“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