Almost Home (26 page)

“Probably not.” Grant watched his daughter for a moment, then turned to Stef and asked, “So what’s with you and Wade?”

“What are you talking about?” Steffie frowned. “There’s nothing with me and Wade.”

“That’s what I mean. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” She felt her voice rise slightly in defense, and tried to tone it down. “We’re friends.”

“Friends return friends’ phone calls.”

“I’ve been busy. I had a boatload of ice cream to make for tonight and another boatload to make for the Halloween thing in a couple of weeks. There are only so many hours in the day.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Besides, Wade’s a jerk.”

“I think you need to have that conversation with him.” Grant lowered his voice. “And it looks as if you’re going to be able to do exactly that in about twenty seconds. Since I have enough to deal with tonight, I’m just going to fade away and see if I can catch up with Paige.”

“Coward,” she said from the corner of her mouth.

“Damn straight.” Grant snagged a glass of beer from a waiter and took off in search of his daughter.

Steffie took a sip of champagne and tried to keep her temper in check. For two cents, she’d have let it rip, but this was an important social event not only for Dallas, but for Grant as well, and the last thing she’d ever want to do would be to embarrass them. Still, it took most of her control.

“Hey, Stef.” Wade came up behind her and she turned to him. “You look … you look … beautiful.” He stared at her for a moment, then frowned. “And pissed off.”

“Oh, gosh,” she deadpanned. “What on earth could I be pissed off about?”

“I don’t know. I’m the one who’s gotten the brush-off this week. I’ve called you, left messages, stopped in. Haven’t heard a word from you.”

“And you can’t figure out why?”

He shook his head. “No, I can’t.”

“Perhaps it has something to do with a little bit of information that you neglected to share.”

Several people walking by turned to look at the two of them. Wade took Steffie by the hand and said, “Let’s move this out of the entrance to the tent, shall we? No need to—”

“No need to tell me that you were leaving the day after tomorrow for a job up north someplace and you weren’t coming back?”

“I was going to tell you—”

“When? When you got there and got settled?” She shook her hand from his. “When you came home for Christmas?”

“When you returned my phone call from Wednesday. Or Thursday. Or Friday. Oh, that’s right.” He snapped his fingers. “You didn’t call back any of those times.”

“I didn’t see any reason to, after you left me hot and bothered in the parking lot last Saturday night. Which was, I might add, the second time you’ve done that to me.” Her eyes all but shot fire. “Well, you know what they say: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice …”

“Stef, I wasn’t trying to—”

“Your loss, buster. You would have gotten lucky.” She pushed him away and started past him. “It would have been a night you’d never forget.”

“Stef, I was only trying to—”

“To what? Screw up the local girl? Again?”

“That’s exactly what I was trying to avoid. Look, I know what happens every time you and I get too
close.” He reached out and tried to take her arm, but she pulled away. “You know it, too. Knowing that I was going to be moving away, I just thought I should …” He paused.

“You thought you should what?” Her eyes narrowed. The tone of her voice all but dared him to continue.

“I just thought I should … back off. Protect you,” he said. “From, you know, getting hurt because I was leaving.”

“Oh, wait. Let me get this straight. You were protecting me because if we’d gotten involved, I would have gotten hurt.”

Wade nodded and almost looked relieved for a moment, but the moment didn’t last.

“You are the biggest ass I have ever known in my life.” Her voice rose. “How dare you presume to make that choice for me?”

Before he could respond, she went on. “And what makes you think I can’t protect myself? Do you really think I’m so helpless and so stupid that I can’t take care of myself when it comes to you?”

Wade appeared stunned.

“Say something,” she demanded.

“I … I’m sorry,” he started, but she cut him off.

“For insulting me?”

“For … whatever it was …” He ran his fingers through his hair, a look of sheer confusion on his face. “Stef, I never meant to … to do any of those things I’ve obviously done. It just seems like I’m always leaving you, Stef.”

“You
are
always leaving, Wade,” she shot back.
“You’ve been leaving since you were eighteen years old. But you always come back.”

“I’d think you’d be tired of it by now.”

“Aren’t you?” she asked.

“When I took this job, I didn’t think about coming here or leaving here. The only thought I had was that I needed a job to support Austin and me. I didn’t think about how it would be to see you, or what it would feel like to kiss you.” He tried to force a smile. “You might recall that I’ve tried to avoid kissing you for a long time.”

“My high school graduation party. I tricked you into coming out to the grape arbor with me and I made you kiss me.”

This time he did smile. “Even then I knew how hard it would be to resist you, Stef.”

“Is it?” She took a step closer to him. “Hard to resist me?”

“Gets harder all the time,” he admitted.

“Then why do you? And if you say it’s for my own good, I will kill you right where you stand.”

He hesitated, then said, “It’s because of the look.”

“The look?” she frowned. “What look?”

“The look you get on your face when you’re disappointed. I keep seeing the look on your face the night of Beck’s wedding. You looked so crushed and so hurt … Let me finish. You asked, so I’m going to assume you want the truth. I never wanted to see you look like that again. I never wanted you to feel like that again. I hurt you that night when I left.”

“You did hurt me that night, but I understand now why you left, and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that I think you were so blindsided by your
neighbor’s phone call that you wouldn’t have had time to explain the whole thing about Robin that night. I understand that you thought there was a good chance that Robin would die before you got back and I’m sure the prospect terrified you. I can accept that.”

“Thank you.”

“And I appreciate that you did tell me about Robin.”

Wade nodded.

“What I don’t appreciate is you deciding for me that I can’t handle whatever would come next. After this.” She stepped closer again, and wrapped her arms around his neck. She drew his face to hers and kissed him on the mouth. He seemed to hesitate for the briefest moment before his arms tightened around her.

She pulled back from him and looked into his eyes. “Because I can handle it, Wade. I can handle going wherever this leads. Can you?”

“You’re not a love-’em-and-leave-’em girl, Stef,” he protested.

“What kind of girl do you think I am?”

“A forever girl,” he said softly.

“Then treat me like I’m one. Take a chance tonight, Wade. It might be your last. Then again …”

Applause from the tent seemed to roll across the lawn like thunder.

“Oh, hell. I forgot about Dallas.…” She grabbed his hand and headed toward the tent.

“We can see Dallas later,” Wade told her. “We can see Dallas tomorrow.”

“But not this …” She turned to him at the entrance
to the tent and smiled. “We need to see this.” She leaned forward and whispered, “I’ll make it worth your while later.”

“In that case …” Wade followed her into the tent.

Dallas stood on the bandstand with a microphone in her hand and the crowd hushed.

“Thank you all so much for coming to celebrate my birthday with me,” she began. “I know many of you traveled quite a distance to be here tonight, and I appreciate it. I’m happy that you all got a little taste of our beautiful town, and I hope that tomorrow you’ll visit our shops and our restaurants and you’ll understand why the longer I stay in St. Dennis, the harder it is for me to leave. If you enjoyed the ice cream you had for dessert, stop in at One Scoop or Two down near the marina and sample some of Steffie Wyler’s ridiculously delicious flavors—all made right there, by Steffie, from scratch. If you like my dress”—Dallas twirled around to give everyone a good look—“you might want to stop at Bling up on Charles Street and see what other goodies Vanessa has to offer …”

Dallas went on to give shout-outs to other merchants and to invite her guests to stay through tomorrow to tour the site where she’d be building her studio.

“I know you’ve heard the rumors, and yes, they’re true. My first project will be
Pretty Maids …
”

Dallas introduced Victoria Seymour and the two leads, shocking everyone with her choice of Laura Fielding, an old friend of Dallas’s who hadn’t been particularly successful but who Dallas believed was the perfect Charlotte. The most enthusiastic applause
was saved for the announcement confirming that Berry would be returning to the screen as Rosemarie.

Then a table holding Brooke’s cupcakes was wheeled across the floor and the candles on thirty-eight of them were lit. The birthday song was sung, the candles were blown out, but before Dallas could begin to hand out cupcakes to those closest, Grant turned her around and went down on one knee and took her hand.

“Dallas, you know that I’ve loved you since I was eleven years old. I …”

A stunned Dallas turned the mike off so that only she could hear what Grant had to say. But the entire crowd had grown hushed, and when he slipped the ring on her finger and Dallas pulled Grant up to kiss him, the whoops and hollers could have been heard across the Bay.

“Wow, he really did it,” Steffie said.

“Let’s go congratulate them.” Wade tugged her hand and they made their way to the bandstand.

“You really went down on one knee in front of all these strangers.” Steffie marveled when she finally reached her brother.

“I barely saw them,” Grant admitted. “All I could see was Dallas.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet.” Steffie kissed his cheek, then turned to Dallas and hugged her.

“You knew this was coming tonight and you never said a word.” Dallas hugged Steffie back. “And Grant said this”—she held up her left hand and wiggled her ring finger—“was your idea.”

Stef nodded.

“It’s perfect. It couldn’t be more perfect. I love it.
And I thank you for thinking of it. Nothing would have meant more to me.” Dallas had tears in her eyes. “And oh! The ice cream! I can’t believe you did that for me! My own flavor!”

“That was Grant’s idea,” Steffie told her. “Well, the idea was his, the flavor was mine. He thought I should make something just for you and then throw away the recipe and never make it again …”

Dallas and Grant’s discussion about the ice-cream flavor’s exclusivity—or not—was interrupted by well-wishers, and the congratulations went on and on.

Steffie and Wade stepped farther and farther back from the crowd. When they reached the edge of the tent, Steffie asked, “Who’s watching Austin tonight?”

“Paige brought Cody and Austin out to say good night earlier, so I imagine both boys are in bed by now. We did hire an older woman, much to Paige’s annoyance, but once we explained to her that she could come to the party for a while, she was all right with it.”

“So, then, Austin is covered for the night.”

He nodded.

“Good. Then we’ve covered all the bases. We said our congrats to the happy couple, we made nice with our friends, so I suppose our work here is done.”

“I suppose it is.”

She stepped closer, her hands on his waist.

“Come home with me,” she whispered. “Stay with me.”

He took her by the hand and they walked out through the front gate, then realized that his car was in the driveway in front of the caterer’s.

“It’s okay,” she told him. “Mine’s out front.”

But when they got to her car, they found it blocked in by a news van and the driver was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, damn,” Stef complained. “It’s a long way to walk in these shoes. Talk about a mood killer.”

“I have an idea,” Wade told her. “Wait here.”

Moments later, a stretch limo pulled up next to her car and the driver hopped out and walked around the car.

“Miss Wyler?” he asked.

“Yes …?”

Wade pushed the back door open.

“What are you doing?” She laughed and got in next to him.

“It’s ours for twenty minutes,” Wade told her as the driver closed the door. “Long enough for him to drive to your house and back again. You’ll have to give him directions.”

“Go straight to the stop sign, then on through the center of town,” Steffie said, and the car began to move. “Then make a left when you get to the third light.”

“That’s not how you get to Olive Street,” Wade noted.

“It’s how you get to my apartment,” she told him. “I haven’t moved yet.”

Steffie’s apartment was in a three-story house that had two units on each floor. There were lights on in one of the downstairs apartments and one on the third. The entire second floor was dark. The driver opened the door and helped them out, and Stef looked for her keys while Wade paid the driver. Steffie
was still searching through her bag as they walked to the front door of the building.

“Here they are.” Stef pulled a long chain of keys from her bag and unlocked the door.

“How could you have missed that? How many keys are on there, anyway?” Wade followed her through the door and up the steps to the second floor.

“Well, there’s the shop, and the car, and the house, and the front door here and this door …” She reached the landing and took three steps to the door on the right. She unlocked it and stepped inside, waited for Wade before closing the door behind him and turning the lock.

She’d barely turned to him when she found herself in his arms. She dropped her bag and the keys onto the floor and raised her face for his kiss. His mouth demanded and she complied, his tongue filled her mouth and she took it in. He moved her back against the door, his hands on her waist, and he pulled her body closer until she was melting into him. Then his hands were in her hair and on her arms and her breasts and her thighs, everywhere at once and nowhere long enough. He slid his hands under the hem of her dress, pulling the soft fabric to her waist. His mouth moved along her throat, his lips trailing a hot line of kisses until her head began to swim. Her hands moved up his chest to the buttons of his shirt, which she began to undo, one by one, as quickly as her eager fingers could move. She pulled his shirttail from his khakis and pushed against him with her entire body.