Good or bad, my life was my own now. I stopped the car when the drive leveled out. I took in Gran’s house. “Look at it, Chaucer. Isn’t it beautiful?” I closed my eyes and let out the breath I’d been holding. Home.
I parked to the side of the front steps, near a pear tree, and let Chaucer out. I stretched, slamming the car door before sitting on the whitewashed front steps. I inhaled the sharp scents of hemlock and salt water.
Home. “Thank you, Gran. You knew even when I didn’t how much I needed to be here.” Chaucer walked up the steps and lay down on the porch, his front paws and head hanging over the edge.
A moment later, his head popped back up. He found his feet, standing alert and still. I heard it, too. It sounded like it was coming from the backyard. I walked up the last step and followed the porch around the side of the house. White wicker furniture still sat out, facing Gran’s magnificent garden.
Whack. I scanned the tree line, trying to locate the sound. Chaucer stood beside me and gave a quiet woof while looking toward the rear of the house. I saw him, too—a man with his back to us, holding an ax and splitting wood.
Normally, a strange man swinging an ax would be enough to send me scrambling in the opposite direction, but there was something familiar about him. He had a shock of white hair and was wearing a red plaid work shirt. He had strong, broad shoulders, although time had worn away at his posture.
I walked down the side steps, Chaucer at my side. “Mr. Cavanaugh, is that you?”
He spun around, startled and staring, his eyes getting wider. “Nellie?” he asked breathlessly. His hand rose to his chest and rubbed.
“No, Mr. Cavanaugh. Nellie was my grandmother. I’m Kate.” I’d heard before that I favored my grandmother, but the only pictures I had of her were as an old woman.
The poor man dropped down heavily onto the stump he was using to split wood.
I rushed forward, kneeling in the soft, dark soil before him. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a start,” I faltered. He appeared pale and drawn, shaky. I feared I’d given him a heart attack. “Can I get you a drink of water, call someone? Anything?”
He reached out and touched the side of my face. “Remarkable...you look like my Nellie...except the hair. She had curly hair, same color, though. Same green eyes.” He shook his head and dropped his hand. “I’m sorry, Katie. Of course, I know who you are. For a minute there, I thought that Nellie had come back for me. Thought maybe I’d died chopping wood and Nellie had come to take me with her.”
“Sir, why don’t we go sit on the porch for a few minutes? I can grab you a glass of water, and we can get reacquainted.” I helped him to his feet and took his arm, surreptitiously lending support. My throat tightened when I felt his trembling hand.
After helping him up the stairs and into one of the chairs that overlooked the flower garden, I excused myself. The front door was locked. I searched my pockets. The lawyer had given me the key. I’d been holding it like a talisman for days.
Once open, I ran through the door, registering dust and leaves. Something took flight, flapping loudly, but I was moving too fast to see what it was. Please, don’t be a bat. Please, don’t be a bat. The kitchen counters and floor were grimy, but the dishes inside the cabinets appeared clean and untouched. I pulled a cup down, filled it quickly, but then my eyes fell on the phone at the end of the counter. I picked it up, got a staticy dial tone and speed-dialed the police station.
“Bar Harbor Police, can I help you?”
“Yes, please. Is Aiden Cavanaugh in? I need to speak with him right away.” My heart raced. Please, don’t let his grandfather die on my side porch.
I heard a click. “This is Chief Cavanaugh.”
“Aiden, it’s Kate. Your grandfather is here. I think I scared him pretty badly. He’s pale and shaky. I’m worried it might be serious. Does he have a weak heart?” Shit, I was rambling. Did I mention the heart thing?
“Kate? Are you at your grandmother’s house?”
“Yeah, I just got here.”
“I’m on my way.” He hung up.
I placed the receiver in its cradle and tried to pull myself together. I picked up the glass, walked back through the house, detouring through the dining room. I yanked repeatedly at the French doors leading to the side porch before they screeched in protest, giving way. Mr. Cavanaugh was right where I’d left him. I handed him the water, and he appeared surprised all over again at my appearance.
“Sorry. You look so much like Nellie, it’s a bit of a shock. Everything, except the hair. I thought you had curly hair, too. I must be misremembering.” He studied me, unsmiling. “I’m seventy-four now. Sometimes my memory fails me.”
“No, it’s not your memory. You’re right. My hair was curly. I straighten it now.” What was it with Cavanaugh men and my hair?
He grimaced and looked away. “Denying the gifts you were given. Make a habit of that, don’t you?”
Right. I had abandoned Gran. “My husband hated it.”
“What kind of an idiot did you go and marry?” He watched me, waiting.
“The controlling kind.”
He shook his head, as though it was no more than he expected. “Did you leave him, too?”
My stomach dropped, thinking of Justin’s betrayal, the women he’d leer at and how he’d wonder aloud why I couldn’t look more like that one, behave more like this one.
I nodded. Yes, I’d left him. Years too late, I’d realized.
He grunted a response.
His color was back, and the tremors seemed to have subsided, thank God.
“Visiting one week a year.” He shook his head, disgusted. “Phone calls and emails aren’t the same thing. You didn’t even come to her funeral. You think I don’t know why she was so sad when she talked about you? She kept asking for you at the end, and you couldn’t be bothered to fly back and let her see you. Hold your hand.”
“You’re right. I let Gran down. She was nothing but loving and supportive to me, and I...” I held my tears in check. Barely. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters to me.” Anger threaded through his voice, but his eyes held nothing but pain.
I pulled at the wrist of my sweater. “It was hard.” I didn’t want her to see who I’d become. “My husband needed me.” To cook and clean and throw dinner parties while he cheated on me.
“But you left him?” He shook his head and took a sip of water.
I let out a gust of breath, an almost laugh. “Don’t worry. He has lots of women to console him.”
He pinned me with his gaze. “She didn’t think he was the right man for you, but she never blamed you for choosing to marry him.” He took another sip of water, watching me over the glass. “Your mother wasn’t the attentive, responsible type. Nellie knew that. After your father died, well, it worried her the way your mother neglected you.”
“No, not neglect. I was provided for. Dad’s loss hit her hard. She couldn’t deal with people and emotions after that. Impersonal academics, she could handle.” I caught his eye, not wanting him to think poorly of her. “She’s a brilliant professor. In her personal life...” I shrugged. “She was emotionally absent, I suppose.” Truth was she didn’t know what to do with me. She became flighty and forgetful, so I started doing the shopping and cooking, the bill paying and the cleaning.
He looked away again. “Call it what you want.”
“About the other thing...I didn’t know Gran had passed until after the funeral.”
A car raced up the