Chapter 14
Grant McCarthy tried to meet his friend Dan Torrington at least once a week so they could read each other’s work and offer critiques.
While Dan was a lawyer and not a writer by trade, he’d had some excellent suggestions for the screenplay Grant was writing about Stephanie’s efforts to free her stepfather from prison after he was wrongfully accused of abusing her.
The writing of the screenplay had been more emotionally exacting than he’d expected it to be, as he relived the horror of Stephanie’s childhood through interviews with her and her stepfather, Charlie Grandchamp.
It had taken some time for Charlie to open up to Grant about the details of the abuse and neglect Stephanie had withstood at the hands of her mother, some of which he’d heard for the first time from Charlie.
That left him with a dilemma—did he tell Stephanie what he’d learned from Charlie or let her read about it in the screenplay?
He was still mulling over that question when Dan came bounding into the South Harbor Diner, looking woefully out of place on Gansett with his wrinkled dress shirt and the loafers he insisted on wearing with shorts, even though he looked like a total fool.
Dan stopped to chat with Rebecca, who owned the diner, which was jammed for a weekday morning.
From what all the women said, Dan could wear anything he wanted, because he was so good-looking he could get away with it.
Whatever. Grant loved to bust on him about how out of place his West Coast style was on their East Coast island, but his opinion on such things didn’t matter to Dan.
No, Dan was far more interested these days in Grant’s opinion of the book he was laboring to write about the unjust convictions he’d helped to overturn.
Ever since the day they’d spent in freezing-cold water together after a sailboat accident, Dan had felt more like a brother than a friend, and Grant was thrilled to have him around—not that he’d ever tell Dan that. His ego was big enough without that kind of validation.
Dan slid into the booth across from Grant. “Sorry I’m late. My mom called right when I was leaving, and she’s full of questions about me and Kara.” Dan rolled his eyes. “She’s like a dog with a bone.”
“Nice. Comparing your mother to a dog. How did she find out about the ‘bone,’ as you call it?”
“I refuse to refer to the woman I love as ‘the bone.’”
“Why? Does it give you a boner?”
“Jesus. Shut up, will you? I might’ve made the huge mistake of mentioning that I’d met someone here. You should know how mothers of sons in their mid-thirties get hopeful at the first sign of commitment of any kind.”
“So it’s your own fault that she’s planning the wedding.”
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“Speaking of weddings, is there going to be one?”
“Not you, too! We’re not talking about weddings or other such foolishness. We’re enjoying our time together. Why isn’t that enough for everyone?”
“Because you’re no longer in your mid-thirties. You’re thirty-six now, which is that side of forty rather than this side of thirty. You ain’t getting any younger.”
Dan picked up the bread knife and ran it over his wrist.
“Not sharp enough,” Grant said. “And I didn’t waste an entire day saving your sorry life so you could end it with a dull butter knife just because your mom wants you to get married.”
“Wasted? I’m hurt.”
“Not anymore you aren’t. So what’s stopping you from popping the question? You know you don’t want to let her get away.”
“What’s stopping you from getting married? Seems to me you popped the question quite some time ago, but I don’t hear any bells ringing in your neighborhood either.”
Grant kept his expression impassive as Dan’s question struck at the heart of his insecurities.
Despite frequent attempts on his part, Stephanie had dodged all conversations about setting a date for their wedding.
But Grant would never admit that to anyone, so he went with the obvious excuse.
“We’re both so busy. We haven’t had time to breathe, let alone plan a wedding. We’re not in any rush.”
“Need I remind you that you’re thirty-six now, too? Just in case you’d forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” That was one of his many concerns.
He wanted a family, and he also wasn’t getting any younger.
At some point he’d have to sit Stephanie down and force the issue, but he was reluctant to do that during her busy season at the restaurant, when she had more than enough going on.
Timing was everything in these matters, so he planned to wait until October, after the season ended, to try to get her to set a date.
After hearing last night that Evan and Grace were getting married in January, he felt a greater sense of urgency to nail down his plans with Stephanie.
They’d been engaged longer than Evan and Grace.
Shouldn’t they have plans by now? Even after more than a year together, he still worried from time to time that they weren’t as solid as they could be.
Part of that went back to her upbringing and her constant fear of the floor falling out from under her without any warning.
That was one reason why he’d proposed when he did.
He wanted to assure her that he was in it for keeps, but every time she dodged talk of their wedding, he had reason to wonder if she was in it for keeps, too.
The very thought that she might not be was enough to give him heart failure, so he tried not to think about it.
Much… Absorbed as he was in writing about her fourteen-year effort to free her beloved stepfather from prison, it was hard not to think about her all the time.
This was especially true in light of the crisis they’d withstood following the sailboat accident, when he’d been so riddled with guilt over his inability to save both Dan and the boat captain, Steve, who’d died.
“What planet did you just visit?” Dan asked.
Jarred from his musings, Grant realized Dan had been talking to him and he hadn’t heard a word. “Sorry. Just thinking about some stuff.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Sure. A lot going on as always. Did you hear the plan the girls have for surprising Blaine and Tiffany with a shower this weekend?”
“I heard some rumblings about that. What I’d like to know is why we have to be part of it. Why can’t we take him out and get him drunk the way men are supposed to?”
“Because as much as we’d like to think otherwise, the girls are in charge, and we do what we’re told.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You’d better get used to it if you’re planning to keep Kara around.”
“I’m planning to keep her around, but she’s not the boss of me.”
Grant howled with laughter. “Keep telling yourself that. Let me know how that works out for you.”
“Are we going to get some work done, or do I have to continue listening to you talk shit?”
“Both.” Grant slid his latest pages across the table to Dan, who handed over his.
“Go easy on me with that red pen of yours, will you?” Dan said.
“My red pen is making this a better book.”
“No doubt, but you’re ruining my self-esteem.”
“Good thing you’ve got plenty to spare. Now shut up and read.
” Grant thought he heard Dan utter “fuck off and die” under his breath, but he chose not to engage, because he did want to get some feedback on the latest scenes, and Dan had proved to be an able critique partner.
His expertise was more in the storytelling than the writing, while Grant was helping to polish the writing in Dan’s book.
It had turned out to be an unlikely yet productive partnership.
Grant was completely absorbed in the story of how Dan and his team of law students had helped to free a man who’d been on death row in California for thirty years.
He almost missed it… A conversation taking place in the booth behind him.
They were speaking loudly enough to be heard over the din of voices in the diner.
“I don’t care if Kara wants to see me or not,” the woman said. “Connor is her nephew. She can’t refuse to acknowledge him.”
“I’ve gone along with this mission of yours, but I want to reiterate my objections to blindsiding her,” the man said. “She’s not going to be happy to see either one of us.”
“I don’t care if she’s happy to see me. She won’t be rude to us with the baby there.”
“Don’t be too sure.”
Grant reached across the table to nudge Dan with his pen.
Dan grunted in reply.
“Dan.”
“What?”
“Listen. Behind me.”
“This whole thing has gone on long enough,” the woman was saying. “I mean I didn’t steal you from her. What man in his thirties can be stolen from a woman if he doesn’t actually want to go?”
“That’s not how she sees it, and you know it. She had no idea that we’d begun seeing each other when I was still seeing her, too.”
The baby let out a squawk that had both his parents focusing on him for a minute.
“She’ll be happy to meet Connor, even if she wants nothing to do with us. I promised my mother I’d try to fix things with her, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Dan’s eyes got very wide as a look of utter distress overtook his face.
“Don’t come crying to me when the whole thing blows up in your face,” the man said.
“Sometimes I think you still care about her more than you care about me.”
“Honestly, Kelly, which one of you did I marry?”
“Go,” Grant whispered to Dan, who seemed frozen with shock. “Go to her.”
Dan pushed the pages he’d been reading across the table to Grant and was out of the booth like he’d been shot from a cannon.
During their long day together in the water, Dan had told Grant about Kara’s sister Kelly, who’d married the man Kara had once expected to marry and how hurt Kara had been.
Dan had been lucid for probably an hour all day, but he’d talked about Kara the entire time.
They’d both been afraid they’d never again see the women they loved.
“Let’s get going,” the woman behind him said. “I want to get this over with.”