At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(2)
Noah and Gracie had been together since senior year of high school and they had stayed together despite the best efforts of their families to break them up. You wouldn't think their fathers' paths would have crossed very often, not even in a small town like Idle Point, but the hatred between the two men was legendary and the poison spilled over onto their children. They had learned through experience to keep their love hidden away from their families.
When they went off to college—Noah to B.U., Gracie to the University of Pennsylvania—everyone was sure distance would put an end to their teenage love affair. Nobody but Noah and Gracie knew of the weekends spent sharing pretzels on the steps of the museum in Philadelphia or strolling near Independence Hall, talking about the home they would build together, the family they would raise. Gracie would join Doctor Jim's veterinary practice while Noah wrote the Great American Novel.
She'd heard the whispers from some of her so-called friends, the ones who wondered how a plain girl like Gracie who lived over by the docks managed to land someone like Noah. Gracie was serious and ambitious and poor. Noah was a rich man's son who thought life was his for the taking. He'd flunked out of B.U. and if he had some game plan for his life, he wasn't sharing it. He wasn't serious about anything, didn't Gracie know that? One day he'd call her up and say, "You know there'll never be anyone else like you, Gracie, but I've met someone else and..."
Everyone but Gracie knew that was going to happen one day. Why couldn't she get it through her head that she was fooling herself? Their poison-tipped words hurt but a long time ago Gramma Del had taught herself how to deflect the sting and hold her head high. They never knew how good their aim was. Noah loved her for who she was inside, not for how she looked, not for what she owned. He didn't care that she was tall and skinny and blessed with brains, not beauty; with a heart, but not a bank account. They loved each other and up until last night she had believed that was all they needed.
Whoever thought it would be Gracie who broke Noah's heart?
She had Simon Chase to thank for ruining their lives. He'd shown up at her father's house an hour ago. Sixty minutes was all it took to shatter her dreams. Her future father-in-law was an imposing man, tall and white-haired and blessed with the natural arrogance of the born Yankee aristocrat. His bad heart had slowed him down but the fierceness of his gaze when he looked at Gracie hadn't softened a bit. She had always suspected that Simon didn't like her but she'd never imagined the depth of it until that afternoon.
Simon had connections up and down the coast of Maine and right across into lake country. Noah and Gracie had slipped down to Portland last week to apply for their wedding license, figuring nobody in the city office would pay any attention to them. They were wrong. A clerk recognized the Chase name and mentioned it to his superior who happened to mention it over lunch to a friend and an hour later Simon's office phone was ringing with the news.
"You'll do the right thing," Simon had said as he rose to leave. "If you love my son the way you say you do, I know you'll do what's best for him. There's really no other way, is there, Graciela?"
It wasn't until Simon and his late model Lincoln disappeared down the road that she found the envelope propped up on the kitchen table between the sugar bowl and the salt and pepper shakers. Ten thousand dollars to leave his son alone. Ten thousand dollars to keep her from ruining Noah's life. Apparently that was the going rate for betrayal in Idle Point.
"I mean it, girlie," Eb was saying. "Save your gas money for when you're filling your tank in New Jersey. Nobody gives anything away in New Jersey."
"I can't let you do that," she said. "You already gave me that beautiful silver mirror that belonged to Sarah when I started high school."
His eyes glistened with tears. "Sarah loved you like one of her own grandbabies. You know she always prayed you and Noah would end up together one day."
Oh God. Can this get any worse? Let me get out of here before what's left of my heart breaks in two.
She knew when she'd been bested and kissed Eb on a weathered cheek. "Thank you," she said. "You're very dear to me."
Eb turned red beneath his grey whiskers. "You make us proud, Gracie. Understand?"
"I'm doing the right thing," she said as she climbed behind the wheel. "This is the best thing for both of us." Simon Chase had proved that beyond a doubt less than an hour ago.
"What did you say?" Eb asked but she only smiled at him. She'd said too much as it was.