“Are you going to see him again?”
He was mighty curious about her time with Nate Olsen. “Probably not.”
He studied her, frowning slightly. “You sound disappointed.”
“I am. I like Nate. He’s a little young for me, but-”
“He’s younger than you are?”
Rachel burst out laughing, attracting the attention of those sitting close by. “You sound like my father.”
“Sorry.” He lowered his head as though embarrassed. “Forget I said anything.”
Bruce seemed jealous, which shocked her. “Bruce?”
He looked up.
“What’s all this about?”
“What do you mean?”
Rachel narrowed her eyes. “You know what I mean. Let’s not play games, all right? When you came to the mall this evening, it wasn’t because you had some errand. It was to seek me out, wasn’t it?”
“Anything wrong with that?”
His defenses were up again, but so were hers. “Well, no, but why pretend otherwise? Just be honest, would you?”
He raised his hands, palms up. “I am being honest.”
“To yourself, I mean,” she elaborated.
The waitress, a high-school kid judging by her appearance, brought their enchilada platters. Rachel glanced down at hers and Bruce looked at his and in a perfectly synchronized movement, they switched plates.
“Do you mind if we eat before we continue this inquisition?”
She gave him a quick grin. Sliding her fork over the cheese enchilada, Rachel cut off her first bite. “I didn’t intend to give you the third degree.”
“The thing is,” Bruce admitted between bites, “I’m not exactly sure why I asked you to dinner. I dropped Jolene off at her friend’s house and here it was Friday night, and I didn’t feel like spending the evening alone. I got a hankering for enchiladas, but I didn’t want to take up an entire table just for myself.”
“I usually order mine to go.”
“I tried to think of someone who might be interested in coming with me, and you were the first person who popped into my head. So I figured I’d see if you were available.”
Rachel wasn’t sure she should be flattered. At the moment she was too perplexed to figure it out.
“Jolene likes you a lot,” Bruce said halfway through their meal.
Rachel was fond of the little girl, too, but her feelings about the child’s father weren’t quite as straightforward. Might as well find out what was going on here. “Do you like me, Bruce?” she asked bluntly.
“Obviously. I didn’t stop to analyze it. I thought you might be available and I was right. I’m glad.”
“I am, too,” she said. “I was headed home for reruns of NYPD Blue.”
“You don’t go bar-hopping with your friends?”
She shook her head. “I learned a long time ago that a bar isn’t a good place to meet men.” Not decent men, anyway, she amended to herself. Problem was, she didn’t know where to meet men. She was wary of the Internet and not a clubjoiner. She enjoyed crafts but she had yet to meet a single guy hanging out at a quilting bee.
“Have you had many serious relationships?”
She shrugged. “A few.” She’d dated a guy back in her early twenties, discovered he was already married and dropped him instantly. That kind of grief she could live without. Ever since then, she’d been careful. Perhaps too careful…“What about you?”
His gaze fell to the table. “There’s never been anyone but Stephanie.”
The way he said his dead wife’s name led Rachel to believe there never would be anyone else.
“I’d like to give this a shot,” he said unexpectedly.
“This?”
“Us.”
She opened her eyes wide. “Are you saying you’d like to go out with me?”
“Is that so surprising?”
Rachel needed a sip of her soda to ease the sudden dryness in her throat. “Frankly, yes.”
“Would you be willing to see me now and again?”
“To what purpose?”
Bruce’s mouth narrowed. “You’re the kind of person who reads the last page of the book before you buy it, aren’t you?”
That was precisely what she did. She laughed. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“I thought so. I don’t know to what end. We can agree to play this by ear. Is that okay with you?”
“I guess.” She considered it for a moment. “Tell me something first.”
“All right.”
“Asking me out tonight-did it have anything to do with Nate Olsen?”
The question seemed to trouble him, because he didn’t answer immediately.
“Probably,” he said at last.
At least he was honest about it.
“If he asks you out again, would you go?”
Now it was her turn to think matters over. “He won’t. He’s involved with someone else.” She was gathering up her purse as she spoke.
“You’re sidestepping the question,” he said. He held the restaurant door for her and they walked into the parking lot.
“I know.”
“Either you don’t want to answer it or you’re afraid to.”
“I’d rather not discuss Nate, okay? You know,” she said confidentially, leaning toward him, “it would’ve been a perfectly wonderful night if he hadn’t kissed me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind.” She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s too hard to explain.”
“I guess I shouldn’t try to kiss you, then.”
“Don’t be too hasty,” Rachel said with a mischievous smile.
He smiled back.
But he didn’t kiss her. Standing in the well-lit parking area outside the restaurant, it would have been awkward to do anything more than exchange pleasantries.
“Do you still want Jolene to come over on Sunday?” Rachel asked.
“Sure. Can I see you then, too?”
Rachel nodded. Bruce opened her car door and she slid into the driver’s seat. “Thank you for dinner.”
“I’ll give you a call sometime tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay.”
Rachel pulled onto the highway and drove toward her own neighborhood, feeling more than a little confused. As soon as she got home, she saw that she had a telephone message.
Setting down her purse, she began to slip off her shoes and pushed the play button on her machine.
Nate Olsen’s voice stopped her cold, one shoe off, one foot raised.
“Rachel, hi…I’m sorry I missed you.” His words were followed by a short pause. “I’m still thinking about our dinner and was just wondering if you were, too. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
On the first Monday of August, Grace Sherman opened the library and posted the sign for the free movie that would be shown Saturday night. This was a new feature the library had begun in June. It’d been Grace’s idea, and the popularity of the event had surprised and delighted her. She believed the library should be part of the community, that it should be responsive to people’s needs and interests and attract patrons of all ages. She always chose a movie families could watch together. That often meant a classic; this week’s was The African Queen.
Mondays were always busy and the morning passed quickly. Loretta Bailey returned to her desk and Grace realized her assistant was already back from lunch. It seemed she’d left only a few minutes ago. If Grace was going to have lunch, she had to take her turn now.
She reached into the bottom drawer for her purse and when she straightened she came face-to-face with Lisa Shore, Cliff Harding’s daughter.
“Lisa,” she said, recovering quickly. “What a pleasant surprise!”
“Hello, Grace.”
She was a lovely young woman who reminded Grace of Cliff in a dozen different ways, although she didn’t resemble him physically.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to find you.
I took a chance coming into town like this, since I wasn’t sure you’d be here. I felt we should talk.” The look in her eyes implored Grace.
“What are you doing in Washington?” That was a silly question; she was visiting her father, of course. Grace had no idea how much Lisa knew about what had happened between her and Cliff.
“Rich and I are here to see Dad. I don’t suppose you could squeeze in a quick lunch, could you?”
Grace struggled with her composure but managed to respond graciously. “Of course I can. Why don’t we sit down for a few minutes first? How’s April?”
“Growing by leaps and bounds,” Lisa said, obviously proud of her daughter. “Dad and Rich took her into Seattle.” She glanced away guiltily. “I told them I had a bad case of cramps, which is actually true, so they suggested I stay home. I wanted to come into town to see you-but that part I didn’t share with my dad.”
Grace understood how difficult it must’ve been for Lisa to mislead her father. What she had to say must be important.
Grace slung her purse over her shoulder, waved goodbye to Loretta and walked out of the library with Cliff’s daughter.
They were barely out the door when Lisa spoke with a quiet intensity. “I just had to find out what went wrong between you and my dad.”
Grace sighed, unsure whether or not she should be grateful that Cliff hadn’t said anything to his daughter. Then again, maybe he had. It was clear that Lisa knew something, or that she sensed it, anyway.
They bought crab salad sandwiches-the Potbelly’s special of the day-and sat down on a park bench near the marina. Tourists and locals alike strolled past.
“Dad won’t tell me a thing,” Lisa said as soon as they’d unwrapped their sandwiches. “All I know is that you’re not seeing each other anymore.”
Grace focused her attention on the boats gently bobbing in the marina. She simply couldn’t look Lisa in the eye and explain what she’d done.
“Everything’s my fault,” Grace said, her voice trembling.
Her confession was followed by a short silence. “That’s not what my dad said.”
“He’s wrong,” Grace insisted. “I misled him-no, it’s more than that, I deceived him.” She refused to minimize her role in their separation. If not for her Internet relationship with Will, she suspected she’d be engaged or even married to Cliff by this time.
“How?”
Grace realized there was no help for it. Lisa had a right to know the truth. “I was seeing Cliff and at the same time involved with another man.” There it was-the plain and horrible truth.
Lisa gasped. “But that’s what my mother did. Now I understand…”
“I know, I know,” Grace whispered. Her betrayal had been unforgivable in Cliff’s eyes, a repeat of the betrayals he’d endured during his twenty-year marriage. Grace understood that she’d committed the one unpardonable sin and she accepted responsibility for it.
“Are you still involved with this other man?”
Grace shook her head. “It was quite a while ago.”
“Then why aren’t you seeing Dad?” Lisa finished the first half of her sandwich. Grace hadn’t started hers; she put it in her bag to eat later.
She clasped her hands together. “Cliff won’t have anything to do with me. I can deal with that now but it’s taken me a long time to reach this point. You have a wonderful father, Lisa. Although we aren’t part of each other’s lives anymore, I’ll always love him.”
Lisa wrapped up the remaining half of her lunch, then crossed her arms and leaned back on the park bench. “I find that interesting, because Dad said almost those identical words to me. That he isn’t part of your life anymore but he loves you.”
“He loves me? He said that?”
“He was crazy about you when he brought you out to meet me last year-and he still is.”
“But…”
“You have to understand my father. He’s a complex man. He doesn’t give his heart easily, nor does he stop loving someone just like that.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis. “Look at all the chances he gave my mother.”
Grace rejoiced at Lisa’s words, but that joy was virtually shattered by Cliff’s adamant response. He loved her, despite what she’d done, and yet he refused to forgive her.
“I’ve tried to reach him,” Grace said in a low voice. “I was such a fool and when I discovered the other man intended to stay in his marriage…”
“He was married?”
Grace felt her face heat with humiliation. How easy it had been to rationalize her behavior at the time. Now, it mortified her even more. She had no excuse, no justification to offer, other than her own schoolgirl fantasies.
Lisa took her hand and squeezed it gently. “That explains why Dad’s acting this way.”
Grace hung her head. “You don’t know how much I regret everything.”
“I’m sure you do,” Lisa said gently. “Still, you bid on my dad in the Dog and Bachelor Auction.”
“How did you hear about that?” she asked, surprised that Lisa knew about the charity event.
“From Cal. How much did Dad cost you?”
“Your father was my birthday gift from my friends and my daughters, and they paid a whopping eight hundred dollars.”
Lisa let out a low whistle.
“No one paid more for any bachelor.”
Lisa grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. “Have you gone on your date already?”
Grace nodded and decided she didn’t want to discuss their evening out. There really wasn’t much to say, which was depressing in itself. “He sent me flowers afterward,” she added sadly.
“That sounds like my dad. You’re probably the only woman other than my mom and me he ever sent flowers to.”
If Lisa was hoping to encourage her, she’d failed miserably.
“How long are you in town?” Grace asked, changing the subject.
“Only until tomorrow-that’s why I had to speak to you this afternoon. It was now or never.”
“I’m so glad you did.”
Lisa sighed. “Dad has your picture in his bedroom. Did you know that?”
Grace shook her head.
“It’s on his bedside table. He doesn’t know I saw it, but I did. It’s one of you and Midnight.”
“He probably just forgot to take it down.” Grace didn’t want to get her hopes up, not after the disappointment of their dinner together, and the fact that she hadn’t heard from him after receiving the flowers. “Or,” she said dejectedly, “he’s just very fond of that horse.”
“Well, he is, but that’s not why he kept the photo in his room.”
Grace remembered the day Cliff had taken the picture. It’d been October and her first trip to his ranch. This was before he’d torn down the old barn and replaced it with the bigger, more modern stable. Cliff had given her the “grand tour,” and as they walked around his property, he’d shared his vision of the ranch. He spoke of the improvements he hoped to make, the breeding programs he’d planned to institute. She hadn’t understood a lot of it, but she’d felt his passion and his love for horses. That same day, he’d shown her his stallion and then stepped back to take her picture as she stood by the corral fence. At that very moment, Midnight had trotted toward her and poked his head over the top rung, curious about this stranger. Grace had turned to admire him and to stroke his sleek black neck. It was that image Cliff had captured on film. He’d shown her the snapshot, but he must have enlarged and framed it.
“I’m worried about my dad,” Lisa confided.
“Why? How do you mean?”
“He’s working too hard and he doesn’t seem nearly as happy as he was the last time I saw him. I didn’t notice it until this summer. He’s been trying to hide it, but I know my father.”
Grace wasn’t nearly as happy, either. “I wish I could help, but there’s nothing I can do.”
“But there is, don’t you see?” Lisa said with such fervor that tears sprang to her eyes. “Win him back, G
race. He loves you and you say you love him.”
“I do!” Her love for him was real; she wanted Lisa to believe that. “But he doesn’t want to see me.”
“That’s not true. Even Cal said my father’s a different person since you two broke up.”
“What should I do?” Grace couldn’t think of a single thing she’d left unsaid or undone. Despite Cliff’s repeated rejections, she’d tried again and again, until it became obvious nothing would change his mind about her.
“Fight for him,” Lisa pleaded.
“Who do I fight? Cliff himself? How?”
“Wear him down,” Lisa said. “Send him cards and letters.”
“E-mails?” she suggested, eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” Lisa cried. “Do something-anything-and don’t give up until you’ve broken through his defenses.” She twisted sideways on the bench, sitting so she could face Grace. “But only if you sincerely love my father.”
“I do,” Grace assured her again. “I truly do.”
“I felt you must-but I had to find out. I had to know for sure.”
The two women hugged. Grace was so moved by the honesty and hopefulness of Lisa’s words, she felt like weeping. “Oh, Lisa, I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t let me down.”
“I won’t,” she promised.
That very night, Grace wrote Cliff a long e-mail. She began by thanking him for the flowers and then told him how much their dinner date had meant to her. She said, in simple, straightforward sentences, that she missed him and thought of him often.
When she finished she reread the e-mail. In it, she shared her concern for Kelly and Paul and their struggles to have a second child. She wrote humorously about her trials with Sherlock, and how the kitten refused to be ignored, describing the inventive ways he pestered her until Grace lavished attention on him. This was Grace’s own less-than-subtle way of telling Cliff she wouldn’t go away, either. Not this time.
The next afternoon, during lunch, Grace walked down to the corner drugstore and purchased a handful of cards, some clever, a couple that had dramatic photos of horses, and a few romantic ones.
As soon as she got home from work, she hurried to her computer, animals in tow, and logged on to the Internet, hoping for a response from Cliff. Her heart fell when she found none.