chapter Twelve
The woman stood in the middle of the front office. Her tall, slender body was hidden inside a jacket that was easily three sizes too large for her. Her face was obscured by a hood that made her look like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Sophie, soaking wet, extremely angry, and inexplicably barefoot, stood next to her.
"Sit down over there," he ordered Sophie, pointing toward the chair against the wall. "I'll deal with you in a minute." She muttered something dark and terribly English but did as she was told. He wasn't fool enough to think compliance meant anything at all
"Thanks," he said to the mystery woman. "I'm going to have to put a bell on—"
"Hello, Noah."
He knew before he knew, if such a thing was possible. There was an instant before the realization coalesced into thought when he registered her presence with his very skin.
"Gracie?"
She shook off her hood in a gentle arc of raindrops and the years fell away when he saw her again. Damn you. He couldn't control the anger that ripped through him. Damn you for leaving.
"I didn't know you were back in Idle Point," she said, all cool and calm as if they'd seen each other the day before yesterday. "How long have you been here?"
So this is how you're going to play it, like you didn't walk out on me on our wedding day. "A few weeks. What about you?"
"Last night."
"You know about Ben and Laquita."
"That's why I came home."
"To try and stop it?"
"To be Ben's witness."
She had lived a life he knew nothing about, would never know anything about. "Things are okay with you and your father?"
She nodded and her hair, the same soft shiny brown he saw in his dreams, drifted across her cheeks. "We've come a long way."
That was good. He was a father now; he knew how much it mattered. He wanted to tell her that, but he was choking on his anger. It was always you, Gracie. There's never been anyone else.
She glanced toward Sophie. "She kicked me."
He nodded. "She does that."
"Who is she?"
"Her name is Sophie," he said. "She's my daughter."
Gracie looked like she'd been stabbed. Of all the things he could have said or done, nothing could have hurt her more deeply than this living proof that he had loved somebody else. He couldn't wish Sophie away, though. He wouldn't. She was the one shining triumph in eight dark years.
Noah watched her carefully. His words had found their mark. He could see the pain in her eyes and he was glad. That's how it feels, Gracie. Now you know.
"She's beautiful."
He nodded his thanks. "She's having trouble adjusting. Mrs. Cavanaugh put her on a two-day suspension."
"Kicking?"
"Biting."
"She sounds English."
"Her mother is from London."
"Oh." Her gaze swept the room. "Is your wife here?"
He shook his head, pushing away the question, the conversation. "I can't do this, Gracie."
Her brown eyes filled with tears—her emotions had always been so close to the surface—and for a moment he almost loved her again the way he used to love her, back in the days when he thought they could have it all.
"Neither can I," she said. "Take care, Noah."
"You too."
She was gone before he had the chance to change his mind and ask her to stay.
#
Gracie made it halfway down the block before she realized she couldn't breathe. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't pull enough air into her lungs to make a difference. The ground rolled beneath her feet. The horizon tilted at a crazy angle. She leaned against the window of Samantha's Bridal and prayed she wouldn't vomit.
He had a wife. That little girl was his daughter. Noah and his wife had created that beautiful bad-tempered little blonde she'd found running barefoot in the rain. Noah and his wife had held each other and loved each other and out of that love had come a miracle. Their daughter.
She didn't think she could hurt this much and still live. The pain was white-hot. It sliced through all the protective layers she'd built up over the years and split her in two. He had gone on with his life. He had picked up the pieces and moved forward the way she had said he should, the way she had told herself she had wanted him to do, the way she had lied to herself about every single day for the last eight years.
Sophie should have been theirs. She would have been theirs if—
Don't think about it. There's nothing you can do about any of it. You had to leave... you had no choice... you never had any choice...
Noah was an impossible dream and it wasn't because he had a wife and child. It was thanks to Simon Chase and her mother.
#
For eight years Noah had wondered what he would do if he ever saw Gracie again. Let her walk away again had never been one of the options.
He collared Andy. "Watch Sophie for me. I won't be long."
"She bites," Andy said, looking nervously in Sophie's direction.
"You're fifty-three," Noah said. "She's five. I think you can handle it. Get Sarah from accounting to help you." He was out the door.
Morning traffic rolled slowly down the rainy street. John Templeton and Myrna DeGrassi waved at Noah then disappeared into Patsy's for morning coffee and town gossip. A big yellow school bus idled at the corner, its exhaust sending puffs of grey smoke into the chill air. Stan Foxworthy bent down to retrieve a copy of the Gazette from a stand at the opposite corner. Tess Moore waved at him then unlocked the front door to the jewelry shop.
And there at the far end of the block was Gracie, bent over double in front of Sam's bridal shop, swamped inside that big coat. Every line of her body was familiar to him. The graceful curve of her back, her long slender arms, the spill of golden brown hair. His anger began to shift and sharpen as he ran toward her. He bridged the last eight years in forty-six strides.
"Don't do this, Noah." She said it without looking up, without looking at him. The weariness in her voice sharpened his anger yet again.
"You owe me." He didn't recognize his own voice. It held a mix of sorrow and pain held close for too long.
She lifted her head and met his eyes. "No," she said. " Not anymore"
"The hell you don't."
"It's over. It's been over for a very long time. Let it rest."
"Tell me why. That's all I want to know. Give me a reason and I'll turn and walk away." He needed answers. He had spent too many years wondering what he had done wrong, wondering if he had imagined love, wondering if there had been one moment when he could have turned left instead of right and none of this would have happened.
"I left you a letter."
He slammed his hand against the window of Samantha's Bridal. "That letter was bullshit."
He reached for her arm as she pushed past him, but she was too fast. All he got was a fistful of sleeve. She broke into a swift, spare run, dodging puddles, darting around knots of children, ignoring the fact that he was in close pursuit. There was no hesitancy, no uncertainty about her flight. She wanted to put as much distance between them as she possibly could.
He took ten steps, and then the absurdity of the situation stopped him cold. He'd been looking for answers and he'd found them. They weren't the answers he had wanted, but that was life. Icy rain stung his face and arms but still he stood there, watching her run out of his life for the second time. She'd answered all of his questions without saying a word. The sight of her slender body in retreat told him everything he needed to know and more.
This time, though, he had Sophie. Sophie would keep him from disappearing down that black hole of loneliness and anger. Sophie needed him, almost as much as he needed her. A child didn't care if your whole world was falling apart. A child's needs were immediate and all-encompassing. Unconditional love, every day for the rest of your life. Once you had that worked out, then you could start worrying about everything else.
He would never know what made him turn back at that exact moment, just in time to see her trip over the curb, almost recover her balance, then crumple to the sidewalk.
#
At least he didn't see me fall.
That was the first thing Gracie thought when her ankle went one way and the rest of her body went the other. Bad enough that she had completely lost her composure at the first sight of his beloved face and ended up running away from him through the rain like the heroine of a very bad French movie. Knowing that he had seen her collapse in a tangle of limbs and embarrassment would have been enough to send her back to New York right now. His footsteps had dropped off somewhere before the middle of the last block and she was grateful for that fact. It was the only good thing about what was shaping up to be an extremely bad morning.
She scrambled to her knees in the icy mud puddle, tried to stand, and fell back down again. Her right ankle throbbed and she knew it was already beginning to swell.
"Oh damn," she muttered, sitting back on the curb, lost inside the mud-splattered folds of her Trappist monk jacket and more memories than she could cope handle even on a good day. "Damn damn damn."
She rested her forehead on her knees and let the tears fall too. Of all the stupid ridiculous idiotic things to do, this one took the cake. She wasn't even in town one day and already her entire world had been tilted on its ear and she'd made a fool of herself besides. Now what was she supposed to do, stuck there with a bad ankle, no car, and almost two miles away from home in a town that didn't believe in public transportation of any kind for anyone over the age of puberty. She'd noticed a few school buses making their wet way down the street toward Idle Point Elementary. Maybe Celeste was still driving and she could beg a ride. At least her future stepmother was a nurse—
The thought was so absurd that she started laughing. Her father was about to marry the girl who'd sat behind his daughter in high school. The only man she'd ever loved had a snotty little brat who kicked when she wasn't busy spewing insults at strangers. And Gracie was sitting on her butt in the middle of the street in the middle of a budding nor'easter with a sprained ankle and a bruised ego and the realization that maybe you really couldn't go home again, no matter how much you wished you could.
She jumped at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she said to whoever was looming over her. "Just let me catch my breath and—"
"You're not fine," Noah said and she wished fervently for a swift death, free from pain and any more humiliation. "You wouldn't be sitting there in the middle of the street if you were fine."
"Go take care of your daughter," she snapped, unable to pretend anything but a strong desire to stay as far away from him as possible. "I'm fine."
He crouched down next to her, so close she caught the smell of shampoo in his hair. He went to touch her ankle and she yelped. "Is it broken?"
"Keep your hands to yourself," she said. "It's not broken. This happens all the time."
"You yelped like it's broken."
"I didn't yelp."
"Yeah, you did. All I did was—"
She yelped again. "Do you get some kind of sadistic kick out of hurting me? I have a weak ankle, okay? It's none of your business."
The change in him was immediate. She could feel the difference along her nerve endings and she wished she could pull back her words.
"Listen," she said, "you really don't—"
"I never hurt you, Gracie. Not now. Not then."
She wanted to look away but couldn't. After all these years, she owed him at least that much. The expression in his eyes was etched with a sorrow so deep it threatened to engulf them both. She had only seen an expression like that one other place in her life: her own mirror. "I know that," she whispered.
"Your ankle's swelling," he said, the mask back in place. He was a stranger to her. The boy she had loved had been replaced by the man who stood before her. "You'd better get it looked at."
"There are no breaks," she said. "All I need is some elevation and compression. It'll be okay."
"You sound like a doctor."
"I am a doctor," she said. "A vet."
"You did it."
"I did it." She couldn't keep the note of intense pride from her voice. I did it, Noah, I actually did it.
"Where do you practice?"
"Manhattan," she said, carefully avoiding any mention of her suspension.
"So you got what you wanted after all."
"Don't you have a wife and daughter to take care of?" She didn't want him to know that his words had found their mark.
"Daughter," he said, maintaining that intense eye contact. "No wife."
No wife... no wife... She had to remind herself that it didn't matter and never could. "Your daughter—"
"Sophie."
"Sophie was drenched. You don't want her to catch cold." Are you divorced, Noah? A widower? Does Sophie look like her mother? Does her mother still have a part of your heart?
"You're a doctor. You should know you catch cold from germs, not the weather."
"I remain unconvinced."
"I left Futtrello in charge. He has six kids. He'll know what to do."
"Andy Futtrello? The dockworker who used to play for the Red Sox farm team?"
"That's the one. He's our sportswriter."
"He came back to Idle Point."
"Looks like we all do, sooner or later."
"I'm only here for the wedding."
"And I'm only here to sell off the Gazette."
"I'm going back to New York right after the reception."
"Sophie and I return to London as soon as I find the right buyer."
"Not Paris?"
He shook his head. "Not Paris."
We were going to see Paris together, Noah. Do you remember? We had all of those wonderful dreams, all of those plans...
He stood up and held out his hand. "Where's your car? I'll drive you back to your father's place."
"I walked," she said. "I wasn't expecting to twist my ankle." She waved away his offer of help. "I'll be fine. Go back to the office. I'll wangle a lift from somebody."
"In case you haven't noticed, there's a storm blowing in. Why don't you quit acting like you give a damn about my time and let me drive you home before we both waste any more of the morning than we already have."
"Fine," she said, stung. "Terrific. Drive me home. That'll be great." They had nothing to hide any more, did they? They were adults now. They both had lives of their own. One of them even had a child.
He held out his hand in a gesture that was familiar enough to break what was left of her heart. She saw them on the beach, in the shadow of the lighthouse, saw the faded blue blanket and the way his skin gleamed like burnished copper in the moonlight. She saw it all and more in that one gesture and she knew that he saw it too. It was there in his eyes, in the set of his mouth, in the warmth of his hand as she reached for him.
She tried to stand but her ankle couldn't support her weight. "Lean on me," he said, but she resisted, determined not to fall any deeper under the spell of memory than necessary. Pain, however, made the choice for her and she let him help her. He was bigger than she remembered but then that really shouldn't surprise her. He was a man now, not the boy she had known. The boy she had known no longer existed except inside her heart.
They took two steps and Noah swore under his breath. "Hold on," he said. "I'll try not to hurt you."
Too late, Gracie thought as he swept her up into his arms. From the looks of Sophie, at least five or six years too late.
#
She was stiff as a two-by-four in his arms. She looped her slender arms around his neck but she didn't rest her head against his shoulder the way she would have years ago. If it was possible to maintain your dignity despite the fact that you were cold, wet, muddy, and nursing an ankle the size of an airbus, Gracie was accomplishing it. The hood of that ridiculous tent she was wearing caught the wind like a sail and kept slapping him in the face. He didn't care. The smell of her, the warmth of her body, the way her wet hair plastered itself against his cheek, even the slap of that hood—he wanted to burn each of these sensations into his memory before the anger came rushing back in on him again. His body remembered things his brain had worked hard to forget. Holding her this way was like being eighteen again but without the uncertainty. This time he knew they weren't going to have a happy ending.
He walked past Patsy's and a crowd rushed out to greet them.
"Looks like an old Doris Day-Rock Hudson movie," Patsy remarked, standing under her red-and-white striped awning. "Welcome home, Gracie. It's been a long time."
Gracie, her face as red as the stripes, gave Patsy a weak smile.
"Kidnapping's illegal in Maine," Chester Brubaker called out. "Better take her over the state line if you know what's good for you."
He could feel Gracie's indignation bubbling through her veins.
"Ignore them," Noah advised her. "If you say anything, it'll just get worse."
"I sprained my ankle," she called out, trying to lift her right leg up to show them. "I don't have my car so Noah's driving me home."
The crowd in front of the coffee shop exchanged looks then burst into laughter.
Annie Lafferty, who had graduated with Gracie, cupped her hands around her mouth. "Good to see you two together again! Just like the old days."
"I told you to ignore them," Noah said as they hurried past the Gazette.
"Why do they have to say things like that?" Gracie asked. "Don't they have anything better to do?"
His mother's late model Lincoln Town Car was parked in the first row in the spot marked "Owner." He fumbled around with the keyless entry system, almost dropping Gracie in the process, and managed to get the passenger door open and deposit her on the front seat. He ran around to the driver's side and slid behind the wheel.
They maintained an uneasy silence during the three-minute drive to her father's house. Everything seemed both strange and familiar, an odd blend of the past and present. He wondered if she sensed it too. How many times had they been alone together in a car, the two of them enclosed in a private hideaway of glass and steel. How small their world had been then: a stretch of beach, the front seat of a sports car. It was where he had learned that a man could hold the universe in his arms and want for nothing more.
#
For the first time in her life, Gracie was afraid of him. The car seemed too small for the emotions it contained. Loud, ugly emotions that threatened to tear off the roof and kick out the windows. The kind of emotions that she'd been running from since the day she left Idle Point.
She had hurt him badly. She could see it in the way he held the wheel, the rhythm of his breathing, the thrust of his jaw. Simon Chase's revelation had shattered what sense of family she'd had, and come close to destroying her sense of self. She couldn't face Noah or Ben, knowing the truth but unable—or unwilling—to burden them with it too. And so she ran. She had thought she was setting him free of the memories but neither one of them was free, not in any way that mattered. They were still bound together by promises whispered in the dark a long time ago and nothing, neither time nor circumstance, had changed that fact.
He rounded a curve halfway between her house and town, took it too fast, and she turned to look at him. Their eyes met and she saw herself reflected back, saw the future as it could have been and she started to cry.
"I shouldn't have come back," she said. "I never thought you would be here."
"I wouldn't be if I'd known," he said. "I wanted to live the rest of my life without you in it."
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry—"
He skidded to a stop along the side of the road.
"Noah—"
"Shut up."
He gathered her into his arms, his touch rough and sweet and filled with hunger. She could fight him, push him away, she knew that, knew she had the power, but the second his mouth found hers she was lost. Years of missing him, years of emptiness and longing, overwhelmed whatever reason she had left and she melted against him. Nothing mattered but his mouth on hers, the heat of his body beneath her hands, the smell of his skin, the taste of it beneath her tongue, the delicious ache building deep inside her. She was tired of being alone, tired of being lonely, of being far away from her home, from Noah, from everything she had ever loved and lost and longed for. He was her home, more than Idle Point, more than that stretch of beach near the lighthouse, more than the little cottage where she grew up, and nothing would ever change that.
#
Noah was drunk on her scent, on the silky wet feel of her hair between his fingers, of the sounds she made when he touched her. She had always been so joyous, so responsive, so eager to give and receive pleasure as if it were a sacrament of the flesh. All of those sweetly carnal memories flooded his heart as he touched and kissed and tasted her. She was the other half of his soul. Time had changed nothing at all. He wasn't free of her, not even close. She was there inside his head, his heart, his blood, where she had been from the very beginning, where she would always be and he hated her for the power she still held over him.
He deepened the kiss, drawing her very breath into his soul. He cupped her face between his hands and memorized every plane and angle, the short straight nose, the generous mouth, the warm intelligent brown eyes glittering now with desire and then he remembered a note left propped on the kitchen table with the words "Goodbye" scrawled at the bottom and the anger and pain was as fresh and cutting now as it had been eight long years ago.
Cold water couldn't have worked any better.
He sat back against his seat and clutched the steering wheel. He was breathing hard.
She adjusted her jacket and smoothed her hair. Her hands were trembling.
They didn't say another word until he dropped her off at the front door of her father's house and then the only word they said was goodbye.