At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(71)

She was cold and hungry and wet and she needed caffeine. The lights from Patsy's down the block splashed out onto the rainswept street. She remembered Patsy's blueberry muffins with great fondness. A blueberry muffin with a huge mug of hot coffee with lots of sugar and maybe some scrambled eggs. What was she hesitating for? Simon Chase was dead. Noah was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Sure she would probably run into plenty of people she knew but they could never break her heart. Besides, why had she come home to Idle Point if she wasn't going to reconnect with old friends and familiar faces.

The rain was slicing down faster. She ducked her head and let the hood fall over her face, limiting her vision to just a few inches of sidewalk in front of her. She could almost taste the coffee, hot and sweet, as—

The little girl came out of nowhere. One second Gracie was the only person on the street, the next second she was almost knocked over by a child with a curly blond ponytail who burst out of the Gazette office like she had the hounds of hell at her heels.

"Whoa, honey!" She backed up a step and put her hands on the child's slender shoulders. The child was shivering already and no wonder. No coat, no sweater, nobody paying attention. "Where are you running to?"

The child looked up at her with huge blue eyes framed by dark lashes thick and long enough to make a grown woman weep. She had only known one other lucky person with such beautiful eyes. The child's hair was golden blond. Her skin was fair and pink. She looked positively angelic as she hauled off and kicked Gracie hard in the shin then ran off down the street.

"Why you little—"

Gracie took off in hot pursuit. If that little brat thought she was going to get away with a stunt like that, she had another think coming. The kid was fast but short. Gracie was fast and tall. She captured her assailant before they reached Samantha's Bridal and swept her up into her arms.

"Where are your parents?" Gracie demanded as she marched the wet, wriggling child back up the block toward the Gazette. "How could they let you run around in this rain without a coat?"

The kid tried to kick her again but Gracie held her out and away from her body the way she once held an angry fox terrier.

"Oh no you don't. One free kick is all you get."

"Bloody hell!" the little girl yelled. "Why don't you sod off?"

Gracie was so shocked she almost dropped her. "Somebody should wash out that mouth of yours with a bar of soap."

It was the kid's turn to be shocked. Her eyes widened as she stared up at Gracie then she giggled. "Soap!"

"Yes, soap. Exactly what a little brat with a dirty mouth needs."

"You can't tell me what to do."

"I can tell you you're not going to kick me in the shin and get away with it." She tucked the child under her right arm. "Now who do you belong to?"

The girl thrust her little pointed chin out and pressed her lips tightly together.

"Silent treatment, is it?" Gracie muttered. "Don't worry. I'll find out." She pushed open the door to the newspaper office. The place buzzed like an angry hive.

"Does anybody here own this child?" she called out.

Nobody paid any attention. They went on running to and fro, typing away at their workstations, ignoring her.

The kid, however, landed another sharp right that made Gracie cry out.

"If somebody doesn't claim this child in the next thirty seconds, I'm taking her to the police station before she breaks my leg."

The kid tried to make a break for it but Gracie held on tight.

"Papa!" The kid had a pair of lungs on her a hog caller would envy. "Help!"

"Sophie?" A male voice rang out from one of the cubicles.

That voice... . Sweat broke out on Gracie's brow. It couldn't be. God wouldn't possibly play a trick like this on her. She heard footsteps. She knew that rhythm, hard right soft left hard right soft left. The rhythm of his walk, the sound of his voice, the smell of his skin—they were all part of her soul's language. She put the little girl down. Every instinct told her to run but she couldn't move. She had been running for eight years and she couldn't do it any longer.





Chapter Twelve





The woman stood in the middle of the front office. Her tall, slender body was hidden inside a jacket that was easily three sizes too large for her. Her face was obscured by a hood that made her look like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Sophie, soaking wet, extremely angry, and inexplicably barefoot, stood next to her.