Holidays at Crescent Cove

by Shelley Noble

  Jake walked across the tarmac and made sure the carousel and arcade were locked. Then he got in his truck and, driving slowly through the few lingering people, crossed the wooden bridge that spanned the salt marshes and drove . . . back into town.

  He parked on the street in front of Grace’s apartment building, a nineteenth century warehouse that had been converted into several apartments, each detailed to reflect the period of the architecture. They’d done a good job. He’d been upstairs once recently, when he dropped off some copies of the carousel’s original deed and licensing agreement for Grace to use in her petition.

  He hadn’t stayed. She hadn’t asked him to.

  So now what? Sit in his truck watching her door like some stalker? He should have thought to bring her something from the diner. Shit. She hadn’t eaten, and here he sat empty-handed. He could drive back to the diner and get her a sandwich, but he wasn’t sure what she liked.

  Grace was a pastry freak. It gave her a softness missing in her thinner, sleeker friends. That brought a smile to Jake’s lips. He liked a woman with a little curve to her. A little softness. Call him old fashioned, but he didn’t go for hard-muscled, whip-strong women. He’d gone out with a few. They had been exhausting and demanding, all night clubbing, marathon sex with a lettuce chaser.

  But Grace. He bet she was good in bed. She was meticulous about everything. Jake opened the truck door and jumped out. He was pitiful. Sitting outside Grace’s apartment thinking about sex. Better to get some pastries and go from there.

  He decided to walk the two blocks to Cupcakes By Caroline. It would give him time to get his head on straight.

  Caroline happily filled a box with a couple of bear claws, a couple of Danishes, some éclairs, and two key-lime-pie cupcakes, and tied the box up with a pink ribbon. It wasn’t until Jake was out the door that he realized he’d gone a bit overboard. He wasn’t expecting a party. And he wasn’t asking her to invite him to share them . . . exactly.

  His feet seemed to drag as he walked up the flight of steps to the second floor. Hell, she might not even be there. He should have thought to ask Margaux what Grace’s plans were. But that would have been obvious, and he’d taken enough guff and questioning from Nick that morning.

  He knocked on her door before he could talk himself out of it.

  The door opened. “Did you forget something? I was just—” She looked up, saw him and froze. “Oh, shit.”

  She was wearing a short silky kimono thing that barely reached her knees, dark wet hair framed her face, and her eyes were magnified by thick black-rimmed glasses.

  “I thought you might be hungry,” Jake said. He thrust the bakery box at her. “Here.”

  Chapter Four

  MECHANICALLY, GRACE TOOK the box. He couldn’t have come ten minutes earlier? Before her shower? An hour later? Once she was put back together again?

  Did he have to come when she was half blind and wearing one of Margaux’s designs, which would look great on Marlene Dietrich but probably looked like a kid playing dress-up on her. At least she wasn’t wearing her ratty flannel pajamas. That would have just cut it.

  If this was karma, she supposed it’s what she deserved.

  “Thanks,” she said, the box hovering between them like a cardboard chaperone.

  “Well, see ya.” Jake turned on his heel, stopped. Turned back. “Do you know you look sexy as hell in that?”

  And left her staring after him as he took the stairs two at a time.

  Sexy? Had he said sexy? And she’d just stood there like a dolt? Grace groaned as she finally closed the door and gave it a vicious kick with her bare foot. “Ouch.”

  She padded over to the table. Pulled the ribbon from the box. There was enough food for a party. Had he planned on staying? And she’d scared him away. Or did he expect she would just eat the whole box of pastries? They did look tempting, especially in her present mood, but she’d never eaten a box of anything . . . well, not since she was a kid and got violently ill on Mallomars. She couldn’t help it if she had a sedentary job and bad genes.

  It didn’t help that her two best friends were gorgeous, sleek, thin, and wouldn’t be caught dead in a navy blue suit and two inch heels. But hell, she couldn’t hobble back and forth from the defense table to the bench to the jury in four inchers, which is what Bri was always trying to get her to buy. She’d probably fall on her face.

  But in two inch heels she was unstoppable. So best just to stay in her comfort zone.

  She looked around. Her apartment was just like she’d planned it, unfinished brick wall on one side, oyster shell paint on the others, comfortable, overstuffed furniture. Cozy, friendly, the softer side of the rational lawyer.

  And feeling singularly solitary at the moment.

  Grace went over to the window and looked out. Jake’s truck was just pulling out of a parking place directly below her apartment. So close, she could open the window, jump and land in the bed, and ask him what he meant by sexy. And probably break a leg or two, not to mention revealing more of her body that she cared for anyone to see.

  “Grace Holcombe, you’ve got a self-esteem issue—issues.” She snared a bear claw from the box and went to the kitchen to make another cup of coffee.

  She stopped after the bear claw just to prove she could. Put the rest of the booty in plastic and sat down on the couch to drive Jake McGuire out of her mind. It only took the image of Sonny Cavanaugh killing that pregnant young woman to do it.

  She knew she wasn’t really responsible for his felonies. Even if she hadn’t gotten him off the first robbery charge, he would have made bail, maybe even pulled community service with no jail time at all. First offense—at least the first one he’d been caught at, anyway. His insistence that he’d fallen in with the wrong crowd, saw the error of his ways, yadda yadda. The excuses, the lack of remorse. It made her sick.

  God, she remembered it like it was yesterday. How the hell did a twenty-four-year-old get his hand slapped for getting in with the “wrong “crowd? Other men his age were building a career, starting families, going to war, and he was stealing cars and knocking off convenience stores for the fun of it.

  Even if she’d bungled the case and he had been found guilty, he would have been back in a matter of months. He’d killed—twice. And chances are he would keep killing if someone didn’t nail his butt to the wall.

  How could her father, a man she had wanted to be like her entire childhood, agree to represent a man like Sonny Kavanaugh. Grace had worked her butt off to graduate from law school at the top of her class, not just because she was so zealous about learning everything there was in her fight for justice, but to gain her father’s praise. She’d initially even given up her plan to practice small town law for, just to please him.

  And where had this all led? He’d kicked her out of the firm and banished her from the family. What kind of man was he really?

  And why did she care? It was hard to believe that just this morning she’d been envying Jake and Margaux for their families; even Bri, who was making her own.

  It was better not to have family if this was what they demanded. Her father obviously didn’t care. Her mother was unhappy about the breach. She’d spent the first two years trying to reconcile them and finally just gave up. Grace suspected that her parents pretty much led separate lives. But hadn’t they always? Even before she blew the family apart?

  Her father was stubborn and so was she. He took her abdication personally, but she was the one who had paid. But it was worth it. At least she had her integrity, though integrity didn’t go far toward paying the rent. He was the one who took money to fast-talk a jury into letting the scumbag go instead of sending him to jail where he belonged.

  She knew all of his excuses. “Everyone deserves a fair trial, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, it’s an imperfect system, but a just system.” Was it? When some poor kid, barely re
pped by a court-appointed public defender, was sent away for lesser offenses, while Sonny-boy hired the most persuasive lawyers with the most clout in town and walked. That was just?

  When had her father sold out to the double standard, loophole riddled LAW and left justice behind?

  She clicked on the television and wandered over to her DVD collection, looking for something to watch, to bring back her fire for the bar, her belief in the law, a movie where the bad guy gets what he deserves. Her index finger trailed across the titles, Erin Brockovich, My Cousin Vinny, lingered on Inherit the Wind before moving on. to 12 Angry Men. She’d had enough anger for one day.

  Witness for the Prosecution. No not that one; too close to home. The Firm. Definitely not that one. Legally Blonde. That was tempting. Leave it to Reese Witherspoon to put the legal system right and do it wearing pink.

  But not today; today she wanted . . . Ah, To Kill a Mockingbird. Now there was a lawyer who was willing to risk everything for justice, for truth.

  She slipped the DVD into the player. Poured another cup of coffee and curled up on the couch to push Jake McGuire and Harrison Cavanaugh from her mind and spend the afternoon with Atticus Finch.

  “HOW WAS YOUR brunch?” Seamus rolled the r as he always did when he was feeling smug or had too much to drink. Today Jake was pretty sure it was smugness. It was the eyebrows that gave him away.

  “Fine.”

  “Ah, and it was that good, was it? So why are you home before midnight?”

  “Cut the crap, Dad. It was breakfast and it ended up being just me, Nick, and Connor.”

  “What? Didn’t you mind your manners?”

  “Yes. She got upset over some law case.”

  “And you didn’t do anything to make her forget it?”

  “Just leave it, Dad.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “You’ve been pushing me at Grace since she volunteered to help with the designation petition—”

  “She’s a lovely girl, you do well together. And might I remind you, you’re not getting any younger.”

  Jake clapped both hands to his head in frustration. “I know that. I like her, she might even like me . . . a little. But I’d like to handle this in my own way.”

  “But you don’t, son. I’ve been watching you all winter and summer long. First it was that schoolteacher up at the Eldon School. Nice girl. Then pfsst. No more of her. Then that cutie from the sun and surf store on the boardwalk. I saw her today with a good-looking guy . . . younger than you.”

  “I’m only thirty-eight.”

  “Getting close to forty.”

  “Which is a good reason not to get involved with a twenty-two-year-old.”

  “Hell, even Nick Prescott got himself a wife.”

  “Yeah, after two decades of waiting. I don’t really plan to wait that long. So stop nagging. You sound like one of those pushy mothers who—” He knew the moment it came out of his mouth it was the wrong thing to say. “Sorry, Dad.”

  Seamus waved him away. “Suit yourself,” he mumbled as he walked away. A minute later Jake heard his bedroom door close and mentally kicked himself. His dad missed his mom more than he let on. All that flirting with the widows was just a mask.

  And the worst part of it was that his mother wasn’t even dead. Though it might be better if she was. God forgive him for the thought.

  Jake grabbed a soda out of the fridge and went out to his woodworking shop to sweat for a few hours of hard labor, stripping the ornate antique French mantel he’d scored at an estate sale.

  If restored properly, it would be worth ten times what he paid for it, but it would take an appreciative buyer with deep pockets. It seemed Jake was always in need of money, and he would never look askance at a bit of appreciation.

  Which brought his mind right back to Grace Holcombe. And the way she looked in that little robe thing. Had she been that shocked to see him? Embarrassed? Or just annoyed? It was hard to tell with Grace. She played her cards close to her chest. Which made him think of that robe again. And he decided then and there that he was going to stop being an ass and ask the woman on a date.

  He’d call her and just ask. Tonight. Or maybe tomorrow, or . . .

  EVEN ATTICUS FINCH couldn’t keep Grace’s mind from curving right back to the court case, which led inevitably to her relationship, or nonrelationship, with her father. Why couldn’t he just be like other fathers, some working stiff that put in his time at the office and came home to watch television, instead of the brilliant, and—Grace was beginning to believe—unscrupulous lawyer he’d become.

  The tears she’d shed over the movie, she knew were partly for herself and her own family. Atticus had stood up for what he believed, even putting his children at risk, and for the first time she saw him in a new light. A man driven, yes, but was it purely altruistic? She clicked off the television and lay on the couch in the gathering dusk, not moving, but wondering what drove people to do what they did.

  Which was a stupid way to spend her day off, and a day that should be a celebration to boot. She went to the kitchen. There was a steak in the freezer, but a celebration for one wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.

  She picked up her cell, which she now realized she’d turned off for the ceremony and forgotten to turn back on. Seeing that newspaper article had driven everything else out of her head. She turned it on and her message queue filled up.

  Several calls; two of them were the same. It was a number she knew—her parent’s landline. She deleted it without checking to see if there was a message. Stood clutching the phone as her anger surged again. He hadn’t bothered to call in the last three years. Why now? Warning her not to discuss the case? Who would she discuss it with? Who would even think to ask her opinion?

  Her part in the whole fiasco was long over. He needn’t have bothered. No way was she going to say anything. Not even something detrimental to his case. He could go to hell as far as she was concerned. Whether he won or lost, he was going there anyway.

  She scrolled down and deleted his second call.

  Which left her only marginally feeling better. She needed something to keep her mind off her father and the scum he was defending.

  She knew she could go out to Bri’s and share in their steamed eggs and rice.

  That made her smile. She wondered how Bri was adapting to a change from baguettes and wine to the simple Chinese fare the girls would eat. She admired her friend. She knew what she wanted, she went after it, persevered through a ridiculous amount of red tape, which Grace knew because she had helped Bri navigate through some of it.

  Or Margaux and Nick would welcome her, except they had little enough time for themselves. Which left . . .

  She scrolled through her contact list. Found the McGuire house phone number. After all, it was Seamus’s desire to reopen the carousel that had started the whole restoration and preservation idea.

  If anyone deserved to celebrate, it was the McGuires. She pressed Dial. It rang for a long time and she was about to hang up when Seamus said, “Hello?”

  He sounded as if he’d been sleeping. He was always so robust and jocular that it came as a surprise to hear him like this.

  “Hi. It’s Grace Holcombe.”

  “Well, hello there, Gracie.”

  Grace smiled at the phone. It didn’t take him long to change into his Mr. Debonair mode. “Great ceremony we had this morning,” she extemporized.

  “Certainly was,” he agreed.

  “I thought if you and Jake had no plans for the evening, I’d take you out for a celebration dinner. I should have asked sooner, but I got tied up.”

  “We’d love to.”

  “Uh, Seamus. Shouldn’t you ask Jake if he’s free? Though you and I can go regardless.”

  “Oh he’s free. Out in the shed, working on something or another. I’ll make sure he gets cleaned
up nice. When should we pick you up?”

  “I’ll pick you up. Both of you. Say six-thirty? I’ll make reservations at the Rusty Nail.”

  “Yes ma’am, but we’ll pick you up at six-fifteen. Let everybody see that I’ve got myself a date with the prettiest girl in town.”

  “See you then.” Grace hung up, smiling in spite of herself. She had fought all her life to be taken seriously, especially as a litigation lawyer, not an easy feat for a woman who stood almost five-three if she stretched.

  Normally she’d bristle if a man called her a pretty girl. But she didn’t mind at all when Seamus did. Because it was as if he treated her like . . . like . . . a daughter. Why couldn’t her father be like Seamus McGuire?

  Chapter Five

  “YOU MAKE ME look like an idiot,” Jake groused as he pulled his father’s Chevy up to Grace’s apartment building.

  Seamus laughed. “You don’t need your old man for that. Now, go to her door like a gentleman.” He started getting out of the car.

  “Are you coming, too?”

  “Nope, I’m getting into the backseat.”

  Jake gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t stay mad. His father had gotten by all his life on his charm, even with his own children. Jake left him to it and climbed the stairs to Grace’s apartment.

  He stood at the door for a second, wondering what she’d be wearing this time and steeling himself not to say something stupid. He’d inherited a bit of his father’s charm, but not when it came to Grace. Maybe because she didn’t react the way most women did and it kept him off balance. Hell, they hadn’t even been on a date.

  The door opened while he was standing there. Jake started, Grace let out a squeak.

  “Sorry,” he managed.

  “I saw your car and was coming down,” she explained.

  They both smiled awkwardly; Grace locked her door and they went downstairs without speaking.