At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(93)

He knew just how she felt.





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They looked right together, the three of them. Gracie could easily imagine the picture they made as they walked the beach at sunset. Handsome man, hard-working woman, happy child.

They looked like a family.

Tell him, Gracie. It's time. Do it for Sophie if you can't do it for Noah or yourself.

"Ben and Laquita look happy," he observed as they followed the bouncing Sophie up the gilded beach. "What odds do you give them?"

"I think they're going to make it," Gracie said, bending down to pick up a beautiful striated rock. "They're an odd couple but somehow they work."

"We would have made it," he said, his gaze fastened on his quick little daughter.

"Yes," Gracie said, "we probably would have." Tell him, Gracie. Now is as good a time as any. There was no reason for her to keep Simon's secret any longer. It was time to move on.

"I didn't get it, Gracie. Remember when you used to call me the rich kid? You were right. I didn't get how it was for you... what I was asking you to sacrifice."

She took a deep breath and dived in. "You're right," she said. "We need to talk about what happened. You deserve the truth."

His expression held a thousand shades of emotion, all of which broke her heart. "I see us everywhere. The way you looked in the moonlight—"

"Don't," she said. "We can't—"

"I didn't love Sophie's mother."

"I don't want to hear this."

"I liked her. We enjoyed each other's company." He forced her to meet his eyes. "She reminded me of you. She was ambitious. Focused in a way I've never had to be. I wanted something with no strings, no chance of hurting anyone or being hurt myself."

"What did she want?"

"Sex and laughs." He grew quiet for a moment, his gaze returned again to Sophie. "Catherine wasn't one for getting sidetracked."

"Which would explain why she let Sophie go."

"I'm not sure anything explains that." A clean letting-go would have given Sophie a permanent home right off the bat, not years of being passed from relative to relative until somebody thought about letting the father know he had a child.

"You're giving her a good life."

"I can do better."

"You will," she said, "but from what I can see you're doing everything right."

"Which doesn't explain the biting and kicking."

"She's scared. She doesn't have too many ways to express it."

"She could try telling me."

"I'm sure she will once she believes you're a sure thing."

"A sure thing?"

"That you're not going to bail out on her the way every other adult in her life has."

"I've told her that from the beginning."

"So did Ben. Prove it to her and then she'll start believing you."

Another silence.

"I'm planning to go back to London after I work out a deal to sell the Gazette."

"Because you love London?"

Don't go, Noah. Stay here. Make a life for you and Sophie here in Idle Point.

"Because being here is too hard, Gracie."

"I know," she whispered, unable to contain her emotions. "It is for me too." Their dreams waited for them on the corner. Their hopes were still right up the road by the lighthouse.

"What about you? I suppose you're going back to New York after the wedding."

"I don't know what I'm going to do after the wedding."

"I thought you had a big job down there."

"'Had' being the operative word." She kept her eyes trained on Sophie who was a fair distance away. "I'm on suspension." She told him why in fifty words or less.

"You haven't changed."

"I'm not sure how to take that."

"I wouldn't complain if Sophie followed your lead."

"She'll find a better way," Gracie said, bypassing the compliment. She hoped Sophie would find a way that wouldn't break her heart.

Sophie stopped running. They watched as she bent down to inspect something at the shoreline.

"I've missed you, Gracie," he said.