Debbie Macomber''s Cedar Cove Series, Volume 2

  “What do you hear from Lover Boy?” he asked.

  “I wish you’d stop calling Nate that,” she said, the humor leaving her voice.

  “Okay, your Sailor Man,” he revised. The truth was, Bruce had never much cared for Rachel’s navy boyfriend. For one thing, he couldn’t imagine them as a couple. For another, Nate seemed to resent the time Rachel spent with Jolene. In fact he’d tried on more than one occasion to come between them. So far, that hadn’t worked; Rachel wouldn’t allow it.

  “We talk almost every day. He misses me.”

  “Do you miss him?” Bruce asked, although he already knew what she’d say.

  “Like crazy. I’m going to fly down to California to visit him soon. Or he’ll fly up here for a weekend. We’re miserable without each other.”

  Bruce had to bite his tongue to keep from making a sarcastic remark. He wasn’t sure why he’d bothered to ask. Thinking about Nate Olsen and Rachel invariably put him in a bad mood, although he refused to delve any further into the reasons for that.

  “What’s new in town?” Rachel asked, abruptly changing the subject. “You’re reading the paper, aren’t you? Give me an update.”

  “All right,” he said, looking at the front page. “The school board’s bringing a new bond issue to the ballot in September. You’ll vote for it, won’t you?”

  “Of course. Anything else?”

  “There’s an article here by Jack Griffin about the Harbor Street Art Gallery. Apparently the owners are closing it, at least for the winter months, and maybe for good.”

  “Oh, no,” Rachel murmured. “Maryellen Bowman’s going to feel awful about that. She’s the one who built it up. A lot of local artists depend on that extra income.”

  “There’s also a short piece about a farewell party for Linnette McAfee,” Bruce went on. “Apparently her last day at the Medical Clinic is next week.”

  “I’m sorry she’s moving away,” Rachel said. “If anyone should move, it’s Cal,” she added indignantly.

  “Who’s Cal?”

  She launched into a rather involved explanation of Linnette and Cal Washburn and their relationship, ending with, “He broke her heart and now she’s leaving town?”

  “Why?” That didn’t make sense to Bruce, either, but then he was the last person who’d understand the whys and wherefores of a relationship. Rachel explained why she thought Linnette had decided to move. It still didn’t make sense to him. So Linnette and this Cal broke up. So what? This wasn’t junior high. Everyone should be able to coexist and behave like the adults they were.

  “Martha Evans’s funeral was this week,” Rachel said next. “Anything in the paper about that?”

  “Who’s she?”

  “She was an elderly woman. Around ninety. I did her hair for the funeral.”

  He didn’t like thinking about it. “That’s something you do?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Of course. She was a lovely woman. I’ll miss her.”

  “But why—”

  “The funeral home occasionally hires me. And I was very fond of Martha so I wanted to do it.”

  They chatted for another while, joking back and forth, filling each other in on what was happening at work. When he replaced the phone, Bruce was shocked to realize they’d talked for more than an hour.

  “What did Rachel say?” Jolene asked. She’d been waiting patiently, completing a jigsaw puzzle of horses grazing in a field. Five hundred pieces! He was impressed.

  “She said she’d be by to pick you up at nine-thirty on Saturday morning,” he said absently. An hour. He’d spent an entire hour on the phone with Rachel?

  Something was wrong.

  Bruce didn’t even like talking on the phone. Five minutes, tops. Say what’s necessary and hang up. He could barely remember a conversation in his entire adult life that had lasted more than fifteen minutes.

  “Dad?” Jolene cut into his musings.

  “What?”

  “You’re standing up but you’re not going anywhere.”

  “I am?” He hadn’t been aware that he was on his feet until Jolene pointed it out.

  “Are you okay?” his daughter asked.

  Bruce sat back down. “I—I don’t know.” He felt dizzy, and that was unusual for him. In fact, his head was spinning. Maybe he had the flu. Yeah, a flu named Rachel. Where did that thought come from? Squinting at his daughter, he noticed she was looking at him strangely.

  “Should I call 911?”

  “No.” He forced a laugh. “I’m fine. I do have a question for you, though.”

  “Sure.” She knelt in front of him, her hand on his knee. “Do you want me to get you a glass of water?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing.” His heart felt like an oil-rig pump that had gone berserk, but he chose to ignore that. “You like Rachel, don’t you?” But Jolene didn’t need to answer. Rachel had taken Stephanie’s place in her life. His own parents lived in Connecticut, and Jolene had only seen them two or three times. Stephanie’s parents had divorced when she was young and she’d never had a good relationship with her father. Her mother had died within two years of Stephanie; she’d never recovered from the loss of her only child. So it’d always been just Bruce and his daughter. Except for Rachel…

  “Dad, of course I like Rachel,” Jolene said. “You like her, too, don’t you?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.

  “You’re not mad at her or anything?”

  “No, no, everything’s…fine.”

  The relief in his daughter’s eyes quickly turned to fear. “She’s not marrying Nate and moving to San Diego, is she?”

  Not if I can help it, his mind shouted. With Jolene studying him intently, he shook his head and pretended nothing was amiss.

  Together they made dinner. Jolene prepared a green salad while Bruce fixed tuna sandwiches. Dinnertime had been important to Stephanie. Because he knew this was something his wife would’ve wanted, Bruce had continued the practice of having dinner with Jolene every evening. While she described her day, he did his best to pay attention. During the summer she attended a church day camp, which she loved. She launched into a long, complicated story about a little play she was in, and he forced himself to nod and exclaim in the right places.

  Summer bedtime was nine-thirty and Jolene went without an argument. He cleaned up the kitchen, then thought about going to bed himself, only he wasn’t tired. After washing a load of laundry and dumping it in the dryer, he cleaned the bathroom. This burst of nervous energy wasn’t a bad thing, he decided. Rare and surprising, perhaps, but nothing to be alarmed by.

  Once in bed, he tossed and turned for another hour, then realized he wouldn’t sleep until he’d talked to Rachel again. Her phone rang four times before she answered.

  “Hello.” Her voice was soft with sleep.

  “It’s me,” he said, feeling a bit unnerved when he glanced at the clock on his nightstand and saw that it was after midnight.

  “Bruce? Do you know what time it is?” She sounded more awake now—and annoyed.

  “Sorry…”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “When we talked earlier,” he began, not knowing where to go from there.

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “We were on the phone for over an hour.”

  His announcement was met with silence, so he forged ahead. “There’s something happening between us, Rachel.”

  She sighed, or it could have been a suppressed yawn. “No, there isn’t.”

  “I’ve never talked to a woman for that long in my whole life.” He hesitated, then added, “Someone other than Stephanie, I mean.”

  “You woke me out of a dead sleep to tell me that?” Now her voice was incredulous.

  “Yes.”

  “Bruce, listen, we’re friends. We’ve been friends for years. Friends talk.”

  “I don’t chitchat on the phone,” he said forcefully. “I just don’t. I never have.”

&
nbsp; “You’re making too much of this, okay? It’s not a big deal.”

  “Jolene’s worried.” He said the next thing that came to mind.

  “About you?”

  “No,” he told her swiftly. “She’s worried about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. She’s afraid you’re going to marry Nate and leave.” He was worried, too, but he couldn’t tell Rachel that. He’d already revealed far too much of his confusion. His feelings for Rachel were changing—or perhaps he simply hadn’t recognized them for what they were.

  “Bruce, Jolene and I have discussed this at length. If she mentions it to you again, tell her the person she needs to talk to is me.”

  “What did you say to her?” he asked. They were talking about his daughter here and he had a right to know.

  Rachel yawned before answering. “I promised her she’d always be part of my life.”

  “So you’ve decided to marry Lover Boy, after all.”

  “Would you stop it,” she chastised none too gently.

  “Now I’m worried about Jolene,” he whispered. It felt like he was about to lose his best friend, and depression settled heavily on his shoulders. If Rachel did marry Nate, that was exactly what would happen. She’d move away and leave them both.

  “Can I go back to sleep now?” she asked.

  “I feel like talking,” he murmured, lying down again, the pillow nestling his head.

  “Bruce, it’s almost one in the morning!”

  “I know. But you’re awake now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, thanks to you. What would you like to talk about—other than Nate and me?”

  “You want to go out for dinner on Saturday night? After shopping?”

  “Bruce!”

  “What?”

  “I want to go back to sleep. That’s what I want to do.”

  “Oh.”

  “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.”

  Despite himself, he grinned. “Good night, Rachel.”

  “Good night, Bruce,” she said pointedly.

  He was smiling as he replaced the receiver—even though he didn’t have anything to smile about. Because Rachel might very well marry Nate Olsen, and then the emptiness she’d filled would be deeper than ever before.

  Thirteen

  Sitting with the other ladies at the Henry M. Jackson Senior Center, Charlotte Rhodes knitted with furious speed. Her friends chatted, but Charlotte’s mind was moving as fast as her hands.

  “Charlotte,” Helen Shelton said. “You look like you’re a thousand miles away.”

  “Oh…” she murmured with a start. She hadn’t been listening to her friends’ conversation, but the fact that they’d realized it was embarrassing. She smiled apologetically at Helen, who was a favorite of hers and another expert knitter. She was a widow, living in a lovely duplex on Poppy Lane; the two women had much in common and spent many an afternoon knitting and exchanging stories.

  But at the moment Charlotte was worrying about her son and his recent move to Cedar Cove. On the surface, Will’s decision to retire in Washington seemed logical, but knowing what she did, Charlotte had good reason to be suspicious.

  “Bess asked if you’d check her knitting,” Helen said. “I can’t quite figure out what she’s done wrong.”

  “Of course.” Charlotte set her own knitting aside and studied her friend’s half-finished sock. She’d discovered many an easy fix in sixty years of working with needles and yarn. When people came to her with knitting difficulties, her initial advice was always the same: Read the pattern. If the directions weren’t clear the first time, then read them again.

  She glanced at the sock pattern, which had been passed around among the knitters and looked a little the worse for wear. She found Bess’s mistake quickly enough and repaired it, using a crochet hook to pick up a dropped stitch.

  The ladies at this table were her dearest friends in the world, and yet Charlotte couldn’t divulge her troubles to them. That just wasn’t done by most women of her generation. Family problems stayed inside the family. They were not to be discussed with outsiders, and that included one’s very closest friends.

  She envied Olivia and Grace their friendship. There wasn’t anything those two couldn’t and didn’t talk about. But Charlotte couldn’t share her disappointment in her oldest child with anyone other than her husband. Ben might not be Will’s father but he was part of her family now.

  How could she tell her friends that her only son had a weak character? How could she reveal to these women that Will had dishonored his wedding vows? Not once, but repeatedly. His ex-wife, Georgia, had kept this a secret for as long as she could and then the poor girl couldn’t take it anymore. Charlotte didn’t blame her. If Clyde had been alive, she knew he’d be embarrassed and ashamed by Will’s behavior and would no doubt have a few things to say to his son. Maybe it was just as well that Clyde had gone on to his heavenly reward rather than suffer such disillusionment about his only son.

  Ben was at home when she returned from the knitters’ group. He opened the front door as she approached the steps, taking them slowly and one at a time.

  “You look like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he said, taking the bag from her hand and steering her into the house. Charlotte went automatically to the kitchen.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.

  “If conversation goes along with that tea.”

  Charlotte wasn’t sure she could talk; her throat felt like it was closing. Swallowing hard, she nodded because she needed to talk, needed to share the feelings that pressed on her so heavily.

  Ben collected the cups and saucers while she boiled water and measured out tea leaves. Soon they were sitting at the kitchen table across from each other but before she could pour the tea, he reached for her hand.

  “Is it Will?” he asked.

  “Where is he? Do you know?”

  Ben shrugged. “He left a couple of hours ago. Said he was meeting with a rental agent to look at apartments.”

  “Did he say where he was hoping to move?”

  “He told me he’d like to find an apartment near us, in the downtown area.”

  “I was afraid of that,” she said starkly.

  “Why?” Ben asked, sounding genuinely taken aback. “It seemed thoughtful of him to want to be close by. In case either of us needs him, he said.”

  “Hogwash,” Charlotte sputtered.

  Ben’s eyes widened at her outburst.

  “I know my son,” she said, “and his wanting to be downtown has nothing to do with any concern for our well-being.” Her hand shook as she filled their teacups. “We aren’t the only ones nearby,” she muttered, then pressed her lips together in consternation.

  Ben frowned, as if he didn’t understand.

  “It’s Grace,” she said, setting the teapot back on the table.

  “Do you seriously think he’s still hung up on Grace?” Ben asked. He seemed to find it far-fetched that Will would go to such extremes. “He knows she’s married to Cliff, doesn’t he?”

  “Of course he does. But a little thing like a wedding ring hasn’t stopped him in the past,” she said. A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. “I know my son,” she said again. “He’s highly competitive. That’s one of the reasons he was such a success in the corporate world.”

  “In other words, he doesn’t like to lose.”

  “He detests it.” Charlotte could list plenty of examples from her son’s youth but resisted. “He’s going to move downtown and in a week or two he’s going to get a library card.”

  “Because of Grace…”

  “For no other reason,” she elaborated. “He hasn’t felt a need for one in the last thirty-five years. Now, however, it’s going to be a necessary part of his relocation. Mark my words,” she added, tapping her fingers rhythmically on the table.

  “It’s too late as far as Grace is concerned,” Ben said. “She’s happily married.
”

  “I know.” And Charlotte felt it was her duty to see that nothing ruined Grace’s happiness. Grace was like a second daughter to her. Charlotte wasn’t planning to sit idly by and allow her own son to destroy Grace’s life. He wouldn’t succeed in seducing her again, but he was perfectly capable of interfering in her marriage, spreading innuendo and suspicion.

  “Then why are you so worried?”

  Before she could answer, the front door opened. In walked Will, looking carefree and decidedly pleased with himself. His eyes brightened and he smiled as he entered the kitchen. “I’m back,” he announced. “And I’d love a cup of tea.”

  “How’d it go?” Charlotte asked. She stood automatically to get him a cup and was struck by what a handsome man he was, even more handsome at sixty than he’d been as a young man. He was tall and well-built, physically fit. He had a sense of style, too; from the time he was a teenager he’d taken care with his clothes. She remembered that he’d always been far more fashion-conscious than his peers. Recently his hair had begun to gray at the temples, giving him a distinguished look. Considering his appearance and his well-developed charm, it was little wonder that women had fallen at his feet. Even sensible women, like Grace.

  “I found a small two-bedroom unit right off Harbor Street,” Will told them triumphantly.

  “Off…Harbor Street?”

  “On the water,” he said as she handed him his tea.

  Charlotte knew of only one apartment complex on the waterfront. “I haven’t seen a rental sign there,” she said, none too pleased. Naturally Will had chosen an apartment that was practically next door to the library.

  “I’m subletting the unit,” he explained. “I’d prefer a more upscale place, but this will do for now.”

  Charlotte caught Ben’s eye. He nodded, got up and politely excused himself.

  She waited until he’d left the room, then confronted her son. “This doesn’t happen to be Linnette McAfee’s apartment, does it?”

  “It sure does.” He sounded surprised. “How did you know?”