A Small-Town Reunion

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“I assume you didn’t make the trip north just to visit me.”

“Why else would I be here?”

“That’s one of the things I’d like to discuss this morning.”

His grandmother may have been nearing eighty, but she remained as observant and shrewd as ever. He quickly drained his coffee and then leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I want another look at Dad’s papers.”

Geneva set her cup aside and folded her hands in her lap. “I can’t possibly imagine what purpose that would serve after all these years.”

“I’m working on a story angle. I think they might help.”

“With a plot element containing striking similarities to the family business? Or some sordid account bearing an uncanny resemblance to the circumstances surrounding your father’s death?”

“I would never do that.” He settled back against his seat. “I resent the implication that you’d think—even for a second—that I might consider it.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. And there was no implication,” she said with steel in her voice. “My questions are always clear and direct, as you well know.”

He opened his mouth to disagree and to ask a few questions of his own, questions that roiled and bubbled up inside him, but he paused until the hottest spike of temper had subsided. Old patterns, old anger.

Calmer, he chose just one question and cleared his throat to smooth the words. “What do I have to do to prove myself?”

“What is it you’re trying to prove, exactly?”

His grandmother waited a beat for his answer, but when she saw there was none coming, she freshened the coffee in her cup and offered him the same. He refused.

“I’d like to know what it is you feel you need to prove to me,” she continued, “because I have a favor to ask. And I don’t want you to think that granting this favor will somehow count toward proving your worth.”

He crossed an ankle over his knee. “You need something from me.”

“As it so happens, yes, I do.”

“Is this a first?”

“Have you been keeping score?”

The glance she gave him over the rim of her cup sparkled with amusement. Interfering old woman. No one else in his life could fill him with so much frustration, resentment and admiration, all at once. And make his chest constrict so tightly with love. “One of us has to keep score,” he said. “For old times’ sake.”

“Then it should be you, I suppose.” She lowered her cup to her lap and turned her face toward the window, her gaze trailing over the bunches of opalescent wisteria dangling through the arbor outside. “I don’t have that kind of time to spare.”

Her admission troubled him. He’d rarely heard her refer to her age. It was difficult to imagine his life without Geneva Chandler in it. She was like the rocky cliffs beyond the edge of her neatly trimmed lawn, standing tall and rough and defiant, year after year, against the pounding ocean waves.

“You don’t have to prove yourself, you know,” she said. “I’m quite satisfied with the man you’ve become. I hope you are, too.”

He shifted in his seat and lowered his foot to the floor, more disturbed by her praise than by her disappointment in him. He’d had more practice dealing with the latter. Much more. “I guess I’m doing okay. So far.”

She spared him an enigmatic smile and lifted her cup to her lips for another sip. “The favor I’m about to ask stems in part from what I wanted to discuss with you today. I’ve decided to leave Chandler House to you.”

His stomach seemed to rise and lodge in his throat. “I don’t want it.”

“Then you can do with it as you see fit after I’m gone. It will be your decision.”

“Damn.” He shoved out of his chair and stalked to the window, staring at that jade-green sweep of lawn, at the ribbony drive leading to the iron gates, and he felt it all weigh on him until he could barely draw breath for his next words. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I’m in excellent health, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Then why did you choose to discuss this with me now? And why are you giving me Chandler House?” He turned to face her, his fingers gripping the sill. “Why not leave it to Tess? She loves this place.”

“Yes, she does. But I’ll see to it that she has the means to build a house of her own design. A new house, a unique one. A home that reflects her talents as an architect. She’ll prefer that, I’m sure.”

“Have you asked her? No, of course not,” he said. “She’d have told me.”

“The only person I’ve discussed this with is Ben.”

Ben Chandler, Geneva’s favorite cousin. Ben would soon marry her friend, Maudie Keene. Charlie Keene’s mother, his new friend Jack’s soon-to-be in-law. Incestuous place, Carnelian Cove.

Geneva calmly sipped her coffee. “I notice you haven’t asked why the estate won’t be inherited by anyone else.”

Dev snorted. His grandmother had never disguised her displeasure in her children or their choices. “I don’t blame you for skipping a generation,” he said.

“No.” Geneva’s faint sigh hinted of weariness. “There’s slightly less … satisfaction there. Besides, I doubt Tess’s mother would care to abandon the city’s social whirl for the quiet of the Cove. She’d sell this place in a flash.”

“And break Tess’s heart.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I could sell it to her.”

“To Tess? She wouldn’t take it, not like that.” Geneva set her cup aside. “Quinn wouldn’t let her.”

“What makes you think I won’t sell it to someone else? Someone outside the family?”

Geneva’s mouth curled, catlike, at the edges. “Would you sell it, Devlin?”

He couldn’t say it; he couldn’t disappoint her. Not again.

Overwhelmed by the challenges of this place—and dreading this favor his grandmother wanted to ask of him—he turned and stared again at the seemingly endless horizon stretching over the countless ocean swells.

“Damn,” he whispered.

CHAPTER FIVE

ADDIE FOUND IT INCREASINGLY difficult to stay focused on her task Saturday afternoon. She hunched at her desk, staring at a depressing spreadsheet and gloomy financial projections on her monitor. Manipulating the figures led her to the same conclusions, even with the outrageously high fee she’d charged Geneva as a down payment for her repair work, her business was still listing in a sea of red ink.

She saved and closed her files and refocused on a much more pleasant scene beyond her shop windows. Bathed in soft sunshine and balmy weather, tourists strolled along Cove Street, stopping for a treat at Giulietta’s Gelateria or pausing to admire the merchants’ displays. It looked as though Cal Penfold’s wine shop was enjoying a brisk business today, and Becca Spaulding seemed to be selling quite a lot of her handmade jewelry.

Addie silently willed the browsers to do more than briefly admire her art before moving on. She’d increase her chances of a sale by at least one hundred percent if only someone would open her door and enter.

One young couple stopped and studied a circular piece in a fruitwood frame—a fanciful rainbow trout foiled in copper with a verdigris finish. The man seemed intrigued, pointing out the brilliant colors and the contrasting textures of the seedy-glass fish and the rough-rolled blues Addie had chosen to represent rippling, shimmering water. The woman shook her head, and the couple moved on.

With a silent sigh, Addie stood and stretched some of her tension away. Rather than stare at columns of numbers or dig into repair work or watch potential customers pass her by, she decided to take a break and enjoy the view on the opposite end of her work space.

Mick O’Shaughnessy bent at the waist to measure and mark a length of shelving. His biceps flexed beneath tan skin as the blade buzzed through the wood, and his blond-tipped locks swung over his forehead. He straightened with the short board in hand, winked at her and sidled through the gap in her counter to nail the new piece in place on the sidewall storage bins.

A woman had to appreciate having her very own handyman, especially when he looked and moved like a big, tawny lion, all golden tones and rippling power. She wasn’t fooled by his slow and easy manner—she’d seen him in explosive action on the ball field, twisting to make a dramatic catch, bulleting the ball to the infield or smashing a home run into the stands. And she was no longer taken in by his slouchy Texas twang—she’d heard too many examples of his biting wit and keen intellect.

She’d met Mick nearly four weeks earlier, when Jack and Quinn had arranged an outing to the local minor league park. Tess had played matchmaker, and Addie had gone along with her plans. Since then, she and the ballplayer had shared a handful of casual dates and several sweet, lingering kisses. There might have been more between them, but his team had been on the road a great deal, and they both worked long hours.

Which was a thin and shabby excuse.

Mick offered everything a woman should want: kindness, generosity, a sense of humor, a solid work ethic. So why didn’t Addie want him as much as she should?

She’d told herself, at first, that she didn’t want to become seriously involved with a man who might be leaving Carnelian Cove at the end of the ball season. Now that her two best friends were getting married and settling down, she’d renewed those same goals for herself—with an emphasis on that settling down part. And settling down meant staying here, in the Cove.

But the fact was that she and Mick didn’t generate the right kind of heat, that white-hot passion that fused a couple together and promised to keep their bond toasty for the long haul. Still, she liked him well enough to hope he might make the Cove his home. And she cared for him enough to dream their relationship might deepen, that their friendship could somehow catch on fire and move to the next step.

It could happen. Relationships took a lot of work, at times, and it was only reasonable that some of them might need more of that work in the early stages. She was willing to try. Was Mick?

“A penny for your thoughts,” he said.

“Huh?” Addie blinked, her cheeks warming as she realized she’d been staring at him. “Oh. Well.” She gestured awkwardly at her desk. “I’m not sure I have any pennies to spare.”

The bell over her door signaled a customer, and she turned to greet a woman and her young daughter. Mick quietly slipped behind her counter to take a break at her work bench. He sipped from his can of soda while she answered their questions about mosaic supplies and sold them a kit for assembling a pretty mirror frame.

“Given any more thought to those stained-glass lessons you mentioned?” Mick asked after her customers had left. He’d returned to his project, hooking his tape over the edge of a board to measure for another length of shelving. “I know a couple of people who might be interested in signing up.”

Addie sank into her desk chair and smoothed a hand over her paperwork. “It’s a frustrating situation. I know I’d sell more supplies. And I’d earn some extra money from tuition, of course. But first I’d have to spend some money to get things set up for the class. Money I don’t have to spare right now.”