The Long Way Home (8 page)

“Oh, right. Sure. That could work. If you’re sure.”

“I’m positive. You think about what you need, and I’ll figure out what it would cost—giving you the friends and family discount, of course—and then we’ll see what the job is worth in decoys. Unless, of course, you want to sell it to me right now. As is.”

“Ah, no. Not ready to do that.”

“Then we’re back to the ‘friends and family discount’ and the decoy barter.”

“I like it. Thanks.” She walked out front with him. The sun had almost set and the geese were settling in for the night at the wetlands around the bend from the remains of the old lighthouse. There was a strong scent of salt and something rotting over on the beach, but oddly enough, she found it appealing.

“Was that door unlocked the whole time you were outside?” Cam paused on his way to the truck.

She nodded.

“If someone walks in the front while you’re out back and walks away with those decoys, I’m going to be really pissed.” He went to the driver’s-side door and opened it. “You get too careless, it’s going to cost you. Like maybe a few days’ worth of pulling up gunky flooring or stripping down some sticky wallpaper.”

“Got it,” she replied. “I’ll be more diligent.”

He backed the truck out, then waved as he started to drive on.

“Thanks again, Cameron.”

He slowed the truck and looked back at her. “Anytime, Ellie …”

She stood at the end of the driveway and watched the truck wind around the first bend in the road and disappear. She turned back to the house, went inside, and locked all the doors. Seconds later, the coming night closed in and she was alone again.

She sat in the living room, still as a stone, and thought about Lynley. Did her mother come here to keep Lilly company, or to find comfort during her illness?
Through the worst of her battle, did she know she would, in the end, lose? Did she walk the beach where Ellie walked, watched the sun set across the Bay, listen to the scolding screeches of the gulls as they circled above her? Did she take solace in these walls, find some strength here that she could not find elsewhere? Had she, Ellie, failed to offer enough support and encouragement that her mother had fled to this house in this tiny town to find what she needed? Or had she simply wanted a change in scenery, a vista to look out at that differed from the view from their penthouse apartment?

“Mom, if I failed you back then, I’m sorry,” Ellie whispered. “If there was something I should have done that I didn’t do, I’m sorry.…”

She thought about all the years her mother had spent traveling for photo shoots, for filming TV shows and the occasional movie while Ellie had been away at boarding school or college or holidays. In retrospect, it seemed they were rarely in the same place at the same time, and yet she had adored Lynley, with the same adoration a child might bestow on a beautiful fairy princess, one who was above the mere mortals who surrounded her. There were times when she’d see her mother’s face in a magazine and barely make the connection between herself and the woman on the page. Yet the times they were at home together, alone, there’d been a strong current of love that flowed between them, binding mother and daughter, and Ellie had clung to that in the last weeks of her mother’s illness. Even then, Lynley had been beautiful. Even then, her smile could light the room.

Ellie sat alone on the sofa, wondering if Lynley had
sat in that very room and worried about the daughter she would be leaving behind, if she’d brought her regrets and her sorrows here as well as her love for Lilly.

Ellie stared out the window at the Bay, and wondered if Lynley, in her day, had done the same.

H
AVING
done the math and figured out that if she continued to buy a cup of coffee every morning for the rest of the month, she’d have spent the equivalent of the cost of a modest coffeemaker, Ellie decided that this morning’s trip to Cuppachino would be her last. She’d become accustomed to the early morning trip into town and was pleased that the young man behind the counter now recognized her. Since she was alone almost all day every day, she found herself looking forward to that tiny bit of socializing in the morning. Of course, she told herself as she opened the now-familiar red door, there were other ways to socialize, if she were so inclined, that wouldn’t cost her anything at all. Like joining the library. Volunteering at the nursing home or the local animal shelter.

Of course, socializing with the locals would expose her to a scrutiny she was trying to avoid, and therefore was pretty much out. There would always be questions she’d hesitate to answer, and seeing her hesitate, sooner or later, someone would start to wonder.

Better to keep to myself
.

If she needed to talk to someone, she could call Carly. If she was really desperate for companionship, she could stop in to see Jesse, which she would have to do soon enough anyway because she would be needing cash. And then there was Cameron. She had to admit he’d come as a surprise to her; he wasn’t at all the handyman she’d pictured in her mind. She’d expected a man somehow closer to fifty or sixty, with a little bit of a paunch, a receding hairline, and baggy pants.

Definitely not the tall, lanky blond guy—no bald spots as far as she’d seen, and no paunch, either—wearing well-fitting jeans and a really terrific smile who showed up on Bay View Road two days ago.

She walked to the counter and was greeted by the same young man—Josh, according to his name tag.

“Hey, good morning,” he called to her from the latte machine. “Your regular?”

Ellie smiled and nodded. “Please.”

Being recognized as a regular—albeit an anonymous one—made her feel just a tiny bit less alone, a little less like an outsider. Of course, she was an outsider—she knew that—but it felt nice to belong somewhere, even if only at the coffee shop, and only for a few minutes each day.

Josh delivered her coffee and she paid him, putting the change in the large white mug marked
TIPS
on the counter. She’d just fixed her coffee and snapped the lid on the take-out cup when she heard someone call her name.

“Ellie.” Cameron stood near the front window
table, where a small group—mostly women of varying ages—had turned to look at her.

Ellie flushed at the scrutiny. Her first thought was that someone would remember her face from all of the newspaper and TV coverage last year. She’d done what she could to change her look, darkening her blond hair and cutting it short. And certainly, her style wasn’t that of a well-to-do Manhattan executive any longer. Gone were the designer suits and highticket shoes and accessories. She’d worn nothing but jeans and sweatshirts or sweaters since she arrived in St. Dennis. So chances were slim that anyone would connect her to the daughter of the King of Fraud.

Still, why take that chance?

She waved and smiled to Cameron, but headed toward the door all the same.

“Ellie, come here,” he persisted. “Come meet some of your fellow St. Dennis residents.”

Crap
.

Slapping a smile on her face, she walked to the table, where four faces peered up at her.

“Ellie, meet Grace Sinclair. Her family owns the big inn that sits out on the Bay not far from your house. Grace also owns the town newspaper, the
St. Dennis Gazette
.”

The older woman who’d smiled at Ellie the first time Ellie stopped at Cuppachino smiled at her again now.

Swell. She owns the newspaper
.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Sinclair.” Ellie may have been on edge, but she did remember her manners.

“Lovely to meet you, dear, and please, it’s
Grace
.
Cameron tells us you’re fixing up Lilly Cavanaugh’s old house. We can’t wait to hear your plans for the place.” Grace put out her hand and took Ellie’s to give it a squeeze. “Welcome to St. Dennis.”

“Thank you.”

“And this”—Cameron touched the shoulder of the pretty curly-haired woman who sat directly in front of him—“is Brooke Bowers. She owns the cupcake shop across the street.”

“The cupcake baker? You’re Jesse Enright’s fiancée?” Ellie asked.

“That would be me, yes.” Brooke offered her hand. “Jesse mentioned you’d been in to the office to pick up the keys to your new house.”

“Jesse’s been really helpful.” Ellie couldn’t help but wonder if Jesse had shared with Brooke just how helpful he’d been.

“Nita Perry.” Cameron indicated the woman in her late fifties who sat closest to the window. She had shiny black hair pulled back into a severe bun and wore large tortoiseshell glasses. “Nita has an antiques business here in town. I think I mentioned her to you.”

“You did.” To Nita, she said, “I’ll be calling on you when I get around to inventorying the contents of the house. I’m going to want to sell some things.”

“Oh, please do!” Nita’s face lit up. “I know that house is filled with some wonderful pieces. Lilly never did get rid of a thing, you know.”

“You’ll be the first person I call when I get to that point,” Ellie promised.

“I can’t wait.” Nita’s shoulders shivered slightly with anticipation.

“And this is Clay Madison, Brooke’s brother.” Cameron pointed to the lone male seated at the table. “He has that big farm on the left side of the road when you turn off the highway. Clay grows organic produce and is just starting up an organic brewery with another guy in town.”

“Organic beer?” Ellie raised an eyebrow.

Clay nodded. “Why not?”

“No reason, I guess.” Ellie smiled. “Sounds good to me, anyway.”

“We’ll put you on the list for the tasting when we’re ready for the big reveal,” Clay told her.

“Clay’s engaged to Miss Grace’s daughter, Lucy,” Cameron added.

“Congratulations.” Ellie felt like her face was frozen in the smile she was still wearing. She needed to get out of here before it became permanent.

“Ellie, can you join us?” Grace asked.

“Oh, no, I have some errands to run.” Ellie was grateful for an excuse to let the smile slide. “But thank you for offering.”

“Another morning, perhaps,” Grace replied.

“We’re here almost every day by eight,” Nita told her. “Please feel free to come in anytime and sit and chat with us for a while.”

“That sounds great, thanks.” Ellie turned to Cameron. “Good seeing you again, Cameron.” She turned back to the table. “It was nice to meet all of you.”

“We’re happy to welcome you to town, Ellie.” Nita turned in her chair.

“I’m happy to be here, thank you.” Ellie glanced around the table one more time, committing faces
and names to memory in the event she’d run into any of them again, which was likely, given the size of the town and the length of her intended stay. “I’ll see you all again, I’m sure.”

“We’ll look forward to it,” Grace said.

Ellie forced her feet not to flee to the door. Once outside, she exhaled a long deep breath. She got into her car, which was parked three storefronts down from Cuppachino, and sighed. She put the key in the ignition and started the engine, her heart beating a little faster than normal.

“Fight or flight,” she muttered.

She stopped at the light and watched a pretty dark-haired woman push a baby stroller across the street, where she stopped at the door of a shop and unlocked the door. The shop’s windows were decorated for fall and held beautifully displayed clothing. The name of the shop—
BLING
—was painted across the front and side windows.

In another life, I shopped at places just like that
, Ellie recalled.

These days, if Ellie shopped at all, it was for the things on her must-have list like cleaning products and sponges. She reminded herself that she needed to do exactly that. She made a left turn onto Cherry Street and drove around the block to reverse her direction on Charles. She headed toward the highway and the hardware store she’d passed on her way to St. Dennis, where she hoped to find that inexpensive coffeemaker.

Laden with a two-inch stack of paint-color brochures but no coffeemaker, Ellie returned to Bay View
Road and parked all the way up in the driveway. When she got out of the car, she tried to peer through the carriage house windows to see what was behind the glass, but every pane had been painted black. She was just going to have to keep looking for the key, she supposed, so that she could satisfy her curiosity.

She went into the house through the back door and dropped her bag and the paint brochures on the kitchen table. Her planned project for the day was the cupboards. She’d started emptying them a few days ago, but got distracted by the cache of duck decoys and hadn’t been able to resist taking them all out and placing them around the living room. Today she’d finish what she’d started.

The upper cupboards contained dishes that were stacked haphazardly, so she had a hard time knowing what was there. For two hours she emptied the shelves, then washed her findings. As she dried each piece, she sorted by pattern, and soon she realized that she had a complete set of Fiestaware, original, she was certain.

Nice
.

She knew she’d need to paint the shelves at some point—
What do you think, Mom? A nice cream would show off the dishes quite nicely
—but for now, she merely wiped them, permitting them time to dry before replacing the turquoise, green, yellow, and pink dishes. There were several pieces of mismatched china, and these she wrapped in the newspaper she’d found the decoys in, and put them in a box she’d found in one of the bedroom closets. Perhaps Nita, the antiques dealer she’d met that morning, might
have some thoughts on the age and quality of those pieces.

Next, to vary the view, Ellie tackled the cupboards below the counter. There were several old pots and pans, none of which matched the others, but she supposed that the concept of matching sets of pots might have come at a date later than the one on which Miss Lilly’s housekeeping commenced. She set them all out on the counter to see what she had and what she might actually use. There was a large stockpot; maybe she’d make soup one of these days, so that was a keeper. She found several black cast-iron pans at the back of the top shelf, and while she wasn’t sure what she’d use them for, she knew that reproductions were very popular right now and sold in some of the better housewares stores, so they—along with a griddle—made the cut. Besides, she thought as she washed the smaller of the two cast-iron frying pans, they just looked cool and old-timey, as if they belonged in the old house.