Mary Brady - Silver Linings

“Really?”

“Really. Next time, tell her to have a good day and walk away. Or you can ask her if she’s all right. You might be surprised by what she says.”

Brianna turned and snuggled close. “I’d like to have a daddy because sometimes I just get scared.”

Delainey leaned her chin on the top of her daughter’s head. Me too, my sweet little girl. Me too.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING, Hunter let himself into the office before anyone else got there. He wanted to get started on Shamus’s files.

The day had started with a glorious sunrise. He had run through the village from Shamus and Connie’s house, where he was staying for a few days, and down along the docks and south to the rocky shoreline of Little Cove Park.

When the town was quiet and the streets sat deserted except for one curious brown dog nosing around and one runner from Chicago, Bailey’s Cove seemed to have barely changed since he left, except several stores stood vacant. Quirky, old and new meshed together to form one of those old-fashioned communities where people might stop for a short visit and move on. Too bad. With its position on the coast, the town could draw many tourists if it had more to offer.

He hung his trench coat in the closet.

Sleep hadn’t been easy last night. He kept thinking of Delainey and wondering if he had made another colossal mistake coming here. He had needed to leave Chicago, but come to Bailey’s Cove?

For the past three months he had been unengaged in law. He’d grown tired of jogging Chicago’s lakefront. The gym personnel called him by name when he went in to work out. He’d rebuffed so many invitations to be entertained it had become embarrassing from many angles.

When Shamus had called, it had seemed like some sort of divine intervention, but now he felt trapped by the machinations of life that ambled relentlessly on, chewing people up and spitting them out.

Shamus, for instance. Hunter was sure there was something about Shamus’s calling him now that had nothing to do with the desire to suddenly retire. That Shamus had called a Morrison wasn’t the puzzle. Morrison and Morrison had been founded by Harold and Hadley Morrison, his ancestral grandfather and uncle. That no one had ever changed the name spoke to the casual attitude he had already noticed at the law firm. Shamus had guaranteed this would be different than city corporate law, and Hunter knew before coming here Shamus wasn’t wrong.

For better or worse, he was here until Shamus didn’t need him anymore, because there was one thing he’d refused to give up in the big city and that was what his father had called the Morrison integrity. He had told Shamus he’d help out, and that he would do.

In the file room between Shamus’s office and Harriet’s, he helped himself to a few of Shamus’s files labeled Active.

The first case he opened had a big N/C for no charge scrawled across the top. He almost chuckled at the thought of seeing N/C written on one of the files in the records room at his old firm.

On the rest of the page Delainey’s neat penmanship filled in the blank lines.

Yesterday he had learned that Delainey Talbot was single or single again—the details were fuzzy. The “someone else” who had made her so cold after he left must be out of her life. That was too bad.

It was all too bad.

Too bad his goal had always been to leave Bailey’s Cove. Too bad and entirely his fault, he had thought it best to let Delainey go look for someone else.

Maybe he could have talked her into moving to Chicago, but would she have thrived there or just survived?

At Morrison and Morrison he had the right to read her personnel file, but he decided not to go there. All he had to do was to listen to the chatter and he was sure he could learn all he cared to know about any of the staff, including Delainey. Shamus trusted every one of them within their limitations and that worked for him.

The second client file he pulled out concerned one neighbor trimming the tree of another so it wouldn’t overhang the neighbor’s garage. The suing neighbor had already planned on moving out but was suing for pain and suffering because of the trim job on the tree. This one had one hour billed to it and a note in Delainey’s hand to “Call Mrs. Harrison’s daughter and see what’s really going on.”

Last night over after-dinner drinks, Shamus had talked about some of the workers. Patty, the receptionist, distracted the staff if left to her own devices. Carol couldn’t spell and even spell-checker could not save her. Shirley was just too cute to scold, Shamus had said of his granddaughter. Eddie would do everything to perfection—to a fault. The others each had some workable flaw except Delainey. Apparently the only thing she couldn’t do was walk on water. Shamus had said he might want to ask her about that someday.

A door slammed somewhere downstairs. The staff was beginning to arrive.

He could have guessed Patty’s flaw without Shamus telling him, as she had been happy to relate her life history, which, while fascinating to someone... Carol and Shirley had been more reserved, although he did now know Carol was thirty-eight, single and loved her collection of eyewear. Shirley was checking things out to see if she should follow in Shamus’s footsteps, but no way was she staying in this tiny town, she had said, and blushed. Eddie, who had graduated nearly a year ago from high school and had been a paid intern since, seemed happy just to be a part of it all and was clearly in love with an older woman, Shirley, who must have been all of twenty.

Eddie might be trying to decide on a career. With his goggle-eyed innocence, Hunter hoped it wasn’t law, at least not law in the big city. It just might break a boy like that.

He opened another folder. It felt strange, even after being out of the office for two months, not to have client meetings, teleconferences or even a court date scheduled. Several folders later and there hadn’t been a single file without Delainey’s neat handwriting in it somewhere.

Yesterday the rest of the staff had said hello and welcome and had enjoyed the champagne and cake. Except Delainey—she hadn’t had cake. She had slammed one glass of champagne and split as soon as she could get away from Shamus.

Her hair looked as if it was still that soft, silky golden. Her figure had filled out, and long after she had left the room, he’d found himself wanting to touch her, stroke her hair, feel her body against his.

During the sleepless hours last night, he had refused to let his mind linger there. She had moved on.

But in the light of day, he couldn’t figure out what she was still doing in Bailey’s Cove working as a paralegal. She either hadn’t gone to law school or she’d given it up for some reason. That she wouldn’t have passed the bar was not an option, for she was the only person in their high school whose grades were better than his.

Once he had looked through the stack of files he had pulled, the chatter level downstairs had risen to boisterous. He doubted they knew he was here, as Shamus’s wife had insisted she make breakfast for him, and Shamus had driven him to the office. His rental car would arrive in two days. A reminder how remote Bailey’s Cove was from the rest of the world.

His office door stood open, so if anyone came upstairs, they would see him, but diplomacy dictated it was time to go downstairs to let them know he was here. He didn’t want to be charged with big-city guerrilla tactics or give anyone a heart attack by coming down later in the morning and have them get all paranoid about what he might have heard or seen that they didn’t know about. And he smelled coffee.

In a few moments, he was down the stairs and approaching the door to the coffee room. Break room, they called the fully equipped kitchen with three large round tables and a dozen and a half chairs. The closer he got, the more understandable the words were through the door.