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 (58 page)

Cody shook his head. “She’s not too warm. She’s just right. I just want to hug her for a while. She’s my dog. My very own dog.”

“Well, that she is.” Dallas sat on the side of the bed and patted the dog’s head. “We’ll compromise. She can stay there for tonight, because Paige gave her a bath today and she’s all nice and clean, but maybe tomorrow night she should try her dog bed.”

“If she wants to.” Cody snuggled the dog that was clearly eating up the attention.

“How ’bout a story?” Dallas asked.

“The one about Clifford.” Cody yawned.

“Clifford?”

“The Big Red Dog. I got to take it out of the library. They let me have my own library card cause I’m gonna be here all summer.” His eyes were all but closed. “It’s yellow and it says ‘Cody Blair’ on it.”

Dallas looked on the corner of the dresser where a stack of books sat. She found the requested title, but by the time she walked back to the bed, Cody was asleep.

“Big day, indeed,” she whispered. “For both of you, I suspect.” Fleur’s eyes were open and she watched Dallas approach the bed. “That’s right, girl. You keep an eye on him. It’s going to be your job from now on.”

Dallas kissed her son and turned out the light. She left the door partly open in case the dog wanted to roam during the night. She quietly went back downstairs
to the library where she sat for a few minutes in her great-grandfather’s leather chair and rested her feet on the matching ottoman. The chair’s arms were worn in places, maybe those spots where he’d rested his elbows. She imagined him sitting there, his pipe resting in the green glass ashtray that still sat on the square table on the right side. A floor lamp with a silk shade stood behind and to the left of the chair, and she could easily see where a man—or a woman—might relax here at the end of the day with a good book. She’d never met her grandfather, but she’d seen photographs of him, and of course, his portrait hung in the front hall.

She studied the row of bookshelves that ran along the one wall, and got up to take a closer look. On one shelf, several leather-bound albums were stacked and she brought them back to the chair. She was feeling nostalgic and hoped to find some pictures of her father that she might not have seen before, but this particular album was all Berry. Berry in costume, publicity shots from the studio she worked for on that particular film. Berry on the arms of just about every major Hollywood heartthrob of her generation—and a few who came after, Dallas noticed with a smile. She turned page after page, noting, not for the first time, that Berry had been stunning in her youth.

“And right through middle age,” she murmured aloud.

She was almost to the end of the album when she came across a loose photo of Berry with a man Dallas didn’t recognize. He was tall and blond and extremely handsome, though he didn’t have that Hollywood look about him. In all the other pictures, Berry
looked very glamorous, her escorts equally so. But in this one, she was dressed casually with not a jewel in sight, her hair loose and soft. This one wasn’t taken at a high-powered event or party. She held the photo under the light. Was the background familiar? And the look on Berry’s face—just slightly dreamy—as she looked into the eyes of the man wasn’t something Dallas had seen ever before. She held on to the photo while she replaced the album on the shelf. Leaving the picture on the desk, she made a mental note to ask Berry about the man tomorrow.

She turned on her laptop and tried to work on the notes she’d started to make on the next scene of
Pretty Maids
and hoped that she wasn’t jinxing herself by being premature in writing the screenplay, but she couldn’t help herself. The story had wound its way into her head and she knew she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she had finished, and she had a long way to go. But she hadn’t worked for more than ten minutes before she realized she wasn’t going to accomplish much that night.

Instead of the characters’ words, it was Grant’s that kept coming back to her.

The truth is that what was between us back then was very special. Some things just become a part of you, and no matter what you say, or what you do, they’re always going to be there
.

Of course, Grant was right. That whole time with him, that part of her life, had been special. It had been a time of exploration and innocence, of learning the rules of love and learning to respect them, of offering her heart for the first time and having it taken and cherished. Grant had been the perfect first love, because
he’d loved her wholeheartedly in return. She’d never looked back on that time in her life with regret because there’d been nothing to be sorry about. At least until today, when she realized how much pain she’d caused him when the relationship came to an end. She’d never thought of it as her having dumped him, but clearly, he did. She didn’t know how, all these years later, to apologize, how to make him understand that she’d seen the end as something mutual, as they both moved on to college, she to Rutgers, he to UNC.

The following summers were hectic, a combination of work and summer theater and little time for dating or trips to the Eastern Shore. Even Berry had had a busy few years. She’d had to hire a middle-aged cousin to serve as house sitter while she flew back and forth between the coasts during a temporary resurgence of her career because Wade was too young to stay alone and too old for a babysitter. It had been unthinkable to Wade or Berry that he skip St. Dennis and stay in New Jersey those years. To find out now, all these years later, that Grant had believed that she’d simply abandoned him and never looked back caused her heart to hurt. Knowing that he’d harbored those feelings all these years only made it worse.

Her concentration broken, Dallas checked the front door to make sure it was locked, then made her way upstairs.

“I’m taking Cody to story hour, dear,” Berry announced after she’d opened the door and peered into the library, where Dallas was busy working on her laptop. “Don’t forget that Cody is bringing Logan
home with him. I’ll give them lunch, but later I do have an appointment for a trim.” She raised a hand to the nape of her neck. “I’m feeling a bit shaggy right about now. Oh, and we’ve taken both dogs out, so they should be fine until we come back.”

“Thanks for the heads-up. Oh, Berry, wait. Before you leave.” Dallas held up the photo of Berry and the tall, handsome blond man she’d found the night before. “Who is this?”

Berry crossed the room and took a long look at the picture.

“Where did you find this?” she asked softly.

“It was loose in one of the albums I was looking at last night,” Dallas told her. “But who is that?”

“Why, it’s me, dear.”

“Really, Berry? I didn’t recognize you.” Dallas rolled her eyes. “I meant the man. Who is he?”

“Just someone I used to know,” Berry replied blithely.

“Someone you knew from Hollywood? ’Cause he doesn’t look Hollywood to me.”

“No, dear. I mean, no, I didn’t know him from Hollywood, and yes, he doesn’t look Hollywood at all.” Berry smiled. “Must run. Cody’s in the car …”

Dallas picked up the photo and studied it after Berry closed the door behind her. Clearly, the photo captured two people who were deeply in love. But who was he, and why was Berry being so evasive?

Dallas stood the picture up against the small pile of Post-its and memo pads. One way or another, she was going to find out who Berry’s mystery man was.

Dallas heard Berry and the boys come into the house, and had all intentions of going to the kitchen to say hello, but wanted to finish one last sentence. That one sentence became another, which led to yet another, and before she knew it, Berry was at the door.

“I’m leaving to get my hair done,” Berry told her. “The boys have been fed and they’d like to crab from the dock, but I told them they had to wait for you. I don’t think they’re quite old enough to be playing that close to the river without an adult close by.” She paused. “Of course, they’re not playing, they’re crabbing.”

“I’ll come now. Thanks for feeding them. I meant to come out, but I guess I got carried away with what I’m doing.” Dallas stood and stretched. She hadn’t realized how stiff she was from sitting all morning in one position.

“Well, I’m sure the screenplay will sparkle.” Berry went into the front hall. “Oh,” she called back to Dallas, “anything under five inches must be thrown back.”

“What?” Dallas frowned as she made her way from the library.

“The crabs, dear. They have to be at least five inches across the top of the shell, or they’re not legal to take. Cody knows.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Dallas assured her as Berry went out the front door and shut it behind her.

Ally stood in front of the closed door and listened to Berry’s echoing footsteps.

“She’ll be back,” Dallas told the dog. “Now come on outside and sit with me, why don’t you?”

The dog ran to one of the living-room windows and looked out from a perch on an antique settee.

“Down, Ally. Berry loves you, but I don’t think she’d be happy to see you sitting where many generations of the family once sat.”

One last look out the window and Ally was at Dallas’s side.

“Good girl.” There was a package of dog treats on the kitchen table and Dallas swiped one as she passed and gave it to Ally. After grabbing a cold bottle of water from the fridge, she and the dog went outside.

“Hey, guys!” Dallas called to the boys, who were patiently sitting on the lawn waiting for her. Fleur was chasing a yellow ball and brought it back to Cody, who gave it another toss.

“Can we crab now?” Cody asked.

“Yes, you may.” Dallas moved one of the Adirondack chairs under the tree and sat, Ally in the shade nearby, to watch the boys, who were busy on the dock with lengths of string and two buckets, one large, one small.

“What are you using for bait?” she called.

“Chicken necks,” Cody called back, his tone of voice letting her know that that had been a stupid question.

Fleur sat beside Cody on the dock for a while, then joined Ally on the grass under the tree, apparently having decided that the direct sun might be acceptable to small humans, but it was too much for her.

Dallas was called to the end of the dock several times by Cody and by Logan to check the size of the crabs. So far, only three had been judged big enough to keep, and those only marginally. The boys kept water and some eelgrass in the larger bucket, and after almost an hour, with the same three crabs, the decision was made to let the crabs go. Together the two boys carried the bucket to the river’s edge and turned it on its side to allow the crabs to scamper off into the water.

“So you’re practicing catch and release, I see,” Dallas observed.

“No.” Cody shook his head. “We let them go because there were only three of them.”

“But we caught them and then we released them,” Logan pointed out. “Like when you fish and you catch a fish that you shouldn’t eat ’cause they’re ’dangered and you let them go.”

“What’s ’dangered?” Cody asked.

“When there aren’t many of them left and you catch one and eat one so there’s one less,” Logan explained, “that means they’re ’dangered.”

“
En
dangered,” Dallas corrected, and Logan nodded.

Cody rolled onto the ground next to Fleur, who scootched away slowly, her way, Dallas supposed, of
telling Cody it was too damned hot to be hanging on her.

“I’m hot,” Cody told her. “Logan, are you hot?”

Logan flopped on the grass near Cody. “Yeah.”

“We need ice cream, Mom. Can we go to Scoop?”

“Yay, Scoop! I love Scoop!” Logan chimed in.

“Sure. Why not?” Dallas picked up her water bottle. “Let’s get the dogs inside and give them a cool drink, then we’ll go.”

The boys ran off, Fleur trailing behind, and Dallas and Ally bringing up the rear. Once the dogs were watered and settled down, Dallas left a note on the kitchen table for Berry and got the boys into her rental car.

“Why’d you leave Aunt Berry a note?” Cody asked.

“So in case she gets home before we do, she won’t wonder where we are,” Dallas said.

“Why don’t you call her on the phone and tell her?”

“Because she might be under the dryer and wouldn’t hear the phone ring.”

“Under the dryer?” Cody laughed. “Aunt Berry wouldn’t fit under the dryer. Not under the clothes dryer!” At which he and Logan fell into fits of laughter.

Six-year-old boys—Dallas shook her head as she drove onto River Road—could possibly be the silliest beings on the planet. The silliness continued all the way to Charles Street and down Kelly’s Point and right into the parking lot across from the municipal building. The boys unhooked their seat belts and flew out of the car.

“Don’t run into Scoop, you two. Walk when you
get there,” she called to them, but they were already to the sidewalk.

By the time Dallas got to the ice-cream shop, both boys were already at the counter and sampling the newest flavor.

“Hey, Dallas.” Steffie waved as she leaned over the counter to hand another sample spoon to each of the boys.

“Hi, Steffie.” Dallas closed the door behind her. “What’s new today?”

“Peach melba and chocolate fudge divinity.” Steffie grinned. “Which is exactly what it sounds like.”

“It sounds deadly.” Dallas nodded.

“Exactly.” Steffie got another sample spoon of each for Dallas.

“Well, I suppose that would be my entire day’s worth of fat and calories,” Dallas told her after tasting both. “But so worth it. I’m going with one scoop of the peach.”

“Excellent choice,” Steffie agreed. “Cone or dish?”

“A dish, please.” Dallas turned to the boys. “What will it be, guys?”

“Chocolate fudge … what Steffie said.” Cody pointed to the new flavor.

“Me, too,” Logan told her. “Please,” he added.

“Two cones, one scoop each of the new chocolate flavor,” Dallas told Steffie, who had just landed a scoop of peach melba into a bowl and handed it to Dallas.

The little bell over the door rang and Dallas turned in time to see Grace Sinclair enter.

“Well, I see I’m not the only person in St. Dennis
who’s craving something cold and sweet today,” Grace declared.