At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories) - By Barbara Bretton Page 0,60

clean and neat. There were no signs of life anywhere, not even Sam the Cat. He stepped into the tiny kitchen. The dishes were washed and put away. The floor sparkled. He noticed wet streaks in the white tiles. He glanced at the kitchen table. Sugar bowl in the center. Creamer next to it. Salt and pepper shaker. Two envelopes, one with his name on it.

He opened the envelope and pulled out a folded sheet of typing paper. Gracie's handwriting—formal and precise—angled across the page. She was sorry... she loved him but... school... the future... sorry... so very sorry...

He stood there in the middle of the quiet kitchen for a long time and then when the world reassembled itself around him, he walked out of the house, away from Idle Point, away from Maine, away from the world he'd known, away from the life he'd dreamed about, the girl he loved and the lies she had told and it would be a long time before he looked back.

Chapter Ten

New York City, eight years later

It had occurred to Gracie more than once over the last week that she just might be crazy to even think about returning to Idle Point for her father's wedding. She didn't usually attend Ben's weddings—he'd had so many of them, after all, and not one of them had lasted—but it wasn't every day your father married the girl who used to sit behind you in English class back in high school.

Maybe if he hadn't called her on the day the hospital put her on suspension she might have begged off and sent the happy couple a potted plant and her best wishes, but, as luck would have it, he'd caught her as she walked in the door to her apartment with her arms piled high with files and Rolodex cards and an old cat named Pyewacket who didn't seem all that pleased to be there.

"Graciela," Ben had said in his flat Maine accent, "this is your father."

"Hello, Dad," she'd said, ignoring the little tug of emotion the sound of her given name aroused. Nobody but Ben called her Graciela. You wouldn't think such a simple thing could still hold such power over her heart but it did. He was her father, not Simon Chase, no matter that her DNA might say otherwise.

They had come a very long way since the terrible day of Gramma Del's funeral. He never knew that Simon had come calling. The note she had left him said nothing more than, "Went back to school a week early. Gracie." She had been shocked to learn months later that Simon had died that very afternoon not far from her house. Shocked but not saddened. All she felt was a deep regret that she would never be able to ask the many questions that had plagued her ever since.

A few hours earlier and her life and Noah's would have been entirely different. Then again, that was part of the fantasy. If what Simon had told her was true—and she had no reason to believe otherwise—her future with Noah had been doomed from the start.

She only thought about that every other day.

Her newfound relationship with her father had started slowly with Hallmark greetings and an occasional picture postcard of the Idle Point lighthouse or the Lobster Shack with the blue and white buoys hanging from the weathered shingles. From there it progressed to phone calls on Sundays when the rates were low. To her amazement, Gracie had found herself looking forward to those calls. He was her only family and it mattered to her. Three years ago he drove down to Manhattan to see where she was working and she took him to all of the tourist spots, including the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and Central Park and her eyes actually filled with tears when it was time to say goodbye.

She told herself that she was being a sucker and that if she'd learned anything in life it was the fact that you couldn't trust anyone but yourself, but there was still no denying that Ben Taylor was a different man these days. He had been faithfully attending AA meetings for over seven years and Gracie had endured a painful telephone conversation where he apologized for his transgressions and vowed to make amends. I know the whole story, she wanted to tell him. I know about my mother and Simon Chase. I know what she did to you... what they both did to