“You’re not upset with us, are you?”
“Of course not! I couldn’t be happier for you both.”
“Thanks, Mack.”
“I’d suggest you tell Mom and Dad soon, though.”
“I will…”
They spoke for another ten minutes, and his sister updated him on the medical clinic in the small town where she lived. She told him Pete had moved out of the farmhouse and into Buffalo Valley to be with her. Linnette seemed content, happy with her marriage, her work and her life, and that pleased Mack. In the past few years, she’d changed from an insecure, dissatisfied woman to someone who’d become confident in herself and her choices.
After the conversation with his sister, Mack went outside, determined to work on his garden. He chose the south side of the house for exposure to the afternoon sun. He started digging, shoveling up lawn and dirt to create new flower beds.
The area would need a load of topsoil and plenty of fertilizer. Mack had big plans for this garden. Although the mid-April weather was still cool, he soon broke out in a sweat. Pausing to take off his shirt, he worked steadily until Mary Jo parked in their shared driveway.
Mack checked his watch and saw that it was after five. The afternoon, his last afternoon off this week, had sped by. His next shift started at eight tomorrow morning and would last until Saturday. He liked the extended periods of time off this job gave him.
After removing Noelle from her car seat, Mary Jo walked directly past him as she had every day that week. To his surprise she stopped abruptly and stared at him. Mack waited for her to say something. She didn’t, so he continued digging as tenaciously as if he were inches from a vein of gold.
“Hi,” Mary Jo said shyly.
Mack raised his head and leaned against the shovel, trying to suggest that he’d only just noticed her. “Oh, hi. I didn’t see you there.”
She seemed to be studying him closely. “Something wrong?” he asked. Maybe he had on two different shoes. He generally didn’t care that much about what he wore.
Mary Jo looked away. “No, sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.”
“Have I got mud smeared on my face?”
“No.” Her neck had gone a warm shade of pink.
“Tell me.”
She appeared even more uneasy. “You look…good. All muscular and tan.”
Hey, that was promising. “I do?”
“I’ve never seen you without a shirt before.”
“I am a firefighter, you know. There’s a reason we’re the preferred candidates for those hunk calendars.” He resisted the urge to pump his arm muscles in order to impress her with his prowess—or, more likely, make her laugh.
Mary Jo smiled at his comment. “Would you like some iced tea?” she asked.
This was definite progress. “I’d love it.”
“Okay if I leave Noelle here? I’ll be right back.”
Mack gazed down at the sleeping infant in her carrier, then watched as Mary Jo headed for her half of the duplex. Still leaning against the shovel handle, he studied her from behind and cursed himself for ever agreeing to this six-month engagement. He wanted to marry her.
Five minutes later, she reappeared with a glass of iced tea. Mack gratefully accepted it and drank the whole glass in one extended swallow.
“You were thirsty.”
“I was,” he said and noticed once again that she had a hard time keeping her eyes off him. Good. He wanted her to feel this sense of deprivation as strongly as he did. Mack decided then and there to see if he could get her to reconsider. “Could we talk?”
“Sure,” she said, backing away from him. “About anything in particular?”
Oh, yes, but Mack thought he’d approach the subject carefully. “Maybe we should discuss this inside.”
“Fine.” She picked up the baby carrier and led the way into her duplex.
Mack followed dutifully. He pulled out a chair at the small kitchen table and waited as she brought Noelle to her room. When she returned, she rinsed his glass and poured him another one.
“About our engagement,” he finally said.
Mary Jo whirled around, her back against the kitchen counter and her hands behind her. “Yes—what about it?”
“I feel we might want to rethink—”
She bristled. “If you want to back out, I understand, really I do. You’re under no obligation to marry me. I haven’t heard from David in two weeks now, so maybe he’s given up. But I appreciate how much you care about Noelle and—”
“Who said anything about backing out?” he asked, letting his irritation show.
She frowned. “I thought—you know…”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“That…” she said, moistening her lips. “That you’d had a change of heart.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you want to talk about the engagement?”
“Well, yes.” The only thing Mack felt he could do was be honest. “Frankly, ever since we got engaged you’ve been avoiding me.” Some engagement, he wanted to say.
“No, I haven’t,” she said swiftly. “You were the one who didn’t want anything to do with me. You stopped coming over as soon as we got engaged!”
They could argue about it all night and it wouldn’t settle anything. “If I gave you that impression, then I apologize,” Mack said.
She offered him the merest hint of a smile. “I guess we’ve both been silly, haven’t we?”
That was an understatement if he’d ever heard one.
“I know you weren’t happy when I insisted on a six-month engagement.”
“I can live with that,” Mack said. “It was the fact that you didn’t want me to touch you at all during that time.”
Doubt flickered in her eyes. “I didn’t say you couldn’t touch me…I just don’t feel it’s wise for us to be…intimate.”
“Oh.” Mack wondered if he’d misread the situation. But if she was interested in, say, a kiss or a hug, she might have given him some indication earlier.
The shyness was back. Mary Jo started to turn away and he caught her hand, stopping her. His fingers curled around hers. When she turned toward him, Mary Jo slid effortlessly into his embrace as if she’d been waiting her entire life for exactly this moment.
They kissed—two or three lengthy kisses. Not until they’d exchanged another heated kiss did he find the strength to ease his mouth from hers.
Mary Jo looked up at him, eyes wide. Slowly, ever so slowly, she smiled. “That was very nice.”
“Yes, it was,” Mack said. “Are you sure you want a six-month engagement?”
Staring up at him, she blinked, and then nodded. “I still think that would be best.”
Mack could see it was going to be a very long six months.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Olivia warily eyed the horse, which was saddled and ready to ride. “I don’t know about this,” she said.
They stood just outside the barn. Grace walked over to the mare Cliff had chosen for her friend and ran her hand down the animal’s long, sleek nose. “You don’t have a thing to worry about,” she assured Olivia.
Olivia tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “In case you weren’t aware, I’m not a horse-riding type of person. I prefer picking wildflowers and sewing quilts. Riding never interested me. I didn’t read The Black Stallion and all those horsey books when I was twelve.”
“Me, neither, although I have since—when I took a course in children’s literature. But that’s not the point. I didn’t think I was interested at first.” Grace refused to listen to excuses. “It’ll do us both good to get out in the fresh air.”
“Grace, really, you and me horseback riding?” Olivia turned longingly toward the house.
“Yes—you and me.” It was a mild, sunny Saturday afternoon and she wasn’t going to let Olivia talk herself out of this. “There’s a lovely path that meanders down to the beach. Trust me, you’ll regret it if you don’t at lea
st try.”
Olivia still didn’t seem convinced. She cast a pleading glance in Grace’s direction. “This horse has an evil look about her. How do you know she won’t take the first opportunity to buck me off?”
“Sugarplum?”
“Her name is Sugarplum?”
Grace nodded.
“What does that prove? The camel that bit you was called Sleeping Beauty,” Olivia said, referring to an unfortunate incident with one of the animals they’d housed for the church nativity scene.
“That’s irrelevant. Anyway, you promised you’d do this.”
Groaning in defeat, Olivia slowly edged her way back to Grace. “Oh, all right.”
“You’ll be glad,” Grace said with an encouraging smile. She remembered the first time Cliff had talked her into getting on a horse. Like her friend, she’d balked and made up a bevy of excuses—really good ones, too. When she’d finally run out of ways to avoid the inevitable, she gave in. The short ride along their property line to the beach had been…wonderful. Afterward, Grace had no idea why it’d taken her so long to agree. She enjoyed horseback riding now and, given the opportunity, Olivia would, as well.
“You’re used to this,” Olivia said as she raised her leg and set her foot in the stirrup. She grabbed the pommel of the Western-style saddle, hanging on with both hands.
“Not at first, I wasn’t. We all have to begin somewhere,” Grace said, boosting her up.
“I don’t understand why you’re so insistent on this.” It took Olivia three tries to heave herself into the saddle, even with Grace’s help, but she managed. Olivia was breathless by the time she was firmly settled on the docile mare. “I hope you’re happy.”
“Ecstatic,” Grace joked. “As to why I won’t let you out of this, the truth is, I want you to feel alive again.” After the chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Olivia had been spending her days holed up inside the house, with only rare treks into town. She ventured out to Justine’s new restaurant once a week or so, and occasionally visited her brother’s gallery, but that was about it. Even Charlotte had grown concerned.
Grace slid into the saddle with a bit more finesse, but then, as Olivia had said, she’d had more practice.
Now that she was on Sugarplum, Olivia glanced anxiously around. “Are we there yet?” she muttered in a weak attempt at a joke.
“We haven’t started,” Grace replied.
“I was afraid of that.”
Olivia looked down, which was a mistake Grace had made early on herself.
“Just how high off the ground am I?” Olivia asked, her brow creased. “If Jack finds out about this…”
“He knows.”
“Jack knows and he agreed I should do this?”
“Yes. Now let me show you the basics.” She reviewed the lessons Cliff had given her in the beginning. When she’d finished speaking and demonstrating how to use the reins, Grace took the lead.
With a few grumbling words, Olivia followed. To Grace’s surprise, once they were under way, her friend didn’t seem to have the problems Grace had experienced as a beginner. For one thing, Sugarplum used to stop and graze whenever she felt like it, completely ignoring Grace’s commands. She wasn’t doing that now.
“Hey, you’re a natural,” she exclaimed, turning to look at Olivia.
Olivia didn’t respond, concentrating on every move.
“You ready to go down the trail?”
“Sure.” Olivia grinned sheepishly. “I guess Sugarplum isn’t so evil, after all.”
“Told you,” Grace teased as she led the way at a slow, steady pace. She started toward the evergreen-lined path. Towering pines stretched up into the blue sky.
After a few hundred yards, Grace twisted around to look behind her again. “How’re you doing, Calamity Jane?”
“So far, so good. Doesn’t the sun feel nice? Especially on your head.” Olivia wore a bandanna, tied gypsystyle at the nape.
“It feels great.”
“Oh, look!” Olivia called a moment later, her voice animated. “There’s an eagle. No, two of them!”
Shading her eyes, Grace peered up at the sky. The eagles were soaring high above them. Fascinated, she watched as they engaged in an elaborate mating ritual. One of the birds fell several hundred feet, and the second eagle swooped after it.
Eagles often landed on the beach off Lighthouse Road, so she knew Olivia saw them frequently. But this was different. More intimate somehow.
“I don’t think I realized how fresh and green it smells in the woods,” Olivia said after a short silence. “In fact, I didn’t realize green was actually a smell.”
“It reminds you of Christmas, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
They continued to clop along, taking in the sights, sounds and smells of the forest. Soon they entered a clearing and the beach lay before them, scattered with driftwood. They could see Blake Island in the distance like an emerald set on an expanse of glittering blue.
“It’s so peaceful,” Olivia said quietly.
That had struck Grace on her first ride with Cliff. She remembered sitting with her husband on the pebbled beach, their backs against a piece of driftwood. She’d closed her eyes, and the sun had warmed her face as the sounds of nature hummed all around her. Grace had heard the gentle lapping of the water against the shore, birds chirping and the crunch of pebbles as the horses shifted their weight. The experience never failed to move her. It was what she wanted for her friend—this peace, this solace. The discovery of what it meant to be close to nature.
“Let’s get down and walk for a while,” Grace suggested. “If you feel up to it.”
“I do,” Olivia assured her. She slid down off Sugarplum and dropped to the ground, landing in pebbles. “Now all I have to do is figure out how to get back up there.”
Holding the mares’ reins, they strolled side by side. For a long time they didn’t speak, content simply to be together. After fifty years—a half century!—of friendship, they were attuned to each other’s moods and feelings.
“I’ve taken so much for granted in my life,” Olivia said after a while.
“Don’t we all?” Grace didn’t think her friend should be hard on herself. She was just as guilty as Olivia of racing from one day to the next, barely taking time to appreciate what a gift life really was.
This second chance at happiness with Cliff had changed her. Her marriage to Dan had been good in its way; after all those years together, the two of them had grown comfortable, although Dan’s troubles, the pain of war, had never left him. As much as possible, they’d adjusted and she’d done her best to deal with his mood swings. In the end, it’d all been too much for him.
Cliff had brought his own problems from his first marriage. They’d been patient with each other, though, and had survived misunderstandings and mistakes. Now she was happier than she’d ever expected to be.
“I’m thinking of retiring,” Olivia announced out of the blue.
Grace had half suspected this was coming. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“No,” Olivia admitted. “But I’m enjoying these months at home. In the beginning I dreaded it. I was so certain I’d be bored.”
“But you haven’t been, have you?”
“Not at all. I didn’t know how much I’d like quilting. Mom’s always been the crafty one. I don’t think there’s anything domestic that my mother can’t do and do well.”
Grace nodded. Everything Charlotte attempted—from her special desserts to her knitting and sewing projects—was of the highest quality.
“Haven’t you thought about retiring?” Olivia asked, looking steadily at Grace.
Grace had given it fleeting consideration. “I suppose I have,” she said, “and yet I love what I do.”
“I feel the same,” Olivia murmured. “That’s what makes this decision so difficult.”
Slowly Grace shook her head. “I don’t think I can yet. I have a lot I still want to accomplish at work. We??
?re starting a new program at the library that excites me. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it.”
“Teaching literacy by having kids read to dogs?”
“Yes,” Grace said. “We’ve invited a trainer from Seattle to come in and work with us.” She smiled. “I already have my first volunteers. Tanni Bliss is one of them.”
“Tanni Bliss,” Olivia repeated. “Why is that name familiar?”
“Tanni and her boyfriend discovered those remains in the cave. Remember?”
“Oh, yes.” Olivia frowned slightly. “What an unusual case. I’m so glad it’s been resolved.”
“The press sure had a field day with that one, didn’t they? That Seattle reporter made it sound as though Cedar Cove was a hotbed of criminal activity.” She laughed. “Who would’ve guessed our sheriff was so good at spin? That press release said very little but somehow satisfied everyone.”
“Nevertheless, it was a tragic story. That poor boy, frightened and all alone. I don’t think we’ll ever know what really happened.” Grace had been touched that Cedar Cove’s mayor had arranged for a proper burial. There’d been talk around town about his DUI, but that was over now. Jack had written an excellent article about it, with the mayor’s full cooperation, which had no doubt subdued the gossip. Thankfully the sensationalism about those poor, forgotten bones had worn off, too.
“Tanni is Shirley Bliss’s daughter,” Olivia said as if the connection had suddenly clicked. “Will is dating Shirley.”
“How’s that going?”
“I don’t know. My brother doesn’t talk to me about his relationships.”
Grace was naturally curious. She wanted to warn Shirley but didn’t feel it was her place to speak to the other woman. If Will had changed—and there was reason to believe he had—she didn’t want to do anything to ruin his chances. “I had my doubts when I learned Will was returning to Cedar Cove,” she said.
Olivia gave her an assessing look. “I did, too. After that…situation with you, I didn’t feel I could trust my own brother.” She slowed her steps. “I’m just relieved it didn’t do any lasting damage.”
She meant damage to Grace’s relationship with Cliff. Ultimately it hadn’t, but Will’s interference—and Cliff’s reaction to it—was one of the problems they’d needed to resolve.