Chesapeake Blue (Chesapeake Bay Saga 4) - Page 13

  a careful signature, she recognized it as a child's even before she read the date printed beneath.

  He'd drawn it when he was a child, she realized. Just a little boy making a picture of his home—and already recognizing its value, already talented and insightful enough to translate that value, that warmth and stability with his pencil.

  Helplessly, her heart softened toward him. He might be an idiot with an oversized water pistol, but he was a good man. If art reflected the artist, he was a very special man.

  She followed the sound of voices back into the kitchen. This, she recognized immediately, was another family center, one captained by a female who took cooking seriously. The long counters were a pristine white making a bright, happy contrast to the candy-apple-red trim. They were covered with platters and bowls of food. Seth stood with his arm around Anna's shoulders. Their heads were close together, and though she continued to unwrap a bowl, there was a unity in their stance.

  Love. Dru could feel the flow of it from across the room, the simple, strong, steady flow of it. The din might have continued from outside, people might have winged in and out the back door, but the two of them made a little island of affection.

  She'd always been attracted to that kind of connection, and found herself smiling at them before the woman—that would be Grace—backed out of the enormous refrigerator with yet another platter in hand.

  "Oh, Dru. Here, let me take those."

  Grace set the bowl aside; Anna and Seth turned. And Dru's smile dimmed into politeness.

  Her heart might have softened toward the artist, but she wasn't about to let the idiot off the hook too easily.

  "Thanks. They're only damp really. The shirt got the worst of it."

  "I got the worst of it." Seth tipped his head toward Anna before he stepped forward. "Sorry. Really. I don't know how I mistook you for a thirteen-year-old boy."

  The stare she aimed at him could have frozen a pond at ten paces. "Why don't we just say I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and leave it at that."

  "No, this is the right place." He took her hand, lifted it to his lips in what she imagined he thought of as a charming gesture. And damn it, it was. "And it's always the right time."

  "Gack," was Jake's opinion as he swung through the back door. "Crabs are going in," he told Seth. "Dad says for you to get your ass out there."

  "Jake!"

  Jake sent his mother an innocent look. "I'm just the messenger. We're starving."

  "Here." Anna stuffed a deviled egg in his mouth. "Now carry this outside. Then come back, without slamming the door, and apologize to Dru."

  Jake made mumbling noises around the egg and carried the platter outside.

  "It really wasn't his fault," Dru began.

  "If this wasn't, something else was. Something always is. Can I get you some wine?"

  "Yes, thanks." Obviously, she wasn't going to be able to escape. And the fact was, she was curious about the family that lived in a young artist's pencil sketch. "Ah, is there something I can do to help?"

  "Grab whatever, take it out. We'll be feeding the masses shortly."

  Anna lifted her eyebrows as Seth grabbed a platter, then pushed the door open for Dru and her bowl of coleslaw. Then Anna wiggled those eyebrows at Grace. "They look cute together."

  "They do," Grace agreed. "I like her." She wandered to the door to spy out with Anna. "She's always a little cool at first, then she warms up—or relaxes, I guess. She's awfully pretty, isn't she?

  And so… polished."

  "Money usually puts a gleam on you. She's a bit stiff yet, but if this group can't loosen her up, nothing can. Seth's very attracted."

  "So I noticed." Grace turned her head toward Anna. "I guess we'd better find out more about her."

  "My thoughts exactly." She went back to fetch the wine.

  THE Quinn BROTHERS were impressive examples of the species individually. As a group, Dru decided, they were staggering. They might not have shared blood, but they were so obviously fraternal—tall, lanky, handsome and most of all male.

  The quartet around the huge steaming pot simply exuded manhood like other men might a distinctive aftershave. She didn't doubt for a moment that they knew it.

  They were what they were, she thought, and were pretty damned pleased about it.

  As a woman she found that sort of innate self-satisfaction attractive. She respected confidence and a good, healthy ego. When she wandered around to the brick pit where they steamed the crabs to deliver, at Anna's request, a foursome of cold beer, she caught the end of a conversation.

  "Asshole thinks he's Horatio fucking Hornblower." From Cam.

  "More like Captain fucking Queed." Muttered by Ethan.

  "He can be anybody he wants, as long as his money's green."

  Delivered with a shrug by Phillip. "We've built boats for assholes before, and will again."

  "One fuckhead's the same as—" Seth broke off when he spotted Dru.

  "Gentlemen." She never batted an eyelash. "Cold beer for hot work."

  "Thanks." Phillip took them from her. "Heard you've already cooled off once today."

  "Unexpectedly." Relieved of the bottles, she lifted her wineglass to her lips, sipped. "But I prefer this method to the Super Soaker 5000." Ignoring Seth, she looked at Ethan. "Did you catch them?" she asked, gesturing to the pot.

  "Deke and I, yeah." He grinned when Seth cleared his throat. "We took him along for ballast," he told Dru. "Got blisters on his city hands."

  "Couple days in the boatyard might toughen him up," Cam speculated. "Always was puny though."

  "You're just trying to insult me so I'll come in and do the hot fifty-fifty work." Seth tipped back his beer. "Keep dreaming."

  "Puny," Phillip said, "but smart. Always was smart."

  "I wonder if I could come in sometime, take a look around at your work."

  Cam tilted his head toward Dru. "Like boats, do you?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Why don't we go for a sail," Seth asked her.

  She spared him a glance that was on the edge of withering. "Keep dreaming," she suggested and strolled away.

  "Classy," was Phillip's opinion.

  .•

  "She's a nice girl," Ethan said as he checked the pot.

  "Hot," Cam commented. "Very, very hot."

  "You want to cool off, I'll be happy to stick the Super Soaker 5000 up your ass," Seth told him.

  "Got a bead on her?" Cam shook his head as if in pity. "She looks out of your league to me, kid."

  "Yeah." Seth gulped more beer. "I'm a big fan of interleague play."

  Phillip watched Seth wander off, then chuckled. "Our boy's going to be spending a hell of a lot of money on flowers for the next little while."

  "That particular bloom's got some long stems on her," Cam remarked.

  "Got careful eyes." Ethan gave the traditional Quinn shoulder jerk when Cam frowned at him. "Watches everything, including Seth, but it's all one step back, you know. Not because she's shy—the girl isn't shy. She's careful."

  "She comes from big money and politics." Phillip considered his beer. "Bound to make you careful."

  "Saint Chris is a funny place for her to end up, isn't it?" To Cam's mind, family forged you—the family you were born to or the family you made. He wondered how Dru's had forged her.

  SHE'D INTENDED to stay no more than an hour. A polite hour while her clothes dried. But somehow she was drawn into a conversation with Emily about New York. And one with Anna about gardening. Then there were the mutual acquaintances with Sybill and Phillip from D.C.

  The food was wonderful. When she complimented the potato salad, Grace offered her the recipe. Dru wasn't quite sure how to announce that she didn't cook.

  There were arguments—over baseball, clothes, video games. It didn't take her long to realize it was just another kind of interaction. Dogs sidled up to the table and were ordered firmly away—usually after someone snuck food into a canine mouth. The breeze blew in

cool over the water while as many as six conversations went on at the same time.

  She kept up. Early training had honed her ability to have something to say to everyone and anyone in social situations. She could comment about boats and baseball, food and music, art and travel even when the talk of them and more leaped and swirled around her.

  She nursed a second glass of wine and stayed far longer than she'd intended. Not just because she couldn't find a polite way to leave. Because she liked them. She was amused by and envious of the intimacy of the family. Despite their numbers and the obvious differences—could sisters be less alike than the sharp-tongued, sports-loving Aubrey and Emily, the waiflike ballerina?—they were all so firmly interlinked.

  Like individual pieces of one big, bold puzzle, Dru decided. The puzzle of family always fascinated her. Certainly her own continued to remain a mystery to her.

  However colorful and cheerful they seemed on the surface, Dru imagined the Quinn puzzle had its share of shadows and complications.

  Families always did.

  As did men, she thought, turning her head deliberately to meet Seth's dead-on stare. She was perfectly aware that he'd watched her almost continuously since they'd sat down to eat. Oh, he was good at the conversation juggling, too; she'd give him that. And from time to time he'd tune his attention fully on someone else. But his gaze, that straight-on and vivid blue gaze, would always swing back to her.

  She could feel it, a kind of heat along her skin. She refused to let it intrigue her. And she certainly wasn't going to let it fluster her.