At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(63)



"I saw what you did in Ma's cottage," he said. "It looks swell."

"Better than swell," Laquita said with a smile. "It's looking wicked good."

"I think Graciela will be comfortable in there." He had cleaned the place from ceiling to basement, and then Laquita had performed some magic with paint and paper and fabric until the little cottage looked like a home for the first time since Del died.

"I think she'll love it. We all need our own space, especially while we we're getting used to being a family." Laquita reached for the coat she kept on the peg near the door then slid her arms into the sleeves. "She knows the cottage belongs to her?"

Ben nodded. "She never much cared."

"Can't say that I blame her," Laquita said as she moved into his arms for a hug. "This wasn't a happy place when she lived here."

He winced again. He wanted to correct Laquita, try to put a different spin on her words but he knew she wouldn't allow it. Honesty was part of recovery. Brutal honesty about your own failings was crucial to rebuilding your life. Laquita never blinked when she faced her own demons and she refused to allow him to blink when he faced his. It was one of the countless things he loved about her.

"I'm sorry I have to leave," she said as he walked with her to the front door. "I never thought I'd be called in for night shift this week but with Tammy being sick and my vacation coming up and everything—"

"She'll understand. You're a nurse. You go when you're needed."

"Apologize to Gracie for me, will you, Ben? I left her a note but—"

He kissed her. "Don't worry. Just drive safely. Those wet leaves are—"

"Slippery as ice. I grew up here, remember? I know all about wet leaves." She said it kindly but she said it as a reminder that she was a grown woman, his equal in all the ways that mattered.

He stood in the doorway and watched while she warmed up her car then backed slowly out of the driveway. She beeped her horn twice, waved, then disappeared down the road. He stayed there until her tail lights faded into the dusk then went back inside to make himself a cup of coffee and wait for his daughter to come home.





#





Laquita's smile didn't falter until she made the turn onto Sheltered Rock Road. She held it, wide and true and unwavering, for exactly that long before it all fell apart. That was the point where even Ben, with his preternaturally sharp eyesight, could no longer see her and she could drop her guard.

Well, now she'd done it. She had lied to Ben, the one thing she had sworn she would never do. The truth was important to both of them, vitally important, but how on earth do you tell the man you're about to marry that you would rather walk barefoot on burning coals than see his daughter again?

Any woman worth her salt would do exactly what Laquita had done: run for her life. She had shamelessly offered her services at the hospital on her day off which just happened to be the day Gracie was due back in town. If that had failed, she might have thrown herself under a truck.

Gracie had been the one girl in school who intimidated Laquita. She was tall, smart, pretty, ambitious, disciplined, determined to achieve her goals despite the formidable odds against her. Next to her, Laquita had felt like a short, round slug. How she had envied Gracie's only child status, her room of her own, the fact that she could think her own thoughts without having to fight for space to breathe. The only time she had ever felt remotely Gracie's equal was the day they had bumped into each other one early morning in a motel parking lot outside of town. So you're human, she had thought, noting the blush of embarrassment on Gracie's throat and face and the way she clutched Noah's hand. But then there was Noah, arguably the best—if least reliable—catch in town. Rich, smart, wild, great-looking. They were an unlikely match and yet, to Laquita's way of thinking, inevitable. Temporary, but inevitable.

All of Laquita's romances before Ben had been temporary. Romance. Now there was a funny term for you. There had been very little that was romantic about her encounters in bars and motel rooms and the back seats of more cars than you'd find in the parking lot during a Patriots game. Sometimes she had been looking for sex, for the oblivion that came with the act, but most of the time she had been looking for the kind of comfort and security she could only find in the arms of an older man or a bottle of vodka. She'd seen a shrink a few years ago, not long after she and Ben started living together, in an attempt to understand why she had done the things she did and the shrink focused on the obvious answer: she was searching for a father figure.

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