The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge (84 page)

But then again, even giving up the brewery wasn’t the worst thing that had happened over the past few months.

The back door opened and a woman of indeterminable age stepped out onto the porch.

“Dallas, who’s that you’re talking to? And what’s that thing parked in my driveway?” Hands on her hips, Beryl Eberle—once known internationally as
screen star Beryl Townsend—paused, appearing to study the scene. “Is that Wade?”

“Yes, Aunt Berry. It’s me.” Wade’s smile was genuine. He adored his great-aunt. She’d been the indulgent grandmother he hadn’t known and Auntie Mame all in one. He counted the years he’d lived with her as some of the best of his life.

She came down the porch steps, holding on, he noticed, to the railing all the way. She was always so spry, so clever and lively, he often forgot that she’d turned eighty-one on her last birthday and had another approaching. He quickened his step so that she wouldn’t have to walk across the entire yard to greet him.

“You are a sight for these old eyes, Wade MacGregor.” She hugged him fiercely. “How dare you stay away for so long.”

“What was I thinking?” He embraced her gently.

“I’ll be damned if I know.” She stood back and held him at arm’s length. “You look more and more like your father every year. And I don’t mind saying that Ned was the best-looking young man I ever—”

“Stop feeding his ego with that stuff,” Dallas admonished. “He’s already got a big head.”

“What is that thing in the driveway?” Berry asked again.

“It’s a trailer,” he explained. “Holds all my worldly goods.”

“Does this mean you’ve come home? That you’re staying?” Berry, clearly joyful at the very thought, grabbed Wade’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

“I’m not staying, Aunt Berry,” he said softly. “I’m just passing through St. Dennis on my way to Connecticut. I’m going to be working for another brewery.”

“What happened to your brewery?” she demanded.

“We were just starting to talk about that, Berry,” Dallas told her.

“Well, he’s going to have to start from the beginning, because I want—” A squeal of laughter erupted from the lawn. “What on earth …?”

Berry’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a small child I see down there with Cody and the dogs?” She stretched out her arm, her thin finger pointing to the tangle of fur and human on the ground. “There. There’s a little boy. Where did that child come from?”

“Ah, Berry, actually, he’s mine.” Wade’s eyes glanced from his aunt’s startled face to his sister’s. “That’s Austin.”

“Did you say … he’s yours?” Dallas’s eyes widened, as if she wasn’t quite sure she’d heard correctly.

“Yeah.” Wade nodded again.

“Well, who … I mean, when …” Dallas sputtered.

“You’ve had a
child
and you didn’t think to let us know about him?” Berry’s face was deadly with accusation.

Wade started to mount a defense, then stopped. Of course he owed them an explanation. What had he been thinking, not telling them as soon as the whole thing started? It wasn’t so much that he’d wanted to keep Austin a secret. It was simply that every time he thought about calling and telling them, he’d get cold feet. There were so many questions, and after the past six months, he was so depleted emotionally, it had been too difficult to think about having that conversation on the phone.

Wade sighed. “It’s really complicated.”

“Assume for a moment that your sister and I possess
a certain degree of intelligence. Perhaps even enough to understand.” Berry raised one eyebrow, her favored expression to convey sarcasm. “Provided you speak slowly and use only very small words, of course.”

Feeling like a chastised twelve-year-old, Wade went to his son and picked him up.

“No!” Austin protested loudly. “Play doggie.”

“The dogs are going to come with us, right, Cody?”

“Right.” Cody ran ahead and both dogs followed. “They’re following us, Austin. See?”

“Down.” Austin continued to struggle all the way across the lawn.

“Austin, meet your aunt Dallas and your great-great-aunt Berry.” Wade held the child in both arms.

Austin’s attention momentarily distracted from Ally and Fleur, he giggled and pointed to Berry and proclaimed, “Berry!”

“You coached him to do that so I’d melt right here on this very spot,” Berry accused. “And it worked. Hello, Austin.”

Berry held out her hand and Austin giggled again.

“Let me have him.” Dallas reached for the child, and Wade passed him over. “He is a darling little thing, isn’t he?” She met her brother’s eyes. “Who’s his mother, Wade? And where is she?”

“That’s the complicated part,” he told her softly. “It’s a really long story.”

“I’ve got all day. Berry? You have plans for this afternoon?” Dallas shifted a squirming Austin in her arms, then let him get down.

“I do now. Into the house. All of you—kids, dogs,
everyone.” Berry turned and started up the steps. “I can’t have this conversation standing out in the hot sun without a cold glass of iced tea. It isn’t civilized.”

“She says march, we march.” Dallas shrugged and followed in Berry’s footsteps. She paused partway up and turned to Wade. “Wade, are you married to Austin’s mother?”

“I was.”

“When?”

“For almost three weeks, in July.”

“Three weeks?” Dallas frowned. “You were only married for three weeks? Jeez, Wade, why bother?”

“Because she was dying,” he said softly, “and I wanted her to die in peace.”

For the second time in less than ten minutes, Dallas was momentarily stunned. When she recovered, she raised her hand and gently touched his face. “Oh, sweetie. What happened to you in Texas?”

“Like I said, it’s a long story.”

“Like I said, I have all day.” Dallas took him by the hand and walked the rest of the way up the steps in silence. When they got to the deck, she paused and asked, “Is Austin your son?”

“He is now.”

He opened the door for his sister, and waited while she entered the house, a million questions on her face and in her eyes.

He waited for the boys and the two dogs at the top of the stairs, and wondered where to begin to tell the story he should have told them months ago.

The bell over the door in Steffie Wyler’s ice-cream shop, One Scoop or Two—known locally as “Scoop”—rang for what Steffie thought was probably the five hundred and fiftieth time in the past two hours.

“Top of the list of things to do as soon as the afterdinner rush dies down: deep-six that damned bell,” she told Tina, one of two of her part-time employees who were working that night. “It was a cute idea when the shop first opened and I’d get a dozen customers in the morning and maybe twice as many in the afternoon. It’s no longer cute. If I had a gun, I swear I’d shoot it off the door from here.”

The bell rang again and she glanced up as the latest group entered the small onetime crabber’s shack that now served as Scoop’s home, and her words died in her throat. Dallas MacGregor, a regular customer, came into the shop, trailed by her great-aunt and the tall, ridiculously handsome guy who’d been the object of Steffie’s affection—and lust—since before she was old enough to know the difference between, well, affection and lust.

The last time she’d seen Wade MacGregor, he was driving away from the inn at Sinclair’s Point on the night of the local police chief’s wedding—driving away and leaving a hurt, confused, and wildly frustrated Steffie standing alone in the parking lot after they’d danced away most of the night. No explanations. Just “Gotta go. Got a plane to catch. See ya.” And just that fast, he’d disappeared.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite that abrupt—there’d been some mumbling about something unexpected coming up—but Steffie’s big plans for the rest of the night had faded into the moonlight along with the exhaust from Wade’s rental car. That had been four months ago, and she hadn’t heard a word from him since.

Jerk
.

She tried to ignore the smile of recognition that spread across his face when he saw her. Tried just as unsuccessfully to keep her heart rate under control. Tried to push from her mind the scenes her imagination had conjured up of Wade walking into Scoop—like he just had, all nonchalant and gorgeous, smiling a special smile just for her—at which time she put the “Closed” sign on the door and they fell into each other’s arms and frantically …

“I said two scoops of chocolate.” The customer she was waiting on waved a hand in front of her face to get her attention. “That’s pistachio.”

“Oh. Sorry. I thought you said …” Steffie shook her head and forced herself to focus on the task at hand and hoped that no one noticed the red flush that she felt spreading from her neck to her hairline. “Sorry.”

She returned the pistachio scoops to the container and remade the cone. “You can take it right over there to the cash register and Claire will ring you up,” she told the customer, then nodded to the next person in the line that had formed in front of the glassfronted case. “What would you like, ma’am?”

Seven customers later, Steffie looked over the counter and found Cody Blair, Dallas’s son, waiting his turn. He held the hand of a little boy, a beautiful child who had dark curly hair and big brown eyes.

Neighbor’s kid, I guess
, Steffie thought.
Cute as a button
.

“What can I get for you, Cody?”

“I want two scoops of chocolate midnight madness,” he told her solemnly, then added, “please.”

“One scoop is plenty, Cody.” Dallas tapped him on the head.

“Uh-uh.” Cody turned to his mother. “I’m sharing with Austin.” He leaned over and lifted the child. “Right, Austin? We’re going to share.”

Austin struggled to turn, and lifted his arms over his head.

“Daddy!” Austin reached up. “Daddy!”

“Right here, ace.”

Steffie watched in dumb fascination as Wade reached over Cody and plucked Austin from his arms.

“Daddy’s right here.”

Daddy?
Daddy?

“Stef, could you put two spoons in Cody’s dish?” Dallas was asking from what seemed like another planet. “And maybe put a very small scoop of vanilla in there with it.”

Steffie’s hand clutched the scoop. For a moment she wished it was something more lethal.

Man attacked by crazed ice-cream lady wielding metal implement; film at eleven
.

“And two spoons, if you would?” Dallas repeated. “Stef?”

“Right. Two spoons.” Steffie focused on the cardboard containers of ice cream in the cooler. “Two chocolate midnight madness and one vanilla.”

“Small scoops,” Dallas added.

“Right. Small scoops.” Steffie repeated softly as if reminding herself of something very important. “Two spoons.”

She completed the order and held it over the counter to Cody, who stared into the dish.

“You forgot my chocolate sprinkles.” He held up the dish for her to see.

“So I did.” Steffie shook her head. “What was I thinking?”

She grabbed a spoon and sprinkled the tiny chocolate pieces over the ice cream and handed it to Cody.

“Better?” she asked.

He nodded. “Thank you, Steffie.”

“You’re welcome.” She turned her attention to Dallas. “And what can I get for you?”

“I think some of whatever lemony thing you might have.” Dallas’s eyes scanned the cooler.

“Sorry. Nothing lemony tonight. I do have peach pecan deliciousness, though.” Steffie kept her eyes on the contents of the freezer, as if seeing the flavors for the first time. Anything to keep from looking at Wade, or to let him think that she was even
thinking
of looking at him.

“The peach sounds great. Thanks. One scoop in a cone, please.”

Stef prepared the cone and handed it over.

“Miss B, what would you like tonight?” Stef smiled at Berry.

“No lemon, you say?” Berry looked up and down the glass counter. “Oh, dear. I’d had my heart set on that lemon curd confection.”

“I’ll have some tomorrow, promise,” Stef assured her. “But I think you’d like the plum tart.” She put down the scoop and reached for a tasting spoon, loaded it with the plum ice cream, and offered it to Berry.

“Oh, my, that is tasty.” Berry smiled broadly. “You never steer me wrong, Steffie. I’ll have a scoop of that in a sugar cone.”

“Coming right up.” Steffie made the cone and passed it over.

That left one person in the party still waiting to be served.
Must not react
, she cautioned.
Must not let him know how rattled I am to see him. Must not act like it matters to me that that kid just called him Daddy
.

She took a deep breath and met Wade’s eyes as he stepped up to the counter. “Wade?”

“How are you, Stef?”

“I’m good. Yourself?”

“Good.” He nodded.

“Good. So, then, we’re both good. Now what can I get for you?” she asked with all the nonchalance she could muster.
Just another customer
, she told herself.
He’s just another customer
.

“I guess I’ll have the same as you gave the boys. The chocolate stuff.”

“Bowl? Cone?” she asked.

“Cone’s good.”

She kept her eyes averted from his until she completed his order and handed it to him. She lifted the cone over the counter and looked directly into his eyes without saying a word.