A Small-Town Reunion

“This isn’t girl talk,” Rusty pointed out. “It’s not like we’re gossiping.”

“Men don’t gossip.” Quinn tossed down his cards. “They discuss.”

“Damn right.” Rusty neatened his stack of chips.

Bud raised the bet, tapping his cards on the edge of the table. “So can we discuss something other than Addie and Dev and whether they’re still mooning over each other the way they were in high school?”

“Mooning?” If Jack’s grin got any wider, it would split his face in half.

“There was no mooning.” Dev quickly looked to Rusty for confirmation.

“No mooning,” Rusty agreed with a teasing smile that said otherwise. “Must have been mistaken about Addie, too.”

Dev scowled at his cards and folded.

“Calling it quits so soon?” Jack shook his head at Dev as he revealed another bluff and scooped the chips into his pile. “You need to pay more attention. Might want to rethink your strategy, while you’re at it.”

Dev picked up a few of his chips and let them slide through his fingers. He’d been playing it safe for far too long, relying on his luck to get him through. Now he wondered who’d been bluffing whom all these years.

CHAPTER FOUR

DEV HUNCHED OVER his laptop late Saturday morning, scrolling through his notes and inserting random thoughts in parentheses. Eventually the pages would transform into something resembling an outline for a story; right now, they looked as though they’d been partially composed in code, with ellipses and dashes and chunks of text in boldly colored fonts. It was his method of organizing his thoughts and themes in the misty early stages as the piece lurched and stumbled toward coherence.

He’d intended to write a unique piece of literary fiction—a clever story with bit of homage to film noir, a tale of mystery and murder set in his adopted city of San Francisco. But somehow the setting had shifted north, to a town suspiciously similar to the Cove. And the story had wormed its way inside him to sweep dim, flickering beams over the shadowy places in his past. Cobweb-filled corners he hadn’t yet decided he was prepared to examine.

Literary noir was turning out to be a dark and depressing business, indeed.

“Shit,” he muttered, as he read the lines he’d just tapped on the keyboard. “Geneva is going to disown me.”

The thought of his demanding grandmother had him glancing at his watch. “Shit,” he said again as he saved his notes and closed the laptop. He was expected for a coffee-break meeting in her office this morning, and he was running late. Tardiness was near the top of a long list of faults and weaknesses for which Geneva had little patience.

He ran a hand across his chin before stepping into the black-and-white tiled bath. He could cut some time by skipping the morning’s shave. Second day in a row, and the stubble had stepped up to whisker stage, so he might catch one of his grandmother’s sharp and frosty glares. But that was better than catching another pithy reminder about the importance of promptness.

His thoughts drifted with the shower steam, fragments of story ideas and pieces of memories tumbling together as the scalding water pummeled his body. Writing had always been his scholastic ace in the hole, so he’d followed the path of least resistance and studied journalism in a San Francisco-area college.

After graduation, he’d pleased his family and postponed steady—and suffocatingly routine—employment by pursuing an advanced degree in English. And after that, it had been an easy slide into a part-time position as a lecturer teaching basic writing courses to first-year students at the same university.

The pay wasn’t great, but he didn’t need much. After his father had been killed during Dev’s junior year of college, Dev had handed a few chunks of his inheritance to friends in the electrical engineering program, and those investments in software development had brought him far more than the funds tucked away in the family trust.

Nothing earned, plenty gained—the one consistent pattern to his life. And since it seemed to be working, he’d gone with the flow. Without much effort, he’d created a laid-back lifestyle that suited him down to his scuffed loafers. Part-time work, part-time play, parttime friends. Part-time lovers, when he was willing to expend the effort on the mating ritual. A low-maintenance rental when he was in the city, some low-key travel when he was in the mood for different views and experiences.

But lately he’d grown bored explaining the thesis statement, critiquing freshmen essays, avoiding committee work and dating as casually as possible. And the slightly cynical entries that he read in some of his students’ journals made him feel as though he was stuck with them in player mode, trapped in an endless and self-indulgent adolescence. He was too young for a midlife crisis and too old to be making short-term career plans and the same moves on the opposite sex he’d been making since he was an undergrad.

He was itching for a change, eager for a challenge. Taking his talent for writing more seriously seemed as good a place to start as any. He didn’t even have to quit his job to do it, since his teaching stint had never been permanent.

He needed to read through his father’s papers again. Geneva would resist, at first, but he was certain he’d get his way in the end. She had no reason to deny his request, other than a desire to avoid the memories he’d churn up with his poking and prodding. Memories of his father’s final days, of the accident that had claimed his life and the scandal that had briefly flared before fading to whispers.

Rubbing a towel over his head, he escaped the jungle-like humidity of the bath. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a navy T-shirt before shoving his feet into scuffed, shapeless loafers. As he exited the guest quarters designed to resemble an old carriage house, he combed his fingers through his hair. A few crunching steps across the parking area, and he headed along the footpath winding through a shadowy redwood grove toward the mansion.

Lingering tatters of morning fog floated around thick ferns sprouting from the springy carpet of auburn bark and needles. The mist caught the sun’s rays, spreading them in silvery fans beneath the tangled canopy of redwood branches, vine maples and wild rhododendron. A jay squawked in protest as he disturbed its flight path, and a mule deer bounded into one of the narrow trails leading up the hill. The brine-scented breeze flowing in from the ocean carried the rumble and rush of the surf.

Later today he’d pester Julia for one of her ham-and-cheddar sandwiches and carry that and a couple of bottles of beer down to the tiny cove wedged between the cliffs. He’d sit with his back against a sun-warmed rock, plow his toes into the cold sand and let his thoughts drift, just like old times.

Old times. He’d laughed and winced over a few of those last night with Rusty and Bud. Drag races on the beach, exploding mailboxes, blackened eyes, broken hearts. Parties that had gone on too long and too loud. He’d probably turned Geneva’s hair gray ahead of schedule.

He paused at the edge of the grove to admire the mansion that came into view. His great-grandfather had worked his way from lumberjack to mill owner, buying this land and laying the foundation for the family fortune. His grandfather had made a series of brilliant business investments in Carnelian Cove and built Chandler House to showcase his success.

Dev’s father, Jonah, had knocked a few holes in the walls.

Jonah may have had an obsession for work and several lofty ambitions, but he hadn’t inherited his parents’ business sense. And now Dev had come back to this house to find out what had really happened nine years ago. To read through his father’s papers, to try to unravel the lingering mysteries about the night of Jonah’s death and the days following, when the extent of his father’s carelessness in overseeing the family business interests had been revealed.

Skirting the open service-parking area, Dev detoured to the south side of the house, entering through the conservatory doors. Water dripped from copper-lined planters to pool on the slate beneath, and a tiny green frog leaped for cover beneath a waxy begonia leaf as he passed. The scents of loam and violets rode on the humid air.

Moving quickly through the formal rooms, Dev made his way to the entry hall and paused near the wide marble steps leading from the main entry. The ugly plywood sheets standing in for the missing windows were a shock, two blackened gaps like missing teeth between the jewel-like morning light streaming through the glass on either side.

He grinned over the memory of Addie’s efforts to maintain control of the situation two days ago. If she’d known how transparent she’d been, how easy it had been to read every emotion in her lovely features, her cheeks would have burned as pink as the roses in the windows she’d had transported to her shop.

Addie Sutton, businesswoman. He’d always known she had a talent for art. He had to admire the way she’d used it to make a life for herself.

There was a lot to admire there.

A familiar uneasiness swept over him, from the restless shuffle of his feet on the marble floor to the faint pressure in his chest, which he tried to ease with a shift of his shoulders. The talk around the poker table had him recalling an earlier memory. A memory of Addie standing at the grassy end of the high school parking lot as he’d rumbled by in his car, of the way she’d lowered her head and peered at him from beneath her lashes. Just for an instant, like the click of a camera shutter, he’d witnessed in her features the same emotion that had smoldered deep inside him.

And then there’d been a tug, as if he were a fish on a line, as if he’d swallowed the bait so deep an escape would rip out his guts. It would have been so easy to let her reel him in. It would have been so easy to stop, to roll down his window and offer her a ride. They were headed in the same direction, after all.

But Bud had jogged over, hopped in the passenger side and leaned on the horn, trying to catch the attention of another girl across the lot. Addie had jerked and dropped her books on the grass, her cheeks burning and her hands clumsy as she gathered them. And Dev had sped away, ashamed for so many reasons and blaming Addie for most of them.

A high-pitched growl brought him back to the present. One of Geneva’s yippy little dogs edged close to sniff at his loafers, the silly blue bow tied to a tuft of fur on its head quivering in outrage. “The scouting expedition,” Dev muttered.

He started down the dim hall toward Geneva’s office, and the rest of the pack of Yorkies swarmed around his ankles and raised the alarm as he entered the room.

Geneva silenced the dogs with a wave of her hand. “Good morning, Devlin.”

He bent to press a kiss against her soft gray hair. “Good morning, Grandmother.”

She lifted one elegant eyebrow and the pot by her side. “Coffee?”

“Yes. Please.” He reached for the cup she handed him and then settled back against downy chair cushions. Julia’s coffee was worth the trip from his rooms at this relatively early hour. “What’s up?”

Geneva shuddered delicately. “Nothing is up. I have a few things to discuss with you before I leave next week.”

Dev froze with the cup raised near his chin. “You’re going somewhere?”

“I’ve decided to accept an old friend’s invitation for a cruise in the Caribbean. I’ll be flying to San Francisco the morning after my annual Fourth of July picnic to do some shopping and to make a call on your Aunt Jacqueline before I leave for the gulf.”

Aunt Jacqueline. Dev had lived in the same city, and yet he hadn’t seen Tess’s mother for years. “Why didn’t you mention this before I decided to come up here for a visit?”

“You needn’t bother sounding so wounded, Devlin. You’ll embarrass us both.” Geneva sipped her coffee.