Fate has reunited them…but for how long?

Life took a detour when Delainey Talbot became a mother. There’s no better job but that doesn’t mean she isn’t excited about finally becoming a lawyer—a dream she’s this close to fulfilling. So when the partnership at Bailey’s Cove’s only law firm goes to Hunter Morrison, she’s devastated.

Hunter and Deelee haven’t seen each other since their ill-fated romance ended suddenly—he doesn’t even know about six-year-old Brianna! Deelee wants him out of her town and her job. Too bad her heart says this could be their chance at the life they were meant to have.

“Shamus told me you got accepted to law school. Congratulations.”

Delainey didn’t look up. She didn’t smile as he thought she would.

“What’s the matter?” Hunter asked when she didn’t say anything either.

“Straight and unvarnished?”

“Straight and unvarnished.”

She pinned him for several seconds with her smoky gray eyes and nodded once. “You took my job. Shamus was supposed to stay for a few more years. Harriet would take over and I’d step in on the bottom rung and someday, I’d be able to buy into the practice.”

“I can see from the active cases there isn’t much use for a third attorney at that office.”

“I have to live, eat, take care of my daughter and repay college loans. I won’t be in a position to open an office or to work in one that can barely pay me.”

“I’m leaving.”

She stiffened. “Of course, you are.”

Dear Reader,

We’re back in Bailey’s Cove, Maine!

For Delainey Talbot many things are true. She is a great mother. She will be a great attorney if she just gets the chance to go to law school. Bailey’s Cove, Maine, is the best place to raise a child and she’ll live there forever.

When Hunter Morrison, now a high-powered, big-city lawyer comes back into town, the rock-solid truths of Delainey’s life are shattered.

I hope you enjoy Delainey and Hunter’s romance as they face their past and find silver linings neither could have ever imagined.

And is there truly a treasure long ago buried by the pirate Liam Bailey?

I’d love to hear from you. Visit my website at www.marybrady.net or write to me at mary@marybrady.net.

Enjoy the Harlequin Superromance authors blog at www.superauthors.com. Comment and you just might win treasures.

Thank you so much for reading my books.

Warmest regards,

Mary Brady

Silver Linings

Mary Brady

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Brady lives in the Midwest and considers road trips into the rest of the continent to be a necessary part of life. When she’s not out exploring, she helps run a manufacturing company and has a great time living with her handsome husband, her super son and one cheeky little bird.

To all my relatives.

It’s very comforting to know there are so many of you out there!

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

Extract

CHAPTER ONE

THE BLUSTERY WINTER morning had started well...

But when Delainey Talbot let herself into the side entrance of the old redbrick building of Morrison and Morrison Attorneys, the office was eerily quiet. No morning chatter greeted her. No clicking of keys or rustling of papers—not even the smell of coffee.

Since her workday didn’t start until she dropped off her daughter at school, there should be at least five people here by now.

The excitement of her long-awaited acceptance into law school faltered as she crept forward in the unnatural silence, and a sharp edge of worry seeped into her joy.

Then she heard quiet murmuring from behind the closed door of the office Carol and Shirley, two of the legal assistants, shared.

She tapped on the door and opened it slowly. Five people stood in a clump in front of Carol’s desk, and as one, they looked at her with a mix of sadness, insecurity and maybe hope.

That was not helpful.

“What? What’s going on?” Delainey asked, directing the inquiry to Carol.

“Shamus is retiring,” cried Patty, the gray-haired sixtyish receptionist, as she rushed over, not quite teary but close, and grabbed Delainey’s arm. “We hoped you’d know what’s happening. Why would he do that to us?”

Since Patty’s reaction was usually to panic first and seek information second, Delainey decided to remain calm. “He’s been making those plans for years. He’s going to start pulling back in a couple of years and be gone in three or four.”

Patty just looked at her.

“Today,” said Shirley, red haired, the youngest office employee and granddaughter of the retiring Shamus Murphy.

“He’s retiring today?” Delainey looked at each of them. “That can’t happen.”

“He was here when I arrived, sitting right here drinking that awful tea he likes,” said Carol as she leaned back against her desk. “He didn’t say he was quitting soon and not even today. He said yesterday was his last day as partner.”

“He’s just stepping down.” A rush of dread made Delainey’s muscles ache and her chest tighten. “He’ll still be here, right?”

Leaving couldn’t be on the table. He had to keep the position open for her until she finished law school.

Until she finished. Oh, that sounded selfish, even if it was just inside her head. But if she was going to provide for her daughter, she needed to give up being a paralegal and become the lawyer she had planned on becoming six years ago.

“‘Stepping out,’ he called it. He’ll be available for consultations for ongoing cases for a while, but he’s retiring. Harriet is now senior partner,” Patty added, and the words felt like a door slamming loudly.

“But how? Who will be the other partner?” How would they get enough work to keep fourteen full-and part-time people busy with only one attorney? There needed to be two lawyers in the office, at least from a get-the-jobs standpoint. Shamus had to stay.

“Shamus left for the airport in Portland.” Carol held up a hand. “Said he’d be back after lunch with his replacement.”

Replacement?

In her head, Delainey saw this replacement arrive, sit down at the desk that was to have been hers in three years—and the world tilted on one dangerous edge.

Think. She had to think, not stand there and pull all her hair out with her coworkers watching.

“I have to get to my office,” Delainey said as she raced out the door, leaving, she was sure, the whole bunch gaping after her.

She fled to her second-floor office at the back of the building. A lesser ten-by-ten-foot space tucked between two storage rooms. Two walls were blank. The door in one wall was offset from the two main offices on the other side of the hallway, so even if the doors stood open, they could not easily see into each other’s offices. The back wall had two lovely windows, windows that should have a view of the ocean, but they looked out at the fire escape, the parking lot and the dilapidated abandoned warehouse across the alley. But the office suddenly became indispensable to her, a den of retreat.

She hung her old navy blue quilted winter coat on the hook behind the door and sat down in the chair at her desk. Things were not supposed to change until she was ready.

Shamus was not supposed to leave. She swung her feet up onto her desk. Her whole plan hinged on having a place to work when she got out of law school, a place in Bailey’s Cove, Maine, where she could raise her daughter among the townsfolk who loved them both.

Air came hard into her chest. Bailey’s Cove didn’t need another attorney. She wasn’t greedy, but there wouldn’t be enough work for the new person and herself after she graduated and came back to Morrison and Morrison.

And that was the large and the small of it. There were already more than enough attorneys for the struggling town of fourteen thousand. She had been eking out a living as a single mom for a long time while saving money for school. Her parents helped with her daughter and if this attorney job went away, she’d have to find work elsewhere, away from Bailey’s Cove and everyone she and Brianna loved.

She rubbed her chest and coaxed herself to relax. This replacement might only be temporary, because why would someone come here to this tiny town, and more importantly, why would they stay here in the back of nowhere?

She got up and stood at the window. Gulls floated in the sky as if the world were not crumbling. She felt small again, the way she had when her actions kept her from law school the first time.

Shamus knew she needed the job. Okay, he had never said in so many words the job was hers, but everyone in the office assumed she’d be the next attorney.

For Shamus to leave so abruptly, there had to be something terribly wrong with him or maybe Connie, his wife, or maybe a grandchild. The thought only tightened the knot in her chest.

She couldn’t ask Harriet, the other partner, because Harriet had conveniently gone on an impromptu Caribbean cruise. Shamus would have planned this, she was sure. Get Harriet out of the way for her own peace of mind while he dealt with the fallout of whatever this was.

Oh, Shamus, please be okay.

She’d just have to pull it together for a while until she found out what was going on and who this was he was fetching from the airport. Probably some young thing fresh out of law school. Get some experience for the résumé in Bailey’s Cove and be gone in two or three years—she could only hope.

The thought calmed her a bit. That would be perfect. That left only Shamus to worry about.

But what if the new attorney fell in love with the small coastal town, or even someone in the town? They might want to stay forever.

The budding calm fled.

When her phone jangled with her sister’s ringtone, she jumped and grabbed it off the desk. “Good morning, Christina.”

“Deelee!” Her sister, Christina Talbot, younger by two years, was the only person who called her Deelee. Well, of all the people in the world she had trusted with the moniker, the only person who still lived in Bailey’s Cove. “I got them. All of them. As of today they are mine.”

“Wait. What did you get?” Her sister had been talking madness about the Three Sisters, three Victorian-style houses built long ago for three siblings. The houses sat side by side on Treacher Avenue a few blocks from the harbor.

“Dora, Cora and Rose, of course.” Christina’s tone held a touch of smug.

“Did you sign the contracts already?” She was certain her younger sister didn’t know the meaning of due diligence.

“I did that a long time ago. Monday I got the money, and at eight o’clock this morning I closed on them.”

As Christina had retorted more than once during their sisterly discussions, Delainey wasn’t the one to be pointing fingers at decision making, good or bad. The big one Delainey had made had been a whopper. So she kept her mouth shut.

“I know. I know,” Christina started again. “Owning them is going to be a total drain on my finances, but this is happening. It’s really happening.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m in Cora. She’s a great lady.” Cora was the center and largest of the three houses. Cora had been the oldest daughter, and apparently, Daddy did love her best.

Delainey had a sudden thought. Her sister’s purchase was the perfect distraction. “Hey, why don’t I come down and join you? You can give me a tour.”

“You’d come? I—I’d, ah, gee, love it.”

Delainey knew her sister’s hesitancy was shock that she’d just up and leave work so early in the day.

“So can I come now?”

“Now? Of course you can come now. I’m here with a tablet of paper and a pencil to work on my wish list. You can give your sisterly advice.” The excitement in Christina’s tone almost inspired Delainey to be optimistic about the Three Sisters.

“You’d be doing me a favor if I could butt in for a while,” she said, already getting up from her desk.

“Okay, I’m going to make you explain that when you get here. Come, I’ll give you that ‘before’ tour you’ve been almost coming to take for six months now.”

Delainey hadn’t wanted to encourage what she thought of as Christina’s scary adventure, so she hadn’t been inside the houses. Now she felt a little ashamed of not being supportive.

She grabbed her coat and flew down the back stairway.

When she stuck her head into the reception area and called out, “Patty, I’m leaving for a while. Call if you can’t live without me,” Patty looked shocked, but it could not be helped.

As she yanked her long blond hair from inside her collar, she ran out the door before anyone could call her back. For six solid years after Brianna was born and she became a single mom, she had been the responsible one, the one who was always where she was supposed to be, doing what she was supposed to be doing and more. If she was to be fair, she had been responsible her whole life except for two short days, and maybe right this minute as she left work shortly after she’d arrived.

The cold February wind rushed inside her open coat and she wrapped the warm quilted fabric around herself. In less than twenty-four hours, she had gone from elated and on her way to the moon to troubled and tumbling out of control. The idea made her muscles twitchy and her head begin to ache.

Yesterday had started like most Tuesdays. Get up. Exercise. Get Brianna up, ready and off to school. The day had changed completely when she came home and ripped open the letter from the university as soon as she got inside her back door. When she shouted, “Yes! Yes!” Brianna had come running to her side.

“Did we win something?” her daughter had asked.

“Yes, sweetie, I did, we did. Mommy gets to go be a lawyer.”

Yesterday’s triumph now seemed so far in the past.

In her car again, Delainey pulled out onto Church Street. Morrison and Morrison’s redbrick building, with a stately facade and dark rich wood on the interior, sat on this main road on the south edge of the “old downtown” of Bailey’s Cove. Across Church Street was the town’s mall. Eight stores, a dry cleaner’s, a real-estate company and the Taco Loco, and the rest, alas, empty. The view out the front windows of Morrison and Morrison wasn’t much better than out the back, Delainey had to concede, just brighter.

Farther south, past Morrison and Morrison, in the “newer” section of town, were the police station, the clinic, a great diner, the new Sacred Heart Church and a small motel. Even farther south and west were several housing developments, most built in the fifties and sixties, including the more upscale homes and one new condo complex built by a hopeful out-of-town contractor.

Church Street spread the town out along the coastline for several miles, four miles, according to the traditional town limits—which most residents used—but six and a half by the new standards set in the 1950s. Delainey drove north until she turned off onto Treacher Avenue. A few blocks down the hill and toward the docks sat Christina’s passions, Dora, Cora and Rose.

Delainey parked facing the harbor, got out and leaned on the open door to take in the subtle beauty of the misty gray morning. Next to her adorable daughter’s face, her favorite sight in the world was this small harbor, home to fishing boats, pleasure boats and one lone yacht. Though right now there were only a few fishing boats and the yacht out there in the fog that obscured the outer islands and even those boats were indistinct images, almost dreams.

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The smell of the sea filled her with a sense of being home, of knowing what was good in her life. She would miss all of this if she ever had to live inland.

“Hey, that was quick.”

Christina waved from Cora’s porch and charged down the steps of the old Victorian home. Her blond hair and her long legs flew. The two of them might look very much alike, but Christina had more energy than Delainey could even imagine.

She threw her arms around Delainey and squeezed hard. “You came. I can’t believe you left work. Won’t they fall apart without you?”

Delainey hugged back. “They might, but today I’m visiting my sister’s brand new acquisition. Congratulations.”

“Your leaving work for anything besides Brianna is so out of character for you. You’re scaring me—you know that, don’t you?”

“I told you I’d come.”

“So what happened?”

She grinned at her sister. “I got into law school.”

“Congratulations, sis!” Christina squeezed her in another hug. “Does anyone besides you know?”

Delainey snorted. “Brianna knows. I was going to tell them at work this morning but something else came up.”

“Some big new case, I suppose.”

They both laughed at Christina’s words. There were no big cases, only a few hundred small ones in varying stages of resolution or decay.

“So do we get to go inside?” Delainey asked, closing the door to her car.

“Oh, yes. Let’s start with Cora. She’s my star.”

Christina jiggled the handle of the double-door entryway and let them inside.

Delainey was surprised by what she saw. “Christina, there’s a fireplace in your, um— This is much more than a foyer. What do you call it?” The wide hall swept all the way to the back of the house, with the fireplace on the left side and two small alcoves and four doors, two on either side, leading to the parlor and kitchen and whatever other rooms Victorian homes had on the first floor.

“It’s a reception hall, and that—” she pointed to wires dangling from the ceiling high above them “—is the chandelier.”

Delainey laughed. When they were growing up, the home of her sister’s dreams would have seven chandeliers. “How many are there?”

“This house has six and the others each have four.”

“Twice as nice. Cool.”

Delainey sucked up the misgivings she felt about her sister’s ability to deal with one house, let alone three, and followed her on a tour. Without a doubt, these houses were three of the town’s valuable historical assets, and also without a doubt, no one had been able to give proper attention to them for decades, maybe a half century. And the prospect of fixing them up excited her sister so much Delainey caught some of the fervor.

The tour did net the fourteen chandeliers. Some were dangling light fixtures, old but not antique. Some were capped or, as in Cora’s reception hall, dangling wires. The fireplaces numbered only nine, as some of them had been removed or covered over, and they were, at least, better than the chandeliers, as they were probably original with stone or wooden surrounds, most with cast-iron inserts.

Before the tour finished, Delainey almost started seeing women in long dresses and men in waistcoats moving through rooms lit by flames and filled with the joy of a quieter life.

“Come on, let’s go back to Cora,” Christina said when they had finished in Dora. They ended up in one of the rooms at the front of the house, off the reception hall. Christina had lit a fire in the...living room? Parlor? Delainey wasn’t sure of the technical term for the room where a warm fire burned brightly in the fireplace. The fireplace’s gray marble surround needed work, but it would be gorgeous when refinished.

An old couch, an ancient stuffed chair and a battered coffee table sat totally out of time sync with the architecture but in the warmth of the flickering fire.

“Are you sure about this?” Delainey asked when they were comfy on the sofa and chair. Christina frowned and Delainey put both hands up. “Wait, wait. I did not just ask that question. Of course you’re sure.”

Christina’s shoulders slumped. “I’m not even sure I should be here in Bailey’s Cove, Delainey, but I don’t want to be out there, either. I still have a bundle of money saved from the engineering job I had at Bandal. The worst that can happen here is I run out of money—and I can always get more of that. Bandal would hire me back in a second. At least my peace of mind will remain intact if I try this.” Christina leaned forward and rubbed her hands together to let the fire warm them. “And besides, did you hear about the hundred-and-fifty-year-old house at the end of Harbor View Street?”

“Hmm, the Bradish house. It’s a shame. They’re tearing it down to build a new house for someone from Portland.”

“Somebody has to step up and save these old pieces of our history.” A big Christina grin spread across her face. “At least that’s what I tell myself when I have trouble falling asleep at night because I start to worry that I’ve taken on too much.”

When the doorbell rang, her sister leaped up and let in Big Charlie, a worker from Pirate’s Roost, the new restaurant up the street. Charlie had a pastry box, a thermal carafe and two coffee mugs.

“Right over here, Charlie.”

The man, wearing his faded Sea Dogs baseball cap, grinned at Christina and put the breakfast items on the coffee table. Christina produced tip money for the eager guy, who grinned harder and left as quickly as he had come.

She turned to Delainey. “Has that man had his meds altered? I don’t remember him being quite so cheerful when I lived here before.”

“I don’t think any meds are involved, except I don’t think he drinks at all anymore. Mia Parker has taken him under her wing.” She paused when Christina smiled and then continued. “Yeah, it would need to be a really large wing, but I guess she’s given him a purpose. Pirate’s Roost has only been open about eight months and already people come from Augusta, Bangor and Portland to dine.”

“I might be jealous of her,” Christina said with a false sulk.

Delainey laughed. “Because she caught such a hot guy?”

“Daniel MacCarey is more than hot, and actually, I’m not jealous. In fact, Mia’s my role model. I want this bed-and-breakfast to catch on like the Roost.” Christina poured coffee while Delainey opened the box of tiny, tasty-looking treats made by the eager and excellent pair of young chefs at the Roost.

Her sister continued. “She wasn’t afraid of investing in this town. I used her as an example of success when one of the bankers questioned Bailey’s Cove as a good place for a bed-and-breakfast of this size.”

“And the Roost has pastry to die for.” Delainey held up a small puffy treat with a dusting of tiny sugar crystals and then took a bite. “Mmm. This one seems to have an almost creamy cinnamon-raisin filling and practically flakes apart in my hand.”

“That’s why I got the little ones.”

“So we can have more.” It was a sister game they played. They’d cut a freezer pizza into sixteen slices. That way they could have more pieces if they were really hungry. They didn’t care if anyone else got the humor; they were sisters and they understood each other.

“Well, sis, I’m rooting for you.” Delainey licked her lips and took a sip of coffee. “So what’s on your to-do list?”

“No. Now we get to talk about what’s happening at Morrison and Morrison.”

Delainey snapped her gaze to her sister’s. “What? I mean, how’d you know?”

Her sister gave her a narrow-eyed chin jut. “Don’t be shocked, Deelee. Sometimes your younger sister is thinking about someone besides herself. I saw the look on your face earlier when I asked you what happened. You wanted to tell me something else, but you told me about law school. What happened to eclipse news that good?”

Delainey took another bite of pastry and then swiped at the crumbs on her chin with the napkin. “Shamus quit as of yesterday.”

Christina gave her the narrow-eyed look again. “But you were planning on being his replacement.”

“Well, not his replacement, but I thought—maybe I led myself to believe—I’d step into the role of the second attorney in the office when I finished law school.”

“You know the clients. You know the corporate culture there. You know much of what the partners, what Shamus and Harriet, know. And the size and remoteness of Bailey’s Cove won’t scare you away at first glance.”

“Morrison and Morrison will be quite a shock to an outsider.” Delainey draped her arms over the back of the couch.

“Yes, you are quite easygoing there.”

Delainey laughed. “On most days, it’s hard to tell the lawyers from the rest of the staff, and billable hours? They’re just a suggestion. Imagine coming from law school and finding out you’ve slipped back in time about a hundred years’ worth of progress.”

Christina reached out a hand. “Who in heaven’s name is going to come to Bailey’s Cove and work? We don’t even get first-run movies.”

“That’s what I told myself when I applied to law school, that I’d have a job when I got out. But they found someone.”

Christina barked a laugh and then put up a hand. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. So who is it? Somebody who couldn’t get a job anywhere else? Somebody hiding out? No, wait!” Her sister scooted to the edge of the couch. “It’s one of those guys with a fake name and credentials, who will have another wife and three kids here before anyone finds out he already has a family somewhere else.”

“I don’t know. Shamus’s picking him or her up at the airport, so whoever they are, they’re from outside the state of Maine.”

“Hey, maybe the newbie will hang in there for, say, three years, a place keeper for you.”

“That’s what I tried to tell myself, but I can’t expect someone to come here, begin to build a life and then just leave because I want their job.”

“Can you start a private practice?”

“I thought of that, but the law firms already here don’t have enough work for another attorney. I wouldn’t mind starving, but I don’t want that for my daughter.”

Christina stared at her for a long moment, assessing.

“What?” Delainey could see her sister was trying to decide whether or not to tell her something.

“I’m not doing this alone.” She swept a hand in the air, indicating the house.

“You’re right. We’ll all help you as much as we can—” Delainey paused and laughed “—or as much as you want. You’re really bossy, you know.”

“And people say you and I are nothing alike. What do they know? Anyway, Sammy is coming.”

Delainey stiffened her face muscles so they wouldn’t sag into disapproval. Sammy the heartbreaker. “Is he staying?”

“He’s giving it a try.”

“I hope things are good for the two of you this time.” Delainey hated to see her wonderful sister get her hopes up.

“We’re going to do things my way this time. We tried his and that didn’t work.”

Delainey did an inward sigh. His way. Her way. These two needed to learn to compromise.

“Do you know who you are going to have bid to do the remodeling? Are you having a contract drawn up for the contractor you chose?” She asked the questions so they didn’t have to talk about Sammy or even think about a man. All she knew on the subject of men could be contained in a two-page brochure.

She also asked because it would be like her sister to just get someone in there with no written guidelines or maybe no real plan at all.

Christina looked remorseful. “You can help me with that, can’t you?”

* * *

HUNTER MORRISON PULLED out the bulging carry-on bag blocking his briefcase in the overhead compartment and placed it on the floor of the small aircraft.

“Oh, thank you,” the woman across the aisle said as she gave him a bright come-on smile. She wanted to give him more, probably anything he asked for, but he was not going there. It would be a long time before he fished in the sea of women again, if ever.

He’d seen that look on the face of a woman in Chicago, every time she managed to be in the elevator with him, sneaked up on him on the street or sat down uninvited at his table in a restaurant. The worst was while he was waiting for the arrival of a partner from the law firm where he worked in downtown Chicago.

He nabbed his briefcase and followed the woman toward the exit. The flight attendant gave him a warm smile as she wished him a good day.

He didn’t react with the snort he felt, only a reciprocal smile. He hadn’t had a good day in the past seven months and he didn’t expect this one to be any better.

As they reached the concourse, the woman ahead of him turned and gave him one more hopeful smile. He nodded toward her in acknowledgment, and lacking encouragement, she headed toward the baggage claim.

Shamus Murphy would meet him outside the Portland, Maine, airport, one of the nicer airports he’d been in. He liked all the wood. Made it seem rugged, up north, a place where one could hide an attorney before scandal engulfed his law firm.

CHAPTER TWO

AS HUNTER STEPPED outside the airport, the wind brought the smell of the ocean to him, bathed him in its cold, salty moisture. He took a deep breath of the crisp air and smiled in relief. That he liked the sea air so much had never occurred to him. That he might even have missed it? Not until this minute. It made him think of the six years and all the summers he’d spent here. And Deelee.

When his parents had yanked him away from his friends in Chicago—to be nearer to his ailing grandparents in Bailey’s Cove, they had explained—he had thought his life was over. From the moment he’d gotten there, he’d wanted to leave. Delainey Talbot had made being there bearable.

When he’d started in a sixth-grade classroom full of strangers, Deelee had been there to be his friend and she’d stayed his friend all through high school and college.

But after college they had ruined it all. He had especially. Since the day he’d driven away and left her behind, he’d managed to make his life better and worse.

He swept his gaze up and down the sidewalk, looking for a familiar skulking form of a woman so unlike Delainey. Always, he was always looking for her because when he wasn’t, she showed up.

His visual sweep caught a fashionably dressed brunette over near a taxi, and when she turned to face him, Hunter expected to need the nearest sheriff. The woman turned out to be a stranger.

Callista White couldn’t possibly be here. He had not known when and on what airline he would be traveling until a few hours before he left.

He brushed the paranoia away and searched for Shamus.

Bailey’s Cove might seem like a giant step backward. The summer after college he had returned to close down his grandmother’s estate. Since then he hadn’t been back, hadn’t needed to come back until today, but the incentives on both ends made it seem a logical choice.

“I think it would be best if you found a reason to go away for a while,” the partner in the law firm had said, but had assured Hunter he wasn’t fired. He just needed to get out from under the thumb of the media until things got resolved or faded away.

While Hunter wasn’t an official suspect in the disappearance of Callista White, he had been a person of interest for a while until his well-respected firm had stood behind him, vouched for him.

He didn’t wish the woman ill. He did wish she would return home or let someone know where she was so he could have his life back.

“Hunter, my boy,” a familiar voice called to him from down the curb. Hunter turned to see Shamus dressed in a well-fitting dark suit, with a shock of gray hair and a pleasant smiling face. They had met only once in person, but the package was memorable and included winged eyebrows and standout ears.

Morrison and Morrison had been founded by Hunter’s great-great-grandfather and great-great-uncle. The name of the firm had stood even after the practice changed hands. When Shamus had called and asked him if he was interested in helping the firm out, he’d made an offer. It seemed there would be a Morrison at the helm again.

“Shamus,” he called back as he waved and headed for the car, an old black Ford. Hunter smiled. When he had left Maine, the car had been brand-new, and it shined like a new car today.

* * *

ONCE AGAIN AT Morrison and Morrison, Delainey had sat for the past few hours trying to work on the papers on her desk. Returning had been hard. She’d had to look into the faces of each one of them and wonder if she would soon have to say goodbye forever.

The intercom on her desk buzzed. “Yes, Patty?”

“They’re here.” Delainey was sure Patty’s whisper could be heard throughout the entire first floor. “You’d better get down here.”

Delainey got up from her desk and suddenly felt underdressed. If this person who was arriving had something to say about her future at the law firm, she wasn’t going to make her most professional impression in jeans and— Oh, come on. There were Christmas ducks on her sweater. She had let Brianna choose and her young daughter couldn’t quite give up the idea of Christmas.

Delainey always wondered if Brianna kept the hope alive that her father would suddenly show up or send a card or even presents. She sighed and slid the sweater off. The thin blouse she wore underneath let an instant chill set in and her nipples puckered, showing in hard points through her bra and blouse.

Not good. She slid the sweater back on and fluffed her hair a little. Maybe the new partner wouldn’t notice ducks with wreaths around their necks.

After she couldn’t procrastinate any longer, she decided she might as well go see what the future would hold. She had already survived quite a bit, and this new partner wasn’t going to take her down. She might have to practice law in Portland or Bangor or Lewiston or, heaven forbid, outside the state of Maine, but she wouldn’t give up on a good life for her daughter.

At the bottom of the steps, she stopped and took a few deep breaths. Then she pushed open the rear door and stepped just inside the spacious lobby. There were about fifty people there—the staff, the town council, some regular clients with spouses—and everyone seemed to be talking at once.

“Delainey.” Patty rushed up and handed her a glass of champagne. “About time you got here.”

Champagne. Great. To celebrate her demise, she thought...but she knew this was not about her. Shamus needed to do this now for some reason and she was going to have to do the “poor me” thing another time.

Across the room, near the front lobby window, a man stood with his back to her speaking with redheaded Shirley and fresh-faced Eddie, a paid intern at the office. The man was tall and wore his dark blond hair in a short, neat style. His suit, expensively cut, wrapped his well-built frame as if to say, “This is the man.” Shamus had hired a man, a man used to making money.

Poor thing was in for a big shock.

Some hope lay in that thought. She took a sip of champagne and let the bubbles fill her mouth with flavor. Whoever he was, she hoped he’d be interested in Morrison and Morrison for a couple years and then when he figured out his income would no longer support his expensive suits, cars, women, et cetera...

“Hunter,” Patty called from beside her.

The man turned to face them.

Her heart seemed to thud once and stop dead cold.

The grin on his face faltered the moment he spotted her—at least that was what it seemed like to Delainey before he recovered and smiled as he moved across the room toward her.

He stopped in front of her.

Hunter Morrison. His deep blue eyes touched by sienna near the irises scorched her soul as they had when she and Hunter were pals in high school and when they were lovers after college.

She gulped champagne until she’d drained the glass. The urge to flee nearly overran her good sense. Instead of giving in, she stood fast and as steady as the rocky Maine coast facing the ocean tides. She was a Maine woman, bred of hardy stock.

Then why couldn’t she seem to make her brain function or her heart beat?

He put a hand on her shoulder and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. “Hello, Deelee,” he whispered. His breath hot on the shell of her ear restarted her heart and slammed anger to the forefront inside her head.

“Hunter Morrison.” Of all people. The one man who had never wanted to stay in Bailey’s Cove was back. She should welcome him, but right now she just wanted to kick something...or someone.

* * *

HUNTER FORCED HIS smile to stay put, but smiling to placate an obnoxious client was easier than smiling at Delainey Talbot. How in the hell was it possible she was still here in Bailey’s Cove?

He had expected law school to have opened her eyes to the world, to have shown her other options. His gaze shot to her wedding-ring finger and he was disgusted with himself and almost glad she had her hand bunched up in the unseasonal sweater covering a body that had sent a college graduate to heaven. Deelee, who, when he left Bailey’s Cove behind, saw fit to kick him out of her life for good. Her marital status was none of his business.

When she suddenly reeled and hurried away as if he had threatened her, he saw Shamus Murphy watching him. His puzzled gaze shifted back and forth between the two of them.

Greeting her as Deelee would have already given her the impression he had thought about her more than a few casual times in the years since he’d left Bailey’s Cove. He had thought of her often and none of his thoughts about Delainey Talbot had been casual.

Shamus intercepted her and gave her a long hug. The older man had not mentioned anything about Delainey being an attorney in the office. Shamus said something to her that made her look across the room at him and then nod with a dazed look as if she was trying to make sense of what Shamus was saying.

Her long blond hair still hung to the middle of her back. Age had defined her features and made her gray eyes bigger, her high cheekbones more pronounced. Her face was fully adult now and as alluring as the rest of the package, he was sure, that she hid under the large sweater with the ducks wearing Christmas wreaths.

No woman, no matter how hard he tried, had ever morphed into Delainey Talbot. When he’d found himself dating only blondes, he started dating anything but. He dated lots of women. He stopped seeing women altogether. Nothing helped.

Shamus led Delainey across the room until she stood next to him. When she looked up at him, her features were intentionally blank, an empty champagne glass in her hand.

Shamus filled each of their glasses and held his up until the two of them were obliged to clink their glasses together against Shamus’s.

“To Morrison and Morrison, may it live forever.”

“Hear, hear,” they chorused, and sipped.

“I had forgotten you knew each other.” Shamus smiled between them. “That’s great. The transition will be all the easier for it. Hunter, Delainey is the beating heart of this office. Harriet and I look so much smarter with her here.”

Neither he nor Delainey said anything. When they stared at each other, it was like two sides of an urgent conflict sizing up the enemy. Maybe it was just that.

Shamus gave Delainey another arm-around-the-shoulder squeeze. “I’m sorry to spring all this on you so suddenly. Things happened and I had to move quickly.”

The blank expression left Delainey’s face and now she looked defeated. That nearly tore Hunter open. Of all the things he wished for the woman who’d ruined all women for him all those years ago, defeat was not one of them.

“I’m sure you did what you needed to do, Shamus.” Her words rang a clear false, as if she was saying what Shamus needed to hear. Then she gently removed the old guy’s arm from her shoulder and ran away. She actually walked quickly, but it was not hard to see flight in her steps.

* * *

DELAINEY RACED UP the front steps, stalked down the hallway, yanked the door to her office open and once inside closed it quietly. The lock that might never have been locked before clicked sluggishly into place. Then she leaned against the door and sank to the floor.

Hunter Morrison.

She pinged a fingernail against the champagne glass she couldn’t seem to let go of. She sipped a bit and then pressed the cool of the glass against her cheek.

He had a lot of nerve showing up in Bailey’s Cove. He had left her behind. After three glorious weeks together, he’d told her he had accepted an internship in Chicago at one of the largest international law firms and he needed to focus on that, make it his priority. He’d said he had a lot to accomplish. He’d never asked her to join him; they hadn’t even discussed it.

Hunter had attended law school while she’d prepared for a child and attended paralegal training mostly on the job at Morrison and Morrison, where she had been an office assistant during the previous summer.

She remembered well the day he drove away. She’d run as fast as she could from her parents’ home to his grandmother’s old house. Then, when she missed him by seconds, she’d stood in his driveway and watched until his car disappeared down the street. She had been too late to say goodbye. She wasn’t sure he wanted to see her anyway. After being friends for ten years, they apparently had nothing much to say in the end.

They’d carried on a distant but friendly relationship after that, but she had ended even that—abruptly.

Not that any of her life was Hunter’s fault. She’d wanted to have sex with Micky—the dark, mysterious outsider. Micky’s motorcycle with the Arizona plates might have been a clue she should be at least careful if she was going to be rash.

Micky was long gone when she discovered she was pregnant. A month after he’d left, the stick had indicated her life plans had suddenly changed for the sake of what she had to admit felt more like revenge than any kind of real attraction.

She hadn’t known she had any such capabilities until Hunter told her he was finished in Bailey’s Cove. Her Bailey’s Cove, the place she had always loved, had pined for when she was in college and had always been glad to be back to in the summers.

That made her an oddity. A large percentage of the young people who attended college in a city had a tendency to find jobs and lives elsewhere. Not that she blamed them. The road to advancement in life didn’t usually involve a town that struggled to grow.

In an email later, she’d told Hunter there was nothing left for them because she had someone else in her life, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him any of the details.

It hadn’t been a lie, but it had given him the impression, she was sure, that he wasn’t welcome in her life. The whole truth was she didn’t deserve him in her life. She couldn’t ask him to care for her and the child of another man.

Shame made her sink closer to the floor. It was all her fault. Both of them had been so young, so full of their own plans. If they had parted today, she liked to think they would have been able to find some center ground, some compromise. At the very least, she would amicably wish him well and maybe that way there wouldn’t be a damaged heart beating in her chest.

She couldn’t take Shamus to task, either. He had taken in a newly pregnant woman, barely a woman, twenty-two. He and his staff made her feel needed and loved, never ashamed. Knowing there were people in the world outside her family who would also embrace her made the uncertain journey easier. Made Bailey’s Cove more dear.

She wondered if Hunter knew about Brianna, if friends of his grandparents stayed in touch with him. Even as time passed, especially as time passed, she didn’t feel it particularly appropriate to inform him. What could she say? Dear Hunter, you know after you walked away and broke my heart, there was a guy I went out with for two days, and, well, he and I have a child. Best Regards, Delainey.

All during her pregnancy she wondered how this could happen to her—not how she got pregnant but how she could have such bad luck. She wasn’t some loose woman who slept around. She had slept around with exactly two men. First with Hunter and then for two confusing days with the darkly handsome older Micky.

Her parents had surprised her when she told them she was pregnant. She had expected them to be angry, but her mother had said, “It’s a baby, dear. You don’t get angry about a baby.”

Her parents and friends had loved her all the way through the process of pregnancy and childbirth. Her daughter, Brianna, lived and breathed, with her long softly curling dark hair and big, intense dark eyes, as the silver lining in all of their lives.

Not that being a single mother was easy or, in her thinking, particularly fair to the child, but the people around her had blessed the two of them with love and acceptance.

Maybe that was the small-town way. It certainly seemed to be the way most of the people in Bailey’s Cove were.

Hunter would be right if he asked about the child, though.

While pregnant, she wondered at times if the child was Hunter’s, and even hoped on some days that the baby was his, but the math said otherwise. Then when she went into labor four weeks early, she hoped again that the predictions of the date she got pregnant were wrong.

When the desperate hope consumed her in the dark of night, all sorts of guilt about not telling Hunter there was a slim chance he was going to be a father oozed in and made her doubt her ability to make any rational decisions.

Then Brianna had come into the world, a small beautiful baby with dark, dark hair and eyes. By the time her wonderful daughter learned to smile, her eyes had stayed dark brown, almost black, and her stare was intense, as if she already understood the world. There hadn’t been a dark-haired and dark-eyed relative in Delainey’s family tree that she knew of and all notion she could have been Hunter’s daughter had to be put to rest.

Delainey’s only regret was her child might never know her absent father. She had only Micky’s name. They had never gotten around to phone numbers, let alone emails. Even as she tried to remember any contact information, she had realized Micky had been very elusive. All searches, even those the private investigator had conducted, had come up empty.

When Delainey could no longer harbor the slightest hope Hunter was the father, she gratefully acknowledged her beautiful daughter could help her deal with never seeing him again, ever.

Now Hunter was here and she couldn’t even be in the same room with him.

When she had been shifting papers around for an hour, she glanced at the clock.

Three o’clock. Her mother would have picked up Brianna from school. They were probably having a snack, or Dad had taken her out sledding by now.

Delainey wondered if she should just slip out the back door, go home and never come back. Maybe if she had $150,000 for law school. Loans, grants and scholarships went only so far. She needed a job, this job, for the next three months and then as often as law school would allow. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed her parents to help care for Brianna while she went to school. She’d pay them back. She’d use her increase in pay from being an attorney to make Brianna’s life the best it could be and she’d boost her parents’ meager retirement funds.

The piles she still had stacked on her desk reminded her she didn’t have to hurry away or even leave her office. She had enough work on her desk to keep her busy for a month. Right now she’d do her job.

That was the best revenge she could come up with.

Oh, heaven help her.

* * *

“MAMA, WILL YOU be looking for a daddy for me when you’re away at law school?”

Brianna’s sweet high-pitched voice came from the backseat of Delainey’s small car. She had made a quick stop at her parents’ home and hustled Brianna into the car in case her mother had heard about Hunter.

Helen Talbot would have to chat about wasn’t it wonderful that such a nice and handsome man like Hunter Morrison was back in town, and maybe they could invite him to dinner and maybe they could invite him to marry this single mom and rescue her from the disappointment of a life she had arranged for herself. Her mother would never say most of those things, but she would think them from time to time. Delainey couldn’t get upset, as her mother only wanted what was best for Brianna and her.

“Law school is going to be very hard, sweetie, and I don’t expect to have much time to look for a husband,” she answered in her mother voice.

Brianna was silent, and Delainey was sure the subject wasn’t finished.

“How hard can it be?”

Delainey smiled at this one. “What brings this up all of the sudden?”

“Duh.”

Delainey stayed silent. Duh had been banned from their conversations as too derogatory and too often used.

“Sorry, Mommy. Sorry I said duh. I know you’re very smart. But I’ve been looking for a daddy for years.”

“Years?”

“Well, I think I’ve been wondering all my life if I could get one.”

“That’s fair....” And normal, and it broke Delainey’s heart that there had been no prospects.

“What about Lenny? He was at our school talking to us about being a police officer. He’s not married.”

“That’s Officer Gardner to you. He’s engaged to be married. In fact, we’re invited to his wedding reception in a few weeks.”

Delainey pulled into the driveway of her small two-bedroom home on the upper part of White Pine Court. The house was surrounded on three sides by the beautiful long-needled tree designated as Maine’s state tree.

“Do I get to wear a new dress?” her daughter asked as Delainey pulled into the one-car garage and turned to look at her daughter.

She had to laugh at the expression on her daughter’s face. “If you use those big brown eyes of yours on Grandma, I think you’ll get a new dress. You two pick out a pattern and we’ll go shopping for the cloth.”

“Yeah. Maybe she’ll make a new one for you, too, and you can find a daddy for me at Lenny—at Officer Gardner’s wedding ’ception.”

As Delainey opened the rear door, Brianna clicked the safety belt and leaped from her booster seat.

“How would you do it, if you were looking for a husband for me?” Delainey asked.

Brianna raced to the door ahead of her mother, as was their normal pattern.

“Well, I suppose I could make a pro-and-con list like we did in school last week when we were deciding where to send the money we raised for charity.”

Delainey squeezed her daughter’s hand as she let the two of them into the mudroom, wondering what Brianna truly wanted to know.

“But, Mommy.” Brianna stopped and tugged until Delainey paused and faced her. “If looking for a daddy means you have to go away, I don’t think I want a daddy at all. Are you sure you have to go away to school?”

“I’m not going to be very far away, only a couple hours. I’ll see you every weekend.”

Brianna looked up at her with pleading eyes. “Can I come and stay with you in your apartment?”

“I won’t be there much and when I am, I’ll be studying or sleeping. Maybe both.”

“You can’t study and sleep at the same time,” Brianna said in a very sober tone as she put her backpack on the desk in the corner of the kitchen and then washed her hands at the sink.

“Apple and chicken breast or green salad and a hamburger?”

“Apple. I want to eat while I do my daddy list.” She hummed as she dug a pad of paper out of her pack. “I need to decide if I need a daddy at all.”

How much of Brianna’s life was she going to miss while she was at school? It had never seemed to be the right time to leave her daughter. When Brianna was a baby, leaving her for weekdays, even with loving grandparents, had been out of the question—even if her mother’s arthritis had been up to it.

She washed an apple and cut it into chunks.

“Mama?”

She looked down to see Brianna, who had appeared suddenly at her side, staring up at her.

Delainey smiled. “Here’s your apple. Do you want peanut butter?”

Her daughter’s eyes widened into the look Delainey knew meant she was troubled. “Mama, is there something wrong with us?”

CHAPTER THREE

“WRONG WITH US?” Delainey’s chest squeezed. Here it was. The real question her daughter wanted to ask. She put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and hunkered down so they were eye to eye.

“Yeah, because I don’t have a daddy and you don’t have a husband.”

Brianna’s large and dark eyes held a kind of desolation that twisted Delainey’s heart. She sat down on the floor and pulled Brianna into her lap. With her arms around her child, she sighed and knew she was going to have to find a way to explain something Brianna often asked about.

“Did someone say something to you?”

“Janis said my daddy left town because he didn’t want to be part of our family. She’s wrong, isn’t she?”

“Your daddy left before you were born, before he even knew about you.”

“But he could have come back. Did he stay away because he didn’t want to be my daddy?”

“My wonderful, beautiful girl, if he didn’t want to be a daddy, it would not be because of you.”

“If he came back and met me, would he love me?”

“If he didn’t love you, it wouldn’t be because you weren’t good enough or cute or funny enough. It certainly wouldn’t be because you weren’t smart enough.” She tugged a lock of her daughter’s abundant dark brown curls.

“What would it be?”

“It would be because of what he believes about himself.”

“Like maybe he believes he wouldn’t be a good daddy,” Brianna said, her words coming out slowly, thoughtfully.

“Like that. I like to think he’s out there in the world learning enough about himself to love himself. And if we ever find him, he’ll love you, too.”

“Do you love yourself, Mama?”

“I do, my little bean.”

Brianna giggled. “I’m not a bean.”

“You’re my fantastic daughter and I’m your fantastic mother. That makes us the Fantastic Family. When Janis says things like that, it’s because she’s feeling bad or scared about something.”

“Really?”

“Really. Next time, tell her to have a good day and walk away. Or you can ask her if she’s all right. You might be surprised by what she says.”

Brianna turned and snuggled close. “I’d like to have a daddy because sometimes I just get scared.”

Delainey leaned her chin on the top of her daughter’s head. Me too, my sweet little girl. Me too.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING, Hunter let himself into the office before anyone else got there. He wanted to get started on Shamus’s files.

The day had started with a glorious sunrise. He had run through the village from Shamus and Connie’s house, where he was staying for a few days, and down along the docks and south to the rocky shoreline of Little Cove Park.

When the town was quiet and the streets sat deserted except for one curious brown dog nosing around and one runner from Chicago, Bailey’s Cove seemed to have barely changed since he left, except several stores stood vacant. Quirky, old and new meshed together to form one of those old-fashioned communities where people might stop for a short visit and move on. Too bad. With its position on the coast, the town could draw many tourists if it had more to offer.

He hung his trench coat in the closet.

Sleep hadn’t been easy last night. He kept thinking of Delainey and wondering if he had made another colossal mistake coming here. He had needed to leave Chicago, but come to Bailey’s Cove?

For the past three months he had been unengaged in law. He’d grown tired of jogging Chicago’s lakefront. The gym personnel called him by name when he went in to work out. He’d rebuffed so many invitations to be entertained it had become embarrassing from many angles.

When Shamus had called, it had seemed like some sort of divine intervention, but now he felt trapped by the machinations of life that ambled relentlessly on, chewing people up and spitting them out.

Shamus, for instance. Hunter was sure there was something about Shamus’s calling him now that had nothing to do with the desire to suddenly retire. That Shamus had called a Morrison wasn’t the puzzle. Morrison and Morrison had been founded by Harold and Hadley Morrison, his ancestral grandfather and uncle. That no one had ever changed the name spoke to the casual attitude he had already noticed at the law firm. Shamus had guaranteed this would be different than city corporate law, and Hunter knew before coming here Shamus wasn’t wrong.

For better or worse, he was here until Shamus didn’t need him anymore, because there was one thing he’d refused to give up in the big city and that was what his father had called the Morrison integrity. He had told Shamus he’d help out, and that he would do.

In the file room between Shamus’s office and Harriet’s, he helped himself to a few of Shamus’s files labeled Active.

The first case he opened had a big N/C for no charge scrawled across the top. He almost chuckled at the thought of seeing N/C written on one of the files in the records room at his old firm.

On the rest of the page Delainey’s neat penmanship filled in the blank lines.

Yesterday he had learned that Delainey Talbot was single or single again—the details were fuzzy. The “someone else” who had made her so cold after he left must be out of her life. That was too bad.

It was all too bad.

Too bad his goal had always been to leave Bailey’s Cove. Too bad and entirely his fault, he had thought it best to let Delainey go look for someone else.

Maybe he could have talked her into moving to Chicago, but would she have thrived there or just survived?

At Morrison and Morrison he had the right to read her personnel file, but he decided not to go there. All he had to do was to listen to the chatter and he was sure he could learn all he cared to know about any of the staff, including Delainey. Shamus trusted every one of them within their limitations and that worked for him.

The second client file he pulled out concerned one neighbor trimming the tree of another so it wouldn’t overhang the neighbor’s garage. The suing neighbor had already planned on moving out but was suing for pain and suffering because of the trim job on the tree. This one had one hour billed to it and a note in Delainey’s hand to “Call Mrs. Harrison’s daughter and see what’s really going on.”

Last night over after-dinner drinks, Shamus had talked about some of the workers. Patty, the receptionist, distracted the staff if left to her own devices. Carol couldn’t spell and even spell-checker could not save her. Shirley was just too cute to scold, Shamus had said of his granddaughter. Eddie would do everything to perfection—to a fault. The others each had some workable flaw except Delainey. Apparently the only thing she couldn’t do was walk on water. Shamus had said he might want to ask her about that someday.

A door slammed somewhere downstairs. The staff was beginning to arrive.

He could have guessed Patty’s flaw without Shamus telling him, as she had been happy to relate her life history, which, while fascinating to someone... Carol and Shirley had been more reserved, although he did now know Carol was thirty-eight, single and loved her collection of eyewear. Shirley was checking things out to see if she should follow in Shamus’s footsteps, but no way was she staying in this tiny town, she had said, and blushed. Eddie, who had graduated nearly a year ago from high school and had been a paid intern since, seemed happy just to be a part of it all and was clearly in love with an older woman, Shirley, who must have been all of twenty.

Eddie might be trying to decide on a career. With his goggle-eyed innocence, Hunter hoped it wasn’t law, at least not law in the big city. It just might break a boy like that.

He opened another folder. It felt strange, even after being out of the office for two months, not to have client meetings, teleconferences or even a court date scheduled. Several folders later and there hadn’t been a single file without Delainey’s neat handwriting in it somewhere.

Yesterday the rest of the staff had said hello and welcome and had enjoyed the champagne and cake. Except Delainey—she hadn’t had cake. She had slammed one glass of champagne and split as soon as she could get away from Shamus.

Her hair looked as if it was still that soft, silky golden. Her figure had filled out, and long after she had left the room, he’d found himself wanting to touch her, stroke her hair, feel her body against his.

During the sleepless hours last night, he had refused to let his mind linger there. She had moved on.

But in the light of day, he couldn’t figure out what she was still doing in Bailey’s Cove working as a paralegal. She either hadn’t gone to law school or she’d given it up for some reason. That she wouldn’t have passed the bar was not an option, for she was the only person in their high school whose grades were better than his.

Once he had looked through the stack of files he had pulled, the chatter level downstairs had risen to boisterous. He doubted they knew he was here, as Shamus’s wife had insisted she make breakfast for him, and Shamus had driven him to the office. His rental car would arrive in two days. A reminder how remote Bailey’s Cove was from the rest of the world.

His office door stood open, so if anyone came upstairs, they would see him, but diplomacy dictated it was time to go downstairs to let them know he was here. He didn’t want to be charged with big-city guerrilla tactics or give anyone a heart attack by coming down later in the morning and have them get all paranoid about what he might have heard or seen that they didn’t know about. And he smelled coffee.

In a few moments, he was down the stairs and approaching the door to the coffee room. Break room, they called the fully equipped kitchen with three large round tables and a dozen and a half chairs. The closer he got, the more understandable the words were through the door.

Something indistinct and then clearly, “...Delainey.”

“She’ll be in after she talks to her daughter’s teacher,” Patty was saying to someone.

Hunter stopped cold. Daughter? Delainey had a child? Maybe she was married after all. Though her name was still Talbot, that didn’t really mean anything anymore.

“I guess she wants to bring dinosaur cookies for her birthday next week and the teacher is enforcing the sugar moratorium they agreed on for the class New Year’s resolution.”

“Well, that’s hardly fair to do to a bunch of six-year-olds.”

Hunter hadn’t gotten into a prestigious law school by being a dullard, and the math of that simple statement smacked him in the face.

Delainey had a child who would be six years old next week. Unless she was having sex with someone else at the same time she was having sex with him...his child.

How could she not tell him?

He spun around to head back toward Shamus’s office.

As he yanked open the door to the stairway, Delainey entered the building and looked at him, horrified, as if she had been caught after committing some horrible crime.

As far as he was concerned, she had.

* * *

DELAINEY FLED UP the stairs to her office. She was well aware Hunter followed her and as she turned to close her office door, he was there, his hand holding the door open, his eyes intense. “We need to talk.”

She looked at him today, whereas yesterday she could barely glance at him, afraid she’d give away too much. Today she studied him head to toe. His hair was still thick and that dark honey-blond lusciousness that she had run her fingers through. His face, cleanly shaven and smooth. She had loved to run a line of kisses from his ear, across his cheek and down his neck.

And his eyes. Navy blue. True navy, like lustrous jewels. A woman could get lost in their depths.

The strong, long-fingered hand against the door did not have a wedding band. She liked that, too, but surely she had no reason to rejoice in such a thing.

She had reveled in the happily-ever-after for those three weeks. That was gone now, forever. At twenty-two she had known she was a woman. Now she knew she wasn’t a very world-wise one.

When Hunter left her behind, he had taken all notion of happily ever after with him. She had come to understand that had been her dream and not his.

She turned and walked to her desk. Today she had decided to be herself. Though her faults were varied and many, they did not lessen her. Whatever Hunter Morrison’s problems were, they did not belong to her. She had a child to think of and being the best mother possible was, had to be, her focus.

Hunter stayed in the doorway. He wore a soft-looking dark green V-necked sweater with the unbuttoned collar of a crisp white shirt standing up underneath. The jeans he wore looked as if they had just come off the rack at a fancy department store and had never been washed, certainly never worn before today. She smiled at his first attempt to try to fit into the office’s milieu. He couldn’t give up his fancy lawyer shoes, though.

Contrived and uneven, the ensemble looked good on him. Probably most things looked good on him.

She shook her head in disgust with herself, then nodded. “Of course we need to talk, but I can’t do it now or here. You can’t do it here. We have to work with these people and I’m already late to see a client.”

“I’ll come to your house after work.” He looked fierce when he spoke, and it seemed aimed at her.

“No. No, you won’t come to my house.” What had she done to deserve that?

He drew his dark blond eyebrows together, making the frown creases visible, a reminder they were no longer twenty-two with very little life experience. “There are still few places in Bailey’s Cove where whatever we say won’t be open to public speculation.”

She searched his face, his eyes, trying to learn what she could, maybe find out what had happened to him in the intervening years. It seemed the time had robbed him of his lighthearted jock look and substituted a stern, suspicious one for the carefree college graduate.

Maybe the high school Delainey and Hunter, the prom queen and king, the pals and study partners, deserved to know what had happened to each other. “Do you have a car?”

He dropped his hand from the door. “It’s coming in two days.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“I’m staying with the Murphys. I can borrow Shamus’s car.”

“I’ll come there and get you. We can have dinner at the diner out at the highway intersection. It’ll be nice to have a chicken wing or two for the awkward silent moments.”

“Are you sure?”

She had expected one corner of his mouth to lift, but that it did not was just as well. If he was attractive when he scowled, she knew he was devastating when he grinned. She couldn’t let that happen, not up close and personal. Not yet. Not until she was sure she had control of her reaction.

Breaking eye contact, she retrieved files from the cabinet near her desk, and holding them against her chest as a shield, she tried to brush past him.

He grabbed her arm before she could escape and she looked up into his eyes. He studied her face for a long moment. Long enough to light an unbidden, unwanted fire inside her.

And just when the feelings building in her were about to explode, he let her go.

She stayed close, as if he still held her arm. “My client is down near the harbor. I’ll be back when I’m finished. If you need anything in the meantime, I’m sure Carol or Shirley can help you.”

He nodded and she had to force herself to walk calmly away when all she wanted was to flee as fast as her feet would carry her.

She was on her way to see a client, sort of a client, a client who wouldn’t be paying anytime soon, or ever.

Christina would be waiting for her. Delainey had promised to bring over samples of contracts she could use to base her wants-and-needs list on for the renovation of the old Victorian homes. She had no doubt her sister had the seed money to begin, and Delainey wanted to make sure the cash flow was protected from the unscrupulous by black-and-white documents spelling out each party’s responsibilities.

After slowly crossing the parking lot, she climbed into her car and tossed the files on the seat next to her. When she had to drive near the building to get out of the staff lot, she could see Hunter standing in the window of her office looking bleak. He raised a hand to her in acknowledgment and she waved back.

Hunter, what happened to you? she thought.

* * *

“WHY DIDN’T YOU tell me?” Christina demanded once they were again sitting in front of the fire inside Cora’s cozy but shabby “front parlor,” as Christina had informed her when she asked what the room was called.

“Well, at first I couldn’t believe he was actually in Bailey’s Cove, and then I didn’t know what it meant. Today it seems that while I might have known the boy, I don’t know the man at all.” She chugged a few swallows of coffee and sighed.

“Did he want to fire you or something?”

“No, nothing like that—yet.” Delainey laughed. “Well, actually, I don’t know. I didn’t give him a chance to say much. For all I know, he had come to hand me a pink slip.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“He said we have to talk.”

“You got all that angst from ‘we have to talk’?”

“He’s angry at me and I don’t know why, but something besides me is bothering him. I have no idea what he’s doing here. I don’t know why Shamus called him or why he accepted. I’ve asked, but Shamus has been very vague and I didn’t feel it was right to press him.”

“Maybe Hunter wanted to come back home. He was born here, wasn’t he?”

“No. He was born in Chicago, and most of his family is from that area. His grandmother was from Maine. He lived here from the time he was in sixth grade until he finished high school. His parents moved back to Chicago and he followed them to go to law school, but he came back for the summers and lived in his grandmother’s house. His parents would come for a week or two when he was there.”

“So how long were you in love with him?”

This time Delainey snorted, drank more coffee and took another bite of the Pirate’s Roost sausage-and-egg breakfast-bake special of the day Christina had been keeping warm in a toaster oven. “I guess from the time he came in the door of the sixth-grade classroom until he drove away for good.”

“He didn’t.”

Delainey shrugged and nodded. She felt the searing pain as if he had left her behind just today and not years ago. “We had each graduated from college, me here in Maine and he in Illinois. He came here that last summer to settle his grandmother’s estate. His father was ill and he volunteered. He called me the first day and we went out for pizza that night. It was the first time he ever kissed me.”

“No. All those years. You two are slow movers.”

“I didn’t know he ever thought of me that way. We were pals. We studied. And remember, the only reason I got elected prom queen to his king is two other girls were fighting and I won by default.”

“You deserved it.”

“I was a wallflower, and I— Well, he was so popular and I didn’t think I stacked up.”

“Honey, you stack up.”

“I might stack up now. I didn’t then. I was too skinny and Mom insisted I wear those long shirts and khakis to school.”

“But you’ve always had a great smile and you used to be lots of fun.”

Delainey took a feeble swing at her sister. “Shut up.”

“And—you have a great personality.” Guffawing, Christina flopped over on the couch to duck the retribution.

Delainey reached out and helped her sister sit back up. “I don’t know what we really have to talk about, but we have to work together and can’t go around flinching and ducking when we see each other.”

“So what did you two do all those years when you spent time together besides study?”

“We saw movies, fireworks, ate too many burgers and pizzas to remember, but he never even tried to kiss me until after college. The only time he held my hand before that was when we walked on those big rocks along the shoreline and he was afraid I’d fall into the ocean.”

“And now?”

“I’m picking him up at the Murphys’ at five-thirty and we’re having dinner at the diner out near the Interstate.”

“Ooh, that sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, at least I’ll have my own car so I can run away when I need to.”

“No, wait.” Christina sat forward on the old chair cushion. “Make sandwiches and get a bottle of wine. Go to the ocean.”

“It’s winter.”

“Talk in the car. It doesn’t get much more private than that.”

“Um, it’s cold this time of year?”

“Um, that’s why they invented blankets.”

“And the sun goes down at five-thirty.”

“Oh, stop. Maybe he’s looking for another chance with you and doesn’t know how to ask. It’s been a long time in coming, you know.”

“I don’t think so.” Delainey remembered the wonderful feeling of Hunter’s lips on hers, his hands on her body. No time at all had passed in that memory file. “I think he’s messed up because of something that happened to him in Chicago. It’s got him, I don’t know, edgy. Today he stood in the doorway of my office and twice he looked over his shoulder to make sure there wasn’t anyone there.”

“Maybe he didn’t want anyone from the office to overhear the two of you.”

“He could have come into my office and closed the door.”

“Life in the big city has made him jittery. Maybe you can calm him down. Lawyer’s big-city trauma healed by small-town girl.” Christina waved a hand in the air as if outlining headlines.

Delainey didn’t want to talk about Hunter. The more she thought about him, the more the pain of his leaving surfaced. “Did you do any of the work you were supposed to do before I got back here?”

Triumphantly Christina held up a pink legal tablet. The pages were mostly ruffled and wrinkled, meaning they had been flipped over so the next page could be written on.

Delainey took the tablet. Granted, the writing was scribbled and a lot of it was crossed out, but there was an impressive list of things to be done. Something was going right.

“The ones with the asterisk beside them are ones Sammy and I can do ourselves.”

“Wow, most impressive.”

“Ha. Baby sister grows up.” Christina threw her hands up in the air and wiggled in celebration.

“It’s not as if I didn’t think you could get work done. You were Bandal’s top engineer for over two years. That’s nothing to sneeze at, sis. You just—”

Christina eyed her with suspicion. “What?”

“You just never seemed to have time to do things for yourself, and this project seems to be for you.”

“Oh. I...um...guess I never expected you to notice.”

“Big sister finally wakes up to the fact that little sister is an outstanding human being.” Delainey waved her hand across the imaginary headline. Then she dropped her hand to her lap. “It’s true, Christina. Once I stopped seeing you as a five-year-old, you know, last year—” her sister smiled, as she had hoped she would “—I recognized you are a most amazing woman with the most amazing talents.”

Christina looked shocked and then amazed and speechless.

“I think you can thank Brianna. She made me realize how strongly I felt about the people around me, the people I’ve been closest to my whole life and maybe taken for granted at times.”

“Well, thank you, Brianna.”

“I even forgave Hunter. He never meant to break my heart. Whatever he did at the time was the best he had that day.” Delainey sighed. How she wished their best had been different that summer.

“I guess it comes down to whether or not we can live with the best they have to offer on any given day,” Christina said, and smiled.

“Does that mean you heard from Sammy?”

Christina’s smile held a bit of dreaminess. “He called last night and did a phone tour of the houses with me. He’s excited to get here. He gave his notice and in two weeks he plans to arrive on my doorstep.”

Plans, hopes, wants, dreams. Sammy dealt in all of these, often at her sister’s expense. Delainey hoped his best was good enough to deserve Christina. “Do I get to meet him this time?”

“Meet him. Greet him. You just don’t get to date him.”

Delainey laughed. “Deal.”

“So I plan to start in the kitchen.” Christina’s tone was pure excitement. “I’ll get it stripped and buy some secondhand appliances so in a couple months I can live here. The bathroom on this floor still works. The furnaces are all still running, so the water pipes haven’t frozen.”

“I brought these blank contracts as samples. They can give you ideas of the kinds of things you might want to include.”

Christina took the contracts and tucked them on the clipboard with her tablet. “Thanks. I’m so eager to get started. I had to stop myself from stripping the wallpaper here and now. Thanks for getting all this for me.”

“You’re welcome. I’m having fun watching you get so worked up, but I guess I’d better get going.”

“They’ll all think you’re a slacker, ducking out to visit your sister two days in a row.”

“Yeah, but the food is great.”

“Are you up to it?” Christina asked.

“Up to what?”

CHAPTER FOUR

DELAINEY TURNED SIDEWAYS on the couch and gave Christina a suspicious glare.

“Are you up to facing Hunter Morrison all day, going on a date with him tonight?” Christina asked.

“I’ll hide in my office with the door locked all day and it’s not a date, but I need a favor.”

“Sure.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“You want me to pick up Brianna from Mom and Dad’s at, oh, about six o’clock so she doesn’t wear them out. I can do that. She and I will have so much fun.”

“She thinks you’re the coolest aunt ever.”

“That might be because I am. Let’s see. I’ve got computer games. I’ve got makeup and jewelry to play with and I’ve got gum. What more could a six-year-old kid want from an aunt?”

“Nothing.” Delainey laughed and picked up her keys from the coffee table.

“You’ll figure things out with Hunter,” Christina said as they walked to the door.

Delainey stopped. “That’s just it. I can’t come up with a scenario where this works out. He seems angry with me and I don’t know what I did. And whether or not he’s justified in feeling that way, he gets a say in whether or not I continue working for Morrison and Morrison. If it turns out he’s just angry at something else, I’ll try to help him like I used to. It would make things easier for the both of us.”

“Don’t tell me you—”

Delainey nodded. “When someone broke his heart, I’d fix it for him. When he panicked about an exam, I’d come to his rescue. Well, you get it.”

“Then everything can get just peachy between the two of you.”

Delainey put her hand on the old brass doorknob and her head on the doorframe. “Ah, my optimistic sister. If everything gets peachy, I can’t forget that they were heavenly between us the first time when he just walked away. I have Brianna to think of and if I brought a man into her life that broke her heart, I could never forgive myself.”

“Brianna has a great mother.”

“Thanks.”

Delainey stepped out into the brisk air of another sunny late-February day and Christina closed the door behind her.

Ten minutes later and safely tucked in her office, she straightened the stack of files on her desk. There seemed to be more than when she left earlier.

She pulled the one off the top with a hot pink sticky note on it in Carol’s hand that said Important.

In the file was the picture of a boy, perhaps Brianna’s age but probably younger, maybe four and a half or five. Stevie Anning, the label read.

The boy had a bruise down the side of his face that looked to be a few days old and a fat lip that seemed to be very fresh.

The information had been provided by a neighbor of the child, who was living in the custody of his uncle. Apparently, Child Protective Services had been to the home and deemed the injuries accidental. They’d subsequently determined the child was safe and happy. The neighbor said the state was there for what seemed like ten minutes, emphasizing, “And that’s all the time they gave to this little boy.”

The neighbor had also called the police twice and when they arrived, they could find no wrongdoing at the uncle’s house. They had taken the uncle into the station and removed the boy from the home both times. Each time, the uncle had been able, according to the neighbor, to talk himself out of being charged with any crime.

Delainey wasn’t sure she believed that. The Bailey’s Cove Police Department was very responsive to domestic abuse. Every officer had been to sensitivity training and had attended the intervention initiative education program to help them to recognize the signs of abuse and the responses of an offender who is good at getting off the hook.

In the file was a request to assist an aunt from the child’s mother’s side of the family to get custody away from the uncle on the father’s side.

Very apparently, none of the parties involved had much in the way of resources to pay for legal representation.

The uncle had the law behind him. If the investigating parties had it wrong, then the aunt had the welfare of the boy on her side.

Another pro bono case. A worthy case. What she wanted to do was to go speak with the uncle herself, but she knew that could lay her and the firm open for a harassment claim.

She’d have to chat with the officers and see what she could find out on behalf of the boy.

She called Carol and asked her to come up and then quickly unlocked the door to her office. Locking it was silly anyway.

A short minute later, Carol appeared.

“Hey, Carol, nice glasses,” Delainey said as they each took a seat. Carol bought glasses the way some people bought shoes. She had some snazzy purple-and-green ones on today.

“So we’ve all been wondering what the scoop is about Shamus and Hunter.”

“Did you ask either of them?”

“Both of them. But neither of them gave even a hint.” Carol looked at her hopefully. “I thought you would know something.”

Delainey laughed. “You give me far too much credit. I don’t have very much information these days.”

“Didn’t you know Hunter when he lived here?”

“I did. We went to school together.” Delainey had no intention of giving even the slightest hint that she and Hunter had had a brief time when they were more than friends. She barely liked to admit the oh-so-short and ill-fated affair to herself. But she threw Carol a meatless bone. “He was every bit as good-looking when he was in high school. Not as well built but cute. All the girls liked him.”

Carol beamed. “Do we know anyone who went out with him?”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

Now Carol blushed and Delainey felt a little silly for being up-front.

“The case involving the Anning boy.”

“Yes, Shirley and I set up Stevie’s file, but that was before...”

“Before what?”

“Before we got told we do too many pro bono cases.”

“Told by Mr. Morrison?”

Carol nodded.

“He says we all need our jobs and if we don’t choose these cases based on true need—including the need of the Morrison and Morrison employees, we are going to give away too much business and end up having to cut back on staff.”

This wasn’t anything Delainey was not aware of, but Shamus always made things work somehow. “This one seems to have merit even considering all those things.”

Carol sighed in relief. “That’s what I thought. You see, it’s my sister’s best friend who filed the complaints in the first place.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do about it.”

“Thank you so much. Thank you.” Carol had already leaped from her chair and was hurrying out the door.

Delainey spent the rest of the morning and all of the afternoon reviewing cases, updating files that needed info added and placing phone calls to clients and prospective clients. She finished up her notes and closed the book on another day at the office.

When she did, she found herself hoping Stevie Anning was safe for the night.

An hour later, nervous but determined to be open and honest with Hunter, Delainey pulled into the Murphys’ long gravel driveway. She stopped outside the house to consider if she should go up the sweeping front steps to fetch Hunter. Her hands trembled, and she was glad she’d changed her mind about going to the diner.

When she got home from work, she had found a bag on her kitchen table from Christina. “A thank-you dinner for two. Christina,” the note had said. Delainey had snatched out the bottle of wine and put in a thermos of hot tea. She’d collected a couple blankets so they could eat and talk in the car. Whatever Hunter had to say to her, she was sure she would be able to take it better without an audience of any kind.

The front door to the house opened and Hunter emerged, so she could breathe a sigh of relief that she didn’t have to get out and test whether her legs could hold her up.

Instead of getting in the passenger door, Hunter came around to the driver’s side. He was going to chicken out. Good—she didn’t want to do this, either. She opened the window.

“Hunter?”

Hunter leaned down until Delainey could see his face. He was close enough that she could have reached out and cupped the strong angle of his jaw with the palm of her hand. He was close enough that she could smell his shaving cream and soap, smooth with an edge of spice.

Too close. She leaned her head back against the headrest, hoping the feelings stirring in her would go away. She didn’t want to feel anything for him. Even friendship would be dangerous.

“The Murphys have offered their living room to us. They’ve also invited you to dine with us,” he said, his breath coming out in puffs of steam.

All she could do was stare at him, panic-stricken. She could not let this thing grow bigger. She needed to get this, whatever it was between Hunter and her, settled. He would work in the Morrison and Morrison office and she would work alongside him if she got the chance.

One thing she knew for sure, she was not going in there to talk about her personal life. She loved Shamus, but she didn’t want to bare her secrets to him.

“I thanked him and Connie and assured them we’d be fine. I did tell them I’d ask you before I refused for both of us.”

“Thank you.” She put both hands on the steering wheel and squeezed hard. “I mean, I was trying to figure out how to diplomatically refuse that offer.”

Hunter straightened and sprinted in his familiar long-legged stride back to the house and up the steps. Connie met him at the door and waved to Delainey. Connie looked her usual lustrous self. She might not be the reason Shamus quit, but there was probably little to be gleaned from a glimpse so far away.

Shamus, what’s wrong? she wondered as Hunter strode back to her car and climbed in the passenger side.

“The diner it is,” he said as he pulled the door closed.

“We don’t have to go there, either. I brought food. I thought we could go someplace private and talk in the car.”

He looked over his shoulder to the blankets in the backseat where Brianna’s booster would have been if she hadn’t left it with Christina.

“Little Cove Park?” Little Cove Park was a small inlet where the waves often washed in quietly. There wasn’t a beach, only rocky shoreline and shallow caves, dangerous when the tide was in. A lighthouse stood on the right side of the cove on a point of land reaching out into the ocean.

Many a picnic had been had at the small park by people of all kinds, especially high schoolers, sometimes with groups as big as twenty or thirty. Kids would pair off and disappear out into the darkness around them, but never Hunter and her. They used to joke that they were the fire tenders and the whole group would fall apart without their help.

There would be no one at the cove today.

Ten minutes later she pulled into the deserted parking area, where the snow of the weekend lay plowed in small mounds. In a moment she would be alone in a parked car with Hunter Morrison.

She shut off the engine.

Suddenly, she had no idea why she’d thought she could do this at all. Two days ago her life was on track. Today she felt as if she had no anchor and she definitely could not just sit there and start talking. She got out of the car and Hunter did the same.

The rubber soles of her boots gave her barely enough traction to keep her upright as she navigated the slippery, crunchy snow. She headed for the shoreline. Hunter’s footsteps crunched across the packed snow as he followed close behind.

She stopped a few feet short of the rocky drop-off and gazed out at the never-ending motion of the Atlantic Ocean. Hunter stopped beside her but she didn’t dare look at him.

The setting sun behind them painted a pink cast on the swells as they rose and fell and then flipped over into white caps that crashed into the jagged shoreline. The rocks below had been cleaned of snow by the salty water but could still be slippery, so she did not venture down as she used to do in the summer when she was a teenager.

The beam from the lighthouse shone fragmented across the water. The cold wind whipped at her, and exhilaration swept away all other emotions. The last time she was here in the winter she was still pregnant with Brianna.

After that, it was too cold in the winter to bring the child and they always had so many better places to spend time together. They could go to the sled hill after a snow or the pottery studio and shop, where they threw and glazed ugly pots and globs that vaguely resembled dinosaurs, and the owner fired them anyway. Of course, there was also baking cookies or learning to sew with her mother.

And when she wasn’t with her daughter, she craved to be. The hours she had to spend at work were a painful reality she knew she needed to weather.

Time to herself seemed frivolous these days and she never seemed to have enough hours in a day to come to a place so hypnotic, so meditative, to think, to hope.

Was that why she’d come today? To think? To hope?

No, she’d come to reckon the path before her, to smooth out bumps, to build bridges if she could.

Hunter put a hand on her shoulder. In the faltering light, his dark blue eyes seemed stormy, his face concerned. It was then that she realized she was shivering, her teeth were chattering and she hadn’t bothered to put her hat or gloves on before venturing out in the freezing wind. More, the sun had set and twilight would be short and the darkness harsh.

Hunter held her arm as they made their way back to the car. Once inside, she rubbed her palms together and put her hands over her complaining ears.

“Start the car.”

“What?”

He pointed to the keys still dangling from the ignition lock.

“Oh.” She turned the keys and the engine came to life. Warm air poured from the vents. They had been out near the water for less than ten minutes. Not nearly enough time for the engine to cool or for her to figure out what she had to say.

After a minute or two of listening to the heater fan, she worked on relaxing the hard knot in her chest. “Hunter, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Did you bring a chicken wing or two?”

She snuffled. “For the awkward silent moments? No, but my sister packed a bag for our dinner.”

“How is Christina?”

“She’s doing well.” How much was appropriate to share about her family, her feelings, her plans, Brianna? So she tossed the ball to him. “How was Chicago?”

“Big, exciting at times. Very different from Bailey’s Cove.”

“Wow, that was so not an answer.” She took a chance and looked at him. His brows furrowed as if thinking of something unpleasant. Was that how he remembered her?

“Why aren’t you an attorney?”

“Well, I guess I asked for that.” She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to stop the landslide that was heading rapidly directly toward her. “Can we back up for a bit?”

He grabbed a blanket from the backseat and handed it to her. “Are you hungry, Delainey?”

No, she was not hungry. Her stomach was churning and her head ached. The last thing she wanted was food—no, the second last. The last thing was to sit here and confide in a man she no longer knew.

“Sure. I could eat.”

He reached over the seat this time to pull the canvas satchel up onto the console between them. From it Delainey opened a paper bag containing three votive candles and a book of matches.

Blankets. Candles. If her sister had included condoms, one of them was going to die. She shook her head and put the candles back in the bag. The dash lights would be good enough.

Hunter went for the handle of the satchel.

“I’ll get it.” Delainey tugged the bag into her lap just in case her sister had made that very big mistake. She dug around a bit. No condoms, but Christina had made a definite statement. Delainey pulled out two submarine sandwiches and two large whole dill pickles sealed in plastic.

She handed one of each to Hunter and wondered if he saw what she saw or if she was just a frustrated single mom who had not had a man, no matter how many her mother threw at her, in a very long time.

Oh, she was so pathetic.

“How are things in Bailey’s Cove? I noticed a few stores closed.”

She felt the knot loosen at such a neutral topic and she said a silent thank-you. “The town is struggling. It’s not a new story. Young people leaving and never coming back. The tourist dollars are going anywhere but here. We’re trying to change that but slowly. We don’t want to completely lose the flavor of the town or to become a town primarily made up of people from outside the state looking for a break in the summer.”

“Wouldn’t an influx of tourists help the economy here?”

“Yes, it would, but the fear is that if too many of you people—” She paused and chanced a smile at him. When he smiled back, she turned her gaze to the light from the lighthouse out on the point. “Outsiders, you know. Too many outsiders and the town would lose control, lose many of the valuable assets that mark it as an early New England settlement.”

“I saw the church. The town has done wonders restoring it.”

“The town didn’t do it. Our museum curator, Heather Loch, did it with her family’s money. There’s a great story there involving a pirate and a skeleton bricked up in a wall.”

“Intriguing. Tell me about it.”

“That story is bigger than a sandwich in a car.”

“Were people digging for gold again like they did in the 1950s?” Hunter asked, and then took a bite of his sandwich.

“A bit, but some of the people around here found something better than gold. They found long-lost relatives. Anyway, the Pirate’s Roost, which you probably saw on your way into town, is new, one of the first town improvements. My sister has taken possession of the three Victorian houses on Treacher Avenue. She’ll turn them into a bed-and-breakfast.” She took a nibble of the cheese and lettuce sticking out from the side of her sandwich to keep herself from babbling.

“Each little improvement will grow the town, make the place of more interest to tourists, create jobs for some lucky people who want to live in a small coastal town,” she continued anyway.

“So the town has a plan?”

“Right.” But no way was the town going to grow fast enough for an extra attorney to make a living for herself and her daughter. “And maybe I can come back someday.”

“Come back? Are you leaving?”

She should have kept her mouth shut. She had just opened herself up for the “Why aren’t you an attorney?” question again.

She took a large bite of her sandwich, too impossibly big to speak around, and she chewed.

They ate in silence. It was shocking how fast a submarine sandwich could disappear when one was trying to make it take a long time.

She frantically tried to open her pickle until Hunter stilled her hands with his and took the pickle from her.

“Do I get an answer?” There was an edge of quiet anger in his tone. The same as when he confronted her at her office earlier, but he opened the pickle, drained the juice into a couple napkins and handed it back to her.

“It’s complicated.” She took a bite and resolutely stared out the window, now icy enough from condensation on the inside to blur the beacon from the lighthouse.

“You have a daughter.”

She couldn’t tell whether it was the vinegar or the surprise that made her sputter.

She shouldn’t have been caught off guard, though. In a casual office environment like Morrison and Morrison one needed only to stand anywhere near the break room to hear about everyone’s life, whether one wanted to or not.

“I do. Her name is Brianna.”

“A six-year-old daughter.” The smoke of a smoldering fire nearly poured from his ears.

Oh, no. He thought Brianna was his child. She breathed a sigh of relief. This was a simple problem, easily fixed.

“She’s not your daughter.”

In the light from the dashboard, horror flooded his features instead of the relief she’d expected. He turned away, and a moment later when he turned back, his face was a sculpture of pleasant disagreement. This would be the face he put on when the opposing attorney presented a shocking and damaging piece of evidence. She knew it was only because his guard had been down so far that she’d seen anything at all.

“You know that for certain. You have DNA results.” They weren’t questions. They were statements, as if this was the evidence he would need for proof. Her verbal assurances would fall short. Dark-haired, dark-eyed Brianna was her proof, but she wasn’t putting her daughter before an angry man for judgment.

“I don’t have to give you any sort of answers.” He had a legal right to his daughter, but with Brianna the only right he had was the moral right to know that a child was not his.

“If she’s not my daughter, then you...”

“Don’t. Don’t you even say those words.” He was her first and the only man she’d loved. Micky had been there after her heart had been broken into so many pieces she’d thought she would never heal. She had not left one man’s bed and gone directly to the other. “If we’re not careful, some of the things we say to each other might not be forgivable.”

He stayed silent, but his gaze never left her face.

“Would it help if I told you Brianna was born prematurely?”

She could tell he was trying to hide the scorn, but it was leaking out through his attempted mask of indifference. She would not fault him for that, either. Scorn had been what she had felt for herself starting the day Micky left. She and Micky had done nothing but combine bodies; there was not the commingling of souls Delainey had always thought making love should be.

She had made love with Hunter.

He did not speak.

He was using the silence technique. Give a witness enough time and she might say something incriminating or at least telling to fill the void.

She had thought they would use the time tonight to reacquaint themselves, maybe to recapture some of their old rapport.

She wasn’t sure there was anything to recapture and silence worked well on her. “You left me.”

He turned and looked out the windshield into the darkness. Silence would not work again. She put her seat belt on and started the car. When they reached the Murphys’ house, he paused before getting out of the car.

“We’ll have to finish this.”

When he bid her good-night and disappeared into Shamus’s house, her only thought was...he’d left her again.

After the first time, it should have gotten easier.

It had not.

CHAPTER FIVE

HUNTER HUNG HIS overcoat in the foyer closet, glad the Murphys’ house was quiet and mostly dark.

You left me.

He’d left her and she’d created a child. A child of hers that could have been his.

He wandered into the kitchen and tossed the wrapper from the sandwich into the trash bin. The trash bin. A real metaphor for the state of his personal affairs these days.

Connie appeared in the doorway with a glass in her hand. When she saw him, a look of concern fell over her face and he let his own relax. He smiled as he crossed the kitchen to where she met him halfway.

“Hello, Connie. I didn’t expect you to be up.”

“Oh, my dear Hunter, don’t give me that smiley look. What’s wrong?” she asked as she put a frail hand on his arm and looked up into his face with true concern.

“Looks as if someone could use a drink,” Shamus added from the doorway. He was never far from Connie except when he went into the office without her.

Connie nodded her agreement and led the way to the den, where a fire burned, reminding him of the one he had just left. Last night they had sat before this fireplace and Shamus and Connie had told him why Shamus had suddenly decided to retire. Connie had been diagnosed with leukemia. She disguised her trips to the clinic in Portland as some of the many trips she used to take with her sisters.

Shamus had wanted to leave the law firm the minute he found out, but Connie would not hear of his leaving Harriet and the workers in the lurch. When Connie suggested he call a Morrison, Hunter, the only attorney from the family, Shamus had.

Without giving too much detail, Hunter had hinted during their first call he might be available for an indefinite period of time. Hunter had become the perfect candidate and the two of them had begun to court him, Shamus in person, Connie on the phone.

At the time, he had no idea why. He would have been on the next plane if they had told him. He didn’t know Shamus and Connie well, but he knew their reputation as good people.

Shamus tended bar for the three of them. Easy enough. Clear still water for Connie and two fingers of neat scotch for each of the two men.

Hunter poked the fire and tossed on another log before he sat down to his drink.

“Now, my boy, your secrets are safe with us and it would not harm you to have someone to tell them to.”

Hunter swirled the scotch around in the tumbler and then put it to his nose and inhaled deeply. The heady fumes went straight to his brain and he took a sip of the smooth, fiery liquid.

“I made a judgment call.”

“A judgment call. The choices must have been big ones.”

Hunter let out a derisive grunt. “As you know, my family moved back to the Midwest after I graduated from high school.”

“The town missed all of you. Your mother was a well-thought-of music teacher and your father would have been wonderful on the town council—progressive,” Connie said between sips of water.

“During Christmas break my senior year in college, my parents asked me to go to law school near them. My dad was having heart problems and my mother said she would feel much more ‘at ease,’ as she put it, if I lived nearby.”

“So you did. Northwestern University was very near your parents’ home in Chicago.”

“Yes. I had already been accepted at all the law schools to which I had applied, including Northwestern, so the process wasn’t an arduous one.”

“And you did quite well, as I understand it, dear.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Connie waved her glass of water in the air. “You know what I told you about the ma’am stuff.”

“Of course, Connie.

“I came back to close down my grandmother’s estate because Dad hadn’t been feeling well and he knew it might be a long time until he got to it. So I spent almost a month here right after I graduated.”

“Saying goodbye to your friends.” Shamus smiled as if remembering friends of his own.

Hunter hesitated. He hadn’t meant to say goodbye that way to Delainey, but he’d done his best to explain and that was all he’d thought he could do at the time. He’d been so young, ambitious...selfish even, although he didn’t see it then.

“Delainey,” Shamus said.

Hunter looked up at the older man. Shamus’s mostly gray eyebrows stood out on his face almost like wings. His shock of gray hair bristled no matter what he tried to do with it, but Hunter doubted there was a kinder face on the planet. “As you might have figured, the judgment call didn’t turn out well for me.”

He hadn’t been able to see how Delainey would fit in his life, and it wouldn’t have been fair to her on so many levels until he could. Besides, she loved Bailey’s Cove and had had a lot going on here—whereas he no longer had. At least, that was what he’d thought.

She had said the child wasn’t his, but she had offered no real proof. Premature. Who had decided this? The only real way to tell was DNA testing.

If she had still been the same person he knew in high school, he would have taken her word for anything. If she said the child was not his, it would not be. He wasn’t sure he knew this Delainey. What had happened to her since then?

What had happened to him?

If he had always been such a cynic, Delainey would have let him know in her teasing “Are you sure about that?” kind of way.

“She’s a good woman, Hunter.” This was Connie, who was now sitting on the edge of the couch leaning toward him to emphasize her words.

“I’m sure she is.”

“Her daughter is a lovely child.”

“Too bad the father isn’t in the picture,” Shamus spoke up.

Hunter wondered who the father of the child was if not him, and knew he could easily find out if he wanted to. He did not. If he knew, he’d be looking around every corner for the man, wanting to punch the guy’s lights out.

They drank and talked, Hunter steering the conversation to Shamus and Connie’s children and grandchildren. Anything painless until enough time had passed that he could finish his drink and bow out.

When he finally drained the last swallow from his glass, he stood. “I’m going to leave the two of you alone. I’ve got some financial journals to catch up on.”

“Truly, it is time I retired.” Shamus laughed. “Because I’m weary of always trying to keep up with the world, as big as it is today. I don’t have any idea how you young people do it.”

“Specialization and lots of help,” Hunter said as he nabbed the empty glasses. “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”

In the kitchen alone, Hunter put the glasses in the dishwasher, then leaned both hands on the counter and dropped his head. There was no doubt about it. Unreasonably, he was disappointed he and Delainey had not made the child together.

* * *

ON SATURDAY MORNING, dark clouds hung low and threatening, but Delainey was happy for the two-day hiatus from the office.

She had a few more minutes before Brianna got up and so she sat in her breakfast nook drinking a cup of freshly brewed coffee. Dark days like today made her glad she had chosen to paint everything in her kitchen a cheery white with red-and-yellow accents.

After yesterday morning, she could use a little cheer. She had tried her hardest not to dread seeing Hunter at the office. She had, after all, done nothing wrong. She’d used poor judgment and had been stupid, but not wrong.

At work she’d kept expecting to see Hunter enter his office. When by ten o’clock it had not happened, she’d had enough waiting for the hammer to fall and contacted Shamus.

As she’d dropped the phone back into the cradle on her desk, she’d sat back and sighed with relief. Shamus had set up a series of out-of-the-office schmooze meetings for him and Hunter all day. With the pair out of the office, she’d been able to relax and do her work.

The boy in the file Carol had brought to her attention, Stevie Anning, was safe as far as she knew. She’d said a prayer he would stay that way.

She had finally told the office staff she had been accepted into law school to many congratulations and hugs, and Shirley had even rushed out and bought flowers.

She took a sip of her cooling coffee. We’ll have to finish this. Hunter’s parting words had kept her awake at night and haunted her during the day.

They would have to finish. She did not know what this “finishing” would entail, but there was always one person who came first. Her daughter.

If Hunter could see Brianna, he would find out for himself this dark-haired, dark-eyed and beautiful little girl could not possibly be his child. She thought carefully about arranging for him to see her without actually meeting her but decided there would be no harm in the two of them sharing a few words.

If Delainey and Hunter were to work at Morrison and Morrison, there would be occasion for him to meet Brianna.

Once he met her, talked to her, he’d forego the DNA testing. Brianna was very smart. Even at six, she would be able to figure out something was going on that the adults were not telling her.

Delainey leaned her elbows on the windowsill to watch the gray clouds lumber across the sky until they seemed to come to rest on the ocean.

If Hunter and Brianna met, all could be finished between Hunter and her, except for their relationship as colleagues.

Thinking Hunter and all could be finished in the same thought gave her a sinking feeling, as if something good and essential would disappear from inside her. They had been such great friends. Apparently, it was true—you could ruin a great friendship by trying to push a relationship beyond where it should go.

“Mommy, Mommy.” Brianna came running into the kitchen, her dark hair sticking up in a tangled knot on one side of her head, but she was dressed in a matching outfit and it was even appropriate winter attire, not a sundress or shorts. “I’m ready to go shopping for my material for my dress.”

“Oh, I think I’ll go back to bed, take a nap, maybe plant my garden first.”

“No, you won’t. No, you won’t. And you’re kidding me. It’s too cold for a garden.” Her daughter pulled on her arm until she got up from the table.

“Breakfast first, my darling one, and someone has to get that rat’s nest out of your hair.”

Brianna giggled, and put her hand to the usual spot where her hair tangled during sleep. “I’m making a fashion statement, Mommy.”

Now Delainey giggled. She had to admit she hadn’t giggled much as an adult until Brianna had started as a baby and the effect had been totally contagious. These days, her mother accused the two of them of being the same age, which made them giggle more until eventually even Grandmother started.

“Did you decide which pattern you want Grandma to use?”

“Can’t I get a new one?”

“Not this time. You’ve already got four to choose from. Maybe you can use one of the different collars or have Grandma choose the belted option for the pattern of that green dress she made last Christmas.”

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