"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."
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, Grace. 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.