Half Moon Harbor (25 page)

“I—don't remember. I was, what, twenty-one? That was ten years ago. Who was your girlfriend ten years ago?”

“I didn't have a girlfriend. Ten years ago I'd only been here for—” He broke off, then swore under his breath, something that sounded like, “Dammit, Dee.” He paused, raked his hair again, then asked, “So, what invitation did you send? Your graduation from Mason? Or Georgetown?”

Her gaze flew to his as he lifted his head and her heart stuttered, stumbled. “GMU, before I started Georgetown. How did you know where—” She couldn't finish the question.

He didn't say anything for a long moment, then swore under his breath again. “You didn't need me in your life again, Grace. I was just figuring out how to survive back then, and . . . I'd already let you down once. Badly. Unforgivably. But that didn't mean . . . ah, hell.” He turned and paced a few steps away. Propping both of his hands on his head, he stood and stared at the island for several long minutes.

Grace didn't say anything, mostly because her throat had closed over completely. He'd . . . what? Kept track of her? But had never come to her? She didn't know whether to feel joy that he really had cared enough to keep up on what she was doing . . . or get pissed off all over again that he'd done it all from a distance, and left her thinking . . . well, all the five thousand different things she'd been thinking all these years—ranging from he didn't care to he hated her.

He finally turned around. “When I started getting my shit together, really together, I tracked you down. I intended to come back, to make things right, which . . . I quickly realized was a complete joke. There was no making right what I did to you. I figured it was best, that you were better off. You were in college then and you were doing great. Then it was law school, and . . . well, you'd figured it out, you had this huge life ahead, and I guess I felt like you'd accomplished all of that despite what I did. The last thing you needed was me, coming back and possibly turning everything to shit.”

“How can you say that?” she asked, voice wavering.

“Because I was deep in the shit, Gracie. I was . . . I used to use the phrase ‘in a bad place' but that's bullshit. I was in hell. Trust me, it was better that I left you to continue the life you'd made for yourself. I thought you wanted it that way. I mean, why wouldn't you?”

Gracie.
No one had ever called her that but him. Tears finally trickled from the corners of her eyes. “So we both fucked up. Repeatedly.” She stopped talking and pressed her fingers to her eyes. She had to do something, anything, to stop the tears. Once they started, she knew it would be a full-on, cathartic, big sloppy cry. Now was not the time for that. This was her one chance, and she needed to get the words out. “I quit my job. I was good at it . . . but it was sucking what soul I had left right out of me. I came to Maine, to Blueberry Cove, to start over.”

Shock crossed his face, then it became that careful mask again, Despite the fact that he was a good ten yards away from her, she could feel him withdrawing again.

“I want something different. I want family, a place that feels like home. I want friends, a life that I actually enjoy, a reason to smile every day. And dammit, I want you.”

“So you just . . . up and moved here?”

She lifted her hands and let them drop by her sides. “This is the only place I can have all those things at once. I-I bought a boathouse. I'm turning it into an inn.”

He plowed both hands in his hair, looking at her as if she'd lost her mind, but not saying anything. Maybe wisely so.

“I don't know the first damn thing about running an inn. And if that's not crazy enough? I got the idea because I read a book about a woman who'd gone searching for meaning in her life and that's what she did. It just . . . it resonated with me, somewhere so deep inside I . . . I don't know. I couldn't get it out of my head. It became my fantasy dream life. I did all this research, half hoping it would bring me back to earth, back to reality. Half hoping it would, I don't know, give me the nerve to just go and do what I knew I really, really wanted to do. Needed to do. But I had spent all that time getting my degree, passing the bar. I had this great job. I had money in the bank. Who walks away from that because they read some stupid book and got this wild hair up their ass? I mean, honestly . . . I thought maybe I was losing my mind.” She let out a laugh that held a lot of emotion, but almost none of it humor. “I thought maybe I was becoming like Mom.”

“You're nothing like Mom.” He said it quite fervently, almost angrily.

Grace lifted her hand to her throat as if by touching it she could make the ache swelling inside go away. “See, that's just it, Ford. I don't really remember her. I don't know what I'm like. Or who I'm like.” She shook her head and looked away, out over the water. “I've never told a single soul about Mom. About . . . worrying that something like that would happen to me. That maybe it was happening to you and that's why . . .” She let the sentence drift off, and dipped her chin, then shook her head. When she lifted it again, she was smiling. It was a forced smile, but dammit, she wanted to be done crying, done feeling sad. And angry. And lonely. “I sure as hell never told anyone I changed my whole life around because of some stupid damn book I picked up at the library. I didn't even go there looking for it. I was there doing research on one of our cases and somebody was returning it just as I was checking out. It had a lighthouse on the cover, and it just”—she rolled her eyes—“looked peaceful. And tranquil. It reminded me of you. Of you being in Maine. Maybe with a lighthouse like that. I don't know. It was completely insane. More so when I started reading it and it was like a story of what my life could be, if only I was brave enough to do what I wanted, instead of what was safe.”

Ford didn't say anything to that. In fact, he was silent for so long, she wasn't sure there was going to be anything left for them to say.

Then he said, “If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there's good crazy and just plain crazy crazy. You ditching it all for a new life in some place you've never been, to come all the way to Maine, sight unseen, lock, stock, and barrel, yeah. That's crazy crazy. But what the hell do I know? Maybe you know better, and it's the good kind.”

Her heart picked up speed again, and she hated that she was willing to cling to the tiniest crumb of acceptance from him. But she wanted . . . something. A way in. Maybe that was what he was offering . . . in his own way. She didn't know. For all that he was her brother, and they definitely had a shared past that neither of them would ever forget, or be able to fully bury . . . the truth was, the man standing in front of her was a complete and total stranger. She didn't even know where to start with that. With him. Their shared past didn't seem like such a good starting point. So . . . where then? And how?

“What kind of crazy was it when you came here and decided to stay?” she asked, knowing that whatever path they took going forward, being open, honest, and unafraid was mandatory or why bother? She wanted to know her brother and have him back in her life, be a part of his, or . . . not. She didn't want some surface, pretend, superficial bullshit deal.

“Crazy crazy. But I guess now, looking back, that described
me
more than anything else. So I honestly don't know. Maybe a little of both.”

“And now?”

He folded his arms, then dropped them to his sides, finally shoving his hands in his pockets. “Now it's the good kind. Or at least, not so crazy.”

“Well . . . that's good.”
It's a place to start, anyway.
“Who's Dee? Or who was she?”

Just like that, his expression became shuttered again.

There was being straightforward and honest, and there was pushing too far, too soon. Grace lifted both hands, palms out. “Never mind. Another time. Or never. It's not really my business.”

“She runs the diner. In the Cove. She wasn't my girlfriend. Just . . . a friend. I guess.”

He seemed almost a little . . . confused by who or what she'd been to him, so, despite being ridiculously curious to know the whole story, Grace let it go. She gestured to the island behind her. “What brought you out here?”

“Solitude. Quiet.”

She smiled at that and looked up at the sky, shielding her eyes from the sun. Birds were everywhere. Big ones, small ones, white, gray, black. On the rocks, floating on the water, dotting the harbor coastline, perched in the trees, and filling the sky. And they were anything but quiet. Between their constant calling and the waves pounding the pier and the rocky coastline, it was far more turbulent and chaotic than peaceful.

He followed her gaze. “You get used to it. It's like white noise now.”

“And it's not people.”

“No,” he said, more quietly. “It's not people.”

It occurred to her that they had kept a good distance from each other the entire time they'd been talking. Initially, it had seemed, well, normal, given the situation. Suddenly it felt awkward. She couldn't exactly run to him and hug him. She just . . . wanted to. He was still a stranger, but she felt like the cathartic, awful, horrible part was over. He hadn't ordered her gone or walked away. He'd let her rant. He'd listened. He'd even opened up. A little, anyway.

Most important, they were talking. And . . . that's all she could hope for, really. Only time would tell where it might lead, if it would matter. If
they
would matter again. To each other.

“There are a few others out here,” she said. “Researchers and interns, right? I read the brochure,” she added, when he glanced at her.

“From mid-May to end of August, yes. Then everybody goes. The people, and the birds.”

“And you?”

He looked back to the island. He was quiet for a long moment. “I stay.”

She watched him for another silent moment. He tensed when he talked to her, and she understood that. She was tense, too. But when he looked at the island or talked about the birds, he relaxed. Or some part of him did, anyway.

“So . . . this is your safe place,” she said, realizing she'd said it out loud when he looked sharply back at her. “For some people that's a good thing. It was for me. For a really long time that safe place was my job and being on the river. I'm a rower. I think both of those things probably saved me. But . . . not anymore.” She looked away from him then, because she had the distinct impression that she'd hurt him somehow. “I'm glad you found your place, Ford. I really am.”

She wanted to go to him then. It was almost like a physical ache, the need to hug him, to just . . . connect. In more than only words shared. But she couldn't seem to make herself take that first step, and she realized then that the hard part, the cathartic part, wasn't over. In fact, they'd only uncovered the tip of that iceberg . . . because hugging your own brother should be easy. Natural.

It wasn't—which meant she was still afraid of being hurt. Of rejection. She knew that, for today anyway, she was going to take the winning parts, the good parts, and be happy. And not push for more. Risk . . . wanting more.

She had just opened her mouth to ask him if he could show her the island, show her what he was doing, thinking that might be the best way to build a bridge between their past . . . and their possible future . . . when a voice called out from the other end of the pier.

“Hey, Doc? We need you to come check on one of the blinds.”

A young girl who appeared to be in her early twenties, dressed in khaki pants and a long-sleeved shirt, came trotting down the dock toward them. On her head was a hard hat, of all things. “I think we have a problem with—oh, hey.” She stopped short once she spied Grace. Ford had apparently blocked her from view.

“Hi,” she said, friendly, smiling. She looked at Ford. “Sorry, I didn't see you were talking.” She extended her hand to Grace. “I'm Annie. Welcome to Sandpiper.”

“Hi,” Grace said, smiling back at her, but her mind spinning in a dozen other directions. “Thanks. I'm Grace,” she added clumsily.

“Are you joining the ranks?” she asked brightly.

Grace looked at Ford, then back at her. “Uh, no. I'm just . . .”

“It's okay, Annie,” Ford told the young girl. “I'll be back up in a minute.”

The young girl looked between the two of them and seemed to realize for the first time that maybe she'd intruded. “Oh, right. Sorry. Well, welcome anyway,” she told Grace. “I'll—yeah, I'm going now.” She shot Ford a curious look, not intimidated by him, but certainly respectful, then trotted back up the pier.

Grace knew it shouldn't be weird that people who knew Ford would be completely at ease around him, and yet, it totally was. He was this . . . enigma to her. Standing there talking to him hadn't changed that sense at all. If anything, it had reinforced it. Of course he worked with people. He wasn't a total recluse. No matter that he sure as hell acted like one, at least with her, anyway. It was also stupid and irrational to be jealous of the people who worked with him, who knew him, who could be so comfortable and casual around him . . . but she was.

All of that took a giant step back to the one thing her brain was still stuck on. “Doc?” she asked him. “Is that like a . . . nickname?”

For the first time since she'd climbed up to the pier and laid eyes on her long-lost brother, a tiny hint of a smile ghosted the corners of his mouth. “You didn't get all the brains in the family, you know.”

Her eyes went wide. “So you're a real . . . I mean, you actually went and got a doctorate?”

“I did, yeah.” He seemed embarrassed. And the humor was gone. “I . . . need to get back to work. It's—this is the busiest we get, and time is short. It's—” He paused, looked away again, and swore under his breath again.