Chapter 13
Noah stared at Grace hightailing it down the hallway and he cursed out loud.
He had not meant for her to hear that. He hadn’t even meant to say it, not really.
He’d just been annoyed at Isaiah for his unrelenting pushiness, and desperate not to see Grace again after that whole nightmare thing.
He’d told himself he’d maturely moved past it, but the reality was the more he’d thought about it, the more humiliated and horrible he’d felt.
And now Isaiah was looking at him like he’d just gleefully drowned a kitten, and Grace was already at the end of the hallway, heading for the stairs.
“Grace.”
With seemingly no other option, Noah took off after her, down the hall and then the stairs. By the time he was catching up to her, she was already out the door, practically sprinting toward the gates at the bottom of the hill.
“Grace!” He bellowed her name, loud enough for Margaret Babcock down by the cottages to hear, and knowing her, she was probably straining to listen anyway.
Grace kept running. “You’ve left Jacob behind,” he called, and that finally made her stop, her back, taut and quivering, still to him.
“I’m sorry,” he told her more quietly. “I didn’t mean it. ”
“Yes, you did.” Slowly she turned around.
Her face was pale, her golden hair blowing in the wind.
She looked like a bruised reed, her body, dressed in slim-fitting jeans and a long cashmere cardigan, swaying slightly.
“You didn’t even know I was there,” she stated in a clear, quiet voice, “so it wasn’t as if you were saying it to hurt me or get rid of me. You said it because you meant it.”
“I was saying it to get rid of Isaiah,” Noah replied, feeling exasperated as well as seriously guilty. It had been a cruel thing to say, and he hadn’t meant it. He raked a hand through his sweaty hair. When would he ever learn? When would he ever change?
Unfortunately he was pretty sure he knew the answer to that.
“He arranged the whole thing without asking me,” Noah explained, “and I was annoyed—I know that doesn’t justify it, but I’m just trying to explain.”
“No explanation needed or wanted,” Grace replied stiffly.
She straightened as she pushed silky strands of hair out of her face.
“But just for the record, I thought you had invited Jacob to come for chess lessons. I didn’t realize Isaiah had done it all.
If I had…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.
I’ll get Jacob and we’ll be out of your way. ”
Without waiting for him to reply, she walked tensely by him, back into the house. Noah followed, wretched with misery. This wasn’t the first time he’d self-sabotaged himself into serious trouble. Far from it.
Growing up, Jem had been the quiet one, the one everybody felt tender toward, and he’d always been far too mouthy to make up for it, and annoyed people in the process.
They’d been quite the duo, back in the day, Jem saying basically nothing and Noah acting like a clown, as if that would somehow make things better.
Or maybe he’d just wanted to be different; it had been hard being a twin, especially when your twin was the gentlest, quietly kindest kid around.
What had started out as a little annoying soon became seriously so, especially as he’d got older, and become louder, obnoxious and arrogant.
He could see it now, even if he hadn’t been able to then.
His cockiness had been sharpened by success, and he’d let himself believe that being cutting was the same as being clever.
That Jem could be the quiet, nice guy, and he could be the funny, cocky one that people really liked.
It had been easy in New York, when people were impressed by a witty or cutting remark, but he’d learned eventually, the hard way, how much it hurt—the people he loved as well as himself. How making fun of something wasn’t all that great a party trick and ultimately made him look like the loser.
He’d realized he never wanted to be that way again, and he’d thought he’d changed, but it seemed that when he felt cornered, it came out again—the snark, even the calculated cruelty—a willful choice rather than an instinctive reaction, because what better way to push people away and prove you really were as bad as you thought you were?
He could be such a jerk.
Slowly, his steps heavy, he followed Grace up the stairs to the study where Jacob was standing by the fire, his little shoulders rounded, his gaze intent on the chessboard. The little boy reminded him so much of Jem it made his chest hurt.
“Jacob.” Grace’s voice was gentle, but Noah heard the tremble underneath. “We need to go, sweetheart.”
Jacob looked up, his gray eyes—the same clear color as his mother’s—widening before his mouth firmed, and he gave one decisive shake of his head. Noah could practically hear the no… just as he’d been able to with Jem.
“Jacob…” Grace’s voice caught and then leveled out. She crouched down so she was eye-level with her son. “I’m sorry, buddy,” she said softly. “It’s not going to work out for you to have a lesson today.”
Okay, now Noah didn’t just feel like a complete heel, but a total monster.
Jacob stared at his mother, his jaw working, like he wanted to speak but simply couldn’t.
It was the most emotive Noah had seen the boy since he’d met him.
He clearly really liked chess. And he really couldn’t speak, for whatever reason.
Almost, Noah reflected, as if he chose not to.
Grace slid her hand through her son’s hair, the gesture reflexive and so full of love Noah’s chest hurt all the more.
Right then, he hated himself a lot more than he usually did.
“Another time, okay?” she said softly, although Noah suspected hell would be frozen over and six feet under snow before Grace graced the halls of Grayhaven again, another thought that made everything in him cringe in shame… and disappointment.
This time Jacob shook his head, a rapid back and forth that gave Noah whiplash just watching it.
“Jacob…” Grace’s voice caught again, and she took a steadying breath. “I’m sorry.”
More head shaking. Noah was starting to feel dizzy. Grace sighed and sat back on her heels. “I know this is disappointing—” she began, only for Noah to hear words coming out of his own mouth.
“I can teach him.” He sounded gruff, his voice rusty, but he meant it.
He wanted to teach him. For Jacob’s sake, for Grace’s sake, maybe even for his own although he suspected teaching Jacob would hurt because he reminded him so much of his brother.
But maybe, in some weird way, he needed that.
In any case, it was the least he could do, and it would be a kind of penance for acting like such an absolute ass.
Grace glanced over her shoulder, her gray eyes turning to the color of smoke as she gave him a darkly simmering look. “That’s a kind offer, but I don’t think so,” she said firmly.
“Grace, I’d like to. I… I really am sorry for what I said. And you can stay in the room if you like, to make Jacob feel more comfortable.” Although he suspected it would make him feel less so. He gestured to the little boy. “He wants this. Let me help.”
Grace glanced back at Jacob, who was looking decidedly stubborn, his chin thrust out, his eyes dark. A sigh escaped her and then slowly she stood. “All right,” she said, her voice resigned. “This once.”
“Okay.” He paused. “Thank you.”
She didn’t deign to reply and Noah couldn’t blame her.
She touched Jacob’s head briefly and then retreated to the opposite side of the room while Noah came forward hesitantly, the cocky confidence that had once been his instinctive armor now deserting him completely.
He felt strangely raw and decidedly uncertain.
Jacob was gazing at him steadily, expectantly, in a way that should have given him confidence but made him feel more unequipped than ever.
He had a rating of twenty-three hundred, had played the top youth players in the world at tournaments across the globe, but right now he felt undone by a six-year-old boy with the same trusting expression as his own brother.
And Jem had had no reason to trust him. No reason at all.
“All right, then,” Noah said, and then had to clear his throat.
From behind him he heard Grace drop into a chair with a soft, sad sigh. He steeled himself and gave Jacob a brighter smile.
“Let’s play some chess.”
Grace had learned the rudiments of chess, back when Jacob had, but that was as far as her understanding went.
She’d tried to play him once, and he’d beaten her in four moves.
She didn’t believe her son was a prodigy, per se, only that she was really, really bad.
Airheads, she thought wryly, trying not to feel bitter, couldn’t play brainy games like chess.
Of course, Brad hadn’t played chess, either and neither had he been particularly impressed that their young son was so good at it.
He would have far, far preferred Jacob to be brawny and athletic like he was, with his prowess in football or track rather than a game that he viewed as simply requiring moving pieces across a board.
Sometimes Grace had feared Brad had been embarrassed by their son—by his shyness, his seemingly nerdy intellect, his lack of athletic ability, missing or maybe dismissing all his amazing qualities—his humor and gentleness, his curiosity and compassion.
He wasn’t a weird little kid.
Grace swallowed thickly, feeling like a boulder had taken up residence in her throat.
She didn’t think she’d ever be able to forget those cruel, cutting words.
She could take broken Barbie—God knew, Brad had called her worse, even if the aptness of the term stung more than a little—but weird little kid?
Her eyes and throat both burned and she had to blink back tears that were of anger as much as they were of grief.
Noah might have said he hadn’t meant it, but the fact that the words had been able to pass his lips, that he’d been able to see a six-year-old he barely knew that way and say such things so dismissively, made Grace look at him with new and unforgiving eyes.
It was hard simply to sit here and let a man who had thought that way about her son now teach him the thing he loved most.
And he was teaching him—although she couldn’t make out the words or understand the terms even if she could—Noah’s low, gentle murmur and Jacob’s eager attentiveness made her realize it was working.
She was grateful, but she was still furious.
And worse, she was still heartsick, in a way that made her want to lay her head down and sob.
Grace wasn’t even sure what she’d be crying for, only that she was tired of feeling this way. She’d thought here on Lighthouse Cove Island, it might have been different. She and Jacob might have been able to seem—and feel—different.
Some things, it seemed, never changed.
“Grace?”
Grace blinked the world into focus, and realized Noah was standing right in front of her, a look of tender pity on his face that made her want to squirm. He might think she was a broken Barbie, but that didn’t mean she had to act like one.
“Yes?” She drew herself up, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Is the lesson over?” How long had she been staring into space?
“I’ve set Jacob a few challenges. They should take him a while.” He paused. “I wanted to talk to you. Privately.”
Grace was about to refuse and then hesitated.
She knew Noah was going to want to apologize—again—and somehow attempt to make her believe that saying what he had was totally understandable and maybe even acceptable somehow, and while she wasn’t really up for that conversation she suspected it was going to have to happen.
She nodded without saying anything and then rose from her chair, glancing once at Jacob, who looked completely focused, before following Noah out of the room.
He led her down the hall to a windowed alcove overlooking the woodland that tumbled down toward the far side of the island.
From here, she could see the cottages Becca had mentioned—four substantial houses surrounding an empty pool of pale blue, cracked concrete, a weed-filled tennis court beyond.
The whole site looked dilapidated and forgotten, yet was also strangely compelling.
Once, Grace reflected, this island must have been a happy place.
She turned away from the view to survey the alcove; there were a couple of comfortable-looking chairs there, as well as a bookshelf filled with tattered old paperbacks, and all in all it was a welcoming, sunny spot…
which was far from how Grace was feeling about Noah Lawrence or Grayhaven or… anything, right now.
He went to the window, gazing down at the view while Grace stood behind him, her arms folded. “Well?” she asked, and it came out more aggressively than she’d meant it to, but she found she wasn’t sorry.
Whatever Noah Lawrence had to say, she wasn’t all that interested in hearing it.