Page 25 of Escape to Lighthouse Cove

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 evenacceptablesomehow, 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.

14

Noah had had the semblance of an apology worked out in his head. Something simple and heartfelt, without any excuses, just a straight-up “I suck and I’m sorry” because Grace deserved at least that much, and in any case, that was probably all he had to give.

Instead, as he slowly turned around, everything in him leaden, he heard himself say, his voice close to breaking, “He’s so much like Jem.”

Grace blinked at him, the hardness in her face that had seemed so unlike her softening into uncertainty. “Jem?” she asked hesitantly. “Isn’t that… your brother?”

He nodded and then found he had to wipe his eyes. Heaven help him, he was such a mess. “Yes. He was…” He let out a rusty, broken laugh. “He was a weird little kid.”

Grace stiffened for a second and then he saw her willfully relax before she shook her head slowly. “Noah,” she said quietly, “I’m very sorry for the loss of your brother, of course I am, but I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.”

“I don’t know, either,” he confessed raggedly. He sank into a chair, his elbows braced on his thighs, his head hanging down. He was not handling this the way he’d meant to, offering a quick, effective apology, the end and they could both move on. “I really don’t,” he told her in a low voice as he glanced up at her, trying for wryness and failing utterly. He wasn’t sure what else he could say.

“Okay.” Grace perched on the edge of the chair opposite, her hands tucked between her knees, a look of confusion on her face. Her eyes were the color of a storm, her forehead furrowed as she waited for him to say more. The silence stretched between them, and Noah didn’t know how to fill it. He felt empty and old, crumpled up and tossed away. And he didn’t know how to feel any other way.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, shaking his head. He wasn’t even sure what he was apologizing for. If it was for what he’d said earlier, it was a pretty lousy apology.

Grace was quiet for a moment, and when Noah risked a look up he saw she seemed thoughtful, a little sad, her head cocked to one side, her lashes sweeping downward. “Why don’t you tell me,” she suggested as she looked back up at him, “about Jem?”

The words blazed through him like streaks of lightning. Henevertalked about Jem anymore, and yet he was the one who had brought him up. And, he realized, hewantedto talk about him now, to Grace, in a way that felt as painful as it did potentially healing… if anything could heal him. In truth, he didn’t think anything could.

“He was my twin,” he began haltingly, his head lowered once more as he stared at the space of worn carpet between his knees. “Fraternal. We were totally different, and yet… we were like two halves of a whole. He didn’t speak until he was four.” He paused, realizing how scattered he sounded. He needed to back up. “Jem was born eight minutes after I was. There was some trouble at the birth… my mother never really went into it, but I think his foot got stuck and sort of twisted, and so he ended up walking with a little limp. You could barely notice it, most people didn’t, but… it was there.” He heard Grace draw her breath in sharply and he looked up. “What?”

She shook her head, her golden hair flying out in tousled waves, her eyes wide. “Nothing… it’s just… something similar happened with Jacob.”

Noah sat back, surprised. “He walks with a limp?”

She nodded. “A tiny one, because his right foot is turned inward just a little. It’s why he’ll probably never be really athletic, much to my ex-husband’s disappointment.” She pressed her lips together, her expression darkening. “Never mind. You were talking about Jem.”

Another way in which his brother and Jacob were similar, then. It was uncanny, almost unbelievable. Serendipitous? Noah shook his head slowly, raking his hand through his hair. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to say,” he confessed. “Just explain, maybe, how… Jem and I learned chess when we were four. From Isaiah, actually. We both loved it, we played each other constantly. He was better than I was.” He paused. “Jem was better than I was at pretty much everything, but he was very quiet, very shy, very gentle… so I started speaking for him. To teachers, to friends, whoever. I always,alwaysknew what he was thinking.” He felt his throat start to ache, and it hurt to swallow. “At least I thought I did.” He fell silent, trying to feel his way through the maze of his own words. Whatwashe trying to explain to Grace? To himself? How much did he want to tell her? Not all of it, he already knew that for sure. Definitely not all of it.

“How did he die?” she asked quietly, and he tensed, amazed and yet unsurprised at the same time that she’d got there so quickly.

He shook his head, more to keep from answering than anything else. That was the part he really didn’t want to go into. She already thought he was a jerk. She didn’t need the ultimate and incontrovertible proof. “We played a lot of tournaments, growing up,” he said, resuming his halting story. “Traveled the world, it was pretty much our thing. Then we both went to MIT and after that we worked for an investment firm for a while… learned the ropes.” In some ways, Noah reflected, that time had been the sweetest—they’d been away from the pressure of the chess circuit, of a high-performance college, but had relished the challenge of working hard. Everything had felt like it was still before them. Jem, who had often had an inclination to depression, had been happy.

“Then,” he resumed, clearing his throat, “in our late twenties we started our own venture capitalist firm, Grob Investments.” It had felt time, at least to Noah. He’d pushed the idea, had wanted the glory. Jem would have been happier to continue quietly working, keeping his head down. He’d always been that way. Noah had always wanted more.

“Grob…?” Grace repeated with a look of confusion.

“We named it after one of the most unconventional chess openings. It’s considered unreliable, weak, and unnecessarily aggressive. Some people call it masochistic.” Kind of like him, maybe. The irony was hardly lost on him.

Her delicate eyebrows rose, her mouth curving faintly. “And you named your company after this because…?”

“Because that’s what we wanted to be.” At least that’s whathewanted to be. Jem had just gone along with it, as he always did, his sidekick, his soulmate, at least in some ways. But it had worked for Jem too, at least Noah had believed it had. “What other people saw as weak,” he tried to explain to Grace, “but we knew could be strong. Kind of like Jem himself.” His voice choked a little, and he had to look down, blinking rapidly. Grief wassucha bitch. Plus, he was tired of feeling it. Really, really tired. Grief and guilt, twined together, forever. For the rest of his life.

“Okay,” Grace said after a moment. “I guess that kind of makes sense.”

“It did to us. Anyway.” He scrubbed his face, already tired of talking about Jem, of feeling the old wounds, never healed over, bleed fresh again. Why had he started this stupid conversation, anyway? Why hadn’t he just let his comments about Grace and her son land where they would and moved on?