Chapter 2
“You want to meet the new warden? It’s a young lady this time, with her son.”
Slowly Noah Lawrence lifted his gaze from his laptop to see his groundskeeper, butler, personal assistant and all over righthand man Isaiah Hawksworth standing in the doorway of his study, looking resolute. No, scratch that. Looking stubborn.
“No,” he replied flatly, and dropped his gaze back to his laptop, where the latest stock market figures were running across his screen. They blurred before his tired eyes, as Isaiah let out a sigh full of obvious disappointment.
“Might be nice, to welcome her. And the boy. He’s only little.”
“I don’t welcome anyone,” Noah pointed out, a reminder he really didn’t feel he should have to give at this point, considering he hadn’t left this island in over six months, and he hadn’t spoken to anyone, save for Isaiah, for nearly as long.
Not that there was anyone much to speak to here—Ned, who acted as the unofficial ferryman, as well as a scant handful of fisherfolk and their families were the only residents on Lighthouse Cove.
He hadn’t come to Grayhaven for the company, that was for sure.
“And,” Isaiah continued meaningfully, “it might be good for you.”
Wearily Noah lifted his gaze once more from his laptop.
Isaiah was giving him something close to a glare, his white eyebrows drawn together, his normally friendly, open face settled into a frown.
Now nearing seventy, Isaiah had known him since he was a boy, although there had been years—decades—where they hadn’t seen each other.
Before eighteen months ago, the last time Noah had come to this island had been when he was seventeen.
At the end of the summer, a summer that in so many ways had been like any other with tennis and golf, swimming and sailing, the gates of Grayhaven had been shut and locked, the house shuttered, the furniture swathed in dust sheets.
His mother had never wanted to see it again, and although it had felt abrupt, Noah knew he couldn’t really blame her.
Not one person in his family had come back since, even though old Isaiah, an island native, had stayed and kept the place going.
“It wouldn’t,” he assured the older man, and dropped his gaze again.
Isaiah sighed but didn’t argue, for which Noah was glad.
Lately the old man had taken to becoming something of a mental health cheerleader, which was not a role he appreciated.
He didn’t need to get out. He didn’t need to talk to people.
He didn’t need to take deep breaths or start a gratitude journal or touch grass, all of which Isaiah had suggested, if not in those words, which would have been utterly foreign to a grumpy old sea dog like him.
And, Noah reflected grimly, he certainly didn’t need to welcome this woman and her son.
She’d probably be gone in a week or two, anyway.
Thanks to the inhospitable environment, the total lack of amenities and the general lack of company, most wardens didn’t last much more than that, but they were still required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to have one.
Why should this woman last any longer than the rest of them? Especially if she had a child?
Isaiah was still standing in the doorway, a disapproving, and worse, disappointed, presence, and so Noah determinedly ignored him as he scanned his screen.
The Dohler stock was up 4 percent today.
He pictured the small, shy smile Jem would have given if he’d told him the news and then pushed the thought away.
He couldn’t bear to think about his brother, even if he was always thinking about him, every minute of every day, like a hum in the back of his mind, a constant drag on his heart.
He didn’t have to actively think about him. He tried not to.
“All right,” Isaiah said heavily, and turned from the door.
Noah waited until he’d gone downstairs, each step creaking under his heavy gait, and then out of the house.
It was no more than a five-minute walk from the gates of Grayhaven to the jetty where Ned’s boat docked.
Noah could see it from the study window, at least on a clear day.
He didn’t move from his chair to have a look, though, because he wasn’t interested. Why would he be?
A few minutes passed, marked by the steady ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room.
Noah leaned over and snapped the desk lamp on, casting a warm pool of light on the desk’s surface that barely pierced the somber gloom of the study, with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of dark mahogany.
In the distance, he heard the mournful bleat of the foghorn, a sound that could still send shivers down his spine, if he let it.
He still remembered the woman’s anguished cry, the look of tormented grief on his own mother’s face.
He’d been a distant spectator to that particular tragedy, but its sorrow and grief still reverberated through the years, especially here on the island, where he’d once been so happy.
The foghorn sounded again, and then, straining his ears, Noah imagined he could hear the clank of the anchor chain as Ned moored the trawler. He doubted he could really hear it, so far away; he was probably being fanciful. Anyway, why did he care? He didn’t.
Still, Noah found himself rising from his chair, almost without realizing it, and going to the window.
It was a filthy night, typical of early spring on the island—wild and windy, the rain coming down in nearly horizontal sheets.
All he could see of the jetty was the dim glow of the ship’s lantern, barely piercing the fog.
He couldn’t make out any people, or even Ned’s trademark bright yellow raincoat.
Why on earth, he wondered, would a woman bring a child to a desolate place like this?
Isaiah had forwarded him the emailed application, but Noah hadn’t even looked at it.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service required his family to employ a warden for the nature reserve on the island, but they very rarely sent anyone to check on the setup, and Noah let Isaiah handle all the details of the hiring.
He hadn’t even met the last two wardens, or even seen them in passing, which was easy enough to avoid when he didn’t leave the estate, and they stayed such a short time.
So why should he meet this one?
And yet, for some reason he could not possibly explain or understand, he remained at the window, looking down the rocky hills that led to a rain-swept sea, as if he could see someone, or something, or anything.
As if any of it mattered.
The rain was tapering off, and as he peered closer, his nose nearly pressed to the glass, he thought he saw the flash of Ned’s coat, and then a slighter figure behind him, coming down the dock.
Swiftly Noah turned away, back to his laptop.
“Grace Wyatt?”
As she stepped off the boat, Grace caught sight of the man standing on the jetty and felt a little wave of relief.
He was smiling, and he looked like a kindly grandfather, with a rosy complexion, bushy white eyebrows and a fringe of soft white hair like someone had stuck cotton balls onto his head.
He looked, she decided, like Santa Claus in a raincoat, and he was holding an umbrella which he extended to her.
“Sorry, it’s a terrible night. I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to the weather. I’m Isaiah Hawksworth, trustee of the Lighthouse Cove Island Nature Trust.” He turned to the ferryman. “Thank you, Ned, for delivering Ms. Wyatt and her son. Would you bring the suitcases to the warden’s lodge?”
Unlike Ned, the now-named ferryman, Isaiah Hawksworth did not have a strong Maine accent.
He spoke in clipped tones, friendly but businesslike, and there was an air of competence to him along with kindness.
Grace trusted him immediately, and while she knew she should caution herself to be careful, it felt too nice to have someone else take charge in a way that was both friendly and decisive.
She was ready for someone else to take the wheel, just for a little while, after she’d been spinning so out of control for the last few months.
“You must be tired,” Isaiah remarked as he led her and Jacob off the jetty, toward a cluster of weatherbeaten cottages that hugged a slice of sandy, boulder-strewn beach.
Grace couldn’t make out much of the island on this dark and rainy night—a narrow, curving shoreline with a few houses, and in the other direction, a twisting road that led steeply up through rocky cliffs and nothing more.
“And this is your son?” Isaiah aimed a friendly smile at Jacob, who shrank into Grace in response.
“Yes, this is Jacob,” she replied in the firm tone she’d learned to adopt when people were clearly—and understandably—expecting her son to speak.
“Nice to meet you, Jacob,” Isaiah replied easily, seeming unfazed that he’d made no response, and then he turned and headed down the narrow lane that followed the shoreline.
“The warden’s lodge is a little farther past here,” he told Grace.
“Are you all right to walk? I’m afraid we don’t have any cars on the island. ”
“Yes, I knew that,” she replied, glad she’d done at least that much research. “We’re fine to walk, thank you.”
The rain was thankfully starting to taper off a little, and even though it was dark, Grace was able to make out a little more of her surroundings.
There were five small cottages all huddled together by the beach, with a couple of trawlers moored in front, a few skiffs and rowboats drawn up on the sand.
She wondered who was willing to live out here, so far from everything and everyone.
Were they running away, as she was, or had they simply known nothing else?
Then she wondered if she’d get to know her fellow residents in the six months that she was staying here. Would they be friendly? Would she? She felt so battered and bruised by life that Grace wasn’t sure she had it in her to reach out to anyone, but maybe she would one day.
Isaiah led her past the houses, a few with lights on but otherwise no sign of life, and then along the rutted lane that continued to follow the shoreline, the steep cliffs rising on the other side becoming gentler, grassy hills as they walked on.
Grace recalled from her brief online search that the island was no more than three miles square, with a mix of cliffs, salt marshes, and woodland.
The nature reserve encompassed the eastern half of the island and was home to a variety of seabirds as well as seals, porpoises, the occasional whale, and beavers, deer, mink, and river otters.
Grace looked forward to exploring it all tomorrow.
“Ah, here we are,” Isaiah announced cheerfully, and nodded toward a house that was off by itself, perched on an outcropping of rock by a stand of evergreens, and overlooking a small, quiet cove.
Made of pale blue shingle with a wraparound porch, Grace was immediately struck by the friendliness of the place.
There were gingham curtains at the windows and two rocking chairs on the front porch.
It felt like a house you could curl up and be cozy in or stare out at the sky and dream.
It was a place you could feel safe, and maybe even start to heal.
This, she thought with a lift of hope as Isaiah climbed the three steps to the front door and pushed it open, might be exactly what she and Jacob needed.
Here was a home.