Ex’s and Oh’s Read online

  He shouldn’t have been out here on the pier in the first place, but he’d taken a call from his ex-wife, and being outside was one of the few things that made such conversations bearable. Not pleasant. Just bearable.

  His cell phone beeped in his hand. Gesturing to the woman that he would just be a moment, he pushed the proper button and said, “Whatcha got, Bobby?” He lifted his field glasses to his eyes. “I see it.” Running a finger down the list on his clipboard, he located the name that went with the aging yacht requesting a slip. “He reserved number seventy-three.”

  An air horn gave two short belches as a big boat chugged past. Shane automatically waved at Dan Bentley and his group of vacationers heading out for an afternoon of charter fishing. A little farther out, two Jet Skis crisscrossed paths parallel with the shore.

  The cell phone beeped again. “A guy here just missed that charter, Shane. What should I tell him?”

  “It just left Dock three. Tell him the next one leaves at—” he checked his watch “—twelve o’clock.”

  “I’ve got another—”

  “Hold that thought, Bobby. I’ll get back with you.”

  He could feel the woman watching him. Finally giving her his attention, he said, “Okay. What did you need?”

  She removed her sunglasses and pinned him with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. “Are you Mr. Grady?”

  “The only person who calls me mister is my kid’s principal. And that’s never a pleasant experience.”

  “Shane, then?” Caroline had asked three people where she could find Shane Grady, and all three had jumped to attention at the mention of his name. She’d expected to find someone businesslike. Someone who wore socks. Someone who didn’t give all beards a bad name.

  “If you’re looking to rent a slip,” he said, “you might prefer the accommodations at the Yacht Club. I’d do it soon. They fill up in July and August.”

  “I’m not interested in accommodations.”

  His gaze sharpened. “What are you interested in?”

  They seemed to be getting off to a bad start. Reeling the conversation back to the issue at hand, she said, “I’m Caroline Moore.”

  His Nextel beeped again. He held up a finger. “I have to take this one. I’m here, Dave.”

  He rifled through papers on the clipboard again and rattled off another slip number. “He wants the engine serviced. As soon as they dock, take the boat on over to maintenance. Give it the VIP treatment.”

  He looked at her again when the call ended, his expression a prod if she’d ever seen one. “Now, what can I do for you—” he glanced at her left hand “—Ms. Moore, is it?”

  “Caroline. I’m looking for Karl Peterson.”

  There was a palpable silence despite the speedboats idling away from the pier. “The lighthouse isn’t for sale.”

  “Lighthouse?”

  When his cell phone beeped again, he swore under his breath but didn’t answer it. “What’s your relation to Karl?”

  She wanted to ask him the same thing. Instead, she said, “I’m pretty sure he’s my grandfather.”

  Before the phone could interrupt him again, he turned it off and very quietly said, “I’m listening.”

  All around her the mid-June hubbub of a busy marina in a tourist town carried on. Another air horn sounded. Seagulls screeched, boats chugged, voices called, and flags whipped in the wind. She wasn’t sure what to make of Shane’s battered baseball cap and beard, but the way he settled his hands on his hips bespoke of an acquired patience.

  “Karl never mentioned a granddaughter.”

  “It’s a long story. Are you two close?” she asked.

  “He used to take me fishing.”

  “Is he a fisherman?” she asked.

  “He was a friend.”

  “Was?” she asked a little too loudly. She hadn’t considered that the elderly man might not be alive. “Is he—?”

  “He’s alive.”

  “Thank God.” She detected a softening in him, as if he shared the sentiment.

  “This isn’t the time or the place,” he said. “Can you meet me at Chinook Pier later?”

  “Chinook Pier?”

  “It’s a square downtown where residents and tourists can get an outdoor table and listen to the local bands. Eight o’clock?”

  “I’ll see you then.” Caroline retraced her footsteps. For some reason she looked back when she reached the end of the dock. Shane stood at a slight angle facing the water, his field glasses to his eyes, his two-way radio close to his face.

  He didn’t trust her, that much was obvious. Discovering the truth was going to be more complicated than she’d thought.

  Shane Grady was late. Either that, or he wasn’t coming.

  Caroline had arrived at Chinook Pier a few minutes early. She’d had her choice of tables and had selected one away from the live band, where she and Shane could talk without yelling.

  Although it was called Chinook Pier, it wasn’t a pier at all, but rather a courtyard with a nautical theme. It was surrounded by gift shops, dress boutiques, specialty stores and restaurants. Ordering a lemonade for herself and another for Shane Grady, Caroline settled back in her chair.

  She’d never been a people watcher, and yet she found herself studying the families strolling by. Some adults pushed strollers. Others called to little ones racing ahead. She tried to picture herself doing that.

  It was beginning to soak in, to feel real. She was going to have a child, and while that thrilled her, it also scared her to death. She’d never so much as changed a diaper. What about playgroups and nursery school and skinned knees? What about boyfriends or girlfriends and college? How did people do this?

  Across the courtyard a family was eating ice-cream cones. A baby slept in some sort of knapsack strapped to the mother’s chest while the father showed two other children in an oversize stroller how to lick the ice cream before it ran down their hands. It seemed to Caroline that babies required a great deal of paraphernalia. She wondered if all those apparatuses came with instructions.

  “Been waiting long?”

  A week ago she would have started. Tonight, she simply turned her attention to the man taking the chair across from her.

  Shane had changed his clothes. The ball cap was gone and he wore faded jeans, his deck shoes replaced by comfortable-looking sandals.

  She reached for her leather tote hanging on the back of her chair and removed a photo album. Slowly, she slid it toward him. He looked at her for several seconds before opening it.

  “My parents died in a plane crash when I was eight years old. I went to live with my grandfather in Chicago.” She pointed to the black-and-white photo of three young friends taken on a white beach. “I believe that’s him, Henry O’Shaughnessy. And that’s my grandmother, Anna. I think the other man is Karl Peterson.”

  She studied Shane’s expression. At his nod, she continued. “Other than wanting to know everything about what my mother and father were like when they were alive, I didn’t ask about my family tree. But after my grand-father died last month, I discovered something written by my grandmother.”

  He scanned the copy she handed him, then began again, slower this time. When he’d finished, he said, “This doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Perhaps, but it does raise a lot of questions. How do you know Karl Peterson?”

  Shane watched a drop of condensation trail down the outside of his glass. Onstage, a local band was massacring Moon River. But that wasn’t what had him on edge. Caroline Moore was trouble. He could feel it under his beard the way he could feel an approaching storm.

  “Karl took me under his wing from time to time when I needed it. Now, I’m returning the favor.”

  She stared at him with those Nordic blue eyes of hers, as if she knew there was more to the story. But she only asked, “Is he well?”

  “He’s eighty-five.”

  “Meaning he isn’t well?”

  He was pretty sure her concern was gen
uine. “Look. Before his stroke, Karl gave me durable power of attorney.”

  “His stroke?” she asked. “How is he?”

  “Depends on the day.”

  He watched her absorb the implication. “Being a Durable Power of Attorney for someone is a serious responsibility,” she said. “A person doesn’t give it easily, and certainly not to just anyone. Obviously, he trusts you.”

  Beneath her scrutiny, Shane had the strangest urge to fidget. He didn’t owe her anything, certainly not his life story, so he didn’t tell her about all the yelling his parents had done when he was growing up, all the slamming doors and shattering vases and pitchers, the ear-singeing accusations and recriminations. When it got too bad, Shane had escaped to Karl’s house. Weather permitting, they went fishing. To this day it’s what Shane did when life got out of control.

  “How did you and Karl meet?” she asked.

  Shane pegged her as an attorney, and probably a damned good one. She sure didn’t give up. Finally, he said, “I grew up on Prospect Street.”

  He saw the dots connect behind her eyes. “You lived next door.”

  “How did you guess?”

  Reaching for her glass of lemonade, she said, “I think I met your mother today.”

  He made a disparaging sound. “Did my beard tip you off?”

  Her smile was wry as she said, “That and your effervescent people skills.”

  Her wit surprised him. It had been a long time since Shane had been surprised.

  “Would you do me a favor?” she asked.

  “That depends.”

  “Karl Peterson trusts you. I’d like to meet him. Would you introduce me to him?”

  He studied her longer than was considered polite. She was trouble, all right. But what the hell else was new?

  On Saturday morning Caroline met Shane beneath the portico at Woodland Country Manor. Rain pinged against the metal roof before running through gutters and downspouts. The building was large and newer than she’d expected.

  Inside, a shrunken old lady called feebly to Shane. “Hello, Shane, dear.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Wilson,” he answered, squeezing her hand on his way by. Other residents called him by name, too, as did most of the staff.

  Walking past people using walkers and wheelchairs, Caroline tried to imagine Henry in a place like this. He wouldn’t have had the patience for it, and she was thankful he hadn’t lingered in his final years.

  “How long has Karl been here?” she asked as they turned down another corridor.

  “Seven months.” Shane knocked on an open door.

  Slowly, they went in.

  The man who looked up was old but not bedridden. His hair might have been red when he was young, but now was sparse and white. Relying heavily on a cane, he was reed thin and had probably been tall once.

  She searched his eyes for something, for some small indication that his mind was intact even though his body was beginning to fail. He looked from her to Shane, unblinking. Shakily, he held out his hand. “Name’s Karl Peterson. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He smiled as if proud of his good manners.

  Caroline’s hopes fell.

  “Who’re you?” the old man asked her.

  Caroline bent down slightly. “I’m—” For the span of one heartbeat, she thought she saw a flicker of recognition in his watery blue eyes. But the moment passed and her disappointment grew.

  “Cat got your tongue, girl?”

  In that instant he sounded just like Henry had, and Caroline softened toward him. “I’m Caroline. Caroline Moore.”

  “Not Carolyn, aye?” he said, lowering heavily into an easy chair. “Caroline. Like North Carolina. Did my basic training there during the big war.” Resting the cane on one knee, he said, “How do you do, Caroline?”

  Before she could reply, he began talking about a fish he’d caught before lunch. “They say red sky at night, sailor’s delight. It’s not the night that makes for good fishing. You have to wait until morning to know for sure. The stars were still out when we headed for open water this morning.”

  Caroline glanced out the window at the cloudy sky. Listening, she didn’t doubt Karl’s sincerity. His fishing expedition had probably happened exactly as he said it had. But it hadn’t happened today.

  She would have liked to mention her grandmother’s name. Karl lived in the past. Would he remember? Or would it upset him? Before long, he began to nod off, and she and Shane left Karl’s room.

  “Is he always like this?” she asked in the corridor.

  “Sometimes he’s quiet, lost in his own world. Sometimes he talks a mile a minute about events most people have forgotten. Once in a while, he knows where he is and what day it is. Those days are hard on him.”

  She didn’t speak again until she was outside. “I’d like to visit him again.”

  Shane’s eyebrows drew down in a frown. “You saw his house. Karl doesn’t have a lot of money, and before he got sick, he made sure his lighthouse property was very well protected.”

  Shane didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t her slight shift away from him or the way her shoulders went back and her chin came up a degree at a time. He half expected her to give him a piece of her mind. He probably deserved it. He hadn’t meant to offend her. He just wanted her to go back to Chicago or wherever the hell else she wanted to go and leave him with his own problems. God knows he had enough already.

  She walked out from under the portico straight into the rain. She didn’t use her umbrella or the hood of her London Fog jacket. Her sandals splashed through a puddle in the asphalt parking lot, her hair turning darker by the second.

  She stopped suddenly and faced him. “You have family, don’t you, Mr. Grady?”

  The mister grated, but the question chafed his conscience. He thought of his son and his mother. He had uncles in Wisconsin and a sister in Baton Rouge and cousins up the wazoo. “Yes, I have family.”

  “When I buried the man who raised me, I thought I was burying the last of my family. I don’t need Karl’s money, and I already own a house I don’t know what to do with. I just want to know if it’s true, if my grandmother really married Henry O’Shaughnessy because she was pregnant with Karl Peterson’s child. Anna died before her twenty-fifth birthday, yet in her short life, she was loved by two men. I was close to Henry O’Shaughnessy, and I’m thankful for that. I want to get to know the only other man my grandmother loved. Before it’s too late.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” he asked.

  She was getting soaked. Still, she didn’t move. “I’m not sure, but I’d like to walk where they walked, and look at the views they saw. Do I need your permission to visit the lighthouse?”

  “Would it matter?” he asked.

  She smiled, and it was as if she’d known he would understand. It wasn’t the first time her smile sneaked up on him. Somehow he doubted it would be the last.

  After she’d unlocked her Mercedes and driven away, Shane ran for his ailing Mustang. She was trouble, all right. Unfortunately, trouble always found him.

  Caroline ate lunch in her room and tried to take a nap, but between the rain on the roof and the thoughts running through her mind, a decadent nap remained as elusive as easy answers. The fact was, there wasn’t much for a tourist to do in the tourist town in the rain. Donning a raincoat and picking up her umbrella, she did what the other tourists were doing today. She went shopping.

  Two hours later her packages lay on a bench in a fitting room too small to turn around in. She had no idea where she would wear a silk dress the color of the inside of a conch shell. In a month or two it wouldn’t fit her anyway, but she went out to the three-way mirror for a full-length view.

  Another woman was already there. Her body tanned and toned, she had professionally streaked blond hair, acrylic nails and a ring on nearly every finger. Scrutinizing her appearance from every angle, she looked at Caroline through the mirror. “Do these capris make my butt look big?”

  “No
t at all, but don’t take my word for it.” Caroline gestured to a man holding his wife’s purse.

  Evidently, the gleam of approval in his eyes was answer enough, because the woman winked at him. A moment later the man’s wife relieved him of her purse and led him away, her nose in the air. Caroline and the other woman found themselves sharing a smile.

  “What do you think?” Caroline asked.

  “Honestly? I think I’m a little obsessed with my looks and I think I failed my kid and my ex, too, but hell, there’s only so much blame one person can handle at a time. Does that answer your question?”

  Caroline took her turn at the mirror. “I meant what do you think about this dress?”

  Their eyes met and they both grinned.

  “Too much information,” the woman said. “The story of my life. That dress looks fabulous on you. I’m Victoria Young.” She held out her hand.

  “Caroline Moore.”

  “My friends call me Tori. Nice to meet you. Unfortunately, even though not much happens in real estate on rainy days, I need to get back to the office.”

  “You’re a Realtor?” Caroline asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I am.” She handed Caroline an embossed business card. “The main office is in Charlevoix, but I do a lot of my business here.”

  Examining the card, Caroline said, “Does your brokerage company handle any summer rentals?”

  Tori flashed a perfect set of teeth. “I don’t know whose lucky day this is, yours or mine. We handle dozens upon dozens of them. Are you interested in looking at summerhouses in Harbor Woods or Charlevoix?”

  “Harbor Woods.”

  “I’ll put together some listings. I could show them tomorrow.”

  Naming a time, Caroline gave her the address of the inn. Both women headed for their respective fitting rooms. Just before closing her door, Tori said, “By the way. Nice shoes.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The first two summerhouses Tori took Caroline to see were located high on a hill inside the city limits. One had a nice view of Harbor Woods, the other glimpses of Lake Michigan. Both were clean and comfortably furnished. But there was something about the third summerhouse she really liked. Once a guesthouse for the larger estate next door, it rested on a postage-stamp-size lot on the channel that connected Oval Lake to Lake Michigan. Roses climbed the weathered picket fences surrounding the property, and an old flagstone walkway meandered from a narrow gravel driveway to the front door.