Читать книгу Her Sure Thing - Helen Brenna - Страница 11

HER FIRST MORNING ON MIRABELLE.

The sun already streaming through the open window, Grace lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The sound of squirrels scrabbling up and down the trees filtered in, along with the chirping of robins and chickadees, cardinals and finches. There were no traffic sounds to interfere with their songs, no smog to ruin the fresh-smelling spring air. She should’ve felt rested and relaxed. Instead, she was tense and edgy.

Rather than the restful night she’d hoped for, even after taking two pain pills, she’d slept fitfully, if that’s what you could call that flip-flopping, sweaty tussle in the sheets she’d suffered through for the last six hours. No point in lying here any longer. That was about all the decadence she could handle for one morning.

Flipping back the covers, she padded into the bathroom, unzipped the compression shirt and stepped into the shower. Once finished, she quickly dried herself off and smoothed some medicated cream over her scars. The tube was nearly empty, but she’d be damned if she’d call her doctor for a refill. No doubt, he’d want her to come in for an exam.

Briskly, she slathered lotion on the rest of her body. Once upon a time, she’d actually enjoyed this part of her daily routine. She would’ve lingered, taken time covering every inch of skin and luxuriated in the feel of rich, scented cream. Since her accident, though, she hated the feeling of being naked and exposed. The sooner she got clothing on, the better. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen herself nude.

Spur of the moment, she spun around and stared at herself in the large mirror over the sink, took in every angle, every inch of skin. My God, what happened to you? That skinny, damaged body could not be hers.

Grabbing the bath towel, she strategically placed it over her left side. There you are. Almost. With the right clothes on, covering the right spots, no one would be the wiser.

But she knew. She always knew.

The memory of the look on Jeremy’s face when he’d seen her scars flashed through her mind. No wonder he’d filed for a divorce the day after her long-term prognosis. Scarred for life is what the doctors had said. No amount of plastic surgery would ever completely erase the injuries caused by the fire. Her usefulness to him had gone up in flames, along with the leather seats in her Bugatti. She was now damaged goods.

Quickly, she pulled on a clean custom-fitted compression shirt, zipping it up the front. For a moment, she imagined going about her day without the tight elastic fabric, but the thought had been immediately followed by a sense of panic. She’d gotten used to ever-present pressure around her upper body. There was an odd sense of security, she supposed, in the feeling.

In order to ensure her scars wouldn’t spread, she needed to wear the compression garment over most of her torso at least twenty-three hours of every day. That meant she slept and exercised in one and would be wearing one until the day her doctor said her scars had matured.

Matured. How ridiculous was that term? As if a burn scar could ever be anything except ugly.

She was stepping into a pair of white thong underwear, when the front doorbell chimed. Inching out into the hall, she glanced downstairs through the sheers on either side of the front door. A young man, more than likely a college student, stood at the door holding two bags of groceries.

“Newman’s delivery,” he called out, setting the bags down and knocking. “Hello? Mrs. Kahill?”

She hadn’t ordered any groceries.

The boy squinted through the windows on either side of the front door, trying unsuccessfully to see into the house. “Well, okay then. Call the store if you need anything else.” Shrugging, he set the bags down on the porch, turned and left.

Her stomach grumbled and she wondered what was in those bags and who had ordered her food. As if in answer, her cell phone rang. That had to be either Suzy or Amanda, but she didn’t want to talk to either one of them.

The phone stopped ringing and indicated a voice mail had been left for her. Then, surprisingly, the house landline rang. She hadn’t given that number to anyone.

The answering machine speaker sounded through the house. “Dammit, Grace, pick up.” Suzy Lang’s unique accent, not quite British, but not entirely Indian, echoed strongly through the house. “Okay, fine. Be that way. I ordered you some groceries because I have this sneaking suspicion that you have nothing but celery to eat in that house. Believe it or not, that Newman’s store had some decent organic stuff. So eat, okay? Don’t make me come there and force-feed you.”

At that, Grace smiled as she pulled on a pair of white capris, topped with a T-shirt over her compression garment and finished off with a dark heather-gray hoodie and a lightweight scarf around her neck, effectively hiding the rest of her scars.

“You know I don’t have the time. The photo shoot for that new magazine spread has me running around like a runway wannabe.” Her long, soft sigh came over the line. “I miss you already.”

Grace missed her best friend, too. Apparently, there was one thing left in L.A. that Grace still cared about and that still cared about her. She answered the phone. “Hey, Suze.”

“I knew you were there. What the hell?”

“Sorry. Having an awkward time settling in here, I guess.”

“Amanda called me,” Suzy said softly. “What are you doing back on Mirabelle?”

“I needed some R & R.”

“R & R, my ass. You’re going to be bored out of your mind in a week.”

“I’ve been working full-time since I left this place. I think I’m due for some time off. Besides, my dad needs the company.”

“Okay, okay.” Suzy sighed. “Amanda’s worried about you.”

“Oh, really?” Grace was a paycheck to her assistant. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Grace, don’t be that way. You do have people in your life who love you.”

Bullshit. Suzy had been the only one who truly cared. The rest had all been using her. Designers wanted her to wear their latest lines. Friends wanted appointments with her agent for their daughters, nieces, nephews, you name it. Editors wanted exclusive photo ops. Photographers wanted in with up-and-coming models. The truth had been revealed when her usefulness to them had ended with her accident.

“I’m serious,” Suzy said. “You’re not just a boss to Amanda. She really cares.”

“If you say so.”

“She said you were supposed to have a doctor’s appointment the day you left for Mirabelle. I know you’re sick of doctors, but you may still need some attention.”

“I know.” She wasn’t entirely out of the woods yet, and she didn’t want to be ninety and still wearing this compression garment.

“So what are you doing about it?”

“Well, believe or not, this tiny island has a wonderful clinic. I promise I’ll make an appointment for some time in the next couple of weeks with Doc Welinski.” He’d give her a new prescription for any medicated cream she asked for and pain meds, if needed.

“Is he any good?”

“The best.”

Grace had never met a sweeter, more compassionate man than old Doc Welinski, except, quite possibly, for her father. Doc had tenderly and with unexpected humor put on her cast when she’d fallen out of the McGregors’ apple tree and broken her arm. When she’d gotten violently sick to her stomach after French inhaling an entire pack of cigarettes, he’d given her antacids and kept the secret from her mother. And when other mothers, mothers like Mrs. Miller, had complained about Grace and the trouble she always seemed to be getting into, Grace could still remember Doc Welinski standing up for her in the school lobby. She’d be in good hands here on Mirabelle.

“All right,” Suzy said. “I’ll tell Amanda she can stop worrying.”

“I gotta run. Talk to you again soon.”

“Don’t wait to answer the phone next time.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Smiling, Grace disconnected their call. Then she went downstairs and brought in the groceries the Newman’s delivery boy had left on her porch. She set the bags on the kitchen counter and put everything away.

The selection of groceries indicated Suzy was well aware that Grace snacked rather than cooked full-fledged meals. Tomato juice, low-fat yogurt and breakfast bars. Pita bread, hummus, sprouts and shaved roasted turkey. Romaine, feta cheese and an olive oil vinaigrette. Shrimp and fish. Blueberries, raspberries, avocadoes and an artichoke, all of them fresh. There were a variety of organic soups. And, lastly, a special treat. Two pints of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

Grace grabbed a spoon and dug out a chunk of ice cream before putting the containers in the freezer. As the chocolate melted on her tongue, she groaned. There were benefits to no longer modeling.

Grabbing a hat and sunglasses, in case she encountered any tourists, Grace grabbed a breakfast bar, left the house and set off down Mirabelle’s residential streets toward the house she’d grown up in. A strange sense of déjà vu filled her as she walked down the street. She’d spent far too much time here on Mirabelle for these neighborhoods to feel like anything other than home, but the trees were taller and many of the houses had been painted different colors.

In her head, she listed off the names of every family who used to live in every single house, but strangers mowed the lawns and picked up the mail. People had moved, died and retired. Mirabelle had changed. If the Duffys had moved out of their farmhouse, then it was also possible that the Setterbergs had, too. For all she knew the Grotes may have relocated, as well as the Hendersons and the Millers.

But as she approached the cotton candy-pink Victorian next door to her parents’ home, it was apparent Shirley Gilbert still owned the bed-and-breakfast. The grand old house was still in tip-top shape as were the gardens already overflowing with pink, white and purple petunias.

The house where she’d grown up couldn’t have looked more different from the Gilberts’. Grace turned up the front sidewalk to the modestly sized, but classically designed Victorian and noticed that very little had changed with either the structure or the yard in the years since she’d left home. The house still looked terminally white. What else could you call white shutters and trim on white siding? Virginal?

Her mother had even ensured the landscaping didn’t step out of line. Bridal veil spirea bushes. White petunias in the pots on the front porch. A white crab apple tree in full bloom on the front lawn. Other than the grass and leaves, the only color in the entire yard came from the shingles on the rooftop. Green, naturally, so as not to clash with the vegetation.

She glanced up to her old bedroom window in the second-floor turret to find white—of course—sheers hanging in the window. The pale pink polka-dotted curtains she’d had to stare at for most of her teen years were gone. Thank God. She’d always hated those damned frilly things.

A large honeysuckle—white again—climbed up the trestle near the corner. How many times had she climbed down the drainpipe outside her window? If she hadn’t been escaping off into the woods to meet some boy vacationing from Chicago, she’d been meeting up with groups of kids to hang around a fire and drink stolen liquor out at Full Moon Bay.

One childhood memory after another tumbled through her mind. More often than not her memories involved boring gatherings with boring guests. Their front door had practically revolved with the comings and goings of visitors. There were some fond memories, some of them involving Carl. Most of the time, she and her older—perfect—brother argued whenever they’d gotten within twenty feet of each other, but there’d been a few times when they’d connected.

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.”