On Sunset Beach (7 page)

“That’s certainly a possibility. I’ll bet a few folks will be in for the surprise of their lives.” Grace chuckled as she put the card in her wallet. “Now, are you here for the week, Carly, or did you drive down only for the day?”

“I’ll stay tonight and leave sometime tomorrow,” Carly replied. “I hate to be away from the paintings for too long.”

“Of course.” Grace paused when they reached her
car, which was parked in front of Carly’s. “If you have no other plans, try to stop over at the inn tonight. We’re having a welcome-home party for my son Ford, and we’d love to have you both join us. Cam, too, of course.”

“Cam did mention that Lucy had called with an invitation, so I think he’s planning on it,” Ellie said.

“Good. I know Ford would want to see him again. They were friends once upon a time.” Grace turned to Carly. “And I hope you do come along.”

“I don’t know your son, so he might think it’s odd.” Carly made a face. Would it be awkward to attend the welcome-home party for someone you’d never met?

“I’m sure he’ll be delighted to meet you.” Grace patted Carly’s hands. “In the meantime, we’ll see if we can lobby more support for the gallery. I have the feeling that you’re going to do great things in St. Dennis.” Grace smiled. “Yes, I do believe there are great things waiting for you here …”

Carly and Ellie watched the older woman walk up the slight incline of the driveway to her car.

“Does she sometimes give you an odd feeling?” Carly asked under her breath.

Ellie shook her head. “Odd like how?”

“She just gave me this feeling that she …” Carly stopped. How to put into words, even to your best friend, that somehow something—something important—had just passed between her and Grace, and that she had no idea what it might have been.

“That she what?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. I probably imagined it.”

“The important thing is that Grace is behind us and
will advocate for turning this building into the gallery that you want.”

“Does she have any influence with the council members?”

“I suspect she does,” Ellie said thoughtfully. “Remember she owns the only newspaper in town. She can use that as a platform to get people behind the project. Plus, she knows everyone and is pretty much universally liked. I think she could help make it happen.”

“Assuming your numbers are right,” Carly reminded her.

“They will be.”

“You sound so sure of yourself.”

“I am.” Ellie nodded. “I know this building. I don’t carry prices in my head the way Cam does, but I think the cost will surprise everyone, and I mean that in a good way.” She looped her arm through Carly’s as they headed toward the car. “I’ve been hoping there’d be some way to bring you to St. Dennis to stay for a while. If you think I’m going to let this opportunity pass me by—”

“Who said anything about staying here?”

“Do you think you can oversee this”—Ellie waved a hand in the direction of the carriage house—“from New York? Uh-uh. We get the green light, toots, and you’re looking at a couple of months between now and the time the exhibit would open.”

“So …?”

“So who do you think is going to be supervising the job, making sure everything is exactly the way you want it? Who’s going to set up the partitions and place the lighting and the air vents and the paintings? Or are you going to delegate all that to someone else?”

“Good point.” Carly opened the driver’s-side door and got in.

“Your galleries are covered, right? You have good people working for you?” Ellie slid into the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt.

“The best.”

“So you’re covered there. Besides, you’re less than a four-hour drive from New York. You can go back anytime you want.”

“True enough. Still, I hadn’t thought about staying here indefinitely.”

“Of course, the other option would be for you to go back to New York and do your thing, and we’ll find someone else to take care of the business here. We could probably find someone in Baltimore or DC who’d love to be involved with our little project.”

Carly shot Ellie a withering gaze.

“Thought so,” Ellie said smugly. “So I suggest you make a six-month plan for your directors and your managers, because I have the feeling you’re going to be spending a lot more time here than there.”

Chapter 5

T
HE
kayak glided across the water’s surface, following the gentle curve of the Chesapeake into Blue Heron Cove. Ford lifted the paddle and rested it across the hull, content to drift on the waves while they drew him closer to the pebbled beach. It had been years since he’d kayaked this far down the coast, but once upon a time, these waters had been as familiar to him as the paved roads of St. Dennis. Even as a young boy, he’d loved exploring the inlets and coves and rivers, loved the freedom, the solitude, the comfort of being alone on the water with nothing but his thoughts and the local wildlife for company. The stress and conflict he’d been feeling since he arrived at the inn were overbearing, and so he’d sought refuge in the only place where he knew for certain he’d find peace.

Ford closed his eyes and let the kayak drift closer to shore. He’d slept fitfully since he arrived at the inn, and he was nearing exhaustion. His first night home, he’d stood in the shower, the hot water beating down on him like a summer storm until his skin turned red, and even then he’d been reluctant to turn off the water.
He’d joined his family in the main dining room and had been treated to the kind of meal he’d only dreamed about: exquisite, delicate crab cakes, twice-baked potatoes, and grilled summer vegetables, all served with beer from Clay’s own brewery. For dessert there’d been Ford’s favorite blueberry cobbler topped with whipped cream. Before eleven o’clock, he’d crawled into bed between soft clean sheets the likes of which he hadn’t seen in years and fully expected to pass out from the rigors of the last few weeks. He hadn’t anticipated tossing and turning through the night.

At one point, he’d gone out onto the balcony and let the warm night breezes wrap around him. The sound of the water lapping against the shore was just as he’d remembered. Through the branches of the enormous pines that stood near the shore, he could see the Bay shining smooth as glass in the moonlight, and every once in a while, he’d hear something rustling in the trees or in the shrubs below his room. Whatever else in his life may have changed, the sights and sounds of the Bay had remained the same. The comfort he’d drawn from those few minutes had lured him back to his bed and finally lulled him to sleep.

He’d been awakened that first morning by a soft rap on the outer door, and thought he’d heard someone moving about in the sitting room. By the time he’d gotten out of bed, wrapped a towel around his waist, and opened the door, whoever had come in had left. Ford suspected that it had been his brother who’d popped in just long enough to leave a tray of goodies on the console table: a carafe of steaming-hot coffee, a plate of fresh fruit, a croissant flaky enough to have floated off the tray on its own. Ford downed two cups
of coffee while he leaned on the balcony railing, nibbled on his breakfast, and watched the inn’s grounds come alive. Even at an early hour, there were couples on the tennis courts, kids in the fenced play area, and sailboats out on the Bay. A lawn mower cranked along somewhere on the grounds, and down below, his sister greeted a smiling couple in the parking lot.

Ford dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a short-sleeved tee and went downstairs. His mother had gone to a meeting, Lucy was still with her prospective clients, and Dan had the inn to run. Ford had slipped out of the inn and walked down to the waterline. Nearby, kayaks were lined up on the grass for the use of the inn’s guests. He’d selected a twelve-footer, walked it into the water, dropped into the cockpit, and headed off into the Bay.

That first foray out onto the Chesapeake had been everything he’d remembered. He’d enjoyed it so much that he’d repeated the excursion every morning since. Being alone on the Bay was the only time his head was clear enough to think things through. How best, he wondered, to transition from where he’d been to where he was and where he was going? And where
was
he going? How to make sense of the life he’d led in contrast to the life he now found himself in? How to adjust to the peace and quiet of this beautiful place when in his mind he still lived amid the chaos of the past few years?

And ultimately, where did he really belong? Here, or there?

It didn’t help that everyone Ford saw had asked some variation of the same questions: where had he
been, how long was he staying, and had he come back to help his brother run the inn?

To the latter, he’d responded that Dan was doing a great job on his own and didn’t need help from anyone, but inside he was starting to wonder if maybe Dan resented the fact that Ford hadn’t been around to help, that he’d been off trying to “save the world,” as Dan had once quipped, instead of helping his family to save their business. As he looked around the grounds now, it was hard to imagine that there had been lean years following their father’s death, years when the future of the inn had been in question and there’d been the real possibility that it might pass from Sinclair hands for the first time in its long history. Only hard work on the part of his mother and his brother had ensured that the inn would remain in the family. Had Dan resented that the burden had fallen on his shoulders, and that neither Ford nor Lucy had stepped up?

Still in high school when their father passed away, Ford had worked at the inn with the rest of the family on the weekends, while Dan, who was seven years older, had taken on the bulk of the responsibility. Grace—and Dan—had been insistent that Ford go to college, as Dan and Lucy had done, but the only way they could afford for him to do so was through the ROTC program. Four paid years of college had obligated Ford to four years of military service, and so he’d gone into the army after graduation, eventually going on to Ranger training. His last assignment had been part of a small, newly formed covert force intended to help protect civilians from al Qaeda–backed
rebels in a central African nation that was in the throes of civil war.

“Be our eyes and ears on the ground,” his superior had said, “and try to keep the rebels from taking over the country and wiping out the civilian population while you’re at it.”

Once on the ground, however, he and his cohorts had found that providing security to the small villages against the ravages of the well-armed, well-trained rebels was pretty much a full-time job. There’d been no words to describe the horrors they’d witnessed, no way to assure his family that he, too, would not become a victim of the same forces, and so he’d permitted his mother to believe that he was part of a UN Peacekeeping Mission, which was sort of a truth, though a very thinly stretched one. There
were
UN Peacekeeping Forces in the area, and his unit had been instructed to have their backs. He knew that if his mother had known the full truth, she wouldn’t have had a day unmarked by worry, and he’d wanted to save Grace from six years of sleepless nights, so he’d stuck to his original story.

Had several members of his own unit not been massacred along with two UN Peacekeepers in a bloody ambush six weeks ago, Ford might still be there. But when U.S. forces took a hit—as they had on previous missions, such as the slaughter in Mogadishu—the remaining troops were withdrawn and brought home, the unit disbanded as quietly as it had been formed. Upon his return to the States, Ford had opted for a discharge and had headed for home … yes, to see his family, but also because he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

The last thing he wanted was to have people asking where he’d been, what he’d been doing, and what his plans were. He was getting tired of saying, “Here and there,” “This and that,” and “I don’t know.”

All of which was why his stomach had clenched into one great big knot when his mother had announced at dinner on Thursday that she’d invited a few friends to the inn for a little welcome-home party for him on Saturday night. For one thing, Grace’s idea of a few friends and his were two very different things. She’d probably invited half the town, which meant he’d be repeating himself over and over and over all night without once having told the truth. He’d wanted to tell her right then and there that a party was out of the question, but the look on her face was so joyful that he didn’t have the heart. He knew she’d missed him—of course she did; after all, she
was
his mother—but he hadn’t realized just how much pain his absence had caused her. Now that he was home, he’d do anything to try to make it up to her, even if that meant enduring an evening spent with well-meaning friends and neighbors where he’d be forced to repeat his lies to everyone in town.

Well, at least they’d all hear the same story.

And now it was Saturday, and he was thinking that maybe he should have asked his mother to cancel the party. He’d taken the kayak out early hoping to start the day in a serene state of mind after an hour or so paddling on the Bay. But he’d been out for almost most of the morning and he still wasn’t feeling much better. At Sunset Beach he turned the kayak and paddled in toward the shore.