Chapter 11
After breakfast, Isaiah had wanted to accompany her back to the warden’s lodge, but Grace had insisted that she and Jacob could make it down the hill on their own, and in any case, she told Isaiah, he could watch from Grayhaven to make sure they got home all right.
She’d already seen how the road to the fishing cottages unspooled from the estate, every inch of it in view, should someone want to look down on them all.
And as kind as the old man was, and as grateful as she was to Noah for saving her life, she was ready for some privacy.
The last twenty-four hours had exhausted her, and while her head wasn’t hurting as much, it felt as if everything else did.
Her interactions with Noah had left her all jumbled up inside, and not just from the memories he’d awakened within her.
Noah Lawrence was, Grace suspected, a complex man, who was holding on to as many secrets and sorrows as she was.
Getting involved with him, even in the most innocent and unobtrusive way, felt like a complication she really didn’t need in her life right now.
It was a good thing she and Jacob were heading back to the warden’s lodge, and the life they were trying to build themselves.
She’d probably never see Noah again, except in passing.
“It will be good to be back home,” she told Jacob as they strolled through Grayhaven’s wrought-iron gates.
Grace felt a little like she was an escaped princess leaving the fairytale castle behind.
Even though the day was sunny, the sky a bright, hard blue, Grayhaven seemed to loom menacingly behind them, its dark towers piercing the springtime sky.
Why, she wondered, was Noah Lawrence choosing to live in such a place?
Personally, she much preferred the little warden’s lodge, so bright and airy, compared to Grayhaven’s dark and strangely claustrophobic rooms.
As they passed the fishing cottages, Bab came out onto her back step, her hands planted on her ample hips, her expression shrewdly assessing.
“Well, you’ve certainly had an adventure,” she remarked with a chuckle, and Grace wondered how she knew what had happened. Had Isaiah told her? There were so few people on this island, but news clearly traveled, and fast.
“I was foolish,” she replied by way of agreement. “Now I know to keep a better eye on the tides.”
“Now you know,” Bab replied with a nod. “And I’m glad you’re all right.” Her eyes gleamed with speculation. “And you saw Mr. Lawrence?”
“Noah?” Grace replied, and Bab’s eyebrows shot up at the familiar use of his first name. “Yes. He very kindly rescued me and let me stay the night, in case I was concussed. I don’t think I am.”
“It’s tragic, what happened,” Bab said abruptly, pressing her lips together.
“To Jem, of course, but also to Noah.” She paused, seeming to be waiting for a reply, and Grace wasn’t sure what to say.
She wanted to respect Noah’s privacy, but she suspected Bab knew all about whatever had happened, anyway.
And she didn’t… besides the fact that his brother had died, and Jem was the name he’d called out last night.
“Yes,” she agreed after a moment. “Very sad.”
“Strange, having a Lawrence back here after all those years away,” Bab mused, her gaze turning distant as she looked up at the house perched on its rocky hill. “Twenty years they were gone from this place, after that poor girl died. We thought they’d never come back.”
“That girl?” Grace asked in surprise before she could think better of it. This was the first she’d heard about a girl dying. And twenty years… she’d had the sense from the drawn curtains and dust sheets that Grayhaven had been unlived in, but she hadn’t realized it had been that long.
Her obvious ignorance seemed to be a sign to Bab that she should stop talking, just as Grace had suspected it would be.
“I thought he might have spoken about it,” she remarked repressively, “but it’s better not to, I reckon.
Not to speak ill of the dead, that is, and what happened was terribly tragic.
” She straightened, turning brisk. “If you need anything, let me know. I’ll bring something over for dinner.
” It was more of a statement than an offer, and Grace knew the only reply was one of thanks.
“That’s very kind,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
Bab nodded once and then turned to go back inside.
She hadn’t yet got the full measure of her neighbor, Grace reflected as she let herself into the lodge.
Bab seemed that New Englander mix of asperity and kindness, but she supposed she saw a lot of wardens come and go, especially if they tended only to last a few months or even just weeks.
Perhaps she was reserving judgment on Grace.
Well, Grace thought with a wry smile, she was reserving judgment on herself. The last few days had not inspired that much self-confidence, considering she’d nearly got both her and her son killed.
“How about some TV?” she suggested to Jacob.
She was feeling tired already, even though it was only mid-morning, and she wouldn’t mind putting her feet up for a little while.
Tomorrow, she told herself, she’d get back on track with cleaning the office and walking the land.
She had a job to do here, after all, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what it was.
Several hours later, Grace woke up, groggy and disoriented, to the sound of determined knocking on the front door. Jacob was standing in the doorway of her bedroom, looking anxious.
“Sorry, buddy, I didn’t hear,” she murmured as she pushed her hair out of her face and tried to get her bearings.
She’d meant to lie down only for half an hour, but she’d fallen deeply asleep.
At least her head felt a little better, although her mouth was dry and she was definitely disoriented.
Smiling in reassurance at her son and stumbling a little, Grace hurried downstairs to the door.
“Hello—” She stopped abruptly, because she didn’t recognize the woman standing on her front porch, holding a foil-wrapped casserole dish.
“Hi, you must be Grace. I’m Bab’s daughter, Becca.” She proffered the dish. “A lasagna for your dinner, although it looks like it could feed twenty, but that’s my mom for you.”
“Oh… thank you.” Grace shook her head. “Sorry, I just woke up so I’m a little out of it. Come in, come in.”
She ushered Becca into the house, closing the door behind her.
Bab had told her she lived with her daughter and grandson, but until now Grace hadn’t glimpsed either of them.
She didn’t think she’d formed a mental image of what Becca Babcock looked like, but if she had, she was pretty sure it wouldn’t have been this.
Becca was young—in her mid-thirties at most, with a head of wild dark curls and bright green eyes.
She was petite without being delicate, her build lithe and wiry, and she was dressed in a raggedy cable-knit sweater and a pair of canvas all-weather pants that, it had to be said, smelled a little fishy.
Grace must have wrinkled her nose, because Becca laughed as she pushed the mass of dark curly hair behind one ear. “Sorry, I came right from the boat. Do I smell?”
“No,” Grace said, not entirely convincingly, and Becca laughed again.
“I do, I do! I would have showered, but Mom wanted me to bring this over right away. Seemed to think you’d be starving.” She braced her hip against the kitchen counter, giving Grace a frank look. “I have to say, you’re not what I expected.”
“Oh?” Grace was more curious than nettled by the observation; there was something far too friendly and open about Becca Babcock to take offense at anything she said, although Grace suspected her neighbor knew how to speak her mind, the same as her mother.
“What were you expecting?” she asked as she went to fill the kettle.
Jacob, having followed them to the kitchen, drifted back to the living room and the delights of an afternoon’s unfettered access to the iPad.
“Well, the previous wardens have been a little different,” Becca told her.
“Mostly men—either grumpy old salts who have retired from fishing and are looking for a free place to stay, or else wannabe philosophers who come out here to be all moody and think deep thoughts.” She let out a peal of infectious laughter. “They don’t last long.”
“Was that what the last one was like?” Grace asked, curious to learn more about her predecessors. “I heard he only lasted a week or so.”
“Six days,” Becca confirmed. “To be fair, the weather was atrocious—wind and rain every single day, absolutely sheeting down. I was ready to move to Florida, and that’s saying something.
” She let out another laugh. “And I think the poor guy thought there would be more community—you know, a kind of village thing going on, with bingo nights or pub quizzes or whatever he thought we’d have?
” She shrugged, seemingly mystified by such notions.
“But there’s nothing like that. We’re just too small.
” She cocked her head, her bright green gaze sweeping over Grace in frank, friendly assessment.
“You do know there’s only my mom and my son and me, as well as Isaiah and Ned and old Jethro on this island, right?
I don’t want to set you up for disappointment. ”
Grace smiled and nodded. “Your mother gave me a full census report,” she assured her, although she noted that neither Becca nor Bab had mentioned that Noah Lawrence was resident on the island, and they obviously knew.
“I wasn’t all that surprised, considering how few houses there are, although it’s too bad that family—the Edwardses, right? —left.”