The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge (207 page)

He had a moment or two to decide whether this friend of Ellie’s was going to result in a change of his plans.

Nah. He’d go with the script, and her friend was just going to have to live with it.

The entrance to Old St. Mary’s Church Road was blocked off with orange caution cones, so Cam slowed and rolled down his window.

“I’m one of the reenactors,” he called to Susan Alcott, the police officer who was directing traffic away from the street.

“So I heard,” she called back, and motioned for one of the men on the side of the street to remove the cones so that Cam could pass by. “Have fun.”

“I’m planning on it.” Cam waved a salute to her and to the officer who’d moved the cones and proceeded to the parking lot behind the library, where he left the pickup. The bells in the tower at the Episcopal church down the street chimed eleven. He had plenty
of time to stroll through the crowd and see who was where. It would make everything easier later on.

There was a microphone in a stand on the front steps of the library, and to the left, a patch of lawn set off by rope tied from one sawhorse to another to form a square.

At one of the front corners, Clay Madison stood talking with Grace, his future mother-in-law, and Wade MacGregor.

“Are you the masterminds who constructed this?” Cam pointed to the square. “It looks like something you’d herd cattle into.”

“Hey, if you think you can do better, you can be our guest.” Wade crossed his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, I didn’t see you here early this morning trying to figure out how to make this thing work,” Clay said. “It’s as historically correct as we could make it.”

“It just looks dumb.” Cam shrugged his shoulders.

“Not much to argue about there,” Clay agreed. “But it’s for charity, so let’s just ignore how crappy the thing looks.”

The three men walked through the gathering crowd and made their way across the square to the far corner where Jesse Enright’s law office stood.

“You got your stuff?” Wade asked.

Cam held up his duffel bag. “Where’s yours?”

“Dropped it off early.” Wade pointed to Jesse’s office. “You might as well hang on to yours now since we’ll be going in to change soon enough.”

“We’ve got time.” Cam scanned the group gathered on Enright’s lawn.

“Looking for anyone in particular?” Clay asked.

“Maybe,” Cam replied.

“They’re all over there by the oak. Stef, Brooke, Lucy …” Wade pointed to a large tree that had yet to shed all its leaves. “Steffie wanted to be in the shade during the speeches in case they lasted too long so she wouldn’t get too hot standing in the sun.”

“Steffie just didn’t want to be so close to the speakers that she couldn’t gossip with her friends. I’m betting she couldn’t care less about hearing the First Families Day speeches again.” Clay added, “Let’s face it, we’ve all heard the same thing a hundred times.”

“Which is why the reenactments are important,” Cam told them as they joined the women under the tree. “It’s the only good part of the day.”

“You guys are all just grown-up little boys.” Brooke turned at their approach.

“You’re right.” Her brother nodded. “And boys just want to have fun.”

Steffie rolled her eyes. “Just don’t make such a fuss that you scare Poppy. Vanessa just took her inside to change her but she’ll be back before the festivities start.” Her eyes narrowed. “You make that baby cry and you will all answer to me.”

“I’m shaking,” Clay deadpanned. He turned to Cam. “You?”

“Absolutely. Wade?”

“Leave me out of this. I’m married to her.” He gestured with his head in Steffie’s direction. “We’ll have to be quiet when we … well, you guys know what I mean, right?”

“Right.” Clay nodded.

Cam continued to scan the crowd, searching for the red baseball cap. Finally, he saw her moving along the
sidewalk, the dog at the end of its leash. There were others walking his way and it was difficult to know for certain who she was with but she seemed to be talking to a short woman whose long blond hair was twisted up on top of her head in a tight knot.

Ellie looked up as they came closer to the tree, a smile of recognition lighting her face.

“Hey, Cam. Hi, Steffie. Brooke. Everyone.” She walked toward them, stopping once while Dune sniffed at a spot on the ground.

“Hi.”

“Glad you made it, Ellie.”

“Oh, cute dog.”

Cameron looked around for the suit.

“This is Carly, my friend,” Ellie was saying. “She’s visiting for a few days.”

Cam’s first thought was,
Great. No guy
. His second was,
That’s a lot of car for a small woman
.

He knew better than to voice either.

“That’s the dog you found?” Steffie asked Ellie, who nodded in reply. “Did you call my brother? The vet?”

“It kept slipping my mind,” Ellie said. “But I thought I’d walk her around today and see if anyone recognized her.”

“We’ll show her to Grant and see if he knows who she belongs to,” Steffie told her. “She looks adorable and very well behaved.”

There was a lot of chatter as Vanessa and Grady Shields, her husband, joined the group with the stroller and the appropriate fuss was made over the baby at the same time others were welcoming Carly to St. Dennis and Ellie to her first First Families Day.
Cam had no real opportunity for conversation with Ellie, but it was okay. He’d have a little one-on-one time with her later.

Grace Sinclair was testing the microphone, and moments later, introduced the mayor, Christina Pratt, who gave the welcoming address and began her annual First Families Day speech.

“This is the same speech she gave last year,” Vanessa said out of the corner of her mouth. “I remember the line about ‘and right where we stand now, the townspeople gathered to protest.…’ ”

“It was the same the year before, too,” Steffie added.

“Hey, there’s only so many ways you can describe how the settlers made their way up the Bay, fighting off mosquitoes and the elements and the natives,” Lucy noted.

“I think she just said what you said, about the settlers making their way up the Bay.…” Vanessa whispered.

Wade tapped Cam on the shoulder, and the two men, along with Clay, slipped quietly from the group and made their way into Jesse’s building, where they, along with several other reenactors, changed into their costumes.

“So how is this going to work, exactly?” Jesse joined them in the conference room, already dressed for his part. “How are we going to know when to go out onto the square?”

Cam pulled his sweatshirt over his head and reached for his duffel bag.

“When the mayor gets to the part in her speech where she says, ‘And the town was terrorized for
three days while the pirates held the women of St. Dennis hostage,’ Grant is going to call out to Hal Garrity on his boat, and he’s going to shoot off three rounds on the cannon. That’s our signal to invade the town.”

“Got it.” Jesse grinned. “I guess we can figure out who your hostage is going to be.”

“Anything for charity,” Cam replied.

Wade put his hat over his wig and straightened his beard. “I think I heard the cannon.”

Jesse opened the front door. “Yep. That was the second blast. You guys ready?”

“Yo-ho-ho.” Cam headed for the door and the motley band of pirates spilled out onto the lawn.

Those in the crowd who knew what to expect faked frightened cries and there was even a feigned faint or two.

“Good one, Barbara,” Cam complimented the bookshop owner on her graceful collapse to the ground.

“Thanks.” She opened one eye as he passed. “I’ve been practicing all week.”

Cam headed toward the oak. There his unsuspecting target stood, dog’s leash in hand, looking around the crowd and laughing as first one woman then another was swept up and carried across the lawn to the library.

She never saw him coming.

Ellie’s shriek was real when Cam scooped her up.

“Hand off the dog to your friend,” he told her as he tossed her over his shoulder.

“What? What are you—”

“Here, Ellie, I’ll take Dune.” Laughing, Carly reached out and grabbed the leash.

“What are you doing?” Ellie was struggling.

“Getting ready to ransom you off.” Cam hoisted her a little higher. “And could you work with me here and quit wiggling around so much? You’re making this harder than it needs to be. I’d hate to drop you on your head.”

“Cameron?” She went still and looked back over her shoulder.

“You were expecting Blackbeard?” He carried her to the library, lifted her over the ropes, and set her down with the other women who’d been carted off across the square and left inside the makeshift enclosure. If his hands rested on her arms a few seconds longer than necessary, it was only because they’d never been that close before, and he was reluctant to let her go.

“Now what happens?”

“First of all, you’re supposed to be terrified. You’ve just been carried off by a bloodthirsty pirate. Could you please have enough respect for us swashbucklers to try to look a little afraid?”
God, but she smelled good
.

“It’s tough to take you seriously when your beard is crooked like that.” Her eyes were smiling and she held his gaze. He could neither look away nor step away.

“It is?” He reached up to feel where it had shifted.

Ellie laughed and reached over the rope, straightened the beard so that it covered his face equally on both sides. “There. Now you look quite fearsome.”

“Thank you,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances. The spell broken, he let her go.

The last woman was deposited unceremoniously over the rope, and the pirates faded into the crowd.

Mayor Pratt returned to the microphone and took the stand again.

“Today, we recall those souls who came before us, those staunch men and women who braved not only the elements and the natives, but the pirates who invaded yearly to steal their women and ransom them back to their families. Those hardy folks who first made St. Dennis their homes in the wilderness …”

Her voice droned on for several more minutes before she ended with the announcement that the bidding would begin in ten minutes.

“Bidding?” Cam heard Ellie say as he turned to sprint back across the street to change back into his “civilian” clothes. “Bidding?”

Hal had already auctioned off two of the hostages by the time Cam and the others returned to the square. Fortunately, neither of them had been Ellie. Steffie was the first of their group to be led to the steps, and the bidding was lively between her father; her husband, Wade; and her brother, Grant. When Wade finally emerged successful, he thanked his in-laws for driving up the price.

“I’m worth every damn cent and you know it,” Steffie called back from the steps, and the crowd burst into laughter.

Brooke went next. Since no one bid against her fiancé, Jesse, Hal banged the gavel at what Brooke declared was an insultingly low amount and she refused to leave the steps until Jesse bid against himself until she was satisfied.

Ransom was paid for several other of the hostages
before Ellie was led to the steps. Hal was just about to start the bidding when he heard a woman’s voice from behind call out, “I’ll bid a thousand dollars.”

Cam turned and saw Carly approaching, Ellie’s dog trotting by her side.

“We have one thousand dollars.” Hal looked across the crowd. “A very respectable opening bid. Anyone else?”

“I’ll go eleven hundred.” Cam raised his hand.

“Fifteen hundred.” Carly immediately countered his bid.

“Cam? Back to you?” Hal asked.

“It’s for charity, right?” Carly asked as she stepped closer to Cam.

“Well, yeah, but, you see …” Cam sighed. How to explain …

“Oh, wait. You wanted to be the one to spring her.” Carly looked slightly abashed. “I’m sorry, it didn’t occur to me.…”

“It’s okay.” Cam turned back to Hal and raised the bid.

“Miss? You still in?” Hal asked.

Carly shook her head.

“The ransom will be paid by Cameron O’Connor,” Hal announced. He turned to Ellie. “You’re free to go.”

“Thanks.” Ellie smiled and made her way to where Cameron and Carly stood. “That was fun.”

“Probably more fun for you than Cameron”—Carly spoke before Cam could—“who is now out a considerable chunk of change, thanks to me driving up the price.”

“It’s okay,” he told them both. “It’s for a good cause.”

“What’s the charity?” Ellie asked.

“The women and children’s shelter out on the highway gets one half of the money and the library gets the other,” he told them.

“Looks like they raised quite a bit today,” Ellie noted.

Cam nodded. “Yeah, we did pretty well.”

“So what happens next?” Carly asked.

“Well, right about now we usually go into Jesse’s office, where there are snacks—sandwiches and drinks and some of Brooke’s cupcakes,” he replied.

“Yum.” Ellie turned to Carly. “I’ve had Brooke’s cupcakes. Fabulous.”

“Great. Let’s go.” Carly took a few steps then stopped. “Which way?”

Cam pointed to the red brick building on the corner.

“And are you sure it’s all right to bring extra people?”

“Positive,” Cam said. “I think everyone’s expecting you to stop in since we were all together earlier.”

“Actually, Brooke did mention it. But what about the dog?” Ellie looked pensive.

“She’ll be fine. And I know that Grant’s going to be there, so you can ask him if she looks familiar to him.” He added, “And you’ll get to meet Dallas MacGregor. Grant’s wife.”

“I’d love to meet Dallas MacGregor. She’s my favorite actress ever.” Carly’s eyes widened and she turned to Ellie. “Ellie.
Dallas MacGregor
.”

“Lead the way.” Ellie tugged on the dog’s leash and followed Cam across the lawn.

The conference room and kitchen at Enright & Enright, Attorneys-at-Law, were both packed, and Cam did his best not only to keep track of Ellie and Carly, but to make sure they were both introduced to as many people as possible. After Dune was stepped on twice, Ellie picked her up and carried her, which made it easy for her to show the dog to Grant Wyler.