Authors: Mariah Stewart
“I’ll take care of it myself,” Daniel told her. He turned to Clay. “Great-looking apples, by the way. Are they the last of the season?”
Clay nodded. “Pretty much. We’ll have some into January, but after that, we’ll be done until next year. I’ve had everything in cold storage, but we’re down to just a few more weeks.”
“We’ll take whatever you have left,” Daniel told him. “Any cider?”
Clay nodded. “I have raw and pasteurized. Not a whole lot of each, but there’s some.”
“I’ll take both.” Daniel smiled. “Nothing like fresh, mulled cider on Christmas Eve, right, Mom?”
“Nothing like it,” Grace agreed.
“You get many folks staying here over Christmas week?” Trula asked.
“You’d be surprised,” Daniel told her. “Ten years ago, I couldn’t have guessed we’d be such a year-round hot spot. Who knew that the business would grow the way it has.”
“Since St. Dennis was ‘discovered’ a few years ago, every business is doing well, in spite of the economy.
This past year was a little tight, but for the most part, the tourists have really kept the town running in the black.” Clay took off his glasses and held them up to the sunlight, then wiped at a spot with his T-shirt. “There’s always some grumbling about how the town isn’t the same anymore, things aren’t the way they used to be, that the tourists take over the town in the summer, but for a lot of the shops in town, the tourists have meant the difference between an end-of-the-season sale and a going-out-of-business sale.”
Grace nodded. “We’ve seen more shops open in the past three years than we have in the last twenty. Your mother’s is the exception, of course.”
Clay laughed. “My mother opened that pet supply place on a whim when she first moved back to give her something to do. As soon as my sister expressed an interest in opening her bakery, my mother couldn’t arrange to have her signs taken down fast enough. Brooke’s going to have the interior fitted with what she calls a baker’s kitchen so she can get her business up and running by February.”
Grace turned to Trula. “You met Clay’s sister, Brooke, at the wedding on Saturday. Her cupcake shop is due to open just in time for Valentine’s Day.”
“If everything she bakes is as delicious as the cupcakes she baked for the wedding, she can’t miss,” Trula said. “I wish I could have smuggled some out of the reception to take back home to Robert.”
“Brooke bakes for One Scoop or Two, the ice-cream shop down near the marina,” Clay told her. “I’m sure you could pick up a few cupcakes there if you get there before noon. Steffie mentioned that she sells out early most days.”
“I will stop on my way out of town. Which needs to be soon.” Trula tapped Dan on the arm. “I’ll take you up on that offer of assistance now.”
“Clay, leave your invoice for the apples with Franca and we’ll take care of it.” Dan took Trula’s arm.
“Good seeing you, Trula,” Clay said.
“Always nice to see you, Clay.” Trula looked back over her shoulder.
Clay bent to pick up the basket of apples.
“Now, how come you call Trula by her first name, but you always call me ‘Miz Grace’?” Grace asked after her son and her friend disappeared into the lobby to gather her bags.
“I guess because I’ve called you ‘Miz Grace’ all my life.” He grinned as he lifted the basket. “Old habits die hard. You’re the mother of one of my friends from school. I couldn’t call you just ‘Grace.’ ”
“Speaking of your friend from school, you just missed Lucy,” she told him. “She had to leave to catch a plane.”
“I didn’t miss her. I ran into her coming up the lane.”
“So you had a chance to say good-bye,” Grace said. “That’s good. It was nice seeing you dancing together at the wedding the other night.”
When Clay didn’t respond, she continued: “Nice that the two of you had some time to catch up.”
“We didn’t really catch up all that much.” Clay set the basket back on the ground. “She was working. You know, trying to keep everything running smoothly.”
“I wish she’d …” Grace began, then stopped.
“Move back and take over the event planning here, I know.” Clay finished the sentence for her.
“I just don’t understand.” Grace shook her head. “Especially since we need her …”
“I guess she’s made a life for herself in California and she’s happy out there.”
“Did she tell you that?” Grace asked.
“More or less.” Clay bent again to pick up the basket. “You know Lucy, Miz Grace. She’s going to do what she wants to do.”
“True enough.” Grace sighed and walked with Clay to the door of the inn.
“Clay.” She reached out a hand to touch his arm. “You and Lucy used to be so close. You were inseparable all those years—then it seemed like one of you pulled the plug on your friendship. If you don’t mind my asking … what happened?”
Clay shifted the basket in his arms. “You’re going to have to ask Lucy, Miz Grace. I wasn’t the one who pulled the plug.”
“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have even asked.”
“It’s okay. I’ve asked myself the same question for years.” He turned toward the service area. “See you later.”
He was almost to the kitchen door when she called to him.
“Have you ever thought of asking her?”
Clay went on into the kitchen, pretending not to have heard.
He wasn’t trying to be rude. The truth was, he had tried to work his way into asking Lucy on Saturday night, but every time he thought he knew exactly what to say, something intervened. When they’d been dancing and he thought he finally had her attention—and captive, it had occurred to him—the slow song
had stopped abruptly and the band started to play some line-dance thing he’d never heard before and Lucy excused herself “to see about the cake cutting.” And later, when he found her alone out on the portico looking chilly, he’d slipped out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
“Did you see where they remade
The Karate Kid
?” he’d asked casually.
“I did see that.”
“You saw the announcement or you saw the movie?”
“Just the trailers for it.”
“Reminded me of how much we both loved that movie when we were kids. Remember how we went to see it over and over?”
Lucy had nodded.
“And we made your dad buy the video when it came out and we sat in the lobby and played it over and over again on the TV in there because it was the biggest one in the inn.” He’d glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “We were both going to take karate lessons and become black belts, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Did you ever …?”
“Earn a black belt? No.”
“Me neither.”
Clay had leaned both elbows on the railing and followed her gaze out toward the Bay.
“Beautiful night,” he’d said.
She’d merely nodded.
“Everything seemed to go very smoothly today.” He’d thought to try a different tack. “With the weddings,
I mean. Must have been some job, getting two weddings off without a hitch.”
“The day wasn’t without its challenges,” she’d admitted, “but that’s my job.”
He’d started to say something but she cut him off.
“I need to get back inside and keep this show moving,” she’d said.
“Any chance we could get together for one more dance before the night’s over?” he’d asked.
“We’ll see how it goes,” she’d told him.
“You’re the wedding planner. Don’t you decide how it goes?”
“There’s a schedule.” She’d smiled and slid his jacket off and handed it to him. “Thanks,” she’d said, and then she was gone.
They never did have that one last dance after all.
When he came out of the kitchen, Clay was surprised to see Grace still in the lobby. She stood on the Bay side of the room, staring out a window, watching Trula’s car disappear down the drive.
“Did Lucy mention to you if something was bothering her?” Grace asked.
He hesitated, because he, too, had sensed something in Lucy that hadn’t felt quite right.
“Would you tell me if she had?”
“Depends on what it was, I guess.” Clay tried to sound casual.
“Did she?” Grace turned to him.
“No, she didn’t. But …” Again, he paused.
“But …?”
“But … there were times when … I don’t know, she seemed to be somewhere else.” He thought about what he’d said, and added, “Maybe I misread her. I
haven’t seen her in a long time. Maybe I just don’t know her anymore. Besides, I didn’t see that much of her. I’m sure you spent a lot more time with her over the past week than I did.”
Grace shook her head. “No. That’s part of what’s bothering me. I was hoping to spend some time alone with her, but she was so busy all week. Most nights, she slept at Steffie’s, said she had to help get things ready for the weddings.” Grace sighed. “I miss her. I don’t know what’s going on in her life anymore, and I guess I was looking forward to catching up. She just didn’t seem to have much time.”
Grace’s disappointment was almost palpable.
“Well, she was here to do a job.” Clay tried to rationalize on Lucy’s behalf. “And you know it must have taken a lot of work to pull off what she did this past weekend. I’m sure she would have rather spent the time with you, but she was pretty busy.”
“Do you really think that’s all it was?” Grace looked up at him, her eyes searching his face.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” He put his arm around her reassuringly even as he questioned his own words. “That’s why she’s so successful, Miz Grace. She takes her business very seriously.” That much, he felt was true.
“I suppose you’re right.” Grace still looked concerned.
“She’s the party planner to the stars,” Clay reminded her. “You have to work hard if you want to be the best, and Lucy always did want to be the best at whatever she did.”
“Well, that much is certainly true.” Grace smiled. “Thank you, dear.”
She patted his arm and walked toward her office.
Clay wanted to say something else reassuring but couldn’t get his thoughts together before she’d closed the door behind her. He left the inn and got back into his Jeep.
He played the radio as loud as he could on the way back to the farm to keep himself from thinking too much about Lucy, about the things they’d said and the things they hadn’t said. He switched off the eighties station when they started playing a New Kids on the Block song. It reminded him of the decision he’d made back then to form his own boy band because he knew Lucy was enamored of them. He was going to be the lead singer. (So what if he couldn’t carry a tune? A lot of the singers didn’t sound much better.) He would make albums and go on tour with his group and then Lucy would wish she’d never stopped being friends with him. But school—and soccer—started before he could get that idea off the ground, and his dreams of rock stardom were replaced by ones in which he scored the winning goal in the state championship and became a whiz at algebra so he could spend more time on the soccer field and less on his homework.
He drove around his sister’s old Toyota and parked close to the barn. Brooke was coming down the steps from the back porch as he was walking toward it.
“Hey,” he called to her. “Where are you off to?”
She pointed beyond the field next to the barn.
“I’m meeting Cameron at the tenant house to go over his schedule of the renovations.” She paused. “I suppose I shouldn’t call it the tenant house anymore, since it’s going to be
my
house.”
“True enough.” Clay met her halfway along the
worn path between the barn and the farmhouse where they’d both grown up, left, and come back to. “Did Cam give you his final estimate?”
Brooke nodded and pulled her blond hair into a ponytail, which she held in place with an elastic she’d had on her wrist.
“It’s pretty much what we talked about. Right now I’m dying to see the work schedule. I won’t be moving in until well after Christmas, which is fine with me. I have almost a thousand cupcakes to bake between now and New Year’s Eve and the new kitchen at the shop to put together, so I don’t really have time to pack.”
“Just as well,” Clay told her. “Let Logan have a Christmas here in the farmhouse with Mom and me.”
Logan was Brooke’s almost eight-year-old son and the apple of Clay’s eye. Since the death of Brooke’s husband, Eric, in Afghanistan almost three years ago, Brooke and Logan had been living on the family farm, which Clay had taken over when their father retired.
“Mom was hoping to be into her new house by then,” Brooke told him, “or hadn’t you heard? She’s looking forward to hosting a New Year’s Eve party for some of her friends.”
“She shouldn’t move before Christmas.” Clay frowned. Their mother, also a widow, had just bought herself a spiffy town house in which everything was brand spanking new.
“That’s her decision, not ours.” Brooke shrugged.
“Do you think she’ll miss us after she moves out?” Clay asked.
“You’re kidding, right?” Brooke laughed. “She’s
not moving to Canada, Clay. She’s only going across town.”
“By herself,” he reminded her. “She’s never lived alone before.”
“Maybe it’s time she did. She married young, had her kids young. Devoted most of her life to Dad and to us. She went from her parents’ house to her husband’s, and after Dad died, Logan and I moved in with her. She’s looking forward to having her own place, to having some time to herself.” Brooke fell in step with her brother. “She’s really excited about her new house and I’m not surprised she wants to share it with her friends, but I do agree, it would be nice if we were all together on Christmas morning. Who knows where any of us will be this time next year.”
“You’ve got plans that I don’t know about? You and your boyfriend planning on running away together?” he teased. Before she could answer, he added, “Okay, then, leave if you must, but the kid stays here.”
Brooke laughed. “I doubt I’d ever be able to get Logan to leave the farm now. I’ve never seen him so happy. But no, Jesse and I aren’t planning on leaving town, and I’m not going any farther than right here.” She pointed up ahead to where the path ended at the front porch of the cottage that had been their destination.
Long known as the tenant’s house, the two-story clapboard had been scraped clean of its old paint and awaited a new coat. The shutters had been removed, scraped, and sanded, and leaned up against the front of the building. The small front porch had also been prepped for painting.