They talked comfortably throughout the drive. As they waited at a light, Olivia showed her ex the first photographs of their granddaughter.
“Born May 18th,” Stan reminded her. “That’s the day Mount Saint Helens blew, isn’t it?”
As if either one of them was likely to forget. They’d driven to Portland for the weekend. Stan was attending some engineering conference and while he went to meetings, Olivia had taken the three children over to Lloyd Center. The shopping mall, with an ice-skating rink in the center, had fascinated eight-year-old Jordan. Olivia had tried to shop, but with three children constantly underfoot, it’d been an impossible task and she’d finally given up. After renting skates for herself and the kids, she’d spent a delightful day. Then early Sunday morning, when they were to drive home, Mount Saint Helens had the first of several volcanic eruptions. Plumes of hot gasses, ash and rock had shot sixty thousand feet into the sky. The falling ash had made the drive back to Cedar Cove nerve-wracking. For several hours, they’d been trapped on the Interstate with three whiny, frightened children in the back seat. Olivia had been no less terrified.
“You do remember May 18th, 1980, don’t you?” Stan asked.
In response, Olivia shuddered elaborately. She’d never been happier to get home. The drive had been a nightmare, but time had a way of erasing the sharp edges of that memory. In later years, whenever the trip was mentioned, it was done with drama and lots of laughter.
“She’s beautiful,” Stan said, staring at the color photos while they waited for the light to change.
“James is happy, and Selina’s perfect for him. She’s just the kind of wife he needs.” As the youngest, James had been badly spoiled—even more so after the death of his brother.
Stan had worried about their son. She knew that, but James was an adult now and made his own decisions. Often Olivia disagreed with what he chose, such as joining the military. Without a word to either one of them, he’d enlisted. Now he was married and a young father. This, too, had been accomplished without consulting either parent.
“I’m glad to hear that.” Stan did sound relieved.
Olivia had liked her daughter-in-law instantly. They’d talked on the phone several times, but those brief conversations hadn’t given her a clear picture of her son’s wife. Selina belonged to a large extended and well-to-do family who’d welcomed Olivia with the same enthusiasm that they had James and the new baby. There were dinners and celebrations every night of her visit. James was genuinely happy. He and Selina lived in a suite of rooms at his in-laws’ home and amazingly, the arrangement seemed to be a success. Olivia was impressed by the amount of Spanish he’d learned since he’d met Selina. She’d quickly realized that Selina’s family had been part of the attraction for her son. James had been only ten at the time of the divorce, and although both Olivia and Stan had tried hard to make the split as amicable as possible, their son had suffered. Every child did. Olivia saw the results of divorce every day in family court.
“How’s Justine doing?” Stan abruptly changed the subject.
“Why? What did she say when you talked?”
“Not much.”
He seemed worried about their daughter. “She still seeing that Saget guy?”
“He’s asked her to marry him.” By now, everyone in town knew about the diamond ring Warren had purchased. Justine, however, had yet to mention the proposal.
Stan cursed and swerved into another lane. “Is she going to do it?”
Olivia shrugged. “She doesn’t confide in me when it comes to Warren Saget.”
“Talk her out of it,” he said urgently. “You’re her mother—she’ll listen to you a hell of a lot more than she will me. Marrying Saget would be a disaster.”
“Yes, but convincing Justine of that isn’t easy.”
“She’s stubborn, just like her mother.”
Stan was joking and Olivia grinned, but his amusement didn’t last long. “Marge’s son is getting a divorce. She’s pretty upset about it.”
They rarely if ever talked about his wife.
“I think,” he went on, “that one of the most difficult aspects of being a parent is watching your child make what you know is a mistake and not being able to do a damn thing about it.”
“I’m sorry about Marge’s son,” Olivia murmured.
“It’s really too bad,” Stan told her. “He’s got two small children and he’s leaving them for some gal he met in his office.”
Olivia wondered if her ex-husband saw the irony of the situation. Marge had divorced her husband and abandoned her children for Stan, and now history was repeating itself.
“I will talk to Justine,” she said. “Unfortunately, we don’t communicate well. But we’ve raised her to think for herself and make her own decisions, and we have to trust her to do so wisely.”
“That’s harder than it sounds.”
Olivia didn’t need him to tell her that.
By the time they hit the Seattle freeway, the sun had come out from behind the clouds. The wind and the traffic noise made conversation difficult. The hour’s drive through Tacoma and over the Narrows Bridge passed quickly, especially when Stan plugged in a sixties rock-and-roll CD—music they’d danced to in their college days. Olivia was soon lost in happy memories.
She felt almost disappointed when he pulled onto Lighthouse Road.
“Oh.” She reacted with surprise when she noticed Jack’s clunker parked outside her house behind Justine’s car.
“Someone you know?”
“Jack Griffin. He’s the editor of The Chronicle.”
Stan darted a glance in her direction. “Isn’t he the one you had a date with the night I phoned? Is he a…boyfriend?”
“Oh, hardly. Jack’s a friend.”
“That’s what Justine said when I first asked her about Saget,” he muttered. “The next thing I know, he’s pressuring her to get engaged.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about me marrying Jack,” she assured him.
He parked at the curb and cut the engine and then said the oddest thing. “Good.”
Good? He didn’t want her to remarry? What a strange reaction, considering that he’d been married to Marge for fourteen years. Before she could ask him about it, her front door opened and Justine stepped onto the porch—with Jack right behind her.
He smiled and raised his hand in greeting, but his gaze slowly shifted away from her. Stan and Jack locked eyes.
“Welcome home,” Justine called, oblivious to the tension between the two men. She ran down the porch steps to greet her.
Olivia hugged her daughter, and with her arm wrapped around Justine’s waist, walked toward her home. She was much too old to get excited about the attention of two men, she told herself. But then—was she really?
“It’s great to be back,” she said, leaving Stan and Jack to follow if they chose.
“I’m dying to hear all about the baby. You didn’t mind Dad picking you up, did you?”
“Not in the least.” If anything, Olivia had enjoyed it too much.
Charlotte Jefferson could hardly wait for her daughter to return from California. She had so much to tell her. Although she knew Olivia would be exhausted from the trip, Charlotte couldn’t delay talking to her another minute.
The last thing she expected when she arrived at Olivia’s was a houseful of company. Anyone might’ve thought she was having a garage sale.
Naturally she recognized Justine’s SUV, and the Taurus looked like the one Jack Griffin drove, but the red BMW had her baffled.
Olivia answered the doorbell and relaxed noticeably when she saw her. “Mother.” After a quick hug, Olivia brought her into the house. A pizza delivery box lay open on the table and a bottle of red wine was there, too.
“Anything left for me?” she joked.
“Get your grandmother a wineglass,” Olivia instructed Justine.
“Stan!” Charlotte was delighted to see her ex-son-in-law. She’d always been fond of h
im. The divorce had been as hard on her as it’d been on her daughter and the children. “Don’t tell me that red convertible belongs to you?”
“It does.” He set his wineglass next to the pizza box. “I hate to eat and run, but I’ve got to get back to Seattle.”
“Already?” Charlotte would have dearly loved a chat.
“Another time,” he promised. He bent down and kissed Charlotte’s cheek, then hugged Justine, who was busy pouring a glass of wine. The two men exchanged brief handshakes and Olivia escorted him to the door. Charlotte soon realized that Stan had picked up Olivia from the airport. She realized something else, too. The two men had not taken a liking to each other. Now, that was interesting.
“I should be leaving, too,” Justine announced. She gave Charlotte a half-full goblet and a kiss, then promptly disappeared.
That left Jack, who showed no sign of departing in the near future. Well, Charlotte needed to talk to her daughter, so she intended on waiting him out. “Tell me all about the baby,” she said, settling in for a long visit. “Did James and Selina like the blanket I knit?” Then sighing, she added, “I do hope you brought back pictures.”
“I sure did. Oh, Mother, she’s so beautiful.”
“See you Wednesday?” Jack asked, sounding a little dispirited.
Olivia hesitated a moment, then nodded. Apparently she’d just agreed to a date, which cheered Charlotte immensely. She didn’t want Olivia to be alone the rest of her life, and she liked Jack Griffin.
“I should be heading out, too,” Jack said reluctantly—as though he wanted Olivia to ask him to stay.
She didn’t. One look from Jack told Charlotte he wanted to be alone with Olivia, but she wasn’t budging.
Soon enough he’d departed. Privacy at last. Charlotte released a deep sigh. Olivia sat down next to her with a glass of wine, feet propped up on the coffee table. “It’s been quite a week.”
“For me, too,” Charlotte said excitedly.
“You heard from Roy?”
Charlotte grinned widely. “Yes, and guess what? Tom has a grandson living right outside Purdy.” The town was only a few miles down Highway 16 from Cedar Cove. Charlotte was thrilled with the news. In her heart of hearts, she’d known Tom had chosen to spend his last days in Cedar Cove for a reason.
“His name’s Cliff Harding. Ever heard of him?”
“Can’t say I have.” Olivia rubbed her eyes, and Charlotte could tell that her daughter was tired.
“He raises quarter horses.” Roy had told her that, along with the other information he’d unearthed. Cliff was a Boeing engineer who’d opted for an early retirement. He’d moved to the Kitsap Peninsula five years earlier.
“I suspected Tom had family in the area.” Charlotte felt downright proud of that.
“Yes, you did.”
“I didn’t want to be intrusive, so I wrote Cliff to ask him to get in touch.” The letter had gone out the very day she’d heard the news, but to her disappointment, she hadn’t heard back from him.
“That’s great, Mom.”
“I thought so, too.” She finished her wine, and then, because it was obvious that her daughter wasn’t in the mood for more company, Charlotte decided it was time to leave.
After a quick peek at the pictures, she gathered her things. Olivia made a token protest, then escorted her to the door.
“I’m glad you had a good trip. And I’m thrilled about James.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Olivia hugged her. “Did you feel this elation when you first became a grandmother?”
It hadn’t been so long ago that Charlotte had forgotten. “Twins, no less. That was one of the happiest days of my life.”
“And mine,” Olivia told her, but a sadness came over her, a sadness Charlotte felt, too, as they remembered Jordan and the happy, carefree boy he’d been.
On her drive home, she thought about Cliff Harding. He would certainly have received her letter but for some reason had either put off answering, or—worse—decided not to answer at all.
Perhaps she should have called, instead.
Yes, that was what she should’ve done, all right.
Unable to resist, as soon as she walked into the house, Charlotte located his number, which Roy had given her.
The phone rang four times before the receiver was abruptly lifted.
“Harding,” said a gruff male voice.
“Jefferson,” she returned in the same clipped tones. “Charlotte Jefferson.”
Silence.
“I’m phoning to see if you got my letter,” she explained. She knew he most likely had but that seemed the easiest way to introduce her subject.
“I got it.”
Charlotte paused, wishing she’d thought this through more carefully. “Perhaps right now is a bad time?”
“It’s as good a time as any. Basically, I’m not interested in anything to do with my grandfather.”
Charlotte frowned in disapproval. “I’m sure you’re going to reconsider when you see what I have.”
“Listen, Mrs. Jefferson, I realize you mean well, but—”
“Were you aware that your grandfather recently died right here in Cedar Cove?”
“Your letter said as much.”
“Mr. Harding, I have risked a great deal to find you.”
“I’m not ungrateful, but—”
“I could do jail time for what I’ve done and at seventy-two, I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life rooming with someone named Big Bertha.”
He howled with laughter. How dared this young man be amused when she was dead serious?
“What exactly did you do to risk facing Big Bertha?”
Charlotte told him, sparing none of the details. “I have everything under my bed.”
“That’s probably the first place the police will look, don’t you think?”
Charlotte suspected he was still mocking her—a little bit, anyway—but she gave him a straightforward reply. “I did think of that, but my knees are too tired to be traipsing up and down the basement stairs.”
“My suggestion is that you give it all back to the state. Let the authorities sell it and recoup whatever expense they put out on my grandfather’s behalf.”
“You can’t mean that!” Charlotte was outraged. “My dear boy, this was your grandfather.”
“He was as much a grandfather to me as he was a father to my dad. In other words, not at all. Dad saw him a grand total of three times in his entire life. I never had the pleasure nor would I have cared to.”
“All the more reason to learn what you can about him now,” Charlotte argued.
“Frankly, I don’t care. So what if he was a movie and TV cowboy from the forties and fifties. The ‘Yodeling Cowboy,’” he added scornfully. “Well, my dear Mrs. Jefferson, I don’t give a damn.”
“It’s his blood that runs through your veins.”
“I’d rather it didn’t. Like I said, he wasn’t any kind of a father or grandfather, and I sincerely doubt he cared about me in the slightest.”
“I beg to differ.” Normally Charlotte wasn’t this argumentative. But she refused to let this…this arrogant whelp turn his back on his heritage. “You have a great deal in common with your grandfather, young man.”
Cliff snickered softly. “I doubt that. And I’m not so young.”
“Don’t you raise quarter horses?” This was part of the information Roy had given her. “Where do you think that interest in horses came from?” she asked grandly.
He didn’t answer her question. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Mr. Harding, please. Considering the risk I’ve taken, the least you can do is look at what I’ve rescued. There just might be something here you’d want.”
“You mean like a Yodeling Cowboy lunch bucket? No, thank you.”
“I mean like his saddle and his six-shooter.”
“You have a saddle?”
“Yes, I do.” Charlotte suspected that was probably the one thing that might inte
rest Tom’s grandson.
“I understand it’s a federal crime to steal a gun.”
Charlotte bristled. “Are you trying to frighten me?”
He chuckled in response. “All right, listen,” he said as if making a big concession. “I’m willing to look over all this junk.”
“It most certainly is not junk.” She could think of several museums that would leap at the opportunity to display some of the items she had under her bed.
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Will you come into Cedar Cove or do you want me to find you?”
“I avoid inviting known burglars into my home.”
Charlotte was not amused. “Then you’ll just have to drive to Cedar Cove.”
“All right, Mrs. Jefferson. I can see you’re not a woman who takes no for an answer.”
“In this instance, you’re right.”
Grace enjoyed her job as head librarian. Per capita, there were more library cards issued in Cedar Cove than in any other city or town in the entire state. She took real pride in that.
The Cedar Cove Library, with the mural painted on the outside of the old brick building, was one of the most attractive structures in town. For the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the township, the Chamber of Commerce had commissioned several murals to be painted on civic buildings around town. The waterfront library had been among those chosen; the artists had created an 1800s scene of a waterfront park with people in period dress enjoying a summer’s afternoon—children and dogs cavorting, families picnicking and, of course, people reading.
The downtown community was a lot like a family, Grace often thought. The business owners looked out for one another and encouraged the Cedar Cove population to shop locally. These days, when large conglomerates were moving into small towns and destroying independent businesses, Cedar Cove’s downtown thrived. This was thanks in part to the library, the marina and the brand-new city hall, which was the most prominent building in Cedar Cove, rising from the steep hill above the waterfront like a protective angel standing guard over the town. The bells chimed on the hour; some people loved them and others cursed the constant interruption.