MIA WAS HALFWAY through a box of files when it occurred to her that if the information at the museum was correct she should have come across the debate about changing the name of the town from South Harbor to Bailey’s Cove. So far nothing more than vague references had been made in the log. Maybe the town’s name wasn’t important to this logger. Chief Montcalm had said there were many varieties of the truth.
She rubbed her eyes, wondering how Daniel was, what he was doing, how the bones were coming, if he’d found out anything.
She’d hug him. She’d hug him every day of his life if given the chance. They had found each other, truly found each other, but something stood between them, and it was more than the granite tomb of a pirate.
Instead of her heart, a hard knot sat in her chest, a frozen thing, afraid to beat.
She dropped her head into her hands. She didn’t even know what she was competing against.
Things had gotten so messed up, and she had no idea how to fix them.
She read another file. When she found nothing in that one, she put it back and plucked out another. This folder, stuffed with creased and yellowed papers, was dated February 18th, 1869. She opened it and on the front page was something very familiar and she had to smile. There was nothing for it. A coffee stain almost a hundred and fifty years old; okay, maybe it was tea, but she recognized such a stain. Ones like this adorned many of the pages of her plans for Pirate’s Roost.
The notes on February 18th started like all the others of late. Weather reports seemed to be in fashion.
The sun favored us this cold day. The offshore wind jostles the boats in their moorings and nearly caused Mrs. MacDonald’s bonnet to go for a swim. That might not have been a bad thing, as I hate this bonnet she insists on wearing each time we go out.
Colleen McClure has raised the topic again of changing the name of the town. Mia sat up. Colleen Fletcher McClure? The daughter of the man who owned half of South Harbor, and then nearly all of it when Liam Bailey was out of the picture, had married a man named McClure, but there had been no mention of her in the notes for decades.
She is most adamant that she wants to rename South Harbor after the original founder, the privateer Liam Bailey. Her claim is that South Harbor is too ordinary and if the town had a more exciting name, we might be able to draw more worthy citizens. She proposes the name Bailey’s Cove.
Sounds too romantic if you ask me, Sheriff Sean Winchester MacDonald said. I doubt she’ll get her way anyway because her father is apoplectic. Nearly gave him a seizure at the town meeting last night. Between you and me, the town would not be at a loss if that old codger died.
On August 15th, Sheriff MacDonald entered that two things happened in two days’ time. Archibald Fletcher died yesterday. Today his daughter, with her eldest son, Rónán, that dark-haired boy of hers, at her side, got the town council votes to change the name of the town from South Harbor to Bailey’s Cove.
Mia held a stack of files in her lap, tapping her thumb against the jacket. Colleen McClure had lobbied for the name change with her eldest son in tow. Archibald Fletcher had fought the name change until the day he died.
So Colleen changed the name of the town to Bailey’s Cove. She lives in Bailey’s home, she brings her first born to the fight about the town’s name. If Liam Bailey’s hair was dark...Rónán could have been his son.
Conjecture? Yes, but wasn’t that how discoveries were often made?
The church records took on a sudden glow of excitement. Mr. Sawyer, the secretary, had told her she could come at two o’clock today. At the time he had put her off she’d thought, why not? Why shouldn’t the holy records keep her waiting? She was so good at putting her life on hold these days.
Daniel would be the perfect person with whom to share her theory about Mrs. McClure and Liam Bailey.
Her friend Daniel...
She wondered how he was, what that pain was she saw written all over his face.
She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. She had seen agony in his eyes, the helpless suffering. She wished she could ease his burden, whatever it was.
She winced. A failing business enterprise, even if it took her to the bottom of the financial barrel, would be nothing compared with devastating personal loss.
What if Colleen McClure had lost Rónán? First her lover and then her child. Mia couldn’t even get her head around losing a child.
She rocked back and then forward, back and then forward, staring at the cross patterns at the corner where four tiles met.
If losing a child and maybe even a wife and child was what Daniel faced, he deserved all kinds of leeway. The fact that he was upright at all and not confined to a quiet room somewhere said a lot about his strength.
She lifted her chin. Suddenly, all her problems seemed surmountable and she knew she would fight on until she prevailed or they buried her—and she didn’t even feel all that brave doing so.
Mia dived back into the files. She was almost at the end of the next box before she realized she needed to reread the passage she had just read. The entry date July 25th, 1924. The local treasure hunters have stirred things up again. I had wondered when that family would pop up again. I believe they were all born under some kind of curse. Some of them die when they are kids and the rest grow up to be devil witches or ne’er-do-wells, take your pick. They are obsessed with being descended from a man who had no children and they apparently start looking for treasure as soon as they are able to hold a shovel. The most recent offender against our peaceful town is the Loch, Bryon, who made himself heard today by posting the announcement that he has the legal and moral right to any treasure recovered in the village of Bailey’s Cove and the surrounding area.
So at least Heather Loch didn’t make it all up. She was just standing on the family platform.
Mia put the file carefully away and slid the box back into line. Damn you, Daniel. I’ve no one to talk to about these records except the chief.
Her stomach growled. Lunchtime.
She put her scarf and coat on and hurried up and out into the sunshine.
“So you’re not buried in the hole forever today,” Monique said instead of hello when Mia called.
“Nope, and I’m hungry.”
“That’s unusual. What’s the occasion?”
“I’m going to pick up a taco, do you want one?”
“I want two and so do you. Who eats one taco?” Monique spouted the dogma she always did when one taco was enough for Mia.
“Two it is.”
“Hey, I heard that Daniel—”
Mia interrupted. “I know what you heard. We can talk about it over tacos.”
“How many times—” Monique asked and snickered.
“Over tacos. I’ll be at the dry cleaners in fifteen minutes or less with tacos.”
“Wait. Barbara’s here. She can cover for me during lunch. I’ll only be two doors down, after all. I’ll meet you at Loco Tacos in five minutes.”
With trays of food and drink Mia and Monique sat in the corner as far away from the moms and preschoolers as they could get.
“A few weeks and we’ll be able to eat outside,” Mia said as she squeezed hot sauce from the package on her tostada, her compromise. When it came to ordering two tacos, she just couldn’t do it, but two bean tostadas and she was in heaven.
“Okay. Okay. Out with it, Monique. You look like you’re ready to burst.”
“Lenny surprised me last night.”
“Lenny? Our Lenny? I’m such a bad friend. I forgot he was coming over. What did he do?”
“He brought me flowers. Other than you, no one has brought me flowers, ever.”
“So did he ask for another date? If not, let me know. I got a big hammer that seems to be causing trouble. I could do some pretty heavy damage to his kneecaps with it.”
“He traded workdays. He wants to take me to a new movie in Bangor. Imagine seeing a first-run movie. Says he already has tickets, just in case I said yes.”
“Wow, who’d’a thought? Are you sure you like him, because I’m starting to think I do.”
“Can I borrow your hammer?”
Mia laughed. “I saw your granddad last night. I went to Braven’s and drank with him and his cronies.”
“Okay.” Monique gave her furrowed-brow look.
“I knew where he’d be and I went to see if I could feel him out.”
“I’m thinking if you had any luck, you’d have already told me.”
“I could hardly get a word out of him. But I can tell you he seemed conflicted, like he wasn’t sure about anything yet.”
“I hope so,” Monique said around a bite of taco, a dollop of sour cream on her upper lip.
“Switching topics,” Mia said, reaching out with her napkin to get the white splotch.
“About time. Let’s have it.”
“I have some new swatches of a nice plaid vinyl for the booth covers.”
Monique made a face. “You know what I want to hear.”
“I can tell you that I’m checking the marriage and birth records at the church this afternoon and then I might have something very interesting I can tell you.”
“I want to hear about you and Daniel.”
Mia thought for a moment before she answered. “You’re going to be disappointed.”
“Well, apparently there aren’t enough disappointments in my life, ’cause I’m dying to know, anyway,” Monique said as she opened her second taco.
“Daniel and I are—um—friends.”
“Oh, no. How did that happen? From six to zero a in day.”
Mia tried not to spit tostada all over the table. “Hey, I’m eating here.”
“Come on, you gotta admit. You two made quite an about-face. It’s weird.”
“It was—um—eye-opening.”
Monique leaned forward on her elbows and put her chin in her hands. “Go on.”
“He’s in some sort of personal crisis. Something horrible happened to him.”
“Awww. Had his heart broken? Haven’t we all.”
“It’s worse than that, much worse. I don’t know what it is or how to explain how I know, but whatever it is it makes him feel like he’s unable to get into a relationship.”
“So what does he think will happen to him if he does?”
“I don’t think he’s worried about himself at all. I think he’s afraid of breaking someone’s heart, my heart in this case, but, ha-ha, what else is new?” She put her hands to her head. “For once, I don’t think it’s me.”
“What does that mean?”
“I learned something about myself, something pretty profound and I didn’t like it.”
“Do tell.” Monique slurped her drink to the noisy bottom.
“Daniel and I spent time together, meaningful time, happy, sad, talking about his aunt, about how he no longer has anyone to hug him. It struck me, I’d never made friends with my lovers. I guess I thought as long as we had good sex we had a good relationship. How shallow am I?”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“How shallow I am?”
“No. Now, I don’t like speaking ill of the living, but have you never sat with your parents. Listened to their conversations?”
“I know they aren’t the best of friends, but they love each other.”
“Yes, they do the best they can. They might even still lust after each other.”
“Are you trying to shock me here?”
“No, I’m just trying to tell you I don’t think you had the greatest role models for what a wonderful, romantic relationship looks like. You did what they did, and thank goodness, you didn’t get what they got. I’m sorry, honey—” Monique paused and put a hand on Mia’s arm “—but Rory would have needed to evolve to make it up to weasel.”
“I’ve started trying to be kind when I remember him, but I can’t say you’re wrong.”
Monique sighed and took a bite of her churros. “I always had such hopes for us, knights on white horses, happily ever after and all that stuff.”
“That’s what I always thought I was after. Now that I’ve had a taste of what having a man as a friend and lover might be like, I have to tell you, I could get used to it. I just don’t get to get used to it with this particular man.”
“Are you sure? The two of you made one heck of a connection and you made it quickly. Can’t you find out what his hang-up is and work on it with him? You know, be his friend?”
“You didn’t see him whenever we got close to the subject. It nearly laid him out and I don’t mean in a good way. I told him if ever wanted to tell me, I’d listen.”
“Nice and friendly.”
“I guess when I decide to grow up, I do it all at once. I would have thought I had experienced enough of the world to have figured things out before now.”
“I suspect we don’t ever stop figuring things out.” Monique wrapped up the remains of her taco. “So you didn’t just stop having, you know, those kinds of feelings for him?”
“No, oh, no. I want him. I want him when he’s here and I want him, well... I want him right now.”
“How are you all right with all that going on?” Monique squinted into the sunshine now streaming in the window.
“I’ve decided not to be a mess.”
“And you can keep that up?”
Mia huffed out a breath before she spoke. “I will hold it completely together until Daniel MacCarey is gone, and then I intend to get on with my life—somehow.”
“Do you think he’s the one?”
“Heaven help me, Monique, if he is.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What I need to do. I’m going to get Pirate’s Roost open if I have to get the hammer and nails myself.”
Monique put her hand over Mia’s. “I’m so sorry, honey. I wish things were better for you. Is he here in town? Do you have to spend your days avoiding your—ah—friend?”
“He’s gone back to the university.”
“And while he’s gone you don’t get to work on the Roost, do you?”
Mia shook her head. “And they’re starting to desert the sinking ship. This morning at Mandrel’s, I heard that Stella has taken a job at the gas station store out at the interstate. Rufus and Charlie aren’t that interested in traveling out of town, so they hadn’t found anything yet, but even they have to eat. Jobs might be tight, but almost all employers can pay more than I can afford.”
“I have faith in you, honey.”
“The thing that troubled me most is Markham Construction called and bumped me for sure this time, and I can’t talk them out of it. The best I could get out of them is a maybe for the following week.”
“Wow. That does so suck,” Monique said as she checked her phone for the time. “What do you need to be ready for them?”
“I just need to get the demo finished.”
“On that note, I’m sorry, but your friend has to bail on you, and you’ll let her because Barbara will have a nervous breakdown if I don’t get back soon and I’ll have to work all day, every day. So go to the church and check the records and report the gossip.”
As Monique walked away, Mia realized she didn’t feel any better. Talking to Monique had always lifted her flagging spirits. Not today.
She picked up her tray. Time to start holding it together. Oh, Daniel, I wish I could make things better for you, she thought. Be safe. Take care of yourself.
When she dumped her trash into the can, her chest felt as if she’d dumped her heart in, too.
* * *
THE VISIT AT Eleanor’s took longer than Daniel anticipated when it turned out she had invited three of her friends to share their tea.
The women, all dressed similarly to Eleanor, were duly impressed with the ring and even more so with the mystery of how it might have gotten from a coach in transit in England to the pocket of a colonial the likes of Daniel MacCarey in the twenty-first century.
The women she had invited were all tenured experts in various aspects of Victorian and Regency England, the New England states, or the colonial and the post–Revolutionary War United States. They eagerly agreed to research and see what they could find out about Liam Bailey and to consult with the students. In the process Eleanor Wahl had scored a coup among her friends.
His students were gone by the time he reached the lab and he decided that was just as well.
In his office at last, Daniel wrapped up the paperwork he needed to keep the Bailey’s Cove project moving, more like chugging, along the slow university track. Then he sat back with his feet propped up on the desk.
Thoughts of Mia flowed into the void. They always did. He found if he wasn’t actively working on something, she slipped in and made him want her all over again.
He wanted to touch her, to have her kiss him and caress him, to sit and hold her in his arms. Sometimes when he got like this he started to doubt himself, started to think it was all right to let her in, to tell her. They could figure out a way for the two of them to be together.
But he couldn’t do that to her. Just knowing could change her.
He removed his feet from the desk. He wasn’t enthusiastic about leaving, but he was even less so about staying. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but his car seemed like some sort of refuge these days. It always managed to take him away from places he didn’t want to or shouldn’t be.
He had just grabbed his vest and put it on when a shadow darkened his doorway.
“Glad I caught you, Dr. MacCarey.”
His boss and the department chair, Dr. Gary Donovan stepped into the office. When his boss used “Dr. MacCarey” there was always a want involved.
“What can I do for you, Dr. Donovan?”
“Just looking for an update on our pirate.”
“Not much to tell, sir. The man was most likely from the early part of the nineteenth century.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“He was murdered. Knife in the back.”
“These people will love the intrigue.”
Daniel could see Dr. Donovan loved the idea, not of murder but of the excitement. “The students have started working on clothing reconstruction.”
“Good. I’m having a cocktail party tomorrow night and I need you to attend because the pirate people will be there.”
Daniel regretted he hadn’t left sooner. He hadn’t been asked to attend one of the fund-raising cocktail parties in years. Not since his son’s birth.
“Where? What time?” Daniel asked.
“We’ll be at the botanical gardens, 7:00 p.m. sharp. Black-tie.”
Daniel nodded. Dr. Donovan might be brusque and pushy, but the man had given Mandy and him anything they’d needed without question when Mandy was pregnant and sick and when Sammy was struggling through his short life. Because of that, Dr. Donovan could ask Daniel to crawl on his belly across hot coals and he’d do it.
“And, Daniel, you should consider bringing a date, it will help the matrons keep their minds on donations and not other things.”
“Dr. Donovan, I’d like to release the site in Bailey’s Cove to Ms. Parker. The builder’s project is in jeopardy and the sooner the site is free, the better.”
“Not yet. We need to see what this donor expects, how much they want to be involved. We may need the raw site as leverage. If it’s demolished and plastered over, even if we hang a plaque on it, it won’t be distinguishable from any other site where you have to take people’s word that something significant happened there.”
“I’ll invite the builder to come tomorrow night.”
“Go ahead. Just make sure he dusts his coveralls off first.”
“I’ll do that,” Daniel said, picturing Mia the first time he’d met her.
“I have to go. There is a nice bland chicken breast and dry salad dinner with my name on it.” He patted his spreading waistline and, his business done, scooted out the door.
Daniel drove to his condo, willingly for the first time in a long time. When he got there he kicked off his shoes, poured two fingers of neat scotch and made a phone call to Mia.