“I know.” Taylor was pretending again. It was easier. Maybe he had told her mom that before she’d passed. Maybe he thought he had. “A trip to the beach won’t hurt you.”
“Makes my rheumatism act up.”
“You’d rather stay here with Ellery then? That’s fine. I don’t mind.” Taylor had actually hoped for his company. Someone to bounce ideas off, someone to be her reason for the trip.
“No, I wouldn’t. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Then what do you want to do tomorrow, Grandpa? Whatever you want, you’ve got it.”
“I’m supposed to make Quinn a suit.”
Taylor wasn’t sure if he was referring to her other grandpa or her deceased father. He called them both Quinn at times. But Taylor did know that he was gone for the night. He hadn’t made suits for anyone for at least thirty years.
“I’ll call him,” Taylor said.
“Good.” Grandpa Ernie let the electric recliner lift him to his feet and then shuffled off to his room.
Taylor didn’t call her other grandfather, but she did call her cousin Ellery.
“Hey Elle,” Taylor said when she answered.
“Tay, what’s up?”
“Grandpa Ernie’s getting pretty bad.”
“Mostly in the evening though. Well, early morning can be rough, but for the daytime and afternoon he’s really with it.”
“That’s good to hear. I tried to get him to go to the coast with me tomorrow.”
“He doesn’t like big changes like that.”
“I guess not. I was just thinking you could probably use a break.”
“True. It’s been a long week.”
“Can you take him to the day center at Bible Creek Care Home? I’m afraid we need to start getting him used to that place.” Taylor tried to sound bright, but her stomach twisted at the thought.
“I’m sorry. I know this must be really hard for you.” Ellery was quite a few years younger than Taylor, and Taylor was used to thinking of her as a kid. But she had a very soothing way of speaking. Ellery was going to be a great nurse once she got into the nursing school. Having her from dawn till dusk with Grandpa Ernie wasn’t helping that goal.
“Life is full of hard things, isn’t it?”
“Yup. Listen, I’ll take him there for lunch tomorrow and then we can go from lunch to the day center. And Tuesday, I’ll take him in the morning. We can make the transition easier if we’re consistent.”
“Ellery, honest to gosh, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Her mind went to the YouTube money that she was about ready to launch into a massive ad campaign for Flour Sax. Taylor had been doing a little here and there to test the local marketplaces but hadn’t bit the bullet on a major campaign yet. She wished she could pay for Ellery’s nursing school instead. She’d have to talk to Grandma Quinny. She of the big heart and love of family, and generous spirit could help her figure out the best way to help. “That sounds like a great plan. When I get back tomorrow night, we can look over the schedule and make sure you have two days off in a row, asap.”
“Thanks Taylor, I appreciate it.”
Taylor ended the call feeling more secure than she had expected. It wasn’t that she wanted to cart her grandfather off to an old folks’ home, but…she wasn’t a stay at home mom with a live-in grandparent. She was a single working woman, and she just couldn’t give him what he needed.
Chapter Twelve
The mountains were blanketed in thick wooly fog as Taylor drove to the coast. On the other side of the coast range mountains, she was met with aggressive, unwelcoming rain. If she had been the kind of person to shy away from hardship, she would have turned around and gone back home where the days’ rain was merely a silken mist. Without Grandpa Ernie there as an excuse for taking a day trip, she had begged Sissy to come with her.
To her welcome surprise Sissy was not a bossy navigator. “Art,” Sissy had called him on their drive out, “my friend and I are coming by to see you. We just want to make sure you’re okay.” Sissy had him on speaker phone.
He responded slowly and with a quavering voice. You would have thought he was at least eighty. “That is thoughtful of you.”
“Where can we find you this morning?”
“I can meet you at The Morning Mug for a little breakfast.”
“Sure, sure but we’d also love to meet that little girl of yours. Would Una like breakfast out? My treat?”
“That’s not necessary, Sissy,” he said. “And she has school today.”
“Oh, of course she does, silly me. How about Gracie? We’d welcome her company.”
“She’s working.”
“At a surf shop in weather like this?”
“There’s always something to do when you own a business.”
“There sure is. Okay, Art, we’ll meet you at Morning Mug. Thanks.”
Taylor knew where the café was and went straight to it. Art was seated in the window at a bar height table, stooped over a paper cup of coffee.
Sissy and Taylor ordered muffins and coffee and joined him. The Morning Mug was a coast themed café, like most of them are on the coast, with classic yellow slicker clad fishermen statues by the front door and all things commercial fishing inside. They served any number of salmon-based breakfasts including the kedgeree and the cream cheese and lox muffin Taylor had ordered. It was good, but a traditional bagel would have been better.
“Nice of you ladies to come out.” Art had deep shadows under his eyes.
“Have you been sleeping?” Sissy asked. “You don’t look like it. You should come home.”
“I agree with you. Coastal living doesn’t suit me. Never has. It’s so dismal out here.”
“Only in the winter.” Taylor felt the need to represent a little love for the coast, though she herself was more of a lakes and rivers kind of girl.
“Indeed. I do enjoy a day at the beach with Una in the summer.”
“Has she enjoyed having you around?” Taylor asked.
“I suppose so, but it can be so challenging for a child to have a disruption in their normal schedule. Her life here with her mother and Guy is very good. I don’t like to discommode her.”
“You’re her father. You don’t bother her.” Sissy clucked.
“In my own place and time, we get along very well, but I can tell she finds this a bit of a stretch. To have both Guy and me in the same home must bother her little mind somewhat.”
“You know better than I do, but I have raised a child or two myself.” Sissy defended her stance.
“Change does affect children, but I’m sure even if it is a bit of a stress, it’s the positive kind, not distress.” Taylor hadn’t raised any kids but wanted to say something to lift Art’s spirits, if only a little. To be widowed was one thing, but to be widowed and also feel like a burden to your own child sounded heartbreaking.
He smiled, though not with those watery, deeply shadowed eyes that hid behind his wire rimmed glasses.
“How has she handled the news about Reynette? I had a loss at her age, so I understand a bit what she might be feeling.” As always, even alluding to the loss of her father brought a little smart to Taylor’s eyes. She sipped her coffee so she could look away.
He tilted his head sympathetically. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you. Perhaps losing her stepmother has more to do with her being out of sorts than your visit does.”
“I don’t believe she had formed any lasting attachment to Reynette.”
“Had they spent much time together?” Taylor nibbled the muffin. The streaks of cream cheese were rich and the bits of lox a lovely savory treat. She was changing her mind about a bagel being better.
“No.” He sipped his coffee and seemed to look past her, to the other side of the street—the buildings that hid the ocean view.
“Art, I know you were delivered here and dumped by your family, but if you want to escape, you can. We’d be happy to take you back.” Sissy’s offer
was out of the blue, but Taylor nodded enthusiastically.
He brightened quite a bit. “I hate being a third wheel. It’s not a comfortable position for a man.”
“I would think especially so if he is third wheel to his ex-wife.”
Art laughed. “All is not how it seems.” He looked around the room, then satisfied that the empty room was truly empty, he said, “Gracie was a mistake that I truly regret. Guy Sauvage was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Apart from Una, of course.” Sissy’s mama bear came out.
“Someday we’ll know…”
“What will you know?”
“Una is a lovely child, but she looks more like Guy every day. Perhaps she is my daughter. But perhaps she’s his and they enjoy having the child support checks more than they would enjoy her having his name.”
Taylor gritted her teeth. That old biological chestnut. Biology didn’t make family, and this man had been little Una’s father since her birth.
But Sissy nodded in understanding. “One would keep one’s distance in such a case.”
Taylor bit her tongue. Hard.
“Can we take you home to pack?” Sissy asked. “I’d like to say hi to Gracie before we leave though, would you mind?”
“Not at all.” He pointed to a yellow slicker like the famous fisherman statues wore. “I’m prepare to walk. It’s good for my health.”
“Then if you give us your address, we’ll meet you back at the house after we visit with Gracie at the shop for a bit. Just to see how she’s doing. She was friends with Reynette longer than you were, if I recall.” Sissy’s smile was all innocence.
“Yes, that would be kind of you. Reynette was almost a second mother to her.”
Sissy and Taylor sipped their coffees in silence as he wrapped himself in his protective outerwear and ventured into the weather.
“He just gives me the creeps,” Sissy said as soon as he was outside their line of vision.
“That’s exactly it, isn’t it? The more time I spend with him, the creepier he is. His son’s creepiness sort of hit me right off though.”
“Yes, Jason. He was on the library committee with me last year. Creepy is a great word for those Woods men.”
“But is it killed-my-wife creepy or just that normal creepy you run across now and then?” Taylor finished the last crumbs of her muffin and wished she had a second to take home for later.
“Even if he didn’t kill her, he somehow managed to make a perfectly lovely woman like my aunt Reynette think he was someone to hitch her wagon to. Can you imagine? She had money and freedom. Her daughter was grown. She had her passion for sewing. What did she need him for?”
“Was she lonely?” Taylor crumpled her muffin paper in her fist and stood.
“I’d have to be real lonely to hook up with him.”
“How long had she been…alone?” Taylor gathered her things and led Sissy to the door. She dropped her muffin paper in the garbage on her way out. The rain outside came down in steely sheets. She barely wanted to walk to the car, much less get out of it again before they made it all the way home, but she had brought this on herself.
“She’d divorced that loser she used to be married to at least twenty years ago.”
“Ten years is a long time to be alone.” Taylor had not gone ten months yet, but she could already feel the overwhelming longing to not be alone. Why else would she be holding on to Grandpa Ernie’s company so tight? The quiet house all to herself every night was not appealing.
“Wanna know what I’d like to wrap my mind around?” Sissy managed to push Taylor out into the rain.
“Sure, what?”
“Why on earth would that man stay at the home of a man he thinks stole his wife?”
“He said he was glad to see her go.” Taylor pulled her hood over her head and scuttled to the car.
“That’s what he said, but he doesn’t seem to care for Una, so why maintain a relationship with the three of them at all?”
“I wonder that, too.” They were safely in the car, dripping on the fabric seats of Taylor’s mom’s old Audi.
“Let’s see if Guy and Gracie can clear that up for us.” Sissy buckled up and gave directions to Guy and Gracie’s surf shop.
Savage Surf was one block closer to the ocean than Morning Mug, and they felt foolish pulling over again just as they turned the corner. Despite the weather and it being almost Thanksgiving, the shop was open.
A young woman probably in her late teens sat at the counter next to the register, her nose in a book. She looked up as they entered and nodded slightly. “Get in here out of the rain.” She gave her attention back to her book before they could respond.
The shop was small and packed. One wall sported a variety of swimming suits, the other was covered in various body boards for sale. A handful of spinning displays in the middle of the room sold sun block, rain hats, sunglasses, bandanas, aloe vera, and buckets of sand toys. Surfboards hung from the ceiling and a menu board on the back wall showed the prices for renting wet suits, boards and other equipment. “Are Guy or Gracie around?” Taylor asked.
“In the back. Doing inventory,” the helpful young person said.
“Can we see them?” Sissy asked.
The girl shrugged then hollered over her shoulder. “Guy, someone’s here to see you.”
“Just a sec!” A female voice responded.
A moment later both of them popped out. “Oh! Hello.” Gracie’s face was one of innocent confusion. Guy was immediately taken by the wall of swimming suits. Without saying even hello, he began to organize them.
“We had a memorial for Reynette yesterday,” Sissy said. “Missed Art at it.”
“Hannah told us.” Gracie tilted her head and smiled sadly. “But we thought it was best that Art just be with Una for a while. In fact, Guy and I are staying at the cabin while the two of them have some time alone.”
“The cabin?”
“Sure, even folks who live at the coast want to get away.” She laughed lightly. “We have a cabin in the mountains on a nice little stream. Close enough we can come in to work without any trouble, but away from town for when we just can’t take the tourists anymore.”
“Funny to want to escape your bread and butter,” Sissy said.
“It’s for me and Una more than Guy.” Gracie’s smile never wavered. “She deserves some quiet down time too.”
Guy still hadn’t spoken. He was a tall handsome man, like you’d expect at a surf shop. He looked to be the same age as Gracie. Virile with a square and scruffy jaw. He wore board shorts and a surf branded T-shirt despite the weather.
“Have you talked to Fawn lately?” Taylor ventured. Gracie and Fawn were supposed to be old friends after all.
Guy snorted. “Every five minutes.” He shoved a stack of kids’ sun-blocking swim shirts on a hook in the middle of the wall. “I swear those two are the worst.”
Taylor could feel Sissy bristle all the way across the shop.
“How’s she holding up?”
“Not well.” Gracie boosted herself onto the counter for a seat. Her employee had to scoot back to make room for her. “She and her mom were super close.”
“Did she work for her mom?”
“Yeah, with Montana. They both ran the thrift store.”
“I guess it’s closed right now then?” Taylor was holding up her end of the conversation okay, but Sissy was fuming. She seemed to have grown a foot taller, and her shoulders were thrown back, chin out.
“Of course not. Montana has been there every day, plus they have a staff.”
“Is she still thinking someone killed her mom?” Taylor asked.
Gracie looked past her to where Sissy stood staring at Guy. “I don’t know that she ever thought that. I was under the impression you two were the ones who suspected foul play.”
“My aunt didn’t die of a drug overdose.” Sissy had to hold herself back from hollering.
“No, just of having taken a bit too
much over the counter.” Guy didn’t sound sympathetic.
“She didn’t.” Sissy stepped forward, almost like she was ready to fight.
“It’s a hard time for everyone,” Taylor soothed. “That’s why we came out here, really. Sissy…You know, we’re old friends Sissy and I, and she needs more closure.”
Sissy gritted her teeth.
“I can see why. You know I loved her, too, don’t you? Why else would I want her as my daughter’s stepmom?”
“Still claiming Art’s the dad, huh?” Sissy spit.
Taylor moved back to Sissy and put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret.”
Guy stiffened. “Una is my girl. I’ve been raising her since the day she was born. Before even. I’m the one who went to all the doctor’s appointments with Gracie. I’m her dad.”
“That’s what I hear,” Sissy’s voice oozed with sarcasm.
“Shut up.” Gracie’s face was red.
“Belle, my sister, she was adopted,” Taylor said this to Guy. “But she’s my sister and damn anyone who claims biology trumps.”
“Exactly.” Guy calmed down. “Art’s a good guy, but he has that ‘I already raised my kids’ thing going.”
“I met Guy shortly after I found out I was pregnant. Guy didn’t suggest I terminate.”
“Art did?” Taylor’s stomach went sour.
“I guess when we married, he wasn’t looking for a whole second family.”
“Disgusting,” Sissy said. “How dare he marry a young girl like you and not realize you’d want your own family?”
“I don’t know that I did before I got pregnant. We hadn’t talked about it. We’d talked about research trips and books we could co-author and what I’d do my PhD Thesis in.”
“Do you ever wish you had done all that?” This was a new side to Gracie, one Taylor hadn’t expected.
“No way. The minute the stick turned pink I knew what I wanted. I wanted my one and only—my Una. Not that I don’t love working, or study, but Art seemed to think it was one or the other.”
“If you hadn’t met Guy would you have stayed with Art?”
“Nope. I was done. I was already living with my mother when I met Guy. Mom and I came here for a weekend just to cry and mope and stuff in the rain. Ran into this shop to dry off and there he was.”
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