Mariah Stewart - Coming Home

“Now we have to wait for another tray to come out of the oven. I should have picked up a few extras but I ran out of time, so we have to shuttle them back and forth.”

He left the tray on the counter and walked to the table.

“Hey, my grandmother used to have a table like this.” He tapped his fingers on the blue-enamel-on-metal top. “Does yours have flowers in the corners?” He peered around her. “Yep. Just like Gramma’s.”

“Mia told me.” She opened a stick of butter and dropped it into a bowl. “It was in the house when I moved in, as was most of the rest of the furniture.”

“The previous owner just left it all here?”

“The previous owner was just shy of one hundred when she passed away. She had a grandniece who really wasn’t interested in the house or the furnishings. She did come for the funeral, and while she was here, she took the things she thought had some value, but she just left everything else where it was.”

“Aren’t you lucky she didn’t have a better eye.” He took a seat in one of the chairs next to the table. “I noticed the stuff in the living room when I came in. That mohair sofa and the chairs with the nail heads look like they’re from the forties, maybe the fifties.”

Mia grinned. “I figure Miss Ridgeway must have had some kind of midlife crisis right around that time. You know, out with the old, in with the new? Only she didn’t toss the old, thank goodness. There’s still a lot of lovely old Victorian pieces in the attic and in the garage loft. I’m figuring she probably put them into storage when she bought what you see in there now.”

“I remember my grandparents having a sofa in their living room that was very similar to yours.”

“Mia said it was even the same color.” She opened the oven door and peered inside, then closed it again. “I asked Nita-she’s one of the antique dealers in town-to look over some of the furniture and the artwork. She said she couldn’t imagine what the grandniece had taken, judging by the quality of the items that were left behind. She either didn’t take the time to really look through the house, or she didn’t know what she was looking at.” Vanessa covered the bowl holding the dough with plastic wrap and placed it in the refrigerator to chill as the recipe directed. “Nita took some pieces that I didn’t particularly like on consignment in her shop.”

“Did they sell?”

“Not yet, but she only took them a few weeks ago. She thinks they’ll go quickly once the tourist season begins for real. We have A Day on the Bay coming up next month, and things will get pretty busy from then right through to the end of the year.”

“What’s A Day on the Bay?”

“That’s when everyone brings out their boats and we have races. Sailboats, motorboats… you name it, we race it. People come from all over to compete as well as to check out the boats in the marina that are for sale. They even bring out the old skipjacks to show them off. They used to call it Harbor Fest but last year they changed the name.”

The timer on the oven buzzed and she grabbed a mitt and removed yet another tray of cookies and set them aside to cool.

“Mia wants to glaze these for Saturday, but I don’t know.” Vanessa gnawed on her bottom lip. “I’m afraid they’ll stick together.”

“The glaze is that lemon stuff that goes on top?”

She nodded.

“My mom used to do that at night before she went to bed, so the icing would be solid in the morning,” he told her. “What if you put that stuff on them today? Wouldn’t it be hard enough by Saturday to not stick?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I guess we could try a few of the ones that have cooled and see how they are by this evening. I baked several batches last night but they’re in the freezer.”

He reached past her and picked up the recipe.

“Wouldn’t this go faster if we doubled or tripled the recipe?”

“Yes, but we still have to chill each batch for about two hours, and we still only have one oven.”

“So we’ll stagger them.” He looked around. “Why don’t I wash up all the stuff that you’ll need for the next batch while you roll out that one?”

“That would save some time.” She nodded. “Thanks.”

He ran water in the sink and gathered the used bowls and spoons and the beaters from the counters.

“I hear you went out on Hal’s boat yesterday.” She stood across the room, at the table, and rolled out another batch of dough.

“Yeah. Nice of him to take me.”

“Hal Garrity is the nicest man on the face of the earth,” she told him.

“He obviously thinks the world of you, too,” Grady noted. “He said he thinks of you as a daughter.”

“I wish to God he was my dad.” Mia stopped working and turned around. “I’m sure my life would have been very different if he had been. Beck and I had the same mother, but not the same father.”

“Sorry.”

“So am I. Not about Beck, but about… oh, whatever.” She smiled wryly and turned back to the work at hand. “So what did you think of the Shady Lady?”

“Who? Oh, you mean Hal’s boat. It was great. I’d never fished from a boat before. The only fishing I’ve ever done has been in mountain streams-freshwater fishing.”

“That’s with the skinny rod and reel and the funny little things that are supposed to look like bait?”

“You mean flies. Also called lures. They’re supposed to mimic, well, flies or other critters that the fish in the stream would eat.”

“I knew that part. I just couldn’t remember what they were called. It’s been a long time since I thought about fishing.”

“So you’ve been?”

“No, but one of my mom’s exes used to go all the time. He had this metal box that he kept all his stuff in.”

“Tackle box.” He finished washing and looked around for a towel.

“Right. He had one of those and he had all these little things in there with hooks on them. Some had feathers and some looked like little tiny fish.” She gazed out the window, as if remembering. “And he had these little silvery things, like little weights, he sometimes tied onto the lures.”

“Sinkers.” He nodded. “Depending on what kind of fish you’re after, you might want a lure that sits on the water, or one that goes beneath the surface. In the latter, you want something to take that lightweight lure under.”

“Funny. I barely remember what that stepfather looked like, but I remember his fishing stuff. Oh, and he had these long boots. They came up to here.” She tapped the top of her thighs.

“Waders. So you could walk into the stream.” He couldn’t help but smile at her. She looked so earnest, remembering.

“Do you have those?”

He nodded.

“And those rubber overalls?”

He nodded again.

“He used to bring home these fish and stand at the kitchen sink and cut them apart and pull the guts out.” Vanessa made a face. “I couldn’t watch.”

“Well, if you’re planning on cooking and eating your catch, you need to clean it.”

“Do you do that?”

“When I catch for food, sure.”

She wrinkled her nose, and he laughed.

“Well, you wouldn’t cook it with the organs still inside. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that could make you sick,” he told her. “I guess I eat about a third of what I catch.”

“What do you do with the rest of it?”

“I release the fish and let it go.”

“What’s the point of catching it if you’re going to let it go?”

“You go for the sport.”

“So you hurt the fish just so you can have a little ‘sport’?”

“I usually flatten out the hook so it doesn’t pull the fish’s mouth when I take the hook out.”