16 Lighthouse Road - Debbie Macomber [26]
Justine had swum out to the dock and sat with Jordan’s lifeless body until the paramedics arrived, but there was no hope. The poor girl hadn’t slept a full night for weeks afterward. She’d been lost and confused, believing she should’ve been able to do something.
Olivia had her own share of regrets. If she’d been more focused on Justine’s grief, gotten her into counseling, spent time helping her deal with the tragedy…
But it’d been all Olivia could manage to make it from one day to the next. For the sake of her husband and her two other children, she’d tried to be strong. Each day had been filled with busywork so she wouldn’t have time to think. Pretending had failed miserably. Her marriage had collapsed, and her beautiful daughter had never recovered from the tragedy.
“I’ve been meaning to phone you,” Jack said, breaking into Olivia’s thoughts.
That was encouraging news. Olivia had been brought up to believe that girls shouldn’t phone boys—a bit of social conditioning she’d never shaken off. She’d dated since the divorce, but not much. Friends had attempted to matchmake, without notable success.
Jack appeared to be waiting for a response from her, some indication that she would have welcomed his call.
“I wish you had.” There, she’d said it, and it was true. She liked Jack Griffin and had thoroughly enjoyed their impromptu meeting and the talk that followed.
Jack stared at her as though he wasn’t sure he should believe her. He seemed about to say something when Bob Beldon stepped onto the middle of the compact stage. Bob and his wife, Peggy, ran Thyme and Tide, a local bed-and-breakfast. Bob was actively involved in the theater group.
Once he had everyone’s attention, Bob made several safety announcements regarding the fire codes and pointed out the exits. When he’d finished, he introduced the play and the actors. Before he left the stage, he looked at Jack Griffin and Olivia—and then Bob did the oddest thing. He winked at Jack.
“What was that about?” Olivia asked him.
“Bob’s a friend.”
“You knew him before moving to Cedar Cove?”
He nodded absently as he watched the actors take their places on stage. “It was Bob’s way of encouraging me,” he muttered.
“To do what?” Olivia pressed.
Jack squared his shoulders. “To ask you to dinner.” He glanced in her direction. “Are you game?”
Are you game? was certainly an inventive invitation.
“Did you ask her yet?” Charlotte bent forward in order to get a better look at them both.
“I just did,” Jack answered.
“Ask her what?” Someone Olivia didn’t recognize called out from two rows back.
Mortified, Olivia slid down in her chair and hunched her shoulders.
Jack slid down, too. “Will you?”
She nodded. Well, why not? She’d already admitted that she was anxious to hear from Jack. Now he’d taken the next step. A dinner date.
She intended to have a very good time.
Cecilia woke Saturday morning feeling more than a little depressed. She hadn’t heard from Ian. She’d deluded herself, thinking he’d call. He might already be out to sea; she wasn’t sure whether the John F. Reynolds had left port, but then how would she know? She got her information from rumor and an occasional issue of the Chronicle. Nor had Ian mentioned being transferred from the submarine to the aircraft carrier. Apparently there was a lot he hadn’t told her.
Cecilia wished now that she’d made friends with other Navy wives. She’d tried early on, but had felt like an intruder. The women had already formed cliques and she was an outsider. Between her job and the pregnancy, she didn’t have the time or emotional reserves to socialize with them. She had declined the few invitations she’d received.
When Allison was born, no one had come to the hospital and after her daughter’s death, Cecilia had rejected all attempts—by the other wives, by Ian’s family in Georgia, by nurses and a Navy chaplain—to help her cope with the loss. As far as she was concerned, it was too little, too late. Her father hated anything to do with death and dying and avoided her