A Small-Town Reunion Page 9

  What would she have said if he’d offered her a ride? What would they have talked about if she’d accepted? “We were too young to have the kind of conversation we’re having now.”

  “Maybe.” He gave her a searing, unsettling look. A look that started the slow, heavy beat of awareness pulsing through her system. She wished she could control her reaction to him.

  She wished she could make him react the same way to her. Tempt him to lean close, to brush his lips over hers, to whisper her name, to take her in his arms…

  Someone walked by, heels clicking swiftly down the rear hallway near Geneva’s office, speaking in the halting, one-sided bursts of a cell-phone conversation.

  “I should go back to the party,” she said.

  “So should I.”

  But Dev didn’t move, and he didn’t look away.

  Addie straightened and folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me what you were going to say about Bud.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Dev frowned and glanced away. “He caught up to me, since my car was moving so slowly. And he pulled the door open and jumped into the passenger seat, just like he belonged there. Which he did, because he was my friend.”

  Dev lowered his hand to the carpet, his fingers resting a fraction of an inch from the toe of her sandal. “Then you dropped your books, and Bud laughed and pointed at you. He said, ‘What a loser.’ I laughed, too, because that’s what I did—what everyone expected of me. But inside of me, this other voice was telling me that I was the loser. Not because I’d laughed at you, but because I let Bud into my car instead of you. Because we never got to have that talk.”

  Dev shifted to face her. “I can’t make up for what happened before. And I’m not sure we can ever be friends. But I’d like to try. I’d like to have a friendship with you, Addie. I came in here looking for that today.”

  He stood and reached for her hand, his palm upturned, offering to help her rise from her seat on the stairs. “Do you think we could at least pretend to be friends?” he asked. “For old times’ sake?”

  “I don’t think that would be too hard.” She cocked her head to one side. “But did we ever at least pretend to like each other?”

  “Good point.” His smile tugged up at one corner in a more familiar tilt. “That part could be an exciting new element in our pseudo-relationship.”

  He leaned in close, took her by the arms and hauled her to her feet. Tipping her off her step, off balance, until she fell against his chest. The stunning contact nearly knocked her senseless.

  He held her there for a second longer than necessary. An extra second in which she sensed his tension and absorbed his heat. The slight parting of his lips, the sharp intake of his breath, the intense yearning in his gaze.

  “Addie,” he whispered as he tilted his head toward hers.

  A door slammed nearby, and laughter blasted through the hall. Dev released her and stepped back, out of her way.

  She moved to the entry floor and headed toward the back of the house, Dev beside her. Close beside her. She imagined she could still feel his heat. “I was thinking about leaving the party earlier,” she told him. “Before our visit.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t go just yet.” He caught her wrist again, stopping her, and she didn’t have to use her imagination. His fingers stayed closed over her skin, warm and secure. And this time she didn’t mistake the simmer in his stare. “I’d like you to stay,” he said. “We could pretend to ignore each other.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Okay, then.” He closed his hand over hers and gave it a soft squeeze before letting her go. “I’ll take what I can get.”

  EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Dev lifted Geneva’s bags into the trunk of her long, luxurious sedan and waited for his grandmother to make her farewells to her whining herd of Yorkies. He’d promised to take care of the dogs’ daily walk, but he’d been careful to avoid promising that he’d be the one on the other end of the leashes. Rosie, Quinn and Tess had driven a hard bargain, but he figured fifty dollars for the kid and a few afternoons spent keeping an eye on her for his cousin was worth escaping two weeks of poop-scoop duty.

  “Don’t forget to close the gate after Julia leaves this evening,” Geneva said as she settled in the passenger seat for the trip to the Cove’s miniature airport.

  “I won’t.” He gently closed her door and circled to the driver’s side.

  “And don’t forget to collect the paper each day from the bottom of the drive,” she added as he climbed in. “They won’t fit in the box if you let them pile up.”

  “I’ve got everything written down.” He pulled away and headed down the hill. “I can handle it. I’m a big boy now.”

  “I’m aware of that fact.” Geneva gave him a considering look. “And so, it seems, are several women in Carnelian Cove.”

  “Not several.” Dev shot her a pained look. “And shouldn’t this subject be off-limits for a guy’s grandmother?”

  “It’s not a subject. It’s an observation.”

  He’d thought one extra-large cup of coffee would be enough to sharpen his wits and get him through this errand without getting his butt kicked by his grandmother. He’d been wrong. “Any woman who might be aware of my presence in the Cove should also be aware that I’m not interested. I don’t live here. I don’t intend to stick around for long. And I don’t plan on seeing anyone while I’m here.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘Hmm.’”

  “And what does that ‘hmm’ mean, exactly?”

  “Addie Sutton.”

  Dev clamped his lips together. He’d relived those moments on the stairs last evening a hundred times. But they still felt new, fresh and fragile and his alone.

  His and Addie’s.

  “You told me to stay away from her,” he said at last.

  “You were seventeen at the time. And inclined to disobedience if you deemed the punishment worth the effort.”

  “Then maybe I never thought she was worth it.”

  “Hmm.”

  They rode in silence for several minutes. Minutes that poked at Dev until he could feel the lumpy bruises on his conscience. “She wasn’t worth it,” he told his grandmother.

  “So you say.”

  “That’s right. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “The question is, do you still believe it?”

  “Now?” He straightened his fingers and slowly wrapped them more tightly around the steering wheel. “I’m not sure what to think. Or to believe.”

  Having Tess warning him to avoid Addie and Geneva shoving him in her direction didn’t help the situation.

  Geneva pointed at a tall, green Victorian house as they passed. “Stan Waterman’s son was accepted at West Point.”

  “Dave Waterman? That scrawny little kid with the white hair? The one with all those rabbits that won ribbons at the fair every summer?”

  “He was the starting center fielder on the high school baseball team last year,” Geneva said. “He’ll be leaving for New York soon.”

  “Hard to imagine.” On the surface, the Cove seemed the same old place. But things changed. People changed. Maybe Addie had changed, too, in ways he couldn’t see.

  “What about the rabbits?” he asked.

  Geneva gave him one of her exasperated looks, but she couldn’t quite hide the laughter in her eyes. “I doubt Dave is taking them with him to West Point.”

  “What about Jim Franks?” Dev asked. He’d once thought his grandmother had a soft spot for the elegant widower. “Is he still around?”

  “Jim died last year.” Geneva laced her fingers together on her lap. “He’d remarried, shortly before he got sick. His widow, Sophie, is on the board at The Breakers.”

  Dev turned onto the highway and headed north. Soon the tiny airport, perched on a bluff overlooking Elkhorn Beach, came into view. A bright-orange Coast Guard helicopter swooped in from the west and disappeared behind a line of tall, twisted cypress.
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br />   “Speaking of The Breakers,” Geneva said.

  “Were we?”

  “Will you be going to the anniversary dance?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “I saw you speaking with that Whitfield woman yesterday.” Geneva’s lips thinned in a disapproving line. “I’m sure the subject of the dance came up.”

  “Courtney. She mentioned she’s on some sort of club committee.”

  “I doubt that’s all she had to say on the subject.”

  He exited the highway and began the climb toward the airport parking area. Since he couldn’t think of a way to respond to Geneva’s comment without launching into a topic he didn’t want to discuss with her, he said nothing.

  “She asked you to escort her, didn’t she?”

  “Why the interrogation?” Dev punched the big metal button and yanked the parking ticket from the machine at the gate. “You’re not in charge of my social life. Not anymore.”

  “I was never in charge.” She pointed to an empty space beneath a tall tree. “If I had been, I would have chosen a different set of friends for you.”

  Dev switched off the ignition and settled back against the seat. “Maybe you should have.”

  “You wouldn’t have listened.”

  “I’m listening now.”

  “Yes, you are. You have been listening this summer. I don’t know whether to be grateful or concerned.” Geneva glanced at her watch and then back at him. “I think we have time for a drink in the lounge before I have to go through security. We could find a quiet spot to continue this discussion.”

  “It can wait. Don’t worry,” he said, grinning, “I promise I’ll still be listening when you get back.”

  He stared ahead, watching distant waves crest in white ridges and crash to foam along the shore. On the horizon, a string of boats marked the edge of a fishing ground. “There’s something more important I want to discuss right now.”

  “Your father’s papers.”

  His grandmother had always possessed an uncanny ability to guess what was on his mind. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any point in refusing to answer that question, since you’ll likely turn my house inside out looking for them in my absence.”

  “This trip of yours does give me an excellent opportunity to do some quality ransacking.”

  “Sorry to spoil your fun, but I left the key to the family files where you’ll easily find it. In the top right drawer of my desk.”

  “Well.” Dev tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “That was easy.”

  “You haven’t yet seen the files.” Geneva’s lips turned up in a sly smile. “Everything is in order, but there’s a great deal of it.”

  “And it just so happens I have a great deal of time on my hands this summer.”

  He exited the car and jogged to the passenger side to open his grandmother’s door. She followed him to the rear of the car and waited as he hauled her suitcases from the trunk.

  “Julia left a few dishes for you in the freezer,” she said.

  Geneva’s cook was taking a holiday, too. “She didn’t have to do that,” Dev said, “but I’m glad she did.”

  “Please leave her kitchen tidy, if you use it.”

  “I know how to clean up after myself.”

  “I wish I could take credit for that,” his grandmother said, “but it must be a habit you developed after you left home.”

  “Amazing what the sudden absence of a maid and a cook will do for a guy.”

  He closed the trunk, stacked the cases and fell into step beside Geneva as she walked toward the terminal entrance. “Say hi to Aunt Jacqueline for me,” he said. “And have fun on your cruise.”

  “Leaving me with a list of things to do?” She walked through the sliding doors and turned to take her bags from him. “Wait for me here, if you don’t mind.”

  Dev nodded and strolled toward a compact lounge area a few feet away. A twenty-minute drive to the airport, dozens of parking slots within a few yards of the door, a nonexistent line at the check-in counter—this small-town airport routine was a nice change from the big-city hassles.

  Geneva returned a minute later, her boarding pass in hand. “I won’t keep you long.”

  “I don’t mind waiting.”

  “That’s right,” she said as she tucked her ticket into a purse pocket. “You have all summer.”

  “What did you want to tell me?”

  “I wanted to remind you that you’re not seventeen anymore.” She stepped in close to press her cheek against his in one of her formal displays of affection. “I hope you don’t take the entire summer to realize that fact.”

  YOU’RE NOT SEVENTEEN ANYMORE.

  Geneva’s words lodged in his brain like a catchy but obnoxious advertising jingle, annoying him as he sped down the highway, heading back to Carnelian Cove.

  Okay, so he wasn’t seventeen. He knew that. But damn, every second he spent in Addie’s presence made him feel as though he were stuck in some sort of time warp. Awkward. Insecure. Hormonal. Out of control.

  There had to be some way to snap out of it.

  Why did he care about her so much, anyway? It wasn’t as if he wanted to date her. Get her in bed, yes—that’s what any normal, healthy heterosexual male wanted to do with an appealing, single female. But with Addie, the normal-and-healthy routine would never be as straightforward as it should be.

  She’d always held some strange and powerful fascination for him.

  Which explained all the boundaries Lena and Geneva had erected to keep him away from her.

  And now, just when Geneva had given him the green light, Tess had issued her own warning to stay away from her friend.

  Friendship. What a bunch of bullshit. What an idiotic tactic he’d tried the day before. Tess’s fault—that’s what that had been. Trying to get around his cousin’s embargo by promising to play nice with Addie all summer.

  He and Addie were already as friendly as they were ever going to get. Their problem was all that history getting in their way. All those family expectations and mixed signals to sort through. All that seventeen-year-old hormonal crap, warping the here and now.

  And he was back to square one. Damn.

  So what did he want—besides getting her in bed? And why did it have to be Addie between the sheets, anyway? There were plenty of other attractive, willing women. Courtney Whitfield, for one.

  He winced.

  Okay, back to Addie. He always seemed to circle back to her, even when he thought he was heading in a straight line to somewhere else. That had to mean something—although what that something was, he’d never been able to figure out. But he sure was getting tired of feeling like some rodent running on a squeaky wheel.

  He rubbed a hand over his chest. There they were again—those gnawing, rodentlike doubts. It was time—well past time—to quit acting like a confused seventeen-year-old and take a man’s chances. He turned down Cove Street and headed toward A Slice of Light.

  No need to blow it, though, he thought as he passed her shop and made the first turn in a trip around the block. He needed a strategy. Slow and steady would probably work in this situation. Let her know he was interested, gauge her reaction, build her trust, take some easy steps before the first move.

  Okay, then.

  He pulled to the curb near her shop, exited his car and stepped off the squeaky wheel.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ADDIE SLID HER GUIDE into place at the long edge of a large rectangle of glass and ran her cutter up the center. A quick pinch with the running pliers at the base of the pale, hair-thin score neatly separated the piece into two squares. She carefully added the new pieces to the stack on her right, brushed her work surface to remove any tiny chips of glass—like the one that had nicked her left palm earlier that morning—and then lifted the next piece into position.

  And then she paused, as she’d done a dozen times this morning, to relive the ridiculously giddy, chest-tig
htening, heart-racing, thought-scrambling thrill of Dev’s almost-a-kiss on the stairs in Chandler House.

  He’d nearly kissed her. Almost. She was sure of it. And because it had only been almost-a-kiss, she’d been free to complete the details in one fantasy after another.

  And to stash those details beside the details of all the other Dev-related fantasies she’d indulged in over the past twenty-five years.

  Her shop door opened, and the object of those fantasies walked through it. “Hi, Dev.”

  “Hi, Addie.” He paused by the door and slid his hands into his pockets. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing here?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be predictable.”

  She repositioned the guide and pressed the cutter against the edge of the glass with trembling fingers. It slipped off and smacked down against the table, taking with it a tiny pile of glass shards. Frowning, she made a second try to catch the edge, and this time the cutter began a smooth glide up the glass with that paper-ripping sound that told her the score was deep and even. “So, what are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Just dropped by to see how you’re doing.”

  Of course. That’s the kind of things friends—or people pretending to be friends—did. She could handle that. No reason at all for her pulse to race and her breath to catch as he moved closer. “I’m fine,” she said. “And you?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  His eyes crinkled with amusement—probably at their oddly formal exchange—and her face warmed. It was going to take a while to get used to this friendship thing.

  And maybe she couldn’t handle a friendship with Dev Chandler after all.

  Too bad she couldn’t afford to take a vacation. With Dev in Carnelian Cove for the next several weeks, this would be a good time to get out of town.

  He watched her turn the long rectangle of glass and straighten it for another cut. “I just dropped Geneva at the airport.”