Authors: Mariah Stewart
Brooke started the van and drove to the end of
Cherry Street, then made a left onto Charles. St. Dennis was quiet at this hour of the evening: there were no pedestrians and no other cars.
“I guess they really do roll up the sidewalks early around here,” Lucy remarked.
“I guess it’s early to you, being from L.A., but around here, eleven o’clock is practically the middle of the night.” Brooke put on her turn signal and pulled onto the drive leading to the inn. The big sign out front was floodlit, the only light on the street at this end of town. The van followed the winding path to the back of the inn and Brooke stopped outside the double doors.
“Just so you know,” Brooke said, “I wasn’t kidding about my brother. He really does have a thing for you. I’d hate to see you hurt him.”
“I have no intentions of hurting Clay,” Lucy all but snapped.
“I doubt you intended to the last time, but you did.” Brooke put the van into park. “Are you going to try to tell me you weren’t aware of how much you hurt him back then?”
“I … I wasn’t. I didn’t know …”
“You were as close friends as anyone I’ve ever known, and you stopped speaking to him without warning. You dumped him as a friend, and you didn’t think that would hurt him?”
“I didn’t think,” Lucy said softly. “I just didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know or didn’t care?” Brooke’s words stung.
“Didn’t know. I never didn’t care.” Lucy opened the door and jumped out. “I never thought …”
“Maybe you should have.”
Lucy reached in and grabbed her bag from the floor where she’d dropped it.
“I should have,” Lucy admitted. “Yes. I should have. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“Have you told Clay that?”
Lucy nodded. “I told him.”
“Look, I don’t know what happened back then, but I know it affected my brother for a long, long time. I just don’t want to see him go through that again. I realize it’s none of my business, but if you really only think of him as someone you used to know, please don’t encourage him.” Brooke’s voice softened. “Clay’s a great guy. He deserves someone who appreciates what a truly great guy he is.”
“I understand.” Lucy backed away from the van. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you.” Brooke waved.
Lucy slammed the van door, and watched the taillights snake back toward Charles Street, her shoulders hunched against the cold. When she finally went inside, the warmth felt positively tropical.
To her surprise, the family’s living quarters were dark except for a lamp in the hall. She went into her room and tossed her coat onto the bed, toed off her shoes, and sat in the chair next to the window. She pulled her legs up under her and leaned close to the glass. There was moonlight on the Bay, and the shadow of an owl swooping across the quiet lawn.
All in all, it had been an interesting evening, mostly because the past few hours made her aware of the lack of friendship in her life. Oh, she and Bonnie were friends as well as business partners, but they never
got together just to chat or to have a fun social evening. If they met for dinner, it was always a working dinner to discuss an upcoming event. How had it happened that she had spent fifteen years in California and had developed no social friends? She and Bonnie had worked equally hard to build up their business and to make it a success, and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t enjoyed the work and the satisfaction it brought.
But she found herself envying Vanessa, Stef, and Brooke for the network they’d formed, the friendships they shared. She’d enjoyed the evening at Vanessa’s, enjoyed the companionship and the laughter.
For just a little while, she’d felt at home there.
And then there were those comments Brooke made about Clay, the ones Lucy’d been trying all night to push to the back of her mind.
“Bug-eyed. Over the moon,” Brooke had said. “He can’t help himself. He’s always been sweet on you.”
As hard as she’d tried to pretend it wasn’t so, Lucy had known in her heart that Clay thought of her as more than an old friend. If there’d been any doubt, there was that kiss …
She sighed and sank deeper into the chair. That Clay felt that way was one thing. That she was starting to feel the same way about him was something else entirely. After all these years, he was still the best guy she’d ever known, still could make her laugh in ways that no one else could. The difference now was that he was also the one who made her heart beat faster. When he’d kissed her, there was no sign of her usual defenses—that urge to pull away she always felt when someone got too close to her. While that feeling
of being suffocated, of having her space violated, generally did pass within an instant, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had been that close to her when her initial reaction hadn’t been to flee. Actually, she wasn’t really certain that
she
hadn’t been the one to kiss
him
.
And the confusing part was that she couldn’t decide whether she should be happy about it, or scared to death.
“So, are you ready?” Clay held Lucy’s hand as they ascended the front steps of Curtis Enright’s house, which took up the whole last block of Old St. Mary’s Church Road.
“I’m so ready.” Lucy’s face was a study in joyous anticipation. “I’ve waited all my life to get a peek inside this place.” She nudged him with an elbow. “Knock already, or I will.”
Clay raised a hand to the large polished brass lion’s head that served as the door knocker, but before he could do the deed, the door opened.
“Hey, Clay. Hi, Lucy.” Jesse Enright stood in the doorway of his grandfather’s home. “Come on in. Brooke tells me we’re giving a private tour this morning.”
“This is so nice of you,” Lucy told Jesse. “I was just telling Clay that I’ve waited forever to get a glimpse inside this house.”
“Glad we could accommodate you.” Jesse stepped aside to admit them. “Brooke’s around here somewhere.”
“Oh, wow.” Lucy stood in the center of the entry
hall that was dominated by one of the biggest Christmas trees she’d ever seen. “This place is even grander than I expected.”
“It’s something, all right.” Jesse closed the door softly. “I have to admit, the first time I stepped through that front door, I was as dazzled as you are.”
“It’s a pretty amazing place,” Clay agreed. “I got my first look at the house during last month’s tour, along with all the other gawkers. I don’t know too many people in town who’d been in the house before, so there were a lot of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ that day.”
“I can understand why. Look at that tree … and the garland on the stairwell. Oh, and that crèche there on the table.” Lucy appeared to be at a loss as to where to look first.
“All Brooke’s work,” Jesse told her with no small amount of pride. “All I did was follow orders.”
“I’ll bet she had a ball.” Lucy stepped closer to the tree. “Antique ornaments?”
Jesse nodded. “We found boxes of them in the attic. I thought Brooke was going to pass out, she got so excited.”
“I don’t blame her. They’re exceptionally well preserved. The colors haven’t faded a bit.”
“They were wrapped up pretty well and hadn’t seen the light of day since my grandmother died twenty-some years ago.”
Lucy stepped closer to the wall on the right side, where numerous portraits were hung. “Relatives?” she asked.
“Earliest to the latest. From Elias Enright there on the end to my grandfather, farther on down the hall.
Not all of them lived here, though. The house has only been in the family since around 1864.”
“The paintings are all exquisite,” she said.
“Thank you.” Jesse was smiling. “I really like that three of them—the most recent—were painted at almost the same spot outside. You can see how the property changed over the years.” He pointed to one portrait. “In the background here, you can see the tenant houses that once stood along the stream at the back of the property. The place was built by a tobacco farmer who moved here from South Carolina around 1840. He based the floor plan on a plantation owned by a cousin. When the Civil War broke out, he joined the Confederate army, died at Gettysburg, and his widow sold the house to my great-great-grandfather the following year. In the next painting, though, those houses are all gone.”
“There was a big flood around 1898,” Clay said. “My grandmother wrote about it in her diary. They lost all their crops that year, almost lost the farm.”
“My granddad said that the stream overflowed and washed out every one of those houses, and two children were lost. My great-grandfather had the cabins torn down rather than risk another tragedy. They planted a line of trees, but nothing ever was built again from the back of the carriage house to the edge of the stream.”
“Hey, guys.” Brooke came toward them from the back of the house, clutching an armful of amaryllis and ferns. “Sorry. I was out in the conservatory looking for something to replace the flower arrangements that have pooped out.”
“There’s a conservatory here?” Lucy’s interest was clearly piqued.
“A real one, with plants that have survived since Jesse’s grandmother’s time. Curtis has kept them going.” Brooke headed into the room on the left. “Come on in, look around the parlor.”
“You don’t need to ask me twice.” Lucy followed Brooke, her eyes wide.
Seeing Lucy so carefree and happy tugged at Clay’s heart, and he was grateful to have been able to bring that smile to her face. There’d been a time when she’d laughed easily and often, and smiled freely. It made him happy to know that that happy young girl who’d always found joy in her everyday life—his LuLu—still lurked inside the serious woman she’d become. Now that he’d had a glimpse of her, he was determined to not let her slip back into that place where she’d been hiding.
“Jesse, this is really nice of you to let Lucy and me stop over. As you can see, she’s really enjoying this.”
“I don’t mind, and my granddad didn’t mind. I know Lucy’s only in town for another day and that she isn’t here very often.”
“Not so often at all.”
“Is this wise?” Jesse lowered his voice.
“Is what wise?” Clay frowned.
“You know. Lucy.”
Clay smiled. “She’s the only girl who ever broke my heart.”
“Maybe that’s the attraction,” Jesse said. “You know, the one who got away.”
Clay shook his head. “It isn’t that. I’ve been dumped plenty of times, once by a girl I thought I was in love
with about five years ago. It hurt my pride, but it didn’t break my heart.”
“Brooke’s worried that Lucy will do just that.”
“What can I say? I’ve been a fool for lesser things, as the saying goes.” Clay watched through the doorway as Lucy exclaimed over the arrangement of greens and berries and ornaments on the mantel. “I’ve been missing her in my life since the summer I turned fifteen. Every time I see her, I feel the same way inside as I did when we were kids.”
“That’s not necessarily a good thing,” Jesse noted. “You’re not kids anymore.”
“I just mean that back then, I always knew I could be myself with her, that she’d never judge me, that she knew me for who I really was, and that I never needed to be anyone or anything other than who I am. I still feel that sort of comfort when I’m with her. I’ve never felt that with anyone else, not even my college sweetheart, who I almost married.”
“Just be careful, okay? Brooke doesn’t want to see you hurt. Hell, neither do I.”
“I appreciate that, but if there is any way … well, I figure this could be my last chance.”
“Last chance for what? What is it you want?”
Clay considered the question for a moment.
“I want to not have regrets. I want to know that I did whatever it took to see … well, just to see what’s really there between us. I know there was a time when she and I meant a lot to each other. I guess I want to see if there’s any of that left, and if there is, what are the chances that it could be more.”
“I wish you luck, but you know that even if you’re right, long-distance romances don’t always end well.”
Clay could tell Jesse was choosing his words carefully.
“Like I said, I don’t want to regret what I didn’t do when I could have. We’ll see what happens. But either way, I appreciate your concern and Brooke’s.”
“Hey, you two,” Brooke called from the parlor. “What are you doing out there?”
“Chewing the fat,” Jesse called back.
“That expression always raises the most unpleasant visuals for me.” Lucy appeared in the doorway and gestured for the two men to enter the room. “However, I will ignore them because the visuals in here are just heavenly.”
She took Clay’s hand and led him into Curtis Enright’s parlor.
“Look at this tree,” she urged. “Did you ever see anything so glorious?”
Clay stepped closer to get a better look. “It’s very pretty …”
“It’s ethereal.” Brooke grinned.
“Yeah, it’s really pretty,” Clay repeated.
“Don’t you notice anything about the decorations?” Lucy asked.
He took a closer look. “They’re all really old?”
“They all have angels on them, you clod.” Brooke tossed a bit of fern at her brother.
“Oh, yeah, I noticed that right away.” Clay nodded, knowing full well his sister wasn’t going to buy it.
Brooke and Lucy both rolled their eyes at the same time, and Clay laughed.
“Yes, I do see that they are all angels,” he said.
“Aren’t they just beautiful?” Lucy stepped closer to the tree, her eyes shining.
“Found them in the attic,” Jesse told them, “under the eaves in a big dusty box. Brooke flipped out when she opened it.”
“And I still flip out every time I look at them,” Brooke noted. “They are so unique and so beautifully painted.”
“Any idea where they came from, Jesse?” Lucy continued to walk around the tree.
“My grandmother had a great-aunt who never married. Pop said she painted some for my grandparents the first year they were married, but my grandmother loved them so much that her aunt painted several more every year until she died.” Jesse stood in front of the tree, his hands in his pockets. “If you look closely, you’ll see that every angel has something in common.”
“Wings?” Clay couldn’t resist.