16 Lighthouse Road - Debbie Macomber [125]
Olivia swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “I’m happy for you, too,” she said again. “And of course I’ll call your grandmother.”
They ended the conversation, and Olivia walked inside in a daze. She went into the bedroom and sat on the edge of her bed. She needed a few minutes to absorb what she’d just learned. Her daughter was married. To Seth Gunderson. Oh, this was wonderful, wonderful news!
Her first instinct was to phone Stan, but she decided against it. Justine would tell her father, and he’d call once he’d heard. So, both of their children had chosen to marry without either parent there. She wondered if that meant anything.
She phoned Charlotte, who wasn’t home; she left a message, saying simply, “Call me when you get in.”
Then she returned to her needlepoint project. Feet propped up on the porch railing, she continued her stitching, grinning every now and then. Who would’ve believed Justine would do something so spontaneous?
When a battered blue Taurus parked in front of the house, she strained to see if it was who she thought. It was.
Jack climbed out of his vehicle and stood on the sidewalk, watching her nervously. Did he expect her to walk inside and bolt the door? Or to offer him an invitation? She did neither.
He walked to the bottom of the steps. “Hello, Olivia.”
“Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?” She was cordial, but not excessively so.
“Very.”
“What can I do for you?” She didn’t think this was a social call.
“Do you mind if I sit down?”
“Go ahead.”
Since there was only the one chair, which she occupied, he climbed the stairs and sat on the top step. “Are you still angry with me about that dinner date?”
Men! He seemed incapable of understanding a concept like mutual trust and respect. “No.” A one-word reply should satisfy him, without leading into a dead-end conversation.
“But you’re still unwilling to go out with me?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. She hated to admit how much she missed his company. Maybe she’d been expecting too much, but she couldn’t tolerate the fact that he’d created secrets between them.
“That’s what I thought.” He looked out over the Cove, its sparkling, distant water tinged by the pink of a slowly setting sun.
“I moved to Cedar Cove to start a new life,” Jack told her. “But the past has a way of catching up with people, doesn’t it?”
Olivia nodded; she saw the evidence of that every day.
“Bob’s advice is that I simply tell you—that I should have months ago. But I was afraid if you knew, you wouldn’t want anything more to do with me.”
“More secrets, Jack?”
“No, just the reason I couldn’t go to dinner with you.”
“It isn’t necessary, Jack.” He’d made his decision and so had she, although she had to confess to being curious.
“I think it is,” he countered. “If you and I are to continue, at any rate, and I want that very much.”
“I have this thing about secrets. I detest them.” She realized that a lot of her feelings were tied to her long-dead marriage. Stan had been unfaithful before the divorce, if not physically then emotionally. After the crisis of Jordan’s death, it’d been another woman who’d helped Stan deal with the loss. Another woman he’d confided in.
“I’m a recovering alcoholic, Olivia.”
“But…” She paused, certain she’d recently seen him with a drink in his hand. No, she thought. That was at Willcox House, and he’d had sparkling water while she’d had wine. He’d said it was because he had to drive….
“The reason I couldn’t go to dinner with you was because I had an AA meeting to attend. I have ten years of sobriety. It’s been ten long years but not a day goes by that I don’t think about booze. I’m one beer away from destroying everything.”
It took a lot of courage to tell the truth. Olivia rose from her rocking chair and sat on the porch step beside Jack and reached for his hand.
He wrapped his fingers around hers. “I’ve