“So, he was surprised. What’s the big deal?”
“He told me yesterday that his boss decided the lighthouse should be torn down.”
“Uh-oh. And you—”
“Hadn’t told Henry or the Society members.”
“Ouch. Yeah, you kind of messed up.”
“And then—”
Julie held up her hand. “You don’t need to tell me the rest. I’m picturing it. What now?”
“I have to tell everyone—my parents, my aunt and cousin—the place is going to be torn down...right after I practically begged all of them to support me.”
“But that’s not your fault, Grace.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” She opened the door to go upstairs. “Can you stay a bit longer? Until I come back from my parents’?”
* * *
JIM FOLLOWED DREW down the sandy hill to the car below. After Grace left, Drew had accompanied Jim and Henry around the lighthouse and up to the lantern room, where Jim inspected the lens, bulb and reflector.
“All of this would need replacing,” Jim had muttered. He’d cast a cynical eye at the missing brickwork and the gaping floorboards, but Drew was grateful that his boss hadn’t uttered a single word about tearing the tower down.
On their way out, a couple of Society members thanked them for coming. “It’s a crying shame,” one man remarked, “to see this part of our history fall into disrepair. We’re so happy it can be preserved.”
Jim had shot Drew a baleful look but simply nodded. It wasn’t until Drew turned onto the highway to Portland that Jim said, “I know you brought me here to show me the importance of the tower to the town, but whose idea was it to ask the Historical Society?”
“Um, that would have been Grace’s, sir. Maybe Henry’s, too. They kind of work together.” For a split second he envied that partnership, wondering if he’d ever have the chance to forge one with Grace, as well. Maybe not now, he thought.
“I had the impression they didn’t know about the teardown.”
Drew cast a quick glance his way. “Umm, maybe not.”
“But you told Grace?”
Drew kept his eyes on the road. “Uh-huh.”
“I see.” After a second of silence, Jim said, “She seems to be a fighter. Buying and restoring the tower is an ambitious project. Maybe too ambitious.”
Drew wasn’t about to have a conversation about Grace with his boss. He heard Jim leafing through the copy of The Beacon Drew had given him earlier and was grateful for the chance to think about the scene at the lighthouse and Grace. While he understood her desire to fight for her project—and Jim was right, she was a fighter—he couldn’t accept her refusal to compromise. Life was full of situations demanding compromise. A person had to know when to give in to an inevitable outcome.
His thoughts zoomed automatically to Bar Harbor and that fateful day. He recalled vividly the agonizing seconds that felt like hours until he made the decision to yield, to give in to the inevitability of the high seas, the hurricane force winds and the boat, already crammed with crew and rescued fishermen. Grace’s struggle was nothing compared to that dilemma, but considering the family tragedy connected to the lighthouse he could understand her tenacity.
“Drew?”
“Hmm?” He glanced across at Jim, who was holding up The Beacon and pointing to something on a page.
“There’s an ad in this paper asking for community volunteers and donations to the Brandon Winters Memorial with a photograph of the lighthouse. Do you know anything about this?”
Bile rose into Drew’s throat and he couldn’t speak. I might have known. I should have known there’d be one more thing she’d kept from me. Even after I asked her just yesterday—is this everything?—and she’d handed me the flyers. But no word about the ad. He looked at Jim and shook his head.
“Then can I assume it’s the work of Grace Winters?”
Drew swallowed. “I...uh... I guess so, sir.”
“But you told her the tower was going to be torn down.”
Drew cleared his throat. “Yes, I did, sir.”
“Then...” Jim was shaking his head. “I don’t understand why she’d place this ad.” His expression cast doubt on everything Drew had just told him.
“I don’t know why either, sir,” Drew croaked. Although he absolutely did know. Because she was a fighter and refused to back down.
Jim folded the paper and stowed it in the console between their seats. After a moment, he said, “I know this is none of my business...”
Drew closed his eyes, sensing what his boss was about to say and wondering how he’d respond.
“But is there a possible conflict of interest here? Between you and Grace?”
Drew inhaled and said, “I...um... I think there might be. Yes. There is, sir.” He felt his boss’s gaze on him but kept his own straight ahead.
“Okay,” Jim finally said. “Well, that’s definitely another complication.”
The talk ended there until Drew pulled into the station parking lot, where Jim had left his car. As his boss opened the passenger door, he paused to say, “I guess I won’t see you in the office until Tuesday. I believe you took off Monday, as well?”
Drew nodded.
“All right, then, I’ll see you in my office first thing, with a revised report on the Cove tower.” He climbed out and bent over to add, “If you come up with a solution to this problem before that, get in touch with me. And um, a word of advice, keep your eyes on the target. Don’t be distracted by less important factors.” He closed the car door.
Drew watched him get into his own car, going over what his boss had just said. What exactly had he meant by “the target”? What were these less important factors? As for the problem? The answer to that was one word—Grace.
He reversed onto the street, at a loss what to do next. Shower and clean clothes for sure. Then what? Long hours of mentally replaying the day or yesterday? No. However today’s events ended up, he couldn’t possibly put off what he had to do right now. Go back to Lighthouse Cove and Grace.
* * *
GRACE HAD CHANGED into the clothes she’d worn earlier, after a quick shower, briskly scrubbing off the dusty perspiration. If only she could cleanse her mind of the rest of it—the words and angry faces. Julie promised another hour, so she didn’t have a lot of time to inform her parents. Just as well to have a reason to escape the round of inevitable questions.
“This is a surprise.” Her mother looked up from the magazine she was reading in the solarium. Grace’s father sat opposite, a copy of The Beacon in his hands. Grace sighed at all the explaining she was facing. She hugged both of them and sat on the love seat next to her mother, hoping some of her mother’s innate empathy and acceptance would shelter her from her father’s interrogation.
“Who’s in charge of the store?” Charles immediately asked.
“My friend Julie.”
“Is something wrong, dear?”
Grace patter her mother’s arm. “No, Mom, but there’s something I have to tell you.” There were some details she omitted in her recap, most of them connected with the other aspects of Drew, the ones only she’d seen: his unexpected kiss the night of the fireworks—a memory that still brought a smile; his curious reaction to Terry’s questions about some sea disaster, which Grace hoped Drew would reveal. Most of all, the way he kept forgiving her.
Grace’s fervent hope was that she hadn’t misinterpreted the expression in his eyes at the lighthouse today, when he’d realized she’d gone behind his back yet again. Disappointment and hurt were more positive than anger, weren’t they?
“Let me get this straight,” her father said as soon as she finished. “There’s not going to be a memorial after all because the lighthouse is going to be torn down.”
“Yes. Well, no.”
“Which is it?
” He sounded bewildered rather than annoyed.
Grace studied his aging face, the new lines that had appeared gradually over the past year along with his heart problems. The fight was going out of him, she thought, and that was a worry.
“I’m not sure because I plan to appeal the decision. I’m going to rally the town and do whatever it takes to make Drew’s boss change his mind.”
“Hard to win against bureaucracy,” Charles grumbled. “And there’s a whole other level of government above Drew’s boss.”
“I know and I don’t care. Somewhere in their official manual there must be an instruction...or a proviso...about coexisting with ordinary people and with the communities they serve. Semper Paratus? That’s their motto, isn’t it? Always at the ready to serve and protect. Shouldn’t that apply as well to fostering a community’s desire to preserve its history?”
Grace’s parents stared at her as if they’d discovered their daughter was a changeling. She couldn’t resist a smile.
“Did you say all that to Drew or to his boss? If not, you must. Word for word.” Her mother wrapped an arm across Grace’s shoulders and pulled her close.
“So what now?” was all her father said.
“I’m not sure. I need some time to think. Plus, I still have to phone Aunt Jane and Suzanna, to fill them in.” She stood, feeling so much lighter now. “I should go. I told Julie I wouldn’t be long.”
“Come for dinner tomorrow, dear,” her mother said. “We can talk some more. Maybe plan our next steps.”
Grace loved her mother for that faith in her, that her daughter would accomplish exactly what she intended.
“And bring Drew, if he’s still in town. He needs to be part of the discussion.”
He did, Grace thought, wishing she’d realized that much earlier. Before yesterday and especially today. “I’ll let you know about dinner, Mom. I can’t promise.” She didn’t mention Drew. Right at that moment, she wasn’t sure when—or if—she’d ever see him again.
Julie was waiting for her near the door, clearly ready to leave and eager to hear her news. “I hope you weren’t too busy and sorry I took a bit longer,” Grace said.
“Things were slow. A couple of customers—a man looking for a book on lighthouses, which struck me as either a weird coincidence or a direct result of the ad in The Beacon—and a young girl looking for a new young adult book that I couldn’t find, so you must not have it.”
“What’s the title?”
“I wrote it down. It’s by the computer. So how did it go with your folks? Was your dad upset?”
Julie’s friendship in senior year of high school meant she’d had plenty of encounters with Charles. “He was surprisingly matter-of-fact although he did want to know who was in charge here at the store.”
“Probably picturing my seventeen-year-old self and wondering why me.”
Grace grinned. “No doubt. Listen, thanks so much, Julie.” She hugged her and waited by the door while she left. Then she checked the time. More than two hours until five and closing.
As she’d gloomily predicted, the rest of the afternoon dragged and the knowledge that Grace had no plans for the night lowered her mood further. She rearranged some books, checked the calendar for upcoming important events—none—and decided she might as well close the store on Mondays now, as well as Sundays. Couldn’t she use a two-day break like everyone else?
She glanced at the note Julie had left beside the computer—the book a girl had inquired about.
Always Be Mine. No author’s name. She’d check it out later.
About an hour before closing, the doorbell tinkled. Grace looked up sharply from the laptop. A teenage girl with a backpack was walking toward her and Grace sighed. Not Drew.
“Can I help you?”
The girl’s eyes darted everywhere but on Grace. Her face was bright red, with an anxious expression that Grace wanted to alleviate right away.
“Is everything okay?”
The girl nodded. “I was here before, when there was another lady working.”
“Oh. Are you the girl asking about this book?” Grace held up the note.
Another nod.
“I’m sorry I don’t have it but I’ll be happy to order it for you. Do you know the author?”
She shook her head. “My friends told me about it. They said it’s brand-new and supposed to be good. But don’t order it just for me ʼcause...”
“Because?”
“I won’t be able to buy it anyway.” Then she pulled off her backpack and opened it, pulling out a paperback, which she set on the counter.
Grace recognized it. One of her new purchases on the display table in the children’s book section. She frowned.
Before she could speak, the girl blurted, “I’m awful sorry but I took that book on my way out of the store. Before. When that other lady was here.”
This was a first and Grace had no idea how to handle shoplifting.
“I knew it was wrong, but I wanted a book so badly. And we only have one car and a new baby so my mom can’t drive me to the library in Portland. And my allowance is too small.” She gulped a breath. “Books cost a lot.”
They did, Grace thought. She gazed at the girl, who was fighting back tears, and remembered all the times she herself had come in for new books. She’d been lucky back then, because occasionally when her allowance ran out, Henry would let her read a book in the store. “No dog-ears,” he’d whisper, winking.
“What’s your name?”
“Becky,” the girl mumbled, staring at the floor. “Becky Oliphant.”
“I’m Grace, Becky, and this is my bookstore.”
The girl looked up.
“How old are you, Becky?” Grace impulsively asked.
“I’ll be fifteen next week.”
“Well, would you like to earn a bit of money this summer?”
Becky’s eyes widened.
“A part-time job?” Grace went on. “Maybe a couple of hours a day for the summer? If your parents allow, of course.”
A big nod, followed by, “Yes, please.”
Grace was still smiling at the girl’s beaming expression when she flipped over the open sign and locked up for the day. She knew she was taking a chance, but she reasoned Becky didn’t have to come back with the book. And she’d come on her own, not dragged in by an embarrassed parent. There were plenty of small tasks she could have her do. As for books...well, perhaps Grace could follow Henry’s lead there.
She closed the laptop and turned out the lights. Maybe she’d have dinner in town. Getting out and away from regretful thoughts would be good for her. Then tomorrow, after calling Aunt Jane and Suzanna, she’d begin planning her appeal to the Coast Guard.
She was heading up to her apartment when a hard tapping on the window of the front door stopped her. She closed her eyes, debating whether to ignore this late customer or open up again. It had been a tiring day and her brain urged for the first option. But a sale is a sale, she reminded herself. And this better be one. She unlocked the door and flung it open, thinking if the customer wasn’t intending to buy, the show of force might deter her. Or him.
Drew’s smile was a bit wobbly and his face strained. At his feet sat a medium-sized cooler and he had a blanket tossed over one shoulder, which almost made Grace laugh. Except if she did, she might also cry.
“Are you free to join me for a picnic supper on the beach?”
She was nodding long before she could manage to say, “Yes. Yes, I am.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
DREW WAITED DOWNSTAIRS while Grace changed, pacing around and occasionally picking up a book to flip through. He had no idea how this impulse was going to play out, if it was headed for disaster or not. Judging by Grace’s smile and the way her eyes lit up when she saw him standing at the door, he figured he had a good shot at fixing
things.
He noticed there were still several copies of that author’s book, Stories of the High Seas, on display and he thumbed through one to the index, curious to see if his own story was there. No, thankfully. Though hadn’t the guy mentioned he was thinking of writing another book to include it and perhaps Drew could give him some information? Not a chance. But Drew realized it was time to tell Grace. He hoped she wouldn’t be pitying.
When she breezed out of her apartment entrance, tote bag in hand, he asked, “Got your bathing suit?”
“Wearing it,” she said. “You?”
“Yes, though to be honest, the Maine sea isn’t my favorite place to swim.”
“Too cold?”
“You bet. Plus, the desire to immerse oneself in water isn’t a natural trait in an Iowan farm boy.”
Her laugh echoed in the store. “But you joined the Coast Guard!”
“What can I say? Piloting a boat isn’t the same as swimming.” Though it doesn’t always keep you dry, he almost added.
“Do you know that you’ve barely spoken about your job? Here I’ve been thinking you’ve always been connected to lighthouses.”
“I guess we still have more to talk about than...well...the current situation. And excuse the bad pun,” he added with a nervous laugh.
“Yes, we do.”
Drew saw the determination in her face. He’d made the right decision to come back today, rather than wait till tomorrow. As she was locking up, it occurred to him that they could drive. His car was parked in front.
When he suggested it, she said, “That’s a good idea, but parking spaces will be at a premium. Summer holidays, you know. Lots of tourists.” She thought for a minute and said, “We could park it at Henry’s and walk from there. He wouldn’t mind.”
She texted Henry as he stowed their things in the back of his SUV and when he climbed behind the wheel, she was smiling. “He sent a thumbs-up emoji.”
The short drive was quiet, as if neither one wanted to get into a serious conversation. Best done after a swim and a full stomach, Drew figured, but he felt his anxiety build. He needed to focus on reconciling and not reverting to the futile cycle of blame they’d established.
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