Beside a Dreamswept Sea (11 page)

“Maybe they finally spent some time together. Or maybe they’d never stopped loving each other. Whatever it was, it had to be more than just the house. If that’s all it took, this place would be stacked to the rafters with couples.”

“Probably,” Bryce agreed. “But maybe it’s the house—and more.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know exactly.” He didn’t. But something was there, niggling at the door of his conscience. Sooner or later he’d be able to answer the knock and find out. “There’s something special here. I can’t describe it, but I feel it. I have since I first saw the house.”

“Me, too.”

He looked at her. “I like it.”

“I’m debating.” Looking down the hallway, she seemingly forced her gaze back to his. “I want to thank you, Bryce.”

A shot of pure pleasure arrowed through his chest. “I figured once you found out about my representing Gregory, you’d hate me.” Bryce dropped his gaze to her clasped hands. “That’s why I, er, postponed telling you.” His seventeenth impression wasn’t getting a lick of an assist from his first sixteen. He barely withheld a grimace.

“It was a surprise, true, but nothing personal against you.”

“Why the thanks, then?”

“Because of the alimony. Someone had to insist Gregory pay it or he wouldn’t have given me a dime. I’m figuring that someone was you.”

“You deserved that money and, I think, probably more.”

“Two thousand five hundred sixty-three dollars and eighty-nine cents per month for five years is a lot more than I ever figured I’d see. He shifted all our assets to an account in the Cayman Islands.”

Bastard. Bryce grimaced. “He denied it, but I suspected he’d pulled something like that.”

“Which is why you insisted he pay the alimony.”

“Only in part,” Bryce confessed. “It’s embarrassing to admit, Cally, but because you never showed up at any of the client/attorney meets with your counsel, I had a friend do a little checking up on you.”

“Your friend John Mystic. Mystic Investigations, right?”

“Yes.” Bryce had the grace to blush; the heat scorched his face. “I wasn’t trying to invade your privacy so much as to figure out why you were staying away. I thought it likely you either had something to hide, or Gregory was intimidating you into keeping a low profile.”

She paused for a long minute, then looked Bryce straight in the eye. “And your friend discovered Gregory had intimidated me long before the divorce proceedings. Years before.”

“Yes.” Bryce lowered his gaze to his knees.

She sighed. “Well, what can I say? It’s true. He was very good at manipulating things to suit him, including me. And he wasn’t particular about how he did it. Intimidation was but one of his means.”

And yet she’d loved him. And she’d grown to hate herself for loving him. After getting to know Cally, that truth seemed crystal clear. Bryce rubbed at his temple, sympathetic, then gazed at her hand. It had felt so small and fragile, linked with his. Now, it trembled. “I’m sorry for what he did to you.”

“Me, too.” She gave him a resigned look. “But, as they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. They grew louder, then Miss Hattie stepped into view. “Ah,” she said from the landing. “Now, why am I not surprised to find you two out here?”

“We were just talking.” Cally stiffened, looking as guilty as a high school teen caught lingering at the lockers after the tardy bell.

Miss Hattie smiled, then slid her gaze to Bryce. “And you’re holding up the wall, right?”

“Yes, actually, I am.” He smiled.

“Bosh. You’re listening for Suzie because you fear you won’t hear her from inside the Cove Room, dear heart, and don’t you be trying to fool this old woman to keep her from worrying about you or the child.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and genuinely meant it. There was something very special about Miss Hattie Stillman that made a body not want to hurt or disappoint her. All those strays who entered her home, she tucked under her wing, and took into her care. It felt good to be cared for, and so . . . alien. “Forgive me.”

“Of course, dear heart.” She fussed with her skirt. “Now, I expect your knee’s getting a mite stiff, so I’m here to relieve you. Maybe since Cally’s still awake, she’ll take a short walk on the cliffs with you to exercise that knee.” Miss Hattie let out a totally false sigh. “Truly, Cally dear, he has been extremely uncooperative in doing that, though I’m sure as certain I’ve explained it’ll work some of the stiffness from the joint.”

“Well, we have to respect our joints. We only get one set.” Cally stood up then held out a hand to Bryce. “Ready?”

“But the cliffs are slick, and it’s dark.”

“Which is why you need Cally’s steady arm to hold on to while you’re walking over them.”

Cally added her two cents. “There’s a full moon, too.”

Bryce sent Miss Hattie a speculative look. He’d heard all about her matchmaking attempts with T.J. But Bryce didn’t need a love interest, he needed a woman to mother his children. Fortunately, he strongly sensed Cally didn’t need a love interest, either.

Cally wiggled her fingers. “Move it,, Richards, before that knee fossilizes and you’ve only yourself to blame.”

“I’m not that old.” He hauled himself to his feet and, stretching his leg straight, barely managed not to grimace. “Is ‘fossilizes’ a word?”

“Of course it is.” Cally snorted. “And if you don’t come on, you won’t live to get that old, either. Didn’t you see the determination in Miss Hattie’s eyes?”

He had. The angelic sweetheart had a will of iron, a heart of gold, and she was Maine stubborn. She intended that he and Cally walk. Period. “You’d better get a sweater. It’s warm, but it’s still chilly at night.”

“I’ll throw on some clothes.” She motioned to her robe. “I expected it’d be much colder here in November.”

“We’re having a warm spell,” Miss Hattie said. “But Maine weather is nothing if not changeable, dear heart. Best be prepared with that sweater.”

“Be right back.” Cally headed toward her room.

Bryce watched her go.

So did Miss Hattie. “She’s a lovely woman, our Cally Tate. Isn’t she lovely, Bryce?” Fingering her gold locket, Miss Hattie sighed wistfully. “Just lovely.”

“Lovely,” he agreed. “And the ex-wife of my client.”

“Former client, I thought.”

“Not officially.”

“But their divorce is final.”

“Oh, yes. But Tate has other . . . concerns.” Ones Cally likely didn’t know existed.

“Well.” Miss Hattie pushed at a pin coming loose from her bun. “I guess you’d best see to that, then.”

He crooked his neck, cast her a sidelong look. “Now why would I do anything about Tate? The only reason to withdraw as his counsel would be due to a relationship with Cally—which I don’t have.”

“Mmm, I’m sure you know best, dear.”

Bryce went still. Not for a second did he buy her acquiescence. “When John was here, I know you heard us on the phone.”

“I did?”

“Yes. You heard him tell me to go to Macy’s and order myself a wife. In fact, I mentioned it to you later myself. But Macy’s doesn’t stock wives, Miss Hattie, and Seascape Inn doesn’t, either. So stop looking at me like you expect me to just pick out a woman here, go up to her and say, ‘Hey, wanna marry me and mother my kids?’ I can’t do that.”

She cast him an innocent look, her green eyes soft and questioning. “Why not?”

“Because.” Exasperated, he groaned. “God, Miss Hattie. If I said something like that, Cally would think I was crazy.”

“She would?”

“Of course she would. What woman wouldn’t? And I’d agree with her. We’re practically strangers.”

“I see.” Miss Hattie smacked her lips. “Well, I’m sure you do indeed know best.”

He hated it when she said that. Hated it. Mostly because he suspected she meant he didn’t know anything at all. And because he feared she was right.

She patted her bun. “Far be it from me to tell you your own mind on the matter, dear heart—I don’t believe in interfering—but it is worth noting I never once mentioned you asking Cally Tate.”

She hadn’t. And that, he supposed, was her point. He’d denied having any feelings for the woman, then turned right around and mentioned her and marriage in the same breath. T.J. and John had warned Bryce, but evidently not enough for it to get through his thick skull. They’d said Miss Hattie had a way of twisting things on a man until the absurd sounded logical and the impossible, plausible. He clamped his jaw. “Cally would think I was crazy. I’d think I was crazy, too.”

Miss Hattie pulled a lacy white hankie from her pocket then dabbed at her temple. “So you’ve said.”

There she went again. Agitated, he tugged his gray sweater closed, then buttoned the third button. “Well, don’t you agree?”

“When nip comes to tuck, whether or not I agree doesn’t matter, hmm? It’s what you and Cally think that is of consequence.” Miss Hattie pulled a loose thread from his sweater sleeve. “But it’s clear as a cloudless day she adores your children. And after marriage to that beast, trusting a man again could take her a spell. But the children . . . Well now, they’re a different kettle of fish, I’d say.”

Essentially the same words he’d said to Cally earlier about Seascape Inn and its magic, and it only mattering what John and Bess thought. But to pull the stunt with Cally that Miss Hattie was suggesting, a man would have to be totally without pride. Bryce would do a lot for his kids—he really would—but would it be asking too much to find them a good mother who’d also at least trust him? He didn’t expect love. Didn’t want it, either. But trust, well, that seemed essential in any relationship.

Cally walked out of her bedroom wearing a feminine version of Bryce’s same sweater. “Oh, look,” Miss Hattie said, sounding more than pleased with herself. “You match.”

“Miss Hattie.” He barely stifled a groan.

“What?”

The picture of innocence. He wasn’t buying that bit of business for a second, either. Nor was he willing to let himself even think about her nonsuggestion suggestion of him marrying Cally Tate. He didn’t really know the woman. And yet what he’d seen in the past three days he’d liked, and he had the strangest feeling that she might need the kids as much as they needed her. They interacted as if they’d known and loved each other for years. “Nothing, Miss Hattie.” He let out a resigned sigh. “Nothing at all.”

Cally waited for him at the top of the stairs.

“Have a care not to put too much weight on your knee, Bryce. And don’t you worry, I’ll keep a sharp watch on our Suzie.”

“Thanks, Miss Hattie.”

“My pleasure.” She nodded, then stared at the ceiling as if talking with someone else. “She won’t have that dream.”

He didn’t know why, but Bryce had the strongest feeling Miss Hattie was right. Pacified, he joined Cally on the stairs.

She looked at his sweater, then at her own. “Hey, we match.”

An inevitable harrumph skidded up his throat. “Yeah, I guess maybe we do.”

The wind coming off the Atlantic
chilled her skin, but Cally wasn’t cold. Her arm linked with Bryce’s, they walked side by side, and every third or fourth step, because of his limp and leaning on the cane, their sides brushed. They hadn’t talked. Just soaked in the calming night sounds of the ocean’s waves splashing against the granite cliffs. And that comfortable silence suited her just fine.