"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?"
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 LisaShore, 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 Pot Belly'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 any more, 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."