“Sometimes the answer is right there in front of you.”

“You’re right, Addie.” Dev caught her wrist as he rose from the stool. “Sometimes it is. All you have to do is look. I’ve been looking for a long, long time. And look what I’ve found.”

He released her wrist to raise his hand to her hair. He’d been wanting — waiting, for a lifetime — to pull those clips and bands from the top of her head, to watch the sunshine-bright strands fall around her shoulders, to plunge his hands into her thick, luscious hair. And now she was here, standing before him with her eyes wide and locked on his and her lips parted in a breathless surprise that matched his own.

Her lids fluttered closed as his thigh brushed hers. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Yes, you do. We could start with a kiss and go from there.”

“A kiss?”

“Do you need a demonstration?”

She huffed out a shaky little breath and opened her eyes, tilting back her head to give him a sassy smirk. “I know what a kiss is.”

“Yes, but you’ve never been kissed by me.”

About the Author

TERRY MCLAUGHLIN spent a dozen years teaching a variety of subjects including Anthropology, Music Appreciation, English, Drafting, Drama and History to a variety of students from Kindergarten to college before she discovered romance novels and fell in love with love stories. When she’s not reading and writing, she enjoys travelling and planning house and garden improvement projects. Terry lives with her husband in northern California on a tiny ranch in the redwoods. Visit her at www.terrymclaughlin.com.

Dear Reader,

When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I write love stories. I always enjoy seeing their faces light up at my response — at the idea of having a justifiable excuse to spend lots of time in my own make-believe worlds with characters whose struggles always end happily. Writing — and reading — love stories is a terrific way to spend the day, don’t you think?

In A Small-Town Reunion, I enjoyed creating a world in which a first love gets a second chance. And I got the opportunity to experiment with a craft I’d always wanted to learn: making stained glass windows. You see, I had one of those justifiable reasons to satisfy my curiosity: the heroine in this book is a stained glass artist. Sometimes I not only create interesting careers and adventures for my characters — I get to share in a bit of them, too.

I always love to hear from my readers! Please come for a visit to my website at www.terrymclaughlin.com, or find me at wetnoodleposse.blogspot.com or www.superauthors.com, or write to me at PO Box 5838, Eureka, CA 95502.

Wishing you stories with happy endings,

Terry McLaughlin

A SMALL-TOWN

REUNION

TERRY McLAUGHLIN

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Rick at The Glass Works

with gratitude for his patience with all my questions

and for the stained glass beauty he’s added to our home.

CHAPTER ONE

AN EXPLOSION JOLTED Addie Sutton awake to a shuddering, dark world of groaning woodwork and rattling windowpanes. Her bedroom floor jerked and pitched in nauseating waves, and her tall oak dresser pitched forward and slammed against the iron frame at the foot of her bed.

Not an explosion.

An earthquake.

“Dilly!” She grabbed her oversize cat before he could leap from his spot beside her. A dresser drawer jounced open, wedging against her foot and spewing socks and lingerie over the quilt. The lamp on her nightstand toppled and smashed on the wood floor. Shards from the Tiffany-style shade skittered and danced across the hardwood planks, spreading in a path that threatened to shred bare feet and paws.

She clasped the hissing, struggling cat to her chest, shrinking against her pillows to wait it out. For how long—twenty seconds? Thirty? How strong were the tremors? Where was the epicenter? It could be anywhere—this stretch of the northern California coast was a crazy quilt of fault lines.

Another crack-and-jerk rammed the headboard against the folding screen behind it, toppling the divider separating her sleeping alcove from the living area of her small apartment. Somewhere in the kitchen something fell and shattered. How much more broken glass would she find in her shop?

“The shop,” she whispered in the sudden silence marking the end of the final tremor.

A Slice of Light—her stained glass shop in Carnelian Cove. She stared at the jagged, moonlit pieces on her floor and wondered if she’d find more costly rubble scattered about the workplace beyond her apartment door. She had to get out there, to check on her projects and supplies, to try to salvage and stow what she could before the aftershocks hit.

With a quake that strong, aftershocks were sure to follow.

She kicked free of the quilt, slid across the mattress and carried Dilly to the armoire angled in one corner of her bedroom space. She managed to keep her grip on her squirming pet while she slipped into a pair of flip-flops, and then she dumped him into the cramped closet area.

“Sorry, Dill,” she said as she shut the door. “You may develop a case of kitty claustrophobia, but it’s better than slicing up your paws.”

She shoved the dresser upright with a grunt, then carefully picked her way around the remains of the lamp shade. Edging past the fallen screen and into the open living space, she flipped the switch for the chandelier swaying above her kitchen table. “Oh, no.”

The pretty little pitcher she’d stuffed with marguerites the evening before had broken in a dozen pieces when it hit the floor. Books had slumped and slid from their shelves, and two of them lay facedown in the puddle of flower-specked water. She plucked them from the wet mess and mopped at the pages with a corner of the tablecloth before spreading them open to dry.

Behind her, the cell phone on her nightstand trilled an inappropriately cheerful tune. She lifted the screen as she moved toward her bedroom area, folding it so it would stand upright and out of the way. Soft light from the chandelier fell across the face of the old enamel clock hanging on the wall opposite her bed, and she squinted to make out the time. Five forty-three. It would be light soon; sunrise came early in late June.

She picked up the phone and returned to the kitchen. “Hello?”

“Addie.” Lena Sutton, her mother, had always been able to inject galaxies of worry and relief—or impatience and annoyance—into that one word. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Addie rolled her tiny island butcher block back into place and frowned at the remains of a fruit bowl at her feet. “I’ve found a broken lamp and a vase and bowl so far, but I managed to catch Dilly before he stepped on the pieces. How about you?”

“I’m fine. Just a few things to set right, a few pictures to straighten. Goodness, I’m still shaking,” her mother added with a short, breathy laugh. “That was a wild one.”

“It sure was.” Addie stared at the indistinct outline of her reception counter through the lacy folds of the curtains in the windows that divided her apartment from her business. “I’m almost afraid to look in the shop.”

“All that glass.” Lena heaved one of her I-knew-there-would-be-trouble sighs. “Call me right back, as soon as you’ve checked things out.”

“There’s probably no cause for alarm. And if there is, it might take a while to assess the damage.”

Addie swept aside one of the panels of lace and peered into the darkened shop. Shadows angled across the storage shelves and flowed over the floor, cloaking the evidence. If she found too much breakage, she didn’t know what she’d do—she couldn’t afford to replace ruined stock, and she couldn’t afford a hike in her insurance rates.

She grabbed the hem of her nightshirt and twisted the fabric in her fist. “I’d better get out there and have a look. I’ve got to open in a few hours.”

“That’s right. You’re busy.” Lena’s tone had shifted into a familiar gear: politely strained and faintly injured. “Sorry I bothered you. I won’t keep you, then. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I told you—I’m fine.” Addie pressed two fingers against the spot between her eyes, where a headache brewed. Sometimes it was difficult to be patient with her mother, but Addie always dug deep to find the appreciation she deserved. Addie had never known her father—he’d disappeared shortly after Lena had informed him she was pregnant. Her mother had sacrificed so much to give her daughter everything she needed; surely Addie could afford to spare her a little time. “And it’s not a bother,” she added. “Thank you for checking up on me. I appreciate it, really.”

“I know you do. You’re a good girl, Addie.”

“Yep, that’s me,” she agreed with a weak smile. “A good girl.”

She disconnected and stood for a short while as pearly dawn light tickled its way through a fuzzy blanket of fog. A good girl. A twenty-nine-year-old wimp with an overweight cat, an overbearing mother and a business teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

A faint rumble shot her pulse into triple digits before she identified the sound as a passing fire truck—probably an earthquake-related emergency call. She straightened, sucked in a deep breath and aimed her attitude toward positive as she pulled her broom from the cupboard. It was just another Thursday, and she had a new day to face and responsibilities to handle. But first, she had a cat to rescue.

BY OPENING TIME, Addie had cleared the mess in her shop and was beginning to inventory the full extent of the damage. An entire section of rough-rolled and glue-chip glass was gone, and the sample box of cathedral-glass squares had fallen from its shelf, damaging the tiled tabletop below. She’d called her insurance agent to discuss the possibility of a claim, and she’d fretted over how she’d deal with the deductible.

Her lips thinned in a tight, tense frown as she swept shards too small to use for scrap into her dustpan. A Slice of Light’s financial situation was so precarious that one good shove would send it toppling over the edge. She hoped this earthquake hadn’t been the shove to do it.

“Morning.” Tess Roussel, the Cove’s newest architect and one of Addie’s best friends, strode into the shop on a pair of stylish heels, wearing a neon-pink sundress and toting a matching neon-pink handbag and two cups of takeout coffees from the café around the corner. “I wanted to see if you’d survived. Hell of a way to start a Thursday.”

“I’m all right,” Addie said as she took one of the cups. The rich, earthy scent of the brew triggered a rumble through her empty midsection, reminding her she’d skipped breakfast. “I’m not so sure about Dilly. He’s probably considering running away from home.”

“That tubbo tabby?” Tess brushed polished fingertips through her short, black hair. “He’d never make it past his food bowl.”

Sipping her coffee, Tess wandered to the deep storage bins suspended on one of the brick side walls, noting the empty spaces. “I see all the reds are gone. And most of the yellows, too.”

“Figures the most expensive stock would be the stuff to fall.” Addie dumped the contents of the dustpan into her industrial-size trash bin. “I don’t know how I’m going to replace it.”

“You’ve got to replace it. We need it for Tidewaters.”

Tidewaters was Tess’s masterpiece, a clever combination of fabulous commercial space and gorgeous condo units under construction along the waterfront. She’d generously incorporated several stained-glass windows and panels into her design, and Addie had counted on that upcoming contract to give her business a needed boost.

“Believe me, I’m aware of that,” Addie said. “That project is the one thing that’s keeping me from advertising a going-out-of-business sale.”

“You can’t quit. And it’s not just because I need you.” Tess gestured toward the fanciful displays hanging in the window. “You’ve poured everything

you’ve got into this business. Besides, you’re too talented to simply give up and walk away from it.”

“Thanks for the support. You have no idea how much it means to me.” Addie shoved the broom into its cupboard. “But talent doesn’t pay the bills. I haven’t sold anything in days. Summer’s always tough without the university students around to shop for their projects, but I can usually count on the tourists to fill in the gap. This year the gap’s gotten wider. Lately the window-shoppers haven’t been buying any windows.”

“What about your idea for classes?” Tess rested her hip against the corner of a display table, letting one of her long legs dangle. “With the delays at Tidewaters, you could squeeze some in before business picks up again.”

Addie winced at Tess’s mention of the setbacks at the construction site. A stretch of vandalism had ended two weeks earlier in a spectacular blaze, leveling the framed skeleton of Tess’s design to its foundation. Tess had been devastated, but she’d rebounded almost immediately with a surprising engagement to Quinn, the general contractor on the project. Now the two of them were working harder than ever to raise their building from the ashes.

“I can’t just advertise classes,” Addie said. “I need to come up with lesson plans, and check on the insurance, and—”

“So do it.” Tess took another sip of her coffee. “And get a move on. Offer a special summer session for whiny ten-year-olds, and I promise Rosie Quinn will be the first to sign up.”

“You want me to offer a bunch of kids the opportunity to slice themselves on cut glass or burn themselves with soldering irons?”

“So it wasn’t one of my most brilliant ideas.” Tess shrugged. “Desperation must be taking its toll.”

Addie smiled. It was a struggle imagining her friend as a stepmother—and Addie was certain Tess was having the same trouble adjusting to the idea. “Is Rosie giving you trouble?”

“Nothing I can’t handle with tranquilizers and pain relievers. For me, not the kid,” Tess added. “I’m sure we’ll figure things out, right about the time she leaves for college.”

“What about kids of your own?”

“God.” Tess grimaced and lowered her cup. “Let’s talk about something more pleasant, like a nuclear blast on Main Street. Or how we’re going to get Charlie to commit to a date for her bridal shower.”

“I’m relieved she finally set a date for the wedding.” Charlie Keene, their friend since elementary-school days, had agreed to marry Jack Maguire, her new business partner in Keene Concrete. But Charlie’s dread of being the center of public attention and her dislike of formal social events, shopping, lace and tulle were complicating the wedding plans.

And Tess’s love of the social events and shopping Charlie detested—not to mention her fondness for organizing her friends’ personal business—had made her the logical choice for Charlie’s maid of honor.

“Jack threatened to arrange for a flock of doves and a dance orchestra,” Tess said. “That got her minimalist rear in gear.”

“Even his threats are romantic,” Addie said with a dreamy sigh. “He really loves her, doesn’t he?”

“Poor guy.” Tess grinned. “I remember threatening him with thumbscrews when he first blew into town. Turns out getting engaged to Charlie was worse than any torture I could have dreamed up.”

Addie slid onto one of the work stools behind her long reception counter. “They’re going to be very happy together.”

“Yeah, they deserve each other, all right. And don’t get your feathers ruffled,” Tess added when she caught Addie’s frown. “I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

Tess dropped her empty cup in the giant bin as she headed toward the door. “Better swing by my office before I head out to check up on Quinn and give him his midmorning kiss.”

“That’s so sweet.” Addie’s smile was wide and guileless. “He deserves you, too.”

Tess paused, her hand on the doorknob and her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Sometimes I think that syrupy sweet exterior of yours is a fiendishly clever disguise. Beneath all that fluffy gold hair, those big blue eyes and those angelic dimples lurks the heart of a serial insulter.”

“You know I always try to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings.”

“Like I said,” Tess added as she headed out the door, “fiendishly clever.”

Addie watched her friend climb into her bright red roadster and speed off toward the waterfront. Tess had Quinn; Charlie had Jack. Currently, Addie had Mick O’Shaughnessy, a baseball-playing carpenter on Quinn’s construction crew—though she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. Their relationship seemed to be skidding from romantic to platonic.

Addie also had bridesmaid duties to perform and bills to pay. She switched on her aging disk player, popped in a CD of Motown classics and reached for her sketches for a new set of window ornaments.

Five minutes later, the sun had burned through the morning fog to fire summer light into every corner of the shop, and a honeymooning couple had wandered in to admire a hummingbird and rose done in filmy opalescent and clear textured glasses. She excused herself when her desk phone rang.

“A Slice of Light, Addie Sutton speaking.”

“Hello, Addie.”

She stiffened. It had been several years since she’d heard Geneva Chandler’s voice on the phone. “Good morning, Mrs. Chandler.”

“Must we be so formal?” Geneva, Tessa’s grandmother and the wealthiest woman in Carnelian Cove, had once employed Addie’s mother as housekeeper. Addie had lived most of her childhood at Chandler House, playing quietly in a corner of the enormous kitchen or tucked up in her attic bedroom.

Or romping in Tess’s suite, when her friend had come north to visit. Tess had grown up in San Francisco, but she’d spent school holidays and long summers in Carnelian Cove. Geneva had often claimed the two of them were a matched set, like night and day.

“Formal?” Addie twirled a strand of hair around a finger so tightly her knuckle turned white. “No, I don’t suppose so. What can I do for you, Geneva?”

“Two of my windows were damaged last night during the quake. I’d like you to come out today and see about repairing them for me.”

“Which ones?”

“Two of the set over the entry stair landing. You know the group.”

“Yes, I do.”

Addie had spent dozens of hours nestled in one corner of that landing, her picture books propped on her bony knees and her toes digging into the thick, richly patterned carpet, while rainbows flooded through the glass to drench her in color. She’d studied the intricate webbing of lead, had observed the infinite effects created by sunlight as it played through the waves and streaks and bevels. She’d told herself stories to bring the patterns and pictures to life as they’d painted her skin in jeweled tones and pastels.

Those windows had been her secret, silent joy. They’d kept her company and given shape to her dreams—and now two of them had been broken. It was as though pieces of her childhood had been chipped and fractured.

“Can you come?” asked Geneva. “This morning, if possible. I’d like to get an expert opinion on how to proceed with the repairs. And, of course, I’d like you to make those repairs for me, Addie.”

“Yes, I’ll come.” Of course she would. Her special, magic windows needed her skills.

And Addie had always known there’d come a day she’d be forced to deal with the Chandlers.

HALF AN HOUR BEFORE she’d agreed to meet Geneva at Chandler House, Addie stared at the mirror hanging above her bathroom’s wall-mounted sink and tugged her fingers through her long, curling hair. It was a simple matter of basic grooming and good manners, she reasoned as she twisted together a few tendrils and caught them up with two tiny, spangled shooting-star clips. Looking put together on the outside would help her feel put together on the inside—even if the butterfly horde in her stomach was flapping hard enough to propel a space shuttle into orbit.

She wasn’t trying to impress Geneva, she told herself as she slipped thin gold hoops through her ears. Even if she’d wanted to, it was impossible to impress a woman who had more power than anyone else in town. The Chandlers had made their fortune in the timber industry and then earned several more through marriages to heiresses and investments in a number of Carnelian Cove businesses. There were few citizens of Carnelian Cove who hadn’t benefited, directly or indirectly, from the family’s employment opportunities or charity projects.

Addie smoothed a hand over her powder-blue short-sleeved shirt and stared at the toes peeking through the ends of her sandals, wondering if another layer of lotion would pass for a pedicure, and then decided her canvas deck shoes were more appropriate for the visit.

Her old truck sputtered and shuddered as she backed out of her alley parking spot, and its idle seemed rougher than usual as she waited to pull on to Main Street. Time for another tune-up, she thought with a sigh—and where was she going to find the cash for that?

From her bill for the repair on Geneva’s windows, she realized. She’d ask for a deposit and use some of the funds to replace her broken supplies. Chances were she’d need those supplies to make the repairs, anyway.

Sunlight pierced the shadows beneath the bluff’s redwood grove and flashed across the windshield as her truck groaned and complained about the climb up the winding road. She passed the crooked, scarred rhododendron that Tess at sixteen had swiped with her new roadster and remembered the way she’d screamed as the shredded purple blooms exploded in their faces. There was the turn to Danny Silva’s house—the infamous scene of the poolside party where Addie had lost her bathing suit top after a clumsy dive.

And there, near the top of the bluff, was the entrance to the Chandler estate. It seemed days rather than years since she’d driven through these tall, wide, iron gates. Nothing had changed—the flowers and ferns spilling over the edges of fat stone urns, the lawn flowing like an emerald river from the slate-edged porches of the shingle-style house, the dramatic backdrop of tall trees and black cliffs.

No, she thought again as she tickled her clutch through a downshift—there was one thing here that had changed. She had changed. She was no longer the daughter of the housekeeper; she was an independent businesswoman here on a job.

She slowed as she neared a fork in the drive. One paved path led to the front of the house, swinging past the grand front porch before it curved beneath a porte cochere at the side. The other veered toward the rear, widening to form a courtyard connecting the service entrance with a separate two-story garage building. Surrendering to sentimental habit, Addie pulled to a stop near the kitchen door.

She climbed the concrete steps and hesitated at the narrow landing. She’d never before knocked on this door; her mother or Julia had always been on the other side.

Julia was still here, Addie knew, well into her sixties and as territorial as ever. It was nearly impossible to imagine the Chandler House kitchen without Julia in command, waving one of her wooden spoons like a baton to emphasize whatever point she was making. Geneva’s cook had seemed ancient to Addie when she’d first seen her that afternoon more than twenty-four years past. Lena had plopped her five-year-old daughter on one of the kitchen stools, handed her a box of worn crayons and a few scraps of paper and warned her to stay out of the cook’s way.

Addie had lowered her head, terrified of the sour-faced, wire-haired woman who shuffled around the room, banging her wicked-looking utensils against her shiny copper pots and muttering in her scratchy, booming voice. Eventually, Addie grabbed her very best pink crayon for security, escaping into a fantasy world of fluffy clouds and ponies and castles. A few minutes later, a plate of sugar-coated cookies slid into view across the wide central island, and Julia had asked her to draw a picture of a fairy princess with a crown of stars. In pink, of course.

Addie checked her star-shaped hair clips and smoothed a hand over her wrinkled shirt. She’d spent a sizeable chunk of thirteen years in Julia’s kitchen, from shortly after her fifth birthday until she was ready for college at eighteen. Would Julia be here this morning? Certainly someone would hear the bell, Addie told herself as she pressed the small button centered in a shiny, ornate brass plate.

A few seconds later, the dark green door swung open to reveal a tall, lean man with long, bare feet, a white shirt hanging unbuttoned over a pair of ragged jeans, shower-dampened black hair, a half-eaten piece of toast slathered with jam and a wicked smile.

A man who had her smothering a startled cry and feeling as though she were missing vital pieces of her wardrobe along with every bit of her composure. A man who’d always been able to make her feel small and out of place. A man who’d also been the subject of most of her preteen daydreams and starred in far too many of her adult fantasies.

Devlin Chandler.

CHAPTER TWO

FOR A MOMENT ADDIE FORGOT why she had come to Chandler House. And why she could never, ever think of something to say to Dev to get past him and over him and forget him and move on with her life. Because he’s Dev Chandler, and he’s simply the most beautiful man you’ve ever met. Look at him, standing there the way he is, acting as if he owns the world—or all the best parts of it, anyway.

And in the next instant Addie reminded herself that she had forgotten him, and that she’d made an excellent start on getting over him. That she was here because his grandmother had asked her to come—because she had talents and abilities and had made a damn good life for herself.

But she still had to get past him.

“Who is it?” boomed a familiar voice from the kitchen.

Dev’s mouth curved at one corner with one of his devil’s spawn half grins. “Good question.”

Julia shoved him aside with a muttered curse, and then her homely face creased in a wide, long-toothed grin when she saw Addie. “If it isn’t Miss Addie. Come in, come in. Just look at you, so neat and trim in your pretty summer things. If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes. And it just so happens I’ve got some of your favorite cookies sitting in my jar, just waiting for you to finish them up.”

She latched on to Addie’s arm with one of her knobby-fingered hands and tugged her inside. The scents of cinnamon and nutmeg rode on the thick, warm kitchen air, but Addie’s skin prickled with the icy awareness of Dev’s stare.

“You settle yourself on that stool, right there,” Julia insisted, “just like old times, and I’ll pour us both a cup of hot tea. And you can tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“Go ahead,” said Dev as he tossed his unfinished toast into the sink. “Don’t mind me. I can get my own tea and cookies.”

“That’s right,” said Julia with a wink for Addie. “We won’t mind you one bit. And you keep your sneaky mitts off those cookies.”

“The cookies sound great,” Addie remarked. “But I’m not here to visit. I have an appointment with Mrs. Chandler.”

Julia turned with a frown, the plate of cookies in her hand. “Did you say ‘Mrs. Chandler’?”

“I’m here on business,” Addie said. “To take a look at the damage to some windows.”

Dev nipped the plate from Julia’s hand. “I’ll take those.”

Julia snatched them back with a scowl. “You’ll take Addie to find Geneva, is what you’ll do. Now get out of my kitchen. You’ve been pestering me all morning, keeping me from getting my work done.”

Dev darted to the side and stole a cookie. “I’ve been keeping you company, you old windbag.”

Julia pulled the towel from her shoulder with a practiced move and snapped it at Dev’s arm.

“Ow.” The cookie fell to the floor.

“Is Geneva in her office?” Addie asked.

Dev began to button his shirt. “I’ll take you.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll just—”

“I said I’d take you.” He unfastened the top snap on his jeans and stuffed his shirt into his waistband. Behind his back, Julia rolled her eyes and muttered something about manners.

“If she’s not in her office,” he said, ignoring the cook, “what are you going to do—hunt all over this place for her?”

Addie crossed her arms. “I thought I’d start by checking out the windows.” She glanced at his bare feet. “I take it the area has been cleared of any broken glass?”

“Nope.” He shot her another crooked grin. “We thought we’d leave that to the expert. Ow,” he said again as he darted out of towel range.

“When you’re finished upstairs,” Julia told Addie, “you come right back here. I want to hear all your news.”

Addie followed Dev through the sunny breakfast nook and cavernous dining room toward the marble-floored foyer. She caught a glimpse of new wall-covering in one room and reupholstered chairs in another, but everything else was as it had always been. The scents in the formal parts of the house were the same, too—citrus polish, lavender water, old books and wool carpets.

And then there was Dev. The same wide shoulders set in a perpetual slouch, the same slightly wavy hair in need of a trim, the same casual gait stuck somewhere between a shuffle and a swagger. The heir apparent of Chandler House; the only son of Geneva’s only son. She wondered why he was here, how long he’d stay, whether he was married—no, he wasn’t married. She was sure she’d have heard the news from Tess, his cousin.

But why hadn’t Tess mentioned he was back in town?

Addie slowed and paused when they reached the grand entry to the front parlor, staring up at the set of stained-glass windows depicting the four seasons. She couldn’t see any damage from this angle; maybe things weren’t as bad as she’d feared.

Dev stopped, too, and when she finally lowered her gaze from the glass, she found him watching her.

“What have you been up to, anyway?” he asked.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“Are you married? Divorced?”

For one second, a ridiculous wave of joy rushed through her at the fact that he seemed interested enough to ask, to make an attempt to start a conversation with her. And in the next instant, her pitiful little thrill whirled down the drain as she realized he didn’t know the most basic facts about her—and that he’d never cared enough to find out.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked.

He frowned and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Never mind.”

“No, I—” She shook her head, knocked off balance by her over-the-top reaction and his serious expression. “No, I’m not married.”

He waited, as if he expected her to say something else. His dark-eyed gaze roamed over her features, assessing, testing. And then the corner of his mouth tipped up in one of his cocky grins. “Go on up to your windows, if you want to,” he said with a jerk of his chin toward the stairway. “I’ll tell Geneva you’re here.”

DEV SOFTLY KNOCKED on one of the tall, paneled pocket doors leading to the old smoking library his grandmother used for her private office and waited for her invitation to enter. Instead, one of the doors slid aside on silent casters. “Is Addie here?” asked Geneva.

“She’s in the entry, waiting for you.” He turned to head back to the kitchen.

“Wait.”

Geneva angled through the narrow opening, commanding her pack of whiny, yappy little Yorkies to sit and stay behind. She wore casual, caramel-colored slacks and a sporty linen top on her tall, amazingly youthful frame. But the pearls at her ears and the elegant twist of her upswept gray hair reminded him she was a no-nonsense woman who expected proper behavior in all things, at all times. “I’d like you to hear what she has to say,” she said.

As he followed his grandmother back toward the entry hall, he wondered what the old lady was up to. She was up to something—Geneva’s demands were never eccentric and sometimes Machiavellian. He didn’t like being caught like a cog in her current machinations, but he didn’t know how to avoid it as long as he was taking advantage of her hospitality.

And he’d continue to take advantage of the situation because he was up to something, too. Several somethings, he mused as Geneva greeted her beautiful—and single—stained-glass specialist. For the time being, he was content to remain exactly where he was, following his grandmother’s lead.

Trailing after the ladies provided an unexpected bonus. At about eye level, Addie’s shapely butt swayed back and forth as she climbed to the landing between the first and second floors. Nice. She’d always been a looker—and it seemed he’d always been looking in her direction. Hard to avoid it, with her attending the same schools and spending so much time in the same house. No point in avoiding it, not when the looking was such a pleasure.

And Dev had never seen the point in avoiding pleasure.

He’d done his best to avoid Addie, though. At first it had been easy—she was just a kid, three years younger and a useless female. A timid little thing with big, watchful eyes, a golden-haired mouse who’d scurry out of his way whenever he entered a room. He’d been confused and lonely after his parents had divorced, lonelier still after his father had wrangled custody from his mother and then left him, for the most part, in Geneva’s strict care.

So Dev had vented his frustrations on the naive girl who was his most convenient target. Even if he hadn’t already ruined the possibility of a friendship with his bullying, he’d never have lowered himself to seek the companionship of a shy, dreamy kid who spent her time drawing pictures.

Beautiful pictures. Fanciful, dreamlike scenes. Yes, he’d done his best to avoid her, but he’d been smitten with her all the same.

And years later, after he’d discovered females weren’t entirely worthless, he’d realized Addie had more to offer than most of them. Her dreaminess had blossomed into a creativity that intrigued him. And her shyness had transformed into a calming presence that attracted him with its promise of peace.

But there’d been no point in making a bigger mess of his life than necessary. Geneva had warned him about putting the moves on the housekeeper’s daughter, and Addie’s mother had given him a silent version of the same message. Addie herself had flashed the hands-off signal like a neon skyscraper on the Vegas strip. This morning’s chilly exchange had let him know nothing had changed.

Nothing but the passage of twelve years since his high school graduation, a mouth-watering deepening of her sexy voice and a refinement of the padding on those interesting feminine curves. And his own deepened and refined appreciation for both her curves and her attitude.

He frowned as he remembered that awkward pause earlier when he’d opened the kitchen service door and they’d stood there, staring at each other like a couple of dumbstruck kids. She’d looked at him as if she’d expected him to slip a snake into her pocket or trip her as she walked up the steps. And he’d wondered how her expression would have changed if she’d known his thoughts involved something scarier than a slithery reptile and just as likely to knock her off balance.

Now she dropped to her knees beside the damaged windows and plucked a few bits of glass from the carpet runner. “Is this everything that came loose?”

“No. Most of it’s outside, on the ground beneath the foundation shrubs.” Geneva clasped her hands at her waist. “I wasn’t sure whether you’d need those fragments, so I left everything as I found it.”

“How did this happen?” Addie peered more closely at the long crack in a wavy yellow panel. Beside that piece, dented metal framework outlined empty spaces. “Stained-glass windows are usually sturdier than others.”

“One of the statues on the upper level fell from its pedestal. The tremors must have sent it rolling down the stairs, and it crashed against the glass, as you see.”

Addie ran her fingers over a section of damaged lead. “How old are these windows?”

“My husband had them installed when the house was built, shortly before he and I were married. So they’re at least fifty years old.”

“I’ll take a look at the exteriors to see if there’s any sign of deterioration.” Addie leaned in closer to the glass. “I don’t see any signs of bowing, so it might be another twenty or thirty years before they need complete reconstruction.”

“Reconstruction?”

“You’re close to the ocean here. Salt in the air can cause the lead to deteriorate over time.”

Addie frowned as she studied the windows. “I’m not going to be able to simply patch these up, you know. I’ll match the missing pieces as well as I can, but they may not be exactly the same. A lot of this is high-quality antique glass, and suitable replacements are going to be hard to track down.”

“I’m sure whatever you can manage will be acceptable.”

“I’m sure you’ll be pleased with whatever I ‘manage.’” Addie wiped her hands on her jeans as she stood, and then she leveled a bland look at Geneva. “And whatever that is, I assure you it will be a great deal more than acceptable.”

Geneva gave her a tight smile. “Very well, then. When can you start?”

“Once I find the glass I need and order it. This weekend, perhaps. More likely the week or two after that.”

“Sooner would be better.”

“I’m sure it would.”

Dev smiled at the subtle clash of wills, grateful his grandmother had insisted he stick around for the show.

“Well?” asked Geneva, raising one eyebrow. “Will it be sooner, then?”

“I’ll need to arrange for some help getting these windows removed.”

“You need to take the entire window?” Geneva stroked a hand over a curve of ruby-red glass. “Can’t you fix them here?”

“Not without setting up a duplicate shop.” Addie trailed her fingers along a twisting length of lead, her gesture resembled Geneva’s. “And even then, I’d still have to remove the windows from their frames.”

“Then take them.” Geneva inhaled deeply and squared her shoulders. “Do what you need to do. As quickly as possible. Devlin will help you.”

“I need expert help,” Addie clarified, ignoring Geneva’s suggestions and his presence. “And I’ll need crates made to brace and transport them. I’ll call Quinn to come and take a look at what needs to be done.”

Geneva hesitated and then nodded. “All right. I’ll have Devlin arrange for Quinn to meet you here, and then the men can get the windows out of the wall and into their crates.”

Addie narrowed her eyes. “Quinn and I can take care of everything.”

“I’m sure the windows must be quite heavy,” said Geneva. “Quinn will need Devlin’s help.”

“If he needs any help,” said Addie, “he can—”

“Don’t bother checking with me.” Dev crossed his arms and leaned against a newel post. “Just pretend I’m not here, that I have nothing better to do while you two make your plans.”

Though she didn’t move so much as an eyelash in his direction, the flare of pink in Addie’s cheeks told him she’d noted the tone beneath his remark.

“When I need your input, Devlin, I’ll ask for it.” Geneva turned and started down the stairs. “Addie, you can use the phone in my office to make your call.”

Addie stared at Geneva’s back until the elderly woman stepped onto the marble foyer floor and disappeared around a corner. And then she shifted to face him, her expression completely shuttered, those wide, sapphire-blue eyes of hers devoid of the slightest hint of emotion or reaction as they settled on his.

And then, for just one second—for a slice of time as narrow and fragile and sharp as one of the slivers of glass—she let him in. And on that lovely face of hers—a face that had slipped through his memories and drifted through his dreams—he could read the evidence of one more thing that hadn’t changed with the passage of all the years. She’d hidden it well enough throughout the morning’s appointment, but in that instant he could see it in every line of her ramrod-straight posture and in every puff of the icy vapor that emanated from her frosty exterior: Addie Sutton’s deep and abiding contempt.

ADDIE HAD LEARNED a long time ago to surrender to her mother’s wishes when she didn’t have the energy, or time to spare, for a siege. So when Lena had called with a dinner invitation that afternoon, Addie had postponed plans with her friends and agreed to travel across town to the riverside apartment complex her mother managed in exchange for her rent. The rest of the bills got paid with the money she earned cleaning offices after hours.

Her mother had once dreamed of a house of her own, Addie recalled, as she parked her truck in a guest spot in the complex’s lot. A house with a yard for a swingset and a place where Addie could leave her toys and crayons strewn about if she chose. But Lena hadn’t possessed any special skills or education, and the housekeeping job at Chandler House came with room and board, and a welcome for her daughter.

After a time, Lena had begun night classes, studying to be a bookkeeper. She’d demonstrated a talent for spreadsheets, and when she’d graduated from the course during Addie’s sophomore year in high school, Geneva’s son Jonah, had given her a job in his office downtown. A good job with the area’s most important businessman. An opportunity to leave Chandler House, to renew her earlier dream of saving for a place of her own.

But that dream had died three years later, shortly before Addie’s graduation. Jonah’s car had gone off a winding cliffside road. And in the days that followed, Lena had discovered sixty-two thousand dollars was missing from the business account—a sum she’d been accused of embezzling.

She hadn’t been guilty; Geneva Chandler had agreed, refusing to press charges. But the mystery of the missing funds had never been solved. And Lena had never again found employment as a bookkeeper, not after such a big scandal in such a small town.

Lena opened the ground-floor door and pulled Addie into a quick, tight hug. “I know you’re busy, and I know I’m being a pest, but I had to see for myself that you came through that quake all right.”

“I told you on the phone,” Addie said as she eased out of her mother’s arms, “everything’s fine.”

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

“I found another way to replace the supplies.”

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

“Oh?”

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

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

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

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

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

“She’s hired me to fix them.”

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

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

Lena took her own seat without comment.

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

“Who did?”

“Geneva.”

“Oh.”

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

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

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

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

“I was talking about friendship.”

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

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

“She wasn’t your employer.”

“She is now.”

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER THREE

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

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

“Hi, Rosie. Staying for dinner?”

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

“Does Charlie know?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, it’s not,” Addie said.

“Could have fooled me.” Charlie rinsed her hands at the farmhouse sink. Her thick, curly hair had been tamed in a braid hanging between her shoulders, but coppery tendrils escaped to twist and curl at her temples and nape. “Especially since you’re standing there looking like you can’t decide whether to kill us or yourself.”

Addie tossed up her hands as she moved into the kitchen. “Okay, so I’m upset. Mostly I’m upset that I’m upset.”

And that was the one basic fact at the heart of her personal storm: she shouldn’t care whether or not Dev Chandler had squandered his gifts and wasted all the advantages he’d been handed. “What’s he doing here, anyway?”

“Visiting our grandmother is a likely guess,” Tess said, “considering he’s staying in her guest house.”

“And?”

“And what?” Tess set the knife aside and arranged lemon slices over a thick, pale fillet in a baking dish.

“And what other little details might have gotten rattled loose and lost in the excitement over the natural disaster this week?” Addie asked.

Tess shot her a sympathetic glance. “It appears he’s planning on staying there for a while. Maybe for another month. Or two.”

“Great.” Addie threw her arms wide, narrowly missing clipping Jack’s jaw as she paced the kitchen. “Wonderful. Fantastic. I’ll have plenty of opportunities to run into him.”

“And plenty of time to quit being so upset.” Charlie dried her hands and studied Addie with cool gray eyes. “I thought you were over him.”

“I am. But it’s a heck of a lot easier being over him when he’s living somewhere else.”

“You have a thing for Dev Chandler?” Jack asked.

“No,” Addie, Charlie and Tess answered in unison.

Tess shoved a platter of chips and salsa to the edge of the table. “So. You’re not actually over him. Not really.”

“The teensiest of technicalities.” Addie plucked one of the chips from the platter and bit into it. “One of several, including the fact that there was never anything to be over in the first place.”

Jack pulled a jacket from a rack near the rear patio door and cautiously circled Addie to brush a quick kiss across Charlie’s cheek. He headed for the dining room.

“Where are you off to tonight?” asked Tess.

Jack froze. Something suspicious crept along the edges of his smile. “Out.”

“Interesting,” Tess said. She glanced at Charlie. “Where, precisely, is this ‘out’ Jack is headed to?”

“Don’t be so nosy.” Charlie grabbed a bottle of Chardonnay from a cupboard. “It’s just a friendly poker game. Quinn invited him.”

“Now I’m twice as nosy.” Tess narrowed her eyes. “Quinn said exactly the same thing when I asked him where he was going tonight. ‘Out.’ He told me Jack had invited him.”

Addie, Charlie and Tess stared at Jack.

He shrugged into his jacket. “We kind of invited each other. At the same time. When the subject came up.”

“How did this subject come up, I wonder?” Tess asked.

“And where is this poker game taking place?” Charlie asked.

“At Chandler House.”

“Dev,” Addie said.

Jack slid his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, he’ll be there, too.”

“Convenient.” Tess drummed her nails on the table. “Considering the game’s at his place.”

“This was all his idea, wasn’t it?” Addie asked.

“It doesn’t matter whose idea it was.” Charlie filled a goblet with the wine. “They get a guys’ night out. We get a girls’ night in. Works for me.”

Addie pulled out a chair, dropped into it and reached for more chips. Terrific. Poker games with her friends’ fiancés. Poker games would lead to barbecues, and those would lead to who knew what. An ever-expanding network of people who’d multiply the reasons and occasions for her to run into Dev throughout the long summer months.

“Here,” Charlie said, handing Addie the glass of Chardonnay. “You look like you could use this.”

DEV POPPED THE TOP on a beer Friday night and passed it to his old pal Bud Soames. Hard to picture Bud with thinning hair, a job at a bank, a house undergoing remodeling, a wife in real estate and a kid in elementary school. Nearly made Dev feel like an underachiever.

Each time he’d returned to Carnelian Cove, Dev had found fewer old pals willing to spend a Friday night leaning on the bar at The Shantyman and reminiscing over a few drinks. One by one, the people he’d left behind had moved on to busy lives and expanding responsibilities, building careers and forming families. This time, Dev had decided to skip the lonely bar scene and bring the social hour home.

He glanced at the others gathered around the guest quarters’ old kitchen table, its wide oak surface heaped with servings of Julia’s layered nachos, crumpled paper napkins, whiskey glasses, beer bottles and poker chips. Jack Maguire and Quinn, owners of their own businesses and both soon to be married. Rusty Wheeler, an expert machinist and builder on Quinn’s construction crew. Although Rusty was single, like Dev, he at least had a mortgage. And a dog.

Dev didn’t have so much as a goldfish.

“Where are you taking Charlie for the honeymoon?” Rusty asked Jack.

“I wanted to take her to Hawaii, but it turns out she’s afraid of flying.” Jack tipped back in his chair, his cards close to his chest and a wide grin on his face. It was obvious Jack loved the game, especially bluffing. And even though Dev suspected what he was up to—most of the time, anyway—it was hard not to fall for that drawl and the “aw, shucks” act. “I’m finding out all sorts of fascinating things about my fiancée,” Jack said.

“Wedding jitters.” Quinn shook his head. “Tess has already thrown a couple of fits, and ours is still a ways off.”

“Tess throws a fit at least once a week,” Dev pointed out. “She used to say it beat going to the gym.”

“Watching her work up a fuss can be pretty entertaining, once you figure out she’s just keeping her temper tuned up. Rosie thinks so, anyway.” Quinn studied his cards, his expression impossible to read. He played poker the way he seemed to do everything else—with quiet, intense efficiency. Of all the players at the table, he had the least to say and the most chips in his pile. He folded and glanced at Jack. “So, where are you taking Charlie?”

“She wants to check out the Tahoe area. We’ll do some hiking, some boating.” Jack took the pot and scooped his winnings into his pile. “Maybe go to a couple of shows down in Reno.”

“Sounds like fun.” Rusty shoved a fresh stick of gum in his mouth and dealt. “I won a couple of hundred at the blackjack tables last time I was there.”

“After you’d lost four,” Bud reminded him. Bud was all about keeping track of the winnings and playing it safe.

Dev glanced at his cards. Another lucky hand. He could continue to coast, which suited him fine.

“Where are you staying?” Rusty fanned his cards, frowned and chewed his gum faster—which told everyone at the table he liked what he saw. “Somewhere near the lake?”

“A private estate, right on the north shore. Nice dock, tennis court, maid service.” Jack signaled for another card. “The owner’s an old friend of mine.”

Dev was learning Jack had dozens of “old friends” up and down the state. And he’d managed to make plenty of new friends in Carnelian Cove in the short time he’d been there. The guy had a natural gift for pleasing people. If he ever chose to run for public office, he’d be hard to beat.

“I took Caroline down to Cancún.” Bud shook his head. “Man, was that a mistake. She couldn’t handle the food or the sun. Spent most of her time in the bathroom, and when she came out she wouldn’t let me touch her.”

Dev won the pot, as he’d expected.

“Where does Tess want to go?” Rusty asked.

“We haven’t discussed it.” Quinn shuffled the deck. “We can’t go anywhere until Tidewaters is finished. And we’ll have to wait until Rosie has a long school holiday.”

“Kids.” Rusty shook his head as Quinn dealt. “They sure do complicate everything.”

“You’ve been around, Dev.” Bud gestured with his bottle. “Where would you go?”

Dev thought of all the places he’d seen that most people probably considered romantic destinations. Fiji. Paris. The Bahamas. The Greek Isles. Rio, Monte Carlo, Marrakesh, Bali. He imagined any place would seem special, as long as he was there with the right woman. “I’d ask my bride where she wanted to go.”

“Well, duh.” Bud set his bottle down with a clunk and picked up his cards. “It was Caroline who picked out Mexico.”

“Been to Jamaica?” Rusty asked Dev.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve always wanted to go to Jamaica.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just do, that’s all.”

They played in silence for a few minutes. Quinn won a small pot, and Bud swept up the cards to shuffle.

“Heard Addie Sutton came by here the other day to see about some broken windows.” Bud glanced at Dev as he picked up a chip for the ante. “You still got a thing for her?”

The action around the table stilled. Tweaked in midtoss, Dev’s chip went wide and landed on Quinn’s plate of half-eaten nachos.

“You and Addie?” Jack tipped the front of his chair back to the floor. “Since when?”

“Since high school.” Bud blundered on, dealing the next hand, unaware of the daggers Dev was shooting at him across the table. “Or maybe before.”

“I didn’t know that.” Rusty’s chewing slowed to a stop. “You never took her out on a date or anything.”

“Didn’t have to,” Bud said. “They practically lived together.”

“Her mother was Geneva’s maid,” Rusty explained for Jack’s benefit.

“Awkward.” Jack studied Dev, a curious expression on his face. “Still awkward, I s’pose.”

Dev shrugged. He wished he could shrug off the sneaking suspicion that he looked the way he felt: like a teen with a crush. “We’re friends. Sort of.”

Quinn gave Dev one of his neutral, level stares. “Hard for a single guy to be friends with a woman like that.”

“Like Addie?”

“Like a single guy. Who’s a ‘friend.’ Sort of.” Quinn lifted his soda can and stared at Dev over the rim. “Addie’s had some tough breaks. She doesn’t need any more.”

“I’m not out to make things difficult for her,” Dev said.

“Didn’t say you were.”

Dev met Quinn’s stare and raised him one eyebrow. “Nice to know she’s got people here looking out for her.”

“Yeah.” Quinn nodded, smiling. “One of them is Tess.”

“And another is Charlie,” Jack pointed out.

While a round of bets were laid, Dev winced at the thought of two of the toughest women he knew coming after him. One more reason to steer clear of Addie.

“Although,” Jack added in his most leisurely drawl, “neither of them seemed all that concerned about Addie’s feelings on the matter earlier this evening.”

Rusty shrugged. “Maybe that’s because Addie’s still got a crush on Dev.”

This time, Dev’s chip slid across the table and over the edge, landing on the floor beside Bud’s chair. Addie had once had a crush? On him? How could he have missed that? Unless…

Bud sighed as he leaned down to retrieve the chip. “Are we going to play poker or chat all night like a bunch of girls?”

“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.

“I assume you didn’t make the trip north just to visit me.”

“Why else would I be here?”

“That’s one of the things I’d like to discuss this morning.”

His grandmother may have been nearing eighty, but she remained as observant and shrewd as ever. He quickly drained his coffee and then leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I want another look at Dad’s papers.”

Geneva set her cup aside and folded her hands in her lap. “I can’t possibly imagine what purpose that would serve after all these years.”

“I’m working on a story angle. I think they might help.”

“With a plot element containing striking similarities to the family business? Or some sordid account bearing an uncanny resemblance to the circumstances surrounding your father’s death?”

“I would never do that.” He settled back against his seat. “I resent the implication that you’d think—even for a second—that I might consider it.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. And there was no implication,” she said with steel in her voice. “My questions are always clear and direct, as you well know.”

He opened his mouth to disagree and to ask a few questions of his own, questions that roiled and bubbled up inside him, but he paused until the hottest spike of temper had subsided. Old patterns, old anger.

Calmer, he chose just one question and cleared his throat to smooth the words. “What do I have to do to prove myself?”

“What is it you’re trying to prove, exactly?”

His grandmother waited a beat for his answer, but when she saw there was none coming, she freshened the coffee in her cup and offered him the same. He refused.

“I’d like to know what it is you feel you need to prove to me,” she continued, “because I have a favor to ask. And I don’t want you to think that granting this favor will somehow count toward proving your worth.”

He crossed an ankle over his knee. “You need something from me.”

“As it so happens, yes, I do.”

“Is this a first?”

“Have you been keeping score?”

The glance she gave him over the rim of her cup sparkled with amusement. Interfering old woman. No one else in his life could fill him with so much frustration, resentment and admiration, all at once. And make his chest constrict so tightly with love. “One of us has to keep score,” he said. “For old times’ sake.”

“Then it should be you, I suppose.” She lowered her cup to her lap and turned her face toward the window, her gaze trailing over the bunches of opalescent wisteria dangling through the arbor outside. “I don’t have that kind of time to spare.”

Her admission troubled him. He’d rarely heard her refer to her age. It was difficult to imagine his life without Geneva Chandler in it. She was like the rocky cliffs beyond the edge of her neatly trimmed lawn, standing tall and rough and defiant, year after year, against the pounding ocean waves.

“You don’t have to prove yourself, you know,” she said. “I’m quite satisfied with the man you’ve become. I hope you are, too.”

He shifted in his seat and lowered his foot to the floor, more disturbed by her praise than by her disappointment in him. He’d had more practice dealing with the latter. Much more. “I guess I’m doing okay. So far.”

She spared him an enigmatic smile and lifted her cup to her lips for another sip. “The favor I’m about to ask stems in part from what I wanted to discuss with you today. I’ve decided to leave Chandler House to you.”

His stomach seemed to rise and lodge in his throat. “I don’t want it.”

“Then you can do with it as you see fit after I’m gone. It will be your decision.”

“Damn.” He shoved out of his chair and stalked to the window, staring at that jade-green sweep of lawn, at the ribbony drive leading to the iron gates, and he felt it all weigh on him until he could barely draw breath for his next words. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I’m in excellent health, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Then why did you choose to discuss this with me now? And why are you giving me Chandler House?” He turned to face her, his fingers gripping the sill. “Why not leave it to Tess? She loves this place.”

“Yes, she does. But I’ll see to it that she has the means to build a house of her own design. A new house, a unique one. A home that reflects her talents as an architect. She’ll prefer that, I’m sure.”

“Have you asked her? No, of course not,” he said. “She’d have told me.”

“The only person I’ve discussed this with is Ben.”

Ben Chandler, Geneva’s favorite cousin. Ben would soon marry her friend, Maudie Keene. Charlie Keene’s mother, his new friend Jack’s soon-to-be in-law. Incestuous place, Carnelian Cove.

Geneva calmly sipped her coffee. “I notice you haven’t asked why the estate won’t be inherited by anyone else.”

Dev snorted. His grandmother had never disguised her displeasure in her children or their choices. “I don’t blame you for skipping a generation,” he said.

“No.” Geneva’s faint sigh hinted of weariness. “There’s slightly less … satisfaction there. Besides, I doubt Tess’s mother would care to abandon the city’s social whirl for the quiet of the Cove. She’d sell this place in a flash.”

“And break Tess’s heart.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I could sell it to her.”

“To Tess? She wouldn’t take it, not like that.” Geneva set her cup aside. “Quinn wouldn’t let her.”

“What makes you think I won’t sell it to someone else? Someone outside the family?”

Geneva’s mouth curled, catlike, at the edges. “Would you sell it, Devlin?”

He couldn’t say it; he couldn’t disappoint her. Not again.

Overwhelmed by the challenges of this place—and dreading this favor his grandmother wanted to ask of him—he turned and stared again at the seemingly endless horizon stretching over the countless ocean swells.

“Damn,” he whispered.

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