A Small-Town Reunion. Terry Mclaughlin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ said some of your shop glass was broken.” Lena took the pink Bern’s Bakery box Addie handed her and carried it into her compact kitchen. “Did you file an insurance claim?”

      “I found another way to replace the supplies.”

      Addie took her usual spot at the tidy table set for two. Her mother had folded her faded cotton-print napkins into the foiled stained-glass rings Addie had made for a birthday present years ago. Addie ran a fingertip over one of the pretty bevels. “I went to Chandler House today.”

      “Oh?”

      Lena could pack a sky-high load of meaning into that one syllable. Tonight, disapproval underlined her stone-faced delivery.

      Addie searched, as she so often did, for traces of herself in her mother’s features. When she was younger, Addie had imagined she could find her father in the differences. But she’d soon abandoned that game, once she’d figured out she’d probably never see the man. It seemed fitting to give up on him, since he’d never given her or her mother anything. No contact, no assistance. Lena had never told her daughter who he was—not so much as his first name—and Addie had long ago ceased to care.

      She could see her own saturated blue in her mother’s eyes and a bright hint of gold twining through the older woman’s darker hair. But Lena’s face was thinner, her cheeks less curvy and her jaw less sculptured. It was as though age and hard times and bitterness had worn her features.

      Addie lowered her eyes, guilty over her unkind thoughts. “Two of the stained-glass windows were broken,” she stated. “Do you remember the set on the landing between the main floor and the bedroom floor?”

      “The four seasons. Yes, I remember.” Lena ladled seafood chowder into a large bowl. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

      “She’s hired me to fix them.”

      “I suppose that means you’ll be spending a lot of time at the house.”

      “As little as possible.” Addie pulled her napkin from its glass ring as Lena set the bowl of soup in front of her. “I’ve already had the windows removed and delivered to my shop.”

      Lena took her own seat without comment.

      “She sent a ‘hello’ for you,” Addie said.

      “Who did?”

      “Geneva.”

      “Oh.”

      Addie cut off a sigh and leaned forward, hoping her mother would raise her eyes to meet her gaze. “She asked how you were.”

      Lena idly stirred her thick soup. “That was kind of her.”

      “She’d be more than kind to you if you’d give her the chance.”

      “I don’t want Geneva’s charity.” Lena lifted a basket of rolls and handed it to Addie. “Or her pity, or anything else she’d care to offer.”

      “I was talking about friendship.”

      “We were never friends.” Lena shredded one of the rolls on her plate. “We were friendly. There’s a difference.”

      “I don’t think Geneva ever saw it that way.”

      “She wasn’t your employer.”

      “She is now.”

      It wasn’t often that Addie disagreed with her mother. The silences that stretched through the tense times that followed their arguments weren’t worth the trouble. Jonah Chandler was dead; Geneva Chandler had become the focus of Lena’s bitterness and resentment.

      Addie sought a new topic, but the only thing that came to mind wasn’t a subject she particularly cared to discuss. “Did you know Dev was back?”

      “No.” Lena paused with a spoonful of soup near her mouth. “And even if I had known, it doesn’t matter,” she said with a meaningful glance.

      Addie was tempted to confess that it did matter. He still had an effect on her that she couldn’t control. But she knew her outburst would be followed by a lecture instead of sympathy. Lena had a lecture for every situation concerning the Cove’s most influential family.

      And all those lectures ended with one essential piece of advice: never get involved with a Chandler.

       CHAPTER THREE

      ADDIE PULLED INTO Charlie’s drive on Friday evening and parked behind Tess’s sporty car. She jumped from her truck, exercised her temper by slamming the door and marched along the short walk to the front porch.

      “Hi, Addie.” Rosie Quinn, the daughter of Tess’s fiancé, held one end of a chew rope. Charlie’s naughty black Labrador retriever, Hardy, growled and tugged at the other end.

      “Hi, Rosie. Staying for dinner?”

      “Yep. Tess said we could have a girls’ night.” Rosie didn’t bother to hide her delight at being included. “She brought a wedding video.”

      “Does Charlie know?”

      “Not yet.” Rosie worked the rope loose and tossed it across the yard for Hardy to chase. “Tess said we’d get some wine into her before we tie her to her sofa and make her watch.”

      Addie stepped up to the trim front porch and whacked the iron knocker hard against its panel on the Craftsmen-era door. Jack Maguire, Charlie’s handsome fiancé, swung the door open. “Hey, Addie,” he said with his Carolina drawl and megawatt smile. “Glad to see you’re all in one piece.”

      It was hard to resist Jack’s grin, especially when it deepened those grooves on either side of his mouth. His dark blond hair was still damp from a recent shower, and he smelled of a spicy aftershave. His dark blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he looked her up and down, making a show of checking for earthquake damage.

      Addie dredged up a strained smile of her own. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

      “If you say so.” He stepped aside to let her in. “Charlie’s back in the kitchen, watching Tess spoil a perfectly good rock cod with a mess of fancy fixings.”

      He trailed her through the house, and she noted his influence in the bright new paint on the wall behind Charlie’s dull brown sofa and the glossy new finish on her secondhand dining-room table.

      Addie halted in the kitchen doorway, her hands on her hips, and her eyes narrowed to slits as she glared at her so-called friends. “Why didn’t one of you warn me Dev Chandler was back in town?”

      “Because the earthquake sort of knocked that little detail from my mind.” Tess, seated at the kitchen table, sliced through a lemon and picked out a seed. “And because I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”

      “Well, it’s not,” Addie said.

      “Could have fooled me.” Charlie rinsed her hands at the farmhouse sink. Her thick, curly hair had been tamed in a braid hanging between her shoulders, but coppery tendrils escaped to СКАЧАТЬ