Page 31 of Escape to Lighthouse Cove

Jacob smiled shyly back, which felt like a big win.

“Do you want to sit and observe like last time,” Noah asked Grace, “or…” He realized he wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence.

“I don’t think I need to observe,” she replied wryly. “Chess goes over my head, anyway and Jacob’s made it clear he’s okay with you, so…” She hesitated. “I was wondering if I could take a look around the estate grounds? It’s the one place I haven’t been. Actually, there are a few places I haven’t been, which is somewhat surprising considering how small this island is, but… could I?”

“Sure.” Noah shrugged expansively. “Be my guest. If you follow the drive back down, there’s a path that goes off to the left, through the gardens, such as they are. Isaiah does his best to manage them, but I think they’re pretty wild.”

“That’s okay.”

“All right. We’ll be about an hour. And maybe after Jacob’s lesson…” He hesitated, unformed ideas,hopes, tangling in his mind. “Maybe you could stay for coffee?” he suggested in a rush. “Or tea? Or whatever.”

A small smile tugged her lush lips upwards. “Whatever sounds nice.”

Noah let out a breath, wondering if there was any innuendo there, or she just didn’t like coffee and tea. Either way, he was glad she’d said yes. “Great.”

She smiled at him, fleetingly, her cheeks still pink, her gray-gold eyes practically glowing, and he felt something in him lift because that heaviness that he’d felt from her before, like being with him was a burden, seemed to have gone. Either she’d truly accepted his apology and forgiven him, or something else was going on that he didn’t understand, but something definitely felt different between them, in a good way. A very good way.

“Okay, then.” With Jacob by his side, he watched Grace head back down the drive, her hair blowing in the brisk breeze off the ocean, a spring in her step that also seemed new. He waited until she’d rounded the corner, pausing to wave at them both, and then turned to Jacob.

“And now for some chess.”

Jacob grinned.

Noah wasn’t bothered by the boy’s silence as they headed upstairs, and he didn’t feel a need to fill it, either. When he and Jem had been alone, he’d been the same, both of them happy to be quiet, needing no words between them. It had only been when other people had been around, when Jem’s quietness had turnedthemtwitchy, that Noah had felt the need to run his mouth off. And in truth, he’d done it for Jem as well as himself.

He knew himself well enough to know it hadn’t been entirely altruistic, or even fifty-fifty, but he’d seen how cracking jokes had made Jem smile, lightened his darkness, and it had made him feel like a million bucks. Making other people laugh had just been a bonus.

Too bad it had ended up turning him into a jerk.

As for Jacob… Noah glanced at the little boy as they headed into his study, the chessboard already set up for the Sicilian Defense, poisoned pawn version. He’d been impressed at how many openings Jacob already knew, although he’d certainly seen enough savvy six-year-olds on the tournament circuit to know just how good they could be.

But Jacob’s silence, Noah mused, felt different. It felt like a decision he’d made, and one he was keeping to by sheer voice of will, while Jem’s quietness had been more of a compulsion, born out of both anxiety and shyness. Jem had spoken rarely, reluctantly, while Jacob spoke not at all, and that felt like a source of strength for the boy rather than weakness. A decision he’d made, for whatever reason.

Jem hadn’t had the glint of mischief that Noah sometimes thought he saw in Jacob’s eyes, either, like he was inviting him to share a joke, albeit a silent one. During their first lesson, Jacob had made a terrible move, losing his queen entirely unnecessarily, and then looked up at Noah with a tiny quirk of a smile and Noah had realized the little boy had been fooling with him. Testing or teasing him, he wasn’t sure, but he hadn’t had to lose his queen, that was for darned sure.

Now Noah wondered what had made Jacob stop speaking, and more importantly, what would make him start again. He hoped that chess, whatever other purpose it served, might help the boy onto his own recovery.

It might be too late for Jem, and even for Noah himself, but surely it wasn’t for Jacob.

Grace followed the drive down toward the gates, hoping she wasn’t making a mistake by leaving Jacob alone with Noah. She’d asked him if he wanted her to stay with him for his lesson on the way up to Grayhaven, and the vigorous shake of his head had told her pretty clearly that he didn’t see the need for a babysitter. And, she knew, no matter what Noah might have once said in a moment of, yes, cruelty, she trusted him. She trusted his brokenness, which didn’t totally make sense, but she felt it all the same.

And, in truth, she was glad for an hour of freedom. She felt like she had a lot to think about, and all of it was jostling for space in her head, but not in a bad way. Better to have lots of thoughts than the frightened blankness she’d been feeling post-divorce. Now she found herself trying to sort through the medley of relationships, both new and old, beginning and finished, that she was dealing with. Noah. Brad. Becca.Herself.

She’d meant what she’d said to Becca—she felt like she didn’t know herself, like she’d never had the chance. She thought about the clothes she wore, the ones she’d shed, as well as the life and mindset she was shedding, slowly but surely, like an old, peeling skin, wondering,marvelingat what—and who—might be underneath.

At some point, Grace reflected, she should probably try therapy, but it had been too difficult to manage in the last six months, with Jacob the way he was, always needing her. Except maybe now he didn’t need her as much as she’d thought he did, which was definitely a good thing.

And really, she acknowledged, it was pretty good therapy, simply being here on Lighthouse Cove Island, letting the fresh sea breeze buffet her skin, the taste of brine on her tongue, all of it like a clean sweep of the soul.

Spending time with Becca had reminded her of the importance of friendships, something she’d somehow managed to forget over the course of her marriage, when she’d been so intent on that single relationship that she’d forgotten everything—and everyone—else.

And working with her hands—admittedly cleaning the nature reserve’s office and repairing one nesting box, all it had taken was a hammer and a single nail—wasn’t that much,yet, but it had reminded her of who she’d used to be, someone who was competent and capable anddidthings. She was glad to find that girl again, if just a hint of her, so far. Maybe she’d discover more. She certainly hoped so.

Just as Noah had said, a twisting dirt path led off the drive. Grace stepped onto it, excited to explore the tangle of garden ahead of her. Although the bushes and shrubs seemed rampant and wild as Noah had warned, the soil was freshly turned over, the bright heads of crocuses and the green shoots of daffodils pushing through the damp earth. Isaiah, Grace thought, had to be tending this plot of land with the quiet care he seemed to show most things… including, she suspected, Noah himself.

She followed the winding path through a host of azaleas, their buds still tightly furled. As the breeze continued to buffet her, she shivered in her t-shirt; whenever the sun went behind a cloud, she certainly felt the cold, but she found she didn’t mind. Spring was on the way, she could taste it in the air, and for that Grace was glad. It felt metaphorical for her own life—a bud still tightly furled but ready, even desperate, to bloom.

Smiling at the fanciful thought, she rounded a corner and nearly bumped into Isaiah himself, wrist-deep in dirt as he planted out several cartons of bright-headed pansies.