“I’d rather not discuss Nate, okay? You know,” she said confidentially, leaning toward him, “it would’ve been a perfectly wonderful night if he hadn’t kissed me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind.” She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s too hard to explain.”
“I guess I shouldn’t try to kiss you, then.”
“Don’t be too hasty,” Rachel said with a mischievous smile.
He smiled back.
But he didn’t kiss her. Standing in the well-lit parking area outside the restaurant, it would have been awkward to do anything more than exchange pleasantries.
“Do you still want Jolene to come over on Sunday?” Rachel asked.
“Sure. Can I see you then, too?”
Rachel nodded. Bruce opened her car door and she slid into the driver’s seat. “Thank you for dinner.”
“I’ll give you a call sometime tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay.”
Rachel pulled onto the highway and drove toward her own neighborhood, feeling more than a little confused. As soon as she got home, she saw that she had a telephone message.
Setting down her purse, she began to slip off her shoes and pushed the Play button on her machine.
Nate Olsen’s voice stopped her cold, one shoe off, one foot raised.
“Rachel, hi…I’m sorry I missed you.” His words were followed by a short pause. “I’m still thinking about our dinner and was just wondering if you were, too. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Thirty-Five
On the first Monday of August, Grace Sherman opened the library and posted the sign for the free movie that would be shown Saturday night. This was a new feature the library had begun in June. It’d been Grace’s idea, and the popularity of the event had surprised and delighted her. She believed the library should be part of the community, that it should be responsive to people’s needs and interests and attract patrons of all ages. She always chose a movie families could watch together. That often meant a classic; this week’s was The African Queen.
Mondays were always busy and the morning passed quickly. Loretta Bailey returned to her desk and Grace realized her assistant was already back from lunch. It seemed she’d left only a few minutes ago. If Grace was going to have lunch, she had to take her turn now.
She reached into the bottom drawer for her purse and when she straightened she came face-to-face with Lisa Shore, Cliff Harding’s daughter.
“Lisa,” she said, recovering quickly. “What a pleasant surprise!”
“Hello, Grace.”
She was a lovely young woman who reminded Grace of Cliff in a dozen different ways, although she didn’t resemble him physically.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to find you. I took a chance coming into town like this, since I wasn’t sure you’d be here. I felt we should talk.” The look in her eyes implored Grace.
“What are you doing in Washington?” That was a silly question; she was visiting her father, of course. Grace had no idea how much Lisa knew about what had happened between her and Cliff.
“Rich and I are here to see Dad. I don’t suppose you could squeeze in a quick lunch, could you?”
Grace struggled with her composure but managed to respond graciously. “Of course I can. Why don’t we sit down for a few minutes first? How’s April?”
“Growing by leaps and bounds,” Lisa said, obviously proud of her daughter. “Dad and Rich took her into Seattle.” She glanced away guiltily. “I told them I had a bad case of cramps, which is actually true, so they suggested I stay home. I wanted to come into town to see you—but that part I didn’t share with my dad.”
Grace understood how difficult it must’ve been for Lisa to mislead her father. What she had to say must be important.
Grace slung her purse over her shoulder, waved goodbye to Loretta and walked out of the library with Cliff’s daughter.
They were barely out the door when Lisa spoke with a quiet intensity. “I just had to find out what went wrong between you and my dad.”
Grace sighed, unsure whether or not she should be grateful that Cliff hadn’t said anything to his daughter. Then again, maybe he had. It was clear that Lisa knew something, or that she sensed it, anyway.
They bought crab salad sandwiches—the Pot Belly’s special of the day—and sat down on a park bench near the marina. Tourists and locals alike strolled past.
“Dad won’t tell me a thing,” Lisa said as soon as they’d unwrapped their sandwiches. “All I know is that you’re not seeing each other anymore.”
Grace focused her attention on the boats gently bobbing in the marina. She simply couldn’t look Lisa in the eye and explain what she’d done.
“Everything’s my fault,” Grace said, her voice trembling.
Her confession was followed by a short silence. “That’s not what my dad said.”
“He’s wrong,” Grace insisted. “I misled him—no, it’s more than that, I deceived him.” She refused to minimize her role in their separation. If not for her Internet relationship with Will, she suspected she’d be engaged or even married to Cliff by this time.
“How?”
Grace realized there was no help for it. Lisa had a right to know the truth. “I was seeing Cliff and at the same time involved with another man.” There it was—the plain and horrible truth.
Lisa gasped. “But that’s what my mother did. Now I understand…”
“I know, I know,” Grace whispered. Her betrayal had been unforgivable in Cliff’s eyes, a repeat of the betrayals he’d endured during his twenty-year marriage. Grace understood that she’d committed the one unpardonable sin and she accepted responsibility for it.
“Are you still involved with this other man?”
Grace shook her head. “It was quite a while ago.”
“Then why aren’t you seeing Dad?” Lisa finished the first half of her sandwich. Grace hadn’t started hers; she put it in her bag to eat later.
She clasped her hands together. “Cliff won’t have anything to do with me. I can deal with that now but it’s taken me a long time to reach this point. You have a wonderful father, Lisa. Although we aren’t part of each other’s lives any more, I’ll always love him.”
Lisa wrapped up the remaining half of her lunch, then crossed her arms and leaned back on the park bench. “I find that interesting, because Dad said almost those identical words to me. That he isn’t part of your life anymore but he loves you.”
“He loves me? He said that?”
“He was crazy about you when he brought you out to meet me last year—and he still is.”
“But…”
“You have to understand my father. He’s a complex man. He doesn’t give his heart easily, nor does he stop loving someone just like that.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis. “Look at all the chances he gave my mother.”
Grace rejoiced at Lisa’s words, but that joy was virtually shattered by Cliff’s adamant response. He loved her, despite what she’d done, and yet he refused to forgive her.
“I’ve tried to reach him,” Grace said in a low voice. “I was such a fool and when I discovered the other man intended to stay in his marriage…”
“He was married?”
Grace felt her face heat with humiliation. How easy it had been to rationalize her behavior at the time. Now, it mortified her even more. She had no excuse, no justification to offer, other than her own schoolgirl fantasies.
Lisa took her hand and squeezed it gently. “That explains why Dad’s acting this way.”
Grace hung her head. “You don’t know how much I regret everything.”
“I’m sure you do,” Lisa said gently. “Still, you bid on my dad in the Dog and Bachelor Auction.”
“How did you hear about that?” she asked, surprised that Lisa knew about the charity event.
“From Cal. How much did Dad cost you?”
“Your father was my birthday gift from my friends and my daughters, and th
ey paid a whopping eight hundred dollars.”
Lisa let out a low whistle.
“No one paid more for any bachelor.”
Lisa grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. “Have you gone on your date already?”
Grace nodded and decided she didn’t want to discuss their evening out. There really wasn’t much to say, which was depressing in itself. “He sent me flowers afterward,” she added sadly
“That sounds like my dad. You’re probably the only woman other than my mom and me he ever sent flowers to.”
If Lisa was hoping to encourage her, she’d failed miserably.
“How long are you in town?” Grace asked, changing the subject.
“Only until tomorrow—that’s why I had to speak to you this afternoon. It was now or never.”
“I’m so glad you did.”
Lisa sighed. “Dad has your picture in his bedroom. Did you know that?”
Grace shook her head.
“It’s on his bedside table. He doesn’t know I saw it, but I did. It’s one of you and Midnight.”
“He probably just forgot to take it down.” Grace didn’t want to get her hopes up, not after the disappointment of their dinner together, and the fact that she hadn’t heard from him after receiving the flowers. “Or,” she said dejectedly, “he’s just very fond of that horse.”
“Well, he is, but that’s not why he kept the photo in his room.”
Grace remembered the day Cliff had taken the picture. It’d been October and her first trip to his ranch. This was before he’d torn down the old barn and replaced it with the bigger, more modern stable. Cliff had given her the “grand tour,” and as they walked around his property, he’d shared his vision of the ranch. He spoke of the improvements he hoped to make, the breeding programs he’d planned to institute. She hadn’t understood a lot of it, but she’d felt his passion and his love for horses. That same day, he’d shown her his stallion and then stepped back to take her picture as she stood by the corral fence. At that very moment, Midnight had trotted toward her and poked his head over the top rung, curious about this stranger. Grace had turned to admire him and to stroke his sleek black neck. It was that image Cliff had captured on film. He’d shown her the snapshot, but he must have enlarged and framed it.
“I’m worried about my dad,” Lisa confided.
“Why? How do you mean?”
“He’s working too hard and he doesn’t seem nearly as happy as he was the last time I saw him. I didn’t notice it until this summer. He’s been trying to hide it, but I know my father.”
Grace wasn’t nearly as happy, either. “I wish I could help, but there’s nothing I can do.”
“But there is, don’t you see?” Lisa said with such fervor that tears sprang to her eyes. “Win him back, Grace. He loves you and you say you love him.”
“I do!” Her love for him was real; she wanted Lisa to believe that. “But he doesn’t want to see me.”
“That’s not true. Even Cal said my father’s a different person since you two broke up.”
“What should I do?” Grace couldn’t think of a single thing she’d left unsaid or undone. Despite Cliff’s repeated rejections, she’d tried again and again, until it became obvious nothing would change his mind about her.
“Fight for him,” Lisa pleaded.
“Who do I fight? Cliff himself? How?”
“Wear him down,” Lisa said. “Send him cards and letters.”
“E-mails?” she suggested, eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” Lisa cried. “Do something—anything—and don’t give up until you’ve broken through his defenses.” She twisted sideways on the bench, sitting so she could face Grace. “But only if you sincerely love my father.”
“I do,” Grace assured her again. “I truly do.”
“I felt you must—but I had to find out. I had to know for sure.”
The two women hugged. Grace was so moved by the honesty and hopefulness of Lisa’s words, she felt like weeping. “Oh, Lisa, I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t let me down.”
“I won’t,” she promised.
That very night, Grace wrote Cliff a long e-mail. She began by thanking him for the flowers and then told him how much their dinner date had meant to her. She said, in simple, straightforward sentences, that she missed him and thought of him often.
When she finished she reread the e-mail. In it, she shared her concern for Kelly and Paul and their struggles to have a second child. She wrote humorously about her trials with Sherlock, and how the kitten refused to be ignored, describing the inventive ways he pestered her until Grace lavished attention on him. This was Grace’s own less-than-subtle way of telling Cliff she wouldn’t go away, either. Not this time.
The next afternoon, during lunch, Grace walked down to the corner drugstore and purchased a handful of cards, some clever, a couple that had dramatic photos of horses, and a few romantic ones.
As soon as she got home from work, she hurried to her computer, animals in tow, and logged on to the Internet, hoping for a response from Cliff. Her heart fell when she found none.
“Did you think this would be easy?” she said to Buttercup. Sherlock scratched at her leg until Grace lifted him onto her lap. She petted him with one hand and typed with the other while she considered the possibilities. It could be that Cliff had deleted the e-mail without even opening it. Or decided to ignore it. Or perhaps he hadn’t checked his messages lately.
She e-mailed him a second time and mailed off a card the following morning. Eventually she’d wear him down, as Lisa had said. Eventually he’d see she wasn’t going away. She loved Cliff. He was the best thing in her life and she refused to give him up.
Thirty-Six
“Bob!” Peggy shouted from the foot of the stairs. “Phone!”
Bob laid down the script of Chicago—he’d been memorizing his lines—and walked to the top of the stairs. He’d been so intent on the scene, he hadn’t even heard the phone ring.
“Who is it?” he called.
Wearing her “Kiss the Cook” apron, Peggy stood there looking up at him. “He didn’t say.”
Mumbling under his breath, Bob hurried to the master bedroom and picked up the phone. “Hello,” he muttered impatiently.
“Robert Beldon? This is Colonel Stewart Samuels.”
The crisp military tones went through Bob like an electrical charge. It was the voice of a man he’d hoped never to hear from again. The voice of the man who’d led him into battle. A soldier who’d stood with him in a Southeast Asian jungle. Who’d saved his life and then, at the same moment, robbed him of it.
“Yes.” With difficulty he managed to respond.
“I’m going to be in the Seattle area in the next few weeks. We need to talk.”
It’d been more than thirty years since Bob had last spoken with his commanding officer. He could go another thirty years and it would suit him just fine. So far, the only person in contact with Samuels had been Troy Davis. Bob would’ve preferred to keep it that way.
The colonel continued, giving the details of his trip to the Pacific Northwest. Bob stood rigid until the other man announced he intended to visit Cedar Cove.
“Is that necessary?” Bob demanded. Seattle was too close for comfort, but having him in Cedar Cove for any length of time was downright intimidating.
“I believe it is. There’s a matter between us that requires resolution.”
How formal he sounded. So cold-blooded and hard.
“Two of our comrades are dead, one a suicide and one murdered,” he said. “I’m hoping we can figure this out, once and for all. Agreed?”
“Yes, I—” Bob wasn’t given a chance to finish his sentence.
“Good. I’ll have my assistant make the arrangements.”
Before Bob could comment further, the phone went dead. Bob stood there unseeing, his hand still on the receiver. After a moment, he replaced the phone and slowly, almost as if he were in a trance, walked down the
stairs.
Peggy was in the kitchen with Hannah preparing dinner. When she saw him she abruptly stopped mashing the potatoes.
“Who was that on the phone?” she asked, walking toward him.
He stared at her, still numb inside. “Colonel Samuels.”
“Stewart Samuels?” Hannah repeated, moving closer to Peggy.
Peggy glanced at Bob and then at Hannah. “What did he want?”
“He’s coming to Cedar Cove.”
Hannah let out a small cry of alarm and quickly covered her mouth. “What’s he coming for, did he say?”
Peggy wrapped her arm around the young woman’s shoulders. “Why are you so afraid?”
Bob wasn’t sure if the question was directed at him or Hannah, but their guest was the one who answered.
“He’s just so…military.”
“I thought you were grateful to him for all his help with your father,” Peggy said, looking at Hannah.
“I was…I am. Dad never would’ve gotten the medical care he needed if it hadn’t been for Colonel Samuels. But…he frightens me.” She trembled as if a chill had overtaken her.
“Bob?” His wife turned to him for answers he couldn’t give. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. He said he had business in the area and felt we should talk. He asked that I set up a meeting with Roy and the sheriff, too.”
Peggy frowned. “Does he think Dan Sherman’s death and Hannah’s father’s are linked?”
“I don’t know.” But it was more than that. Samuels had indicated that he had business with him, too. Bob didn’t want to see Stewart Samuels, didn’t want to be reminded of the past, and yet it was there, confronting him, and had been every day since his return from Vietnam.
That night, unable to sleep, Bob lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. The digital clock by the telephone told him it was after two, but he was wide awake. Peggy slept peacefully beside him, oblivious to his anguish.
A full moon cast shadows on the walls. With the window open, the scent of the cove, of seawater, wafted toward him. He usually found it relaxing, but tonight his mind refused to let him rest. Every time he closed his eyes, all Bob could see, hear, taste and smell was Vietnam. Tension filled him. He didn’t want to go back to those memories, didn’t want to think about them, didn’t want to feel.
Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove Series Page 116