Leslie looked outside as well. Sure enough, standing on the street corner was a small cluster of people: an older woman who was probably the innkeeper at Sunflower House, an attractive man of about forty with dark hair and a full beard and mustache, and an elegant couple of about fifty. The last two were dressed in business suits and were shaking the man’shand.
“Aaron Underwhite’s the mayor, Maxine,” Orbra said. “I suppose he’s probably welcoming the celebrity to our town. He and Regina are always very gracious to anyone whovisits.”
This pulled Maxine away from the window, and she spoke to Leslie as if she’d not been living in the town for a month, “Aaron Underwhite and Regina Clemons. Never could figure out that match. She used to go out with Colter Bray,remember?”
Since Maxine was looking at her as if she expected a response, Leslie answered, “I think that was before mytime.
“Colter Bray was one of them jockey strap boys back in high school, and now she’s married to the nerdy Underwhitekid.”
Orbra appeared to share Maxine’s emotion. “How do you remember all of those people? They’re at least thirty years younger than you, and it’s not like you had kids of your own who knewthem.”
Maxine tapped her temple with a curved finger. “Perfect memory, right here. Never forget a face or nothing. Ain’t that how I helped catch that culprit was messing with Diana Iverson last summer?” She turned back to the view. “Now how the hell am I going to get me an invite to meet JeremyFischer?”
“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Ivasaid.
The gleam in the elderly woman’s eye was enough to make Leslie shudder. She was suddenly relieved her own inn wasn’t quite ready to open. She didn’t think she could handle customers like MaxineTook.
Three
“Steph? You here?”Declan called as he came in through the back door, clumping into the mudroom in his heavy workboots.
He was sweaty and smelled pretty ripe from spending three hours in the smithy working on Leslie Nakano’s stair railing. He hadn’t planned to start working on it so soon—he hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he had plenty of jobs—but she kept popping into his mind and he found it difficult not to think abouther.
He wasn’t exactly surewhyshe’d lodged there in his head. It wasn’t like there’d been some great big sizzle of attraction between them. Sure, he saw how pretty she was under the ball cap and dust she wore, but as far as he was concerned there was a lot more to a woman than the way she looked. God help him, he’d learned that the hardway.
Whatever. He wasn’t going to drop everything to get her job done, but he’d work on it when he had the urge to doso.
“Steph?” he called again, hesitating on the threshold. Normally, he’d strip everything off in the back hall of wherever he was living and leave it—wet, stinky, and smoky—until later, but living with a teenaged girl he hardly knew put a cramp in thatstyle.
Dec still could hardly believe the phone call, six months ago, that had upended his entire life. One minute, he’d been enjoying the single life—working his ass off on various locations in Savannah or Atlanta and making a buttload of money, hanging with his buddies, dating occasionally…and the next minute, he was answering the phone to a girl—woman—he’d dated the summer between high school and college. The old Seger song “Night Moves” mashed up with Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” (both good old Michigan rockers) pretty much described the summer he spent hanging out with CaraDoucette.
He’d answered the call, recognizing that it was from back home in Wicks Hollow—maybe his friend Jed had gotten a new number—and nearly fell out of his chair when the voice said, “Declan? This is Cara Doucette. A real blast from the past, huh? How are you? You got aminute?”
She’d spoken so quickly, spewing it all out in one breath, that it took him a second to catch up. “Hey, Cara. Nice to hear from you. Yeah, I’ve got a few minutes.” He did his best to keep the question and wariness from his voice. From his and his buddies’ experience, when an old flame looked you up—whether it be via social media or directly like this—it was because she was interested in one of two things: another hookup, or to show the guy how successful/happy she was withouthim.
Fortunately, she didn’t beat around the bush. In fact, Dec had the feeling she was actually reading off something she’d written, for she launched right into a speech that yanked the rug of life out from under his bootedfeet.
“I have something to tell you. I should have told you back then, after we broke up, but I didn’t. There were lots of reasons, and I’m sorry for it, I made a mistake. A big mistake. Except she’s not a mistake at all. Oh, damn.” Her voice dropped, implying she’d gone off script. “Dec, I’m just going to come right out and say this. That summer you and I were together—well, I got pregnant, had the baby, and you’re thefather.”
He pulled the phone away to stare at it. A roaring sound filled his ears, and his insides surged and swirled into something worse than the morning after too many beers. His brain pretty much exploded into nothing…then crashed back into his skull with a whirlwind ofemotions.
“Declan? Are you there? I know it’s a shock,but…”
He hardly heard anything she said at first, and it took him a long time—alongtime—to calm down enough to get the basic facts. He was the father of a fifteen-year-old girl named Stephanie. Cara had gotten married to her ex-boyfriend—the one she’d broken up with just before she and Declan got together; Dec had been her summer fling and rebound—and they’d raised Stephanie in Wicks Hollow. She never told anyone except her husband that Stephanie wasn’t hischild.
“So…why tell me now?” he managed to say from between stiff lips. Somehow, he couldn’t drag in a deep enoughbreath.
“Because she wants to meetyou.”
Something rushed through him—warmth and delight, followed abruptly by a stark, ice-cold chill. “Ohhh…kay,” he managed to say. The questions swirling around in his head—he could figure out all the answers later…and dissect the emotions (shock, anger, confusion) as well. Now, he would take one step at atime.
And so he had. He’d met Stephanie—flown up to Michigan, spent a weekend with her that went surprisingly well—then flew back to Savannah, where he was working temporarily. He was both stoked and terrified that he had fathered this lovely young woman and didn’t know a thing abouther.
Over the next few months they got to know one another better—they talked on the phone, she visited him, he visited her, they emailed—and then in May, he got the second unexpected phonecall.
The one that really shuffled his lifearound.
“Dad.” She was sniffling and crying into the phone, and he felt a shocking surge of protectiveness blast through him. “I n-need to ask you for something. A really big f-favor.”
