up on me again?”
“If you won’t fight back they won’t do much to you. It won’t be any fun for them and they’ll leave you alone.”
“But they’ll think I’m chicken and they won’t play with me.”
Rebecca suddenly found herself wondering if she was getting old, for she had no answer for Robby’s statement. What he had said was true, but in her adulthood she had forgotten the level on which children think. She decided to drop the entire subject and let Glen deal with it when he got home.
“I don’t suppose there’s any point in my suggesting you go back to school this afternoon, is there?” she said.
“I won’t go,” Robby said flatly. He decided not to mention that he’d been sent home.
She surveyed the bruises on his face critically, then relented. “Do you feel up to helping me out or would you rather play on the beach?”
“I’d rather play on the beach,” came Robby’s prompt reply.
“Somehow I thought you would.” Rebecca grinned. “But here’s the rules.”
“Aw, Mom!”
“No, ‘aw, Moms,’ thank you very much. Either listen to the rules and obey them, or stay here and help me.” Robby’s expression told her he’d listen to the rules. “Stay within a hundred feet of the house. And just so you can’t claim you don’t know what a hundred feet is, see that big tree?” She pointed to an immense cedar that dominated the strip of forest beyond the beach. Robby nodded solemnly. “That’s a hundred feet away. Don’t go past that tree. Also, stay out of the driftwood. You could slip and break your leg.”
“Aw, Mom …” But the protest faded at Rebecca’s upraised finger. “And stay out of the water. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And make sure you come if I call you.”
She stood in the doorway and watched her son scamper out onto the beach. Once more Rebecca marveled at the fact that she could let him play alone now without having to worry constantly about what he might be up to.
Happily, Rebecca returned to her chores.
* * *
Brad Randall parked in front of the inn, turned off the engine, then slapped his forehead as he remembered.
“Damn,” he said. “We forgot all about it!”
“All about what?” Elaine asked. They had spent the entire day poking around Clark’s Harbor and she couldn’t imagine what they might have missed.
“The Palmers. We said we’d drop in on them.”
“Well, it’s too late now,” Elaine replied, glancing at the sinking sun. “Besides, he was probably just being polite. I mean, it’s not as if they’re old friends. We hardly know them.”
“But I do want to see Robby again,” Brad said. “If there’s really been a miraculous cure, I want to see it for myself.”
“Maybe you can see him tomorrow,” Elaine suggested. “Right now I’m bushed.”
“I did sort of run you ragged, didn’t I?” Brad chuckled. “But what do you think? I mean, what do you really think?”
“I don’t know.” Elaine was pensive. “It’s beautiful, it really is, and if it hadn’t been for that poor man yesterday and that dog this morning, I’d be all for it. But I just don’t know.”
“It was coincidence, honey,” Brad argued. “The same thing could have happened anywhere.”
“But they happened here,” Elaine said stubbornly, “and I’m sorry, but I can’t get them out of my mind.” Then she relented a little. Clark’s Harbor was beautiful, and she knew Brad had fallen in love with it “Let’s sleep on it, shall we?”
They got out of the car and walked to the hotel gate. Elaine paused, staring up at the building. “I still say it’s on the wrong coast,” she said. “And not just the hotel. The whole town. It’s so neat and so tidy and so settled looking. Not like most of the towns on the peninsula that sort of fade in, sprawl, then fade out again. This place seems to have cut a niche for itself in the forest and huddled there. As though it knows its bounds and isn’t about to step over them.”
Brad smiled. “Maybe that’s what appeals to me,” he said, “I guess it strikes a chord in me somewhere. I like it.”
They strolled across the lawn arm-in-arm and went into the hotel. Behind his counter, Merle Glind bobbed his head at them.
“Have a nice day?”
“Fine,” Brad answered. “Pretty town you have here. Beautiful.”
“We like it,” Glind responded. There was a pause, and Brad started toward the stairs.
“You folks on vacation?” Merle suddenly asked.
Brad turned. “In a way. Actually we’re looking for someplace to live for a while.”
“We already