Grace had felt for some time that her friend should "get back into circulation," as people called it. Appropriate comment for a librarian, she always thought. "You really want to know?"
The question seemed to require a great deal of thought. "No - forget it." Then in the next breath, Olivia changed her mind. "All right, I'm curious. What have you heard?"
"He moved to Cedar Cove three months ago."
"Old news," Olivia muttered. "If that's all you have..."
"From the Spokane area."
This appeared to be something Olivia didn't know. "Newspaper background, obviously?"
"Yes, from a paper with ten times the circulation of the Chronicle." Grace wasn't a gossip by nature, but she'd been wondering about Jack Griffin since she'd read his first Saturday column. She'd liked what he'd had to say, and it was apparent he approved of Olivia. She'd met him briefly at a Chamber of Commerce meeting shortly after he'd come to Cedar Cove but hadn't formed an impression one way or the other.
"Why does a man give up working for a prestigious newspaper and move across the state to a town the size of Cedar Cove?" she asked Olivia.
Her friend shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps he wanted to be closer to his son."
"He has a son?" No one Grace had spoken to knew that.
"Eric. He lives in Seattle."
That was interesting. But before she could comment further, their instructor, Shannon Devlin, entered the room, clapping her hands to gather her students around her.
"Trust me. There's more to this career change than meets the eye."
"Trust you!"
"Yeah, trust me," Grace joked.
Olivia grinned and placed her hands on her hips as she rotated her waist, making deep bends as Shannon led the class in warm-ups. "You've been hanging around the mystery section of the library too long," she whispered as they took their places in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror.
Shannon was twenty, if that. A pretty girl with pliant limbs and a body devoid of fat. Grace's own figure had once been that slim and perfect, she reminded herself - before two children and the onset of menopause.
The music, impossibly loud, gave her a surge of energy. She had a love/hate relationship with this class. If not for Olivia, she would have dropped out a dozen times. Unfortunately she needed the benefits of all this huffing, puffing and stretching. Despite the muscle pain, she didn't mind the mat exercises, the sit-ups and such, but she hated Shannon's little dance routines. Step back, slide left, cross right... Olivia never seemed to have a problem with the complicated patterns; Grace, on the other hand, had trouble living up to her name.
After fifty minutes of sweating and grumbling under her breath, plus cool-down exercises, they were finished. None too soon, as far as Grace was concerned. Not until they'd showered and changed back into their sweats did Olivia mention Jack again. The fact that she wanted to continue the conversation surprised Grace.
"Did you learn anything else about Jack Griffin?"
Grace had to think. It always seemed to take a while for her brain cells to stop bouncing around after her aerobics class. "You know more about him than I do," she finally said.
Olivia reached for her gym bag. "I doubt that."
"You're interested in him, aren't you?"
Olivia laughed off the suggestion. "Oh, hardly. I've got enough worries without adding a relationship to the mix."
"Worries?" Sure, her friend had worries, but then everyone did.
"Mom's getting on in years and Justine - I just can't seem to talk to her anymore, and I haven't heard from James in two weeks."
"I thought he was out at sea."
"He is, but he can still e-mail me."
"Okay, okay, we all have kid problems, and our parents are a concern, but that doesn't mean we have to stop living."
"You think I've stopped living?" Olivia asked. "Because I don't have a man in my life?"
Grace knew the question had offended her. First Dan and now her best friend, and Grace hadn't meant to upset either of them.
"I didn't mean it like that," she assured her. "I just think you should leave your options open when it comes to Jack."
"Why?"
"Because." And that was all the answer she was willing to give, but Grace had a very strong feeling that the new editor of the Cedar Cove Chronicle was going to bring something exciting to Olivia's life.
Chapter Three
Cecilia was working as a hostess at The Captain's Galley the night she'd met Ian Randall, and she continued to work there five evenings a week. Her father, Bobby