A Small-Town Reunion (19 page)

He lengthened his stride, leaving Addie behind, and opened the passenger door for her mother.

Lena hesitated. “What kind of car is this?”

“A Maserati.” Dev took her elbow and helped her inside. Addie caught a glimpse of her disapproving expression before he closed the door.

“It’s a sedan,” he told Addie as he guided her to the driver’s side and reached for the handle on the back door. “A family car. Very suburban. All the Italian race car drivers’ wives use these to haul their kids to soccer practice.”

She smiled as she climbed awkwardly into the
backseat. Though there was much less leg room, the leather seats in the back still felt as though they’d cost a fortune.

“Addie says I’m taking you to her shop, so that’s where we’re going.” He switched on the ignition and backed out of the spot. “Let me know if you’d like me to turn on the heat.”

“I’m fine. Thank you.” Lena turned her head toward her side window. End of conversation.

Dev glanced at Addie in his rearview mirror and gave her a sympathetic smile. She smiled back and settled against the cushiony seat, determined to endure her mother’s silence without letting it tie her stomach in knots.

It felt so good to let someone else handle the driving for a change.

A
DDIE AWOKE WITH A GROAN
the following morning and shifted to her back, trying to find a more comfortable position. The sofa in her mother’s living room wasn’t the best place to spend the night, but she’d been too tired to care much where she slept, as long as it involved a horizontal surface.

A thump overhead told her Lena was up and out of bed. Addie slitted one eye open and checked the time on the cable box beneath the television. Seven o’clock. It appeared that four hours’ sleep was all she was going to get.

She tugged the blanket under her chin and snuggled against the cushions, craving a few more minutes of drowsy warmth and relaxation before heading back to her shop and all the chores waiting for her there. Just a little while longer to float on
memories of last night before facing the day—and her mother.

Dev had been so sweet last night. So patient, so kind. So different than what she’d expected. First dates were all about making a good first impression, but she and Dev were years past that point. Besides, they’d already shared an impromptu dinner. And spent the night together.

The fact that he’d tried so hard to make the evening special for her was endearing. Nearly suspicious. What was he up to?

She groaned again, upset with herself for searching for reasons to explain his behavior. What did it say about her, that she’d carried a torch all these years for a man she had believed was a terrible human being? That she’d looked forward to spending the evening with someone she’d once suspected might treat her badly? That she’d gone to bed with him?

The truth was far too complicated to understand without several more hours’ sleep and at least one cup of coffee. Addie shoved off the sofa, folded the throw she’d used for a blanket and headed into the kitchen to start the coffeemaker.

A few minutes later Lena padded in on her fluffy slippers, wrapped in a pink robe and looking better than Addie felt. “I’ll make you breakfast before you go.”

“Thank you.” Addie focused on the promise of food and ignored the invitation to leave. She opened her mouth to ask her mother how she was feeling but decided Lena was probably tired of hearing that question. “I was going to settle for a cup of coffee, but breakfast sounds great.”

“All I have to offer is a bagel and fruit.”

“I’ll take it.”

Lena sliced through the roll and dropped the two halves in her toaster. “Do you plan on seeing Dev again?”

“I’m sure I’ll be seeing him often this summer, with Charlie’s wedding, and all.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” Lena turned to face her, leaned against the counter and folded her arms. “Are you thinking of becoming involved with him, socially?”

Socially
. Addie frowned. She was in no hurry for a rerun of the scene in the ladies’ lounge at The Breakers. But she’d survived the encounter with Courtney Whitfield. And dancing with Dev had been worth enduring all the uncomfortable moments of the evening.

Being with Dev was worth anything.

Except jeopardizing her mother’s health. “He hasn’t asked me,” Addie told her.

“But if he does?”

“It depends, I suppose.”

Lena turned away to deal with the food. She pulled a bowl of grapes and some cream cheese from the refrigerator, dropped the toasted bagel halves on a plate, grabbed a couple of paper napkins and set everything on the table. “Sit and get started. I’ll get the coffee.”

Addie slid into her chair, wishing she’d chosen a drive-through breakfast over this continuation of last night’s argument. She didn’t want to do anything more to upset her mother. She snapped a few grapes from their stem and popped one into her mouth.

Lena set a mug in front of her with an angry-
sounding clunk and filled it with coffee. “You’re making a big mistake, getting mixed up with Dev Chandler.”

“I’m not mixed up with him.”

“What do you know about him, anyway? He’s never settled down. He probably never intends to.” Lena sat and wrapped her hands around her own mug. “He has different values than you do.”

“What can you possibly know about his life or his values?” Addie lifted her mug and blew on her coffee to cool it. “He’s a grown man. He’s not the same person he was ten years ago.”

Lena spread cheese on her bagel. “Did you see that car?” she asked. “What kind of a car is that for a grown man with sensible values to drive? He probably paid more for that car than you make in goodness knows how many years.”

“Is that what’s troubling you? That Dev has money?” Addie set down her coffee. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s not the money. It’s how he chooses to spend it.”

“If he promised to sell that car, would you be happy to hear that he’d asked me out again?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Mom.” Addie shoved her half of the bagel aside. She wouldn’t be eating anything here this morning. And it seemed there was no way to avoid any unpleasantness. “I’m trying to understand why you have this prejudice against Dev. He’s never done anything to harm you. And he was extremely kind last night. Kind to us both.”

Lena pressed her lips together and shifted her gaze to the window.

Addie tried to think of something else to say, some way to break through her mother’s irrational resentment, anything to get this discussion back on track. She twisted her mug in a tight circle on the table, feeling the familiar, gravitational pull of her mother’s wishes suppressing her own desires, distorting their shape and meaning.

Sometimes pieces never fit together, and certain patterns never seemed to make sense. They simply existed.

W
HEN DEV STEPPED THROUGH
the door of A Slice of Light on Sunday afternoon, the look on Addie’s face told him exactly how hard he’d have to fight to get things back where they belonged. He stopped at her counter, separated from her by the barrier. “How is she?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“How are you?”

“Fine.” Addie hid a yawn behind a hand and then touched her soldering iron to another spot on one of Geneva’s windows. She wasn’t wasting any time getting them finished.

“Fine enough to have dinner with me tonight?” he asked.

“I should take something over to my mother’s.”

“I could arrange for another takeout dinner.” He leaned an elbow on her counter, hoping he looked more casual than he felt. “I think I’m a pretty good takeout cook.”

“Yes, you are.” She gave him a brief, wistful smile and then quickly glanced away. Too brief, too wistful. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

He wanted to leap over this barrier between them, to stalk into her work space and haul her into his arms and make her understand the real reason he’d come here today. He gripped the edge of the counter, his muscles bunching, but his feet stayed stuck in place. “Because your mother doesn’t approve of me?”

“I don’t know why she feels the way she does.” Addie frowned and bent closer to her work. “You were very considerate last night.”

“Damn it, Addie.” He shoved away from the counter, searching for control of his temper. He’d never raised his voice to her, that he could remember, and he was ashamed he’d done it now. She was obviously exhausted and unhappy. “I wasn’t being considerate. I was—”

Trying to prove his love? Trying to get into her mother’s good graces? Taking care of her? Courting her? Which explanation would she want to hear? Which explanation could he bear to admit?

She lowered her head and scrubbed at a bit of glass. One of her clips slid to the side, and her hair draped softly over the back of her neck. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like my mother and I are some kind of charity case.”

“Good. Because I didn’t mean it that way.”

He watched her work for a few minutes, while a strained and miserable silence stretched between them. “Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“I’m waiting to see if my mother will be scheduled for any testing tomorrow. I’d like to go with her.”

Medical testing that would likely be finished well before the dinner hour.

He’d give it one more try. Because it seemed, after
all, that he had no pride where Addie was concerned. “Will you have dinner with me any night this week?”

She slowly raised her eyes to his. Just for an instant, like the click of a camera shutter, he saw in her features a mirror of the same emotion that was coursing deep inside him. And then the shutter came down, and it was gone.

“No,” she said.

A
DDIE’S HEART BROKE
a little when Dev sent get-well flowers to her mother on Monday. It broke a little more when he sent a bouquet of lemon-yellow daisies to her shop on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Tess stopped by with coffee. Just for a prewedding check, she claimed. Just to make sure the bridesmaid dress was ready to go and that Addie was still planning on joining her friends for the salon appointment on the morning of the wedding. And by the way—did Addie know Dev was thinking of sticking around after summer? Geneva had mentioned he’d talked with her about a long-term stay in her guest house.

On Thursday, Charlie charged in at lunchtime, dropped into one of Addie’s work stools and complained about the salon appointment. And had Addie heard that Dev was meeting with the chairman of the English department at the local university about a teaching job?

On Friday morning, Dev called while Addie was in the shower. He wanted to find out how Lena was doing, he said. And he had to check on the progress on the windows, because Geneva was nagging him about it. And he missed Addie, more than he could say on the
stupid telephone to some stupid machine. She listened to the recording of his voice seven times before erasing his message.

O
N
F
RIDAY AFTERNOON
, Dev stalked into A Slice of Light and flipped the sign on the door to Closed.

“What are you doing?” Addie asked.

“Taking you to the wedding rehearsal.”

“I don’t have to leave for another two hours.”

“We’re taking the scenic route.” He strode behind her counter, unplugged her soldering iron, grabbed her hand and dragged her toward her door. “I have something to tell you.”

“Is it about my mother?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God.”

“She’s not sick.” He waited while Addie locked her shop, and then he led her down the block to his car, opened the passenger side door and helped her in. “Not yet, anyway,” he added.

“What is this about?” she asked as he pulled away from the curb. “Where are you really taking me?”

“To your mother’s apartment.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to go steady with you, but she’s grounded you for life. I’m hoping we can negotiate better terms.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“That’s exactly what this feels like.”

Addie stared out her side window while they made the trip across town, her fingers laced in a white-knuckled fist. “I missed you,” she said at last.

“Same goes.” He turned into Lena’s apartment complex. “You got my message this morning, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry I—”

“Don’t apologize.” He shot her a narrow-eyed glance. “Just tell me whether or not you erased the evidence of my incoherent babbling.”

“I did.”

“Okay, then.” He nodded. “No apology necessary.”

He pulled to a stop in one of the guest spaces near her mother’s apartment and switched off the ignition. “Here’s the deal. Geneva found out what happened to that money your mother supposedly embezzled all those years ago.”

“How did—”

“I won’t reveal my sources. Or my methods. I’ll only admit that I put her up to it. And that I waited to tell you about this until I’d gathered all the facts.” He glanced over Addie’s shoulder at Lena’s door. “I’m fed up with the enmity between the Suttons and the Chandlers. I’m not going to play Romeo to your Juliet. I’m ending this. Today.”

He touched a hand to Addie’s cheek. “Are you with me?”

“Yes.”

“No matter what happens?”

She took his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Okay, then.” He started to open his door and then settled back against his seat. “One more thing.”

“Yes?”

“I’m driving down to the city in a few days to get some more of my things.”

“I heard you were moving back to the Cove.”

“I want you to go with me. We can make a long weekend of it,” he said with a flash of inspiration, “spend some time in the wine country.” At a place with a whirlpool bathtub for two, he thought. And a shower that didn’t run out of hot water before he’d finished with the soap.

“A vacation weekend?” She smiled. “I’d love to.”

“And when we get back, I want you to move in with me.”

Her smile faded.

“We’ll talk about it later.” He opened the door, jogged around to the passenger side and helped her out. “First we have to survive the next half hour.”

D
EV KNOCKED ON HER
mother’s door, and a few seconds later, Addie heard footsteps on the tiled entry floor inside. “What do you want?” Lena’s voice was muffled through the door.

“To talk to you,” Dev stated.

“I have nothing to say to you,” came the answer.

“Mom.” Addie knocked again. “Please. Let us in.”

A few more seconds passed, and then the locks clicked open and Lena faced them, barring the path into her home. “What is this about?” she asked.

“We don’t have a lot of time.” Dev glanced pointedly at his watch. “Addie is due at Charlie’s wedding rehearsal in another hour or so.”

Addie didn’t ever think she’d seen her mother
angrier—or more afraid—and the full force of her rage and distress was directed at her daughter.

Dev’s hand closed around Addie’s. She turned her wrist, slid her fingers through his and squeezed again. Choosing him. She took a deep breath and sidled past her mother, pulling Dev inside with her. “This won’t take long,” she said.

Lena followed them through her small apartment to the living room in the rear. Beyond the wide picture window framed with plain beige drapes, an elderly man walked his overweight bulldog and two young children played a noisy game of tag.

“What is this about?” Lena asked again as Dev took a seat beside Addie on the matching beige sofa. “Why are you here?”

“There is no easy way to start this conversation,” Dev told her, “so I’ll come straight to the point.” He settled back against the cushion. “Why do you hate the Chandlers so much?”

Lena’s gaze shifted to Addie. “You know why.”

“No, I don’t,” Dev said, directing her attention back to him. “I’ve been told that my father turned off the audit trail on his bookkeeping software so he could take a certain sum of money without anyone being able to trace it. And that you were blamed for that after he died.”

“Isn’t that reason enough?” Lena began to pace through the room. “He set me up. I could have gone to prison. He stole my reputation. I lost any chance I might have had of working in a better-paying job in this town.”

“He couldn’t have known he was going to die that night. It wasn’t a suicide.” Dev’s voice was calm, reasonable. “So he didn’t set you up.”

“He would have had to cover up the loss somehow.
He could have lied and blamed it on me. We were the only two people who knew the password.”

“What about Geneva?” Dev shifted forward, his elbows on his knees. “She believed you. She dropped the charges.”

“She never cleared my name.”

“She was burying her son,” Addie pointed out. “Dealing with her grief. To clear your name, she would have had to brand that son as a thief.”

Lena turned on Addie. “So she branded me, instead.”

“She kept you out of jail,” Addie reminded her.

“She stole my future from me.”

“I’m sure that if you’d gone to her,” Dev said, “she would have written a reference for you.”

Lena wrapped her arms around her middle.

Addie imagined the white-hot heat of her mother’s anger would ripple the air around her like a desert mirage. “Mom. There’s something you’re not telling me. Something that’s missing from all this. Some reason you hate Dev, too.”

Her mother pressed her lips together in a stubborn line. Dev checked his watch. It was no good, Addie thought, her heart sinking. He’d tell her what he’d discovered, but she’d remain trapped in her resentment.

And Addie would have to choose between them, again.

Someone knocked on Lena’s front door. “Excuse me,” Dev said as he stood and exited the room. “That’s for me.”

“I saw the way he looked at you,” Lena said when Dev had gone. “All those years ago, when you were too young to notice. He wanted you.”

“I wanted him back.” Addie fisted her hands over
her heart. “I still do. With every cell in my body, I want him. I want to be with him, to love him. I love him, Mom. And I feel like I’m dying a little inside every day having to choose between the two of you.”

“You’ll be sorry.” Lena moved toward to the hall to check on Dev’s whereabouts. “He’ll use you and cast you aside like—”

“Like his father used you?” Queasy with a sudden rush of understanding, Addie pressed a hand to her stomach. “You were in love with Jonah Chandler,” she whispered. “Did you—”

“No.” Lena gulped and swallowed a choking sob. “He wouldn’t have me.”

“I’m sorry.” Addie went to her mother and held her tight while Lena’s body shook with violent sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

Geneva stepped into the room behind Dev. “I beg your pardon for arriving at this little meeting so late. But I’m not going to ask anyone’s forgiveness for accidentally overhearing the last few seconds of your private conversation.”

Lena withdrew from Addie’s embrace and moved to the window, her back to the others in the room.

“Lena.” Geneva sank into a nearby chair and carefully arranged the pleats of her linen slacks. “I loved my son as much as you love your daughter. I loved him in spite of his faults—and he had many of them. One of his biggest faults was not loving you. Another was his selfishness. I know it brings you no comfort now, but he never would have made you happy.”

“I would have made him happy.” Lena whirled to face her former employer. “That might have made all the difference in the world to us both.”

“I think you may be right. And that gives me more pain than you can imagine.”

Addie was shocked to see Geneva’s mouth tremble. The older woman clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “Jonah could have used more happiness in his life,” Geneva continued after another few seconds of visible struggle. “I believe you would have brought that to him. But we’ll never know that now.”

She stood and moved to Lena’s side. “I miss you, old friend. I could use more happiness in my life, too.”

Addie’s mother closed her eyes and leaned toward the window, resting her hands on the sill. She shook her head. “It’s been a long time.”

“And it will be difficult to move beyond the past. But I think it’s worth the effort.” Geneva glanced over her shoulder at Dev and Addie. “I think our families would appreciate the effort.”

“I need more time.” Lena straightened and inhaled a deep breath. “And I need to fix my face. I’m sure I must look a fright.”

“May I wait here until you return?”

Lena nodded and stepped back. With her chin held high, she walked past Dev and Addie. “Excuse me,” she said.

“Why are you still here?” Geneva asked Addie. “You have a wedding rehearsal to attend. I’ll handle the rest of this.”

A
DDIE THOUGHT
C
HARLIE’S
all-white wedding was the most beautiful celebration she’d ever seen. Everything was perfect—the weather, the setting, the flowers, the food, the handsome groom and his well-behaved bride. Even watching Quinn solemnly mop
Tess’s crumpled, red-nosed, tear-streaked face had a certain charm.

Her mother had decided against attending, but Addie was certain she’d come to Tess’s wedding. There were too many years of pain to overcome in such a short while, but Lena was made of tough stuff. Addie hoped she’d inherited some of that backbone.

She shifted in her chair at one of the tables near the dance floor, craning her neck, looking for Dev. He’d been prowling the edges of the crowd at the reception, sending her scorching glances that promised another passion-filled evening of playful caresses, drenching pleasure and fiery lovemaking. Addie shivered, thinking of what he could do to her in the meantime with his affectionate squeezes and sweet kisses. A complicated man with a simple way of showing her how he felt.

“Looking for someone?” Dev dropped into the chair beside her, a plate of all-white cake in his hand.

“Looking for you,” she said.

“Looks like you found me.” He gave her his most wicked smile. “I have something to tell you.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah. Brace yourself.”

He forked up a piece of cake, popped it into his mouth and chewed. “You know,” he said after he’d swallowed, “not so very long ago, someone told me that if you can find a way to make a living doing the thing that makes you happy, you’ll have a happy life.” He took another bite of cake. “I didn’t need to find a way to make my living because everything I needed was simply handed to me. And maybe, because of that, I got lost for a while trying to find the one thing that would make me happy. But I finally figured out what that one thing is.”

He stopped for another bite. Addie’s heart had started drumming a hard, insistent beat when he’d begun his speech, and she thought it might burst if he didn’t continue. “What?” she asked, her voice a raspy whisper.

“Loving you.” He shrugged and dug into the cake. “I’ve always loved you, you know.”

“That’s nice to hear.” She tugged the fork out of his hand and shoved the plate out of his reach. “I’ve always loved you, too.”

“I figured. You were just too stubborn to admit it.”

“Maybe I was waiting for you to say it first.”

He lifted her hand to his mouth and grazed her knuckles with his lips, staring at her with hot, dark eyes. Stealing her breath with that searing gaze, with that same fierce yearning she’d seen on his face in their high school parking lot so many years agao. With that same intensity she’d felt when they’d met again at the kitchen door and when they’d sat in the echoing stairway, and when he’d brought her ice cream on a summer afternoon. And when he’d moved inside her for the first time and made them one. “Why are you always so tough on me?”

“Do you want me to apologize?”

“No. I want you to marry me.”

Oh, Dev. Dev, Dev.
“Don’t we have to go steady first?”

“No, let’s skip straight to the engagement. We have to make up for lost time.”

“We could elope.”

He shook his head. “Geneva would kill us both.”

“I don’t suppose my mother would be too happy with us, either.”

“God,” he said, wincing. “You know, they’re going to have to work together on the wedding plans.”

“That’s a happy thing to do together.”

He frowned, obviously unconvinced. “If you say so.”

And then he stood and tugged her from her chair. “Dance, with me, Addie. Let’s get in plenty of practice, so we can be one of those amazing couples who move together like they’ve been doing it forever.”

She let her hand rest within the warm, solid weight of his for a few moments, and then she gave it a little squeeze. “I thought you’d never ask.”