herself on the grass with her Mattel See 'n Say. Every few seconds a cow mooed or a pig oinked. And Aubrey never failed to echo the sound.
By the time Aubrey had switched her affections to her building blocks, Grace had finished cleaning and polishing the outside of the windows on the front and side of the cottage and was right on schedule. She would have stayed on schedule if Mrs. West hadn't come out with tall glasses of iced tea and a desire to chat.
"I don't know how to thank you for seeing to this for me, Grace." Mrs. West, the grandmother of many, had brought Aubrey her drink in a bright plastic cup with ducks on the side.
"I'm happy to do it, Mrs. West."
"Just can't do like I used to, with my arthritis. And I do like my windows to shine." She smiled, deepening the wrinkles on her weather-scored face. "And you do make them shine. My granddaughter, Layla, said how she'd wash them for me. But I tell you the truth and shame the devil, Grace, that girl's a scatterbrain. She'd like as not start the job and end up sleeping in the vegetable patch. Don't know what's to become of that girl."
Grace laughed and scrubbed at the next window. "She's only fifteen. Her mind's on boys and clothes and music."
"Tell me." Mrs. West nodded so vigorously that her second chin wobbled with the movement. "Why, at her age I could pick a crab clean faster than you could blink. Earned my keep, and kept my mind on my work till the work was done." She winked. "Then I thought about boys."
She let out a hearty laugh before smiling at Aubrey. "That's one pretty little lamb you got yourself there, Grade."
"The light of my life."
"Good as gold, too. Why, my Carly's youngest boy, Luke? He's not still for two minutes running and spends every waking hour looking for trouble. Just last week I caught him climbing up my parlor curtains like a house cat." Still, the memory made her chuckle. "He's a terror, that Luke is."
"Aubrey has her moments, too."
"Can't believe it. Not with that angel face. You're going to have to beat the boys off with a stick to keep them from sniffing around that sweetheart one of these days.
Pretty as a picture. Already seen her holding hands with one."
Grace bobbled her spray bottle and looked around quickly to make certain her little girl hadn't grown up while she wasn't looking. "Aubrey?"
Mrs. West laughed again. "Walking on the waterfront with that Quinn boy—the new one."
"Oh, Seth." The sense of relief was so ridiculous, Grace set the bottle down and picked up her glass to drink. "Aubrey's got a crush on him."
"Good-looking boy. My young Matt goes to school with him—told me how Seth came to sock that little bully Robert a few weeks back. Couldn't help but feel it was about time somebody did. How they doing over at the Quinns?"
The question was her main purpose for coming out, but Mrs. West believed in leading up to matters.
"Just fine."
Mrs. West rolled her eyes. This pump needed more priming. "That girl Cam up and married sure is a beauty. She'll have to have quick hands, too, to keep that one in line. Always was wild."
"I think Anna can handle him."
"Went off to some foreign place to honeymoon, didn't they?"
"Rome. Seth showed me a postcard they sent. It's beautiful."
"Always puts me in mind of that movie with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck—where she's a princess. Don't make movies like that anymore."
"Roman Holiday." Grace smiled wistfully. She had a weakness for the classic and romantic.
"That's the one." Grace looked a bit like Audrey Hepburn, Mrs. West mused. Coloring was wrong, of course, with Grace being blond as a Viking, but she had the big eyes and the cool, pretty face. Lord knew, she was skinny enough.
"Never been anyplace foreign." Which included, in Mrs. West's mind, two-thirds of the United States. "They coming back soon?"
"A couple days."
"Hmm. Well, that house needs a woman, no question. Can't imagine what it's like over there, four males in one house. Must smell like a gym sock half the time. Don't know a man on this earth who can manage to pee and hit the toilet with the whole stream."
Grace laughed and went back to her windows. "They aren't so bad. The fact is, Cam was keeping the house pretty well before they hired me to take over. But the only one of them who remembers to empty the pockets before tossing his pants at the hamper is Phillip."
"If that's the worst of it, it's not bad. I expect Cam's wife'll take over the house once they get back."
Grace's hand tightened on her wad of newspaper as her heart did a quick hitch. "I… She works full-time in Princess Anne."
"Most likely she'll take over," Mrs. West said again. "A woman likes her house kept her way. Best thing for the boy, I expect, having a woman there full-time. Don't know what Ray was thinking of this time around, I swear. A good-hearted man he was, but once Stella passed… shifted his moorings, I'd say. A man his age taking on a boy thataway. No matter what was what. Not that I believe one word of the nasty gossip you hear now and then. Nancy Claremont is the worst, flapping her lips every chance she gets."
Mrs. West waited a beat, hoping that Grace would flap hers. But Grace was frowning intently at the window.
"You know if that insurance inspector's coming around again?"
"No," Grace said quietly, "I don't. I hope not."
"Don't see how it makes a matter where the boy came from as far as the insurance company goes. Even if Ray did suicide himself—and I'm not saying it's so—they can't prove it, can they? Because…" She paused dramatically, as she did whenever she made the argument. "They weren't there!"
She said the last on a note of triumph, just as she had when she'd made the same statement to Nancy.
"Professor Quinn wouldn't have killed himself," Grace murmured.
"'Course not." But it did make for such interesting talk. "But the boy—" She broke off, her ears pricking up. "There goes my telephone. You just let yourself in when you want to do the inside, Grace," she said as she hurried off.
Grace said nothing, kept working steadily. But her mind was whirling. It shamed her that she couldn't concentrate on Professor Quinn. She could think only of herself and of what might happen.
Would Anna come back from Rome and want to take over the house? Would Grace lose her job there and the extra money that went with it? Worse—much worse—would she lose those opportunities to see Ethan once or twice a week? To share a meal now and then?
She'd gotten used to—even dependent on—being a part of his life, even a peripheral part, she realized. And as pathetic as it was, she loved folding his clothes, smoothing the sheets on his bed. She even allowed herself to believe that he would think of her when he found one of her little notes around the house. Or slipped between freshly laundered sheets at night.
Was she going to lose that, too—and lose the pleasure of seeing him coming in from his boat or scooping Aubrey up when she demanded a kiss, or glancing over at her and giving her that slow smile?
Was all of that going to be only pictures she tucked away in her mind now?
Her days would go on and on, without even that to look forward to. And her nights would go on and on, alone.
She squeezed her eyes tight, struggling with despair.
Then opened them again when Aubrey tugged at the hem of her shorts.
"Mama. Miss Lucy?"
"Soon, honey." Because she needed to, Grace lifted Aubrey into her arms for a fierce hug.
it was nearly one by the time Grace finished putting away the groceries and fixing Aubrey's lunch. She was only half an hour behind, and she thought she could make that up without too much trouble. It just meant moving a little quicker and keeping her mind on her work. No more projecting, she ordered herself as she strapped Aubrey into the car seat. No more foolishness.
"Seth, Seth, Seth," Aubrey chanted, bouncing madly.
"We'll see." Grace climbed behind the wheel, put the key in the ignition, and turned it. The response was a wheeze and a thump. "Oh, no, you
don't. No, you don't. I don't have time for this." A little panicked, she turned the key again, pumped the gas pedal, and sighed with relief when the engine caught. "That's more like it," she muttered as she backed out of the short driveway. "Here we go, Aubrey."
"Here we go!"
Five minutes later, midway between her house and the Quinns', the old sedan coughed again, shuddered, then belched out steam from under the hood.
"Dammit!"
"Dammit!" Aubrey echoed joyfully.
Grace only pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. It was the radiator, she was sure of it. Last month it had been the fan belt, and before that, the brake pads. Resigned, she eased to the side of the road and got out to open the hood.
Smoke billowed, made her cough and step away. Resolutely, she swallowed back the knot of despair in her throat. Maybe it wouldn't be anything major. It could just be some belt again. And if it wasn't—she sighed hugely—she would have to decide if it was better to pump more money into this wreck or to worry her beleagured budget into buying another wreck.
Either way, there was nothing to be done about it now.
She opened the passenger-side door and unbuckled Aubrey. "The car's sick again, honey."
"Awww."
"Yeah, so we're going to leave it right here."
"Alone?"
Aubrey's concern over inanimate objects made Grace smile again. "Not for long. I'm going to call the car man to come take care of it."
"Make it feel all better."
"I hope so. Now we're going to walk to Seth's house."
"Okay!" Delighted by the change of routine, Aubrey set out at a scramble.
A quarter of a mile later, Grace was carrying her.
But it was a pretty day, she reminded herself. And walking gave her a chance to look and really see. Honeysuckle was tangling along the fence that bordered a tidy field of soybeans, and the scent was lovely. She picked off a blossom for Aubrey.
By the time they skirted the marsh that edged Quinn land, her arms were aching. They stopped to study a turtle sunning on the side of the road, to let Aubrey giggle over the way its head retreated into its shell when she reached out to touch.
"Can you walk for a while now, baby?"
"Tired." With her eyes pleading, Aubrey lifted her arms. "Up!"