day might have shades of gray the next.
Hell, he even missed what Carol called “Shamus’s awful tea.”
But he was just being maudlin. When he was back at full status, he’d have no time to even think about Deelee or Bailey’s Cove or Shamus’s tea.
Disgusted, he got dressed in his workout clothes and returned to the couch and the view. Maybe he’d go to the gym in the morning before the office.
He hit the remote for the drapes and put his feet on the new medium brown sofa. Even his couch had no character. And one of these days, he was actually going to have to try out his new bed.
He folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BRIANNA HAD STAYED over at Janis’s house last night and Delainey decided to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee with her feet up on the coffee table in her own living room by herself and read a book. And not worry about her daughter—well, not worry very much about Brianna as she spent yet another night at a friend’s house.
Okay, so she was trying to read a book.
She put the book on the coffee table and got up to wander the house. Finally, perching on a chair at the kitchen window, she could see that the warming April sun had brought up young leaves and buds to join the crocuses.
Her mom was doing well in rehab. The doctor said the hip surgery couldn’t have gone better.
Christina had a great place to live since Dora had been touched up, and she might be falling in love with Greg.
And...
Delainey kept expecting to settle into life without Hunter. She had chosen her daughter’s best interests, after all, and that should be enough to console her.
