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Other memories involved her childhood best friend, Gail Gilbert, who had lived next door. At least they’d been best friends until junior high when Mrs. Gilbert had decided to send her daughter to Bayfield for school for what she’d believed would be a “better, more well-rounded” education. As soon as Gail had made better, more well-rounded friends, she’d dropped Grace like a hot potato. At the time, it’d stung that Gail wouldn’t even look at Grace on the few occasions their paths had crossed, but it was all water under the bridge at this point.
“Grace?” The almost shrill sounding voice came from next door. “Grace Andersen, is that you?”
Grace glanced toward the Gilberts’ and found Gail’s mother heading up her sidewalk from the street. “Hello, Mrs. Gilbert.”
“I heard you were back home,” she said, crossing her lawn to stop at the hedge separating the two yards. “I just didn’t know if I should believe it.”
“Whaddya know,” Grace said, keeping her distance from the smug woman who had never failed to point out to Grace’s mother that the Gilbert house was nearly three times the size of the Andersens’.
“How long will you be staying on Mirabelle?”
“Not sure,” she hedged. “Probably most of the summer.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Gail comes every year over the July Fourth holiday week and she’ll be so excited when she finds out you’re here.”
Naturally. Now that skinny stick Grace Andersen had become famous Grace Kahill. “Tell her I said hello.” Grace waved as she climbed the steps of her father’s wide front porch, effectively cutting off any more conversation.
For a moment, she stood at the ornately carved front door, not sure whether she should knock, ring the doorbell or simply walk inside. It might be her childhood home, but the only time she’d come back to Mirabelle since she’d left had been for her father’s retirement party and her mother’s funeral. In the end, she knocked and waited.
Within a moment or two, footsteps sounded from inside and the door swung wide-open. “Grace! I thought I heard someone out here,” her father said, pushing open the storm door. “For heaven’s sake, since when do you knock at your own house?”
“Since it ceased being my house?” She shrugged and smiled.
“You have me there.” He held out his arms.
As she hugged him, she couldn’t help but notice he’d lost some weight. “How are you, Dad?”
“I’m managing. Some days are better than others.” He gave her a weak smile as he drew her inside and closed the door. “Have you talked to Carl yet?”
“No.” She hadn’t been able to get herself to call her older brother. Not only were they several years apart in age, but so much time and distance had created an even bigger gulf between them.
Carl had been the good child. The straight-A student. The apple of their mother’s eye. He’d been able to do no wrong. Grace, on the other hand, had never been able to do anything right. If she wasn’t getting Cs, she was getting into trouble with teachers and coaches. As far as her mother was concerned, Grace had a tendency to flirt too much with the wrong sort of boys and not enough with the right ones. While her mother had insisted Grace take choir, Grace had wanted to join the basketball team. Grace wore too much makeup, dressed too strangely and swung her hips too much when she walked.
By the time she’d turned sixteen, Grace had simply quit trying to please her mother. Perhaps that’s why modeling had drawn Grace in so thoroughly and completely. She may not have been perfect, but her body had been.
So much for that.
“Carl will be disappointed you haven’t called,” her dad said, reining in her thoughts.
Not likely. “I’ll call him in the next couple of days.”
“Well, come on in.” He motioned toward the kitchen.
If her mother had been home, they’d have gone directly to the living room to visit, but Pastor John Andersen had always been a kitchen man, as simple and relaxed as Grace’s mother had been formal and proper. Though he was retired now and doing only an occasional wedding service, her father had been a soft-spoken preacher, a kind dad and as far as Grace had known, an affectionate and loving husband.
As Grace walked down the slightly uneven hardwood floor of the main hall, she glanced from living room to formal dining area. Even less had changed in the interior of the home than the exterior, but surprisingly the rooms didn’t look the slightest bit dated. Jean Andersen had, by design, decorated with timeless antiques she’d collected through the years. Her father, she noticed, had kept things as immaculate as when her mother had still been alive. Except for in the kitchen.
Her eyes widened at the sight of the mess that had accumulated. Her mother would be rolling in her grave if she could see the state of her domain. Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink and on the counter, mail and newspapers lay haphazardly across almost every flat surface, and a distasteful odor came from the garbage can.
“Dad?” she said. “You look like you could use some help around here.”
“Oh, I know, honey. Can’t seem to stay ahead of everything.”
Stay ahead of it? He wasn’t close to keeping up. “Do you mind if I pick up a bit?”
“You don’t need to do that. Carol said she was going to come by tomorrow with a few meals. She usually stays for a while and helps me clean.”
If that wasn’t motivation enough for Grace to clean, she didn’t know what was. Carl’s wife, Carol, was as picture-perfect as Carl. That match had been made in heaven as had its offspring, their two children, Nikki and Alex. All Grace had heard through the years in phone calls with her mother was Carl this and Carol that intermixed with Nicole did this and Alexander did that. There was little doubt that Carol was the daughter Jean Andersen had always wanted.
Her father glanced around and sighed. “I guess I’m not as good as your mother was at keeping things organized.”
“Why don’t you sit over there at the counter and we can talk while I straighten up?” Grace started in on emptying the clean dishes from the dishwasher. “When did you eat last?”
“I think I had some cold cereal for breakfast.”
“You think?” No matter. It was already after lunchtime. She opened the cupboard and found some soup. It was better than nothing. “You hungry?” She showed him the can.
“Now that you mention it, I could do with a little something, but I can do that.” He opened the can, dumped the contents in the bowl, and set it in the microwave, dribbling broth everywhere.
“Sit down, Dad. I’ll get it for you when it’s done.”
“What about you?” he said, sitting with his hands in his lap. “You going to join me?”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“So you got in yesterday. All settled?”
“Pretty much.”
“Caught up with any old friends, yet?”
“No, and I’m not sure I have much of an interest.”
“We’ve had a lot a new folks moving to the island in the past couple years. I think there’s a group about your age.”
Lovely.
“Some good people in that mix. Some…not so much.”
That was about as negative as her father ever got when it came to assessing people. If he didn’t like someone, chances were you’d never know it.
“So in which group is Sean Griffin?”
“Sean? Have you met him?”
“Yesterday. I’m boarding my horse at his stables. He was a bit…abrupt.”
Her father chuckled. “Yep, that’s Sean. Impatient. I’m not sure he’s entirely adjusted to the pace on Mirabelle.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Your neck of the woods, I think. L.A.”
What in the world had brought him here of all places?
They continued chatting about nothing of consequence while she finished putting away the clean dishes and then began piling the dirty ones into the dishwasher. When the microwave dinged, she set the hot soup in front of her dad and picked up the kitchen. By the time she’d finished, the dishwasher was full again, but at least the counters were clean.
She went through the mail, recycling all the junk and setting the bills and other correspondence in one neat pile. “This is the important stuff,” she said, making sure he was paying attention. “So you need to go through this soon, okay?”
He nodded. “All right, dear.”
Nearing the bottom of the stack, she ran across a recent photo of her mom and dad. They were sitting at a table, his arm was around her shoulder and their heads were tilted toward each other. It was rare to see Jean Andersen smile so widely.
“That was taken the night before she died,” her dad said as he came to stand next to her. “We were playing cards at the Engebretsons’ town house, and she’d just won a game of hearts by shooting the moon in the last hand.”
Meaning she’d just forced twenty-six points onto all of her other teammates. Not an easy thing to do. God, it’d been a long time since Grace had played cards.
“It was a good night.” He ran the tip of his index finger over the photo.
She glanced at him and his melancholy expression clawed at her heart. How could her father have so loved a woman with whom Grace had never really gotten along? It just didn’t make sense. “It’ll get easier, Dad.”
He smiled wryly. “You know how many times I’ve said that exact thing to other people looking to their pastor for advice?” He shook his head. “It’s hogwash.” He sighed. “I still wake up every morning expecting to see her lying next to me.”
The phone rang, piercing the sudden quiet.
She answered. “Andersen residence.”
“Well, I’ll be darned. This little Gracie?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling with the realization that this man’s voice sounded familiar. “This Doc Welinski?”
He chuckled. “That it is.”
“How have you been, Doc?”
“I’ve been great,” he said, pausing. “So sorry about your mom.”
“Thank you.”
They chatted for a few minutes about her plans. “Enough of that,” Grace said finally. “I imagine you wanted to talk with Dad.”
“That I do. Need to get that man moving again. Thought maybe a round of golf might do a world of good.”
“Sounds like a great idea.” She handed the phone to her father. “It’s Doc Welinski.”
“Willard? What’s up?”
Grace put her father’s lunch dishes in the dishwasher.
“No, no,” her father said. “Not this afternoon. I’m too tired.” Her father paused, presumably while Doc talked. “I know, I know. I’ll get there. Just not today.” Another pause. “Thanks for the offer.” He hung up the phone.
“I think it would do you some good, Dad,” Grace said gently. “To get out a bit.”
“Next week.” He patted her cheek. “It’s good to have you home, Grace.”
“It’s good to be home, Dad.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“SEE YOU TWO IN THE MORNING.” Sean walked through his clinic waiting room after his last appointment of the day.
“Have a good afternoon, Doctor,” replied Donna, his office manager.
“See you later, Dr. Griffin,” his nurse, Kelly, said, smiling.
No matter how many times he asked them, he couldn’t get those two to refer to him as Sean. Donna, a stout woman in her late fifties, had insisted it wasn’t proper in a medical clinic to call the doctor anything except doctor, and Kelly, a pretty young—too young for Sean—redhead who’d moved to Mirabelle only last summer, wasn’t about to cross Donna no matter how much she wanted to flirt with Sean.
Sean left the clinic and headed toward home. Although being the only physician on the island also meant being on call 24/7, limiting his clinic hours to mornings during the summer tourist season left him afternoons and evenings for his new business venture.
He reached the top of Mirabelle’s hill and headed straight through the residential section toward the outer edge of town. After walking through the main gate to his property, Sean nodded at Eric, his stable manager who, along with a couple other wranglers, was taking a group of tourists out on trail ride through Mirabelle’s state park land.
“Everything going okay?” Sean asked, stepping onto his front porch.
“Yes, sir,” Eric answered. “Had two full groups this morning and have another two scheduled this afternoon.”
“Great.” As the line of horses left the main yard, Sean opened his front door, stepped inside and immediately stumbled over a pair of shoes left smack-dab in the middle of the hall. Austin’s shoes.
He glanced around. It’d taken him several months to get this house exactly the way he’d wanted it, updated and refreshed, neat and ordered, but he’d finally managed. It had taken Austin less than a week to wreak havoc.
The kid was like a tornado. He’d thrown his sweatshirt over a chair. A pair of his socks were lying on the floor in the family room. An empty pop can sat on an end table, along with several sweat rings from other drinks. A cell phone, personal music device and both chargers were strewn across one of the kitchen counters. An empty milk carton sat next to the kitchen sink along with several dirty dishes and the jar of peanut butter and there were bread crumbs scattered everywhere.
Only three months. You can do it.
After changing out of his doctor garb for his preferred mode of dress—jeans and a T-shirt—he rapped on Austin’s closed bedroom door. “Austin, time to get up.”
No response.
“Austin?”
Still nothing.
“Austin.”
“What?” came the surly response.
Sean took a deep breath and tried to let it slide. “It’s after noon. You can’t sleep the entire day away.”
There was a long moment of silence. “I’ll get up in a minute.”
