Cedar Cove Collection. Debbie Macomber
man someday, a man waiting for someone exactly like her. Maryellen had considered that naive and refused to listen and now Grace understood why. Divorce hurt, and it was the kind of vicious pain that reached deep inside a person. Grace felt off balance and guilty, as though she had somehow failed. As though it was all her fault. Maryellen knew what it was like because she’d experienced these emotions herself when she was much younger and without the wisdom or perspective maturity brings.
“Will you be all right?” Maryellen asked, obviously reluctant to leave.
“Of course,” Grace said, forcing a smile. She ought to be feeling a measure of relief, after all. She’d finally taken action. She’d given Dan every opportunity, even issued a series of mental ultimatums and deadlines. He would come back when Kelly’s baby was born. By the Fourth of July. By their wedding anniversary. First one, then another, until she faced the truth. He wasn’t coming back. If she hadn’t heard anything from him by now, she shouldn’t expect that she ever would. Dan had no intention of being found.
“Are you going back to work?” Maryellen asked.
“No,” she said, refusing to allow herself to succumb to self-pity. “I’m going to lunch.”
“Lunch? It’s after four. You didn’t eat earlier?”
“No.” Grace didn’t add that her appetite had been nonexistent for days as the appointment with the attorney grew closer. Then, because she knew her daughter was worried, she added emphatically, “I am going to be all right, Maryellen.”
Maryellen gazed down the steep hill toward the waterfront, where boats gently bobbed in the protected waters of the cove. Vehicles cruised down Harbor Street, so close together they looked like one continuous line. The Bremerton shipyard workers were out, and traffic filled the roads as husbands and fathers hurried home to their families. The same way Dan once had.
“I’m so furious with Dad I don’t know what I’d do if I ever saw him again,” Maryellen said between gritted teeth.
Grace knew, though. She was convinced that Maryellen would be grateful, that she wouldn’t care what he’d done as long as he came home. And Kelly, their youngest, would shout with joy and tell them all how wrong they’d been. She’d run to her father with open arms, eagerly awaiting the excuse that would explain everything.
“I’m fine,” Grace insisted. “Really.”
Still Maryellen hesitated. “I hate to leave you.”
“I’ll get over this.” Although that was hardly the way she felt. But if Grace had learned anything in life, it was the importance of balance. For each loss, there were compensations, and she reminded herself to keep the good things firmly in sight. “I have so much to be grateful for. You and Kelly, and now a grandson. I’m so sorry it had to end this way with your father and me, but I’m going to come back stronger than ever.” Even as she said the words, Grace knew they were true. The sense of loss was profound, but balance would return to her life and so would joy.
It was Justine Gunderson’s lunch break, and all she wanted to do was run home and check the mail. She hadn’t heard from Seth in nearly a week. All right, five days, but each one of those days felt like a year. Her husband of little more than a month was in Alaska, fishing the crab-rich waters of the Bering Sea. Seth had warned her when she drove him to the airport that he’d be working sixteen-hour days. He’d assured her that he was crazy in love with her and would be back before she had time to miss him.
Seth had been wrong. Justine was miserable. They’d married, as the old western hit said, “in a fever,” unable to delay the wedding even one minute once they’d made the decision. Without telling either set of parents, they’d raced to Reno, gotten the license, found a preacher and afterward headed straight for a hotel room.
They were young and healthy and very much in love. Justine had known Seth nearly her entire life. He’d been her twin brother’s best friend—until Jordan drowned at age thirteen. Justine and Seth had been in the same high-school graduating class. In the ten years that followed, he’d lived in Cedar Cove but they hadn’t been in contact until recently, when they’d both reluctantly joined the committee planning their class reunion.
At the time, Justine had been dating Warren Saget, a local developer. Warren was quite a few years older than Justine; in fact, he was just a little younger than her own father. Warren liked having a beautiful woman on his arm and Justine suited him perfectly. It helped that she was willing to keep his little secret—while he might be successful in the boardroom, his powers didn’t extend to the bedroom. When they were together, she often spent the night at his plush hillside house overlooking the cove, but that was more for show than anything. She had her own bedroom in Warren’s home. Justine knew very well what people thought, but she’d never much cared.
However, her mother did. Olivia Lockhart shared the general assumptions about her arrangement with Warren and had plenty of opinions on the matter. Justine didn’t enlighten her because it was none of Olivia’s business. This disagreement between them had put a strain on the mother-daughter relationship. Her grandmother hadn’t been particularly pleased, either, but Charlotte wasn’t nearly as open in her disapproval. No doubt hoping to distract her from Warren, her mother had encouraged Justine to date Seth—although even Olivia had been shocked when Justine phoned to tell her she’d impulsively married him.
The marriage was practically as big a surprise to Justine as it was to her family. After a spat having to do with Warren, Seth had walked away from her. Justine couldn’t let it end like that, not with Seth, and she’d gone to him, hoping to make amends. To say they’d settled their differences was something of an understatement.
After the wedding, they’d only had that one weekend before Seth had to return to Alaska. In the weeks since, she’d heard from him intermittently, but he couldn’t call—or receive calls—while he was at sea, so their communications were few and far between.
Justine glanced at the time and tried to decide whether she should drive home and check the mail or not. If there was no letter, she’d feel depressed for the rest of the afternoon. On the other hand, if Seth did happen to send her a message, she’d be walking on clouds for days afterward. She needed a letter, a phone call, anything that would remind her she’d made the right choice in marrying him. Getting married was the only impulsive thing she’d ever done in all her twenty-eight years. She liked her life orderly and precise. The need for control had always ruled her choices—until she fell in love with Seth.
This commitment to order was one reason she fit in so well at First National Bank, rising quickly to the position of manager. Numbers made sense; they added up neatly; they were unambiguous. To the best of her ability, that was the way Justine lived her life—with strong convictions and with exactness, leaving little room for frivolity and impulse.
Out of habit, she looked up when the bank’s double glass doors swung open and watched as Warren Saget walked in, bold as could be. He moved directly toward her desk, his manner confident. Justine hadn’t seen him since her impromptu wedding. Unfortunately they hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Warren had been angry when he learned she’d married Seth and had made some ugly, spiteful remarks. Frankly Justine wasn’t up for a second confrontation.
She rose from her chair. At five-ten, plus her heels, she was as tall as Warren. She wore her straight brown hair long and parted in the middle, just as she had in high school, which emphasized her height. By standing, she sent a nonverbal message that she wasn’t about to let him intimidate her—and that she intended to keep this meeting short. She absolutely would not allow him to create a scene in front of her staff and customers. Zach Cox, a local accountant, nodded in her direction as he left the bank. Justine acknowledged him and returned her attention to Warren. “Hello, Warren.”
“Justine.” He met her eyes and the expression she read on his face told her that her fears were unfounded.
“I came to apologize,” he said. “I owe you that.”
“Yes, you do.” She crossed her arms and shifted her