A Time to Forgive. Marta Perry

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СКАЧАТЬ turned away, but Tory saw the glow of pleasure in her cheeks. For an instant she felt a wave of envy. If she’d had a grandmother like that, how different might her life have been?

      “Jenny, child. Come help me with these flowers.” Naomi Caldwell ushered Adam’s daughter toward the pulpit, handing her the basket. “We’ll put them on the dolphin shelf.”

      Tory tensed at the words. “The dolphin shelf?” She glanced at Adam, making it a question.

      “That bracket behind the pulpit. A wooden carving of a dolphin once stood there. Gran likes to keep flowers in its place.” Adam nodded toward the shelf where his grandmother was placing a vase.

      I never meant for the dolphin to disappear. I didn’t. Her mother’s voice, broken with sobs, sounded in Tory’s mind.

      If she asked Adam about the dolphin, what would he say? Tory’s mind worked busily. She had to find out more about the dolphin’s disappearance if she were to fulfill her promise to her mother, but the last thing she needed was to stir up any additional conflict with Adam.

      “What’s this new window going to look like?” Mrs. Caldwell’s question interrupted her thoughts before she could come up with an answer.

      “That’s really up to the family.” Maybe she’d better stay focused on the window for the moment. “Usually I try to come up with some designs that reflect the person being honored, then let the family decide.”

      “How do you do that?” The woman paused, head tilted, her hands full of bronze mums. “Reflect somebody in a design, I mean.” She seemed genuinely interested in the design, unlike everyone else Tory had met since she’d come to the island.

      “Well, first I try to find out as much as I can about the person—her likes and dislikes, her personality, her background. Then—”

      Carried away by the subject, she glanced at Adam. His expression dried the words on her tongue. He stared at her, his eyes like pieces of jagged green glass.

      “No.” He ground out the word.

      “What?” She blinked, not sure what he meant.

      “I said no. You’ll have to find another way of working this time.”

      Before she could respond he was calling the child, saying goodbye to his grandmother and walking out of the sanctuary.

      The heavy door swung shut behind him, canceling the shaft of sunlight it had let in.

      “I’m sorry about that.” Adam’s grandmother shook her head. “Reckon Adam’s a bit sensitive about Lila.”

      “I see.”

      She’d made another misstep. She should have been more careful. But how on earth could she possibly find any common ground with Adam if he wouldn’t even talk to her?

      “I can’t do this.” Adam had arrived at his office at Caldwell Boatyard after dropping Jenny at school, his stomach still roiling. He’d found his brother, Matthew, waiting for him.

      “Can’t do what?” Matt perched on the edge of Adam’s cluttered desk, toying with the bronze dolphin paperweight Lila had given Adam in happier times. Matt looked as if he had all the time in the world.

      “Help that woman design a memorial window for Lila, of all things.” Adam slumped into the leather chair behind the desk. Matt was the only person in the world he’d speak to so freely, because Matt was the only one he’d told the whole story to. A good thing he had his brother, or he might resort to punching the paneling. “If my mother-in-law wanted a window, why didn’t she put it in her own church instead of saddling me with it?”

      “Maybe because St. Andrews was Lila’s church,” Matt offered helpfully.

      Adam glared at him. “Don’t you have work to do? Or doesn’t running a weekly paper and being husband and stepfather for two whole months keep you busy enough?”

      “Actually, I am working.” Matt smiled, his face more relaxed than Adam had seen it in years. Marriage seemed to agree with him. “Sarah and I want to do a story for the Gazette about the church windows.”

      “Great. That’s just what I need.” Adam rotated his chair so he could stare at the sloop he was refitting for an off-island summer sailor. “Maybe you can satisfy Tory Marlowe’s curiosity.”

      He glanced at his brother, wondering how much he wanted to say about Tory. Everything, probably.

      Matt lifted an eyebrow. “Curiosity?”

      “She wants to talk about Lila.” His throat tightened. “She wants to get to know her so she can create a fitting memorial.”

      Matt whistled softly, obviously understanding all the things Adam didn’t say out loud. “What are you doing about it?”

      “Not telling her the truth, that’s for sure.” He rubbed his forehead as if he could rub the memories away. He and Lila had married too quickly, too young, and he faulted himself for that as much as Lila. He hadn’t realized until later, carried away as he was, that Lila had had totally skewed ideas of what their married life would be like. She’d hated the island, and everything he’d done to try and make things better only seemed to backfire. Even their beautiful baby hadn’t made Lila want a real family.

      She’d craved excitement, and eventually she’d found that with a man she’d met on one of her frequent trips to visit friends who, she claimed, were living the life she should have had.

      He frowned at Matt. “I certainly can’t tell her the truth. I’m not telling her anything, if I can help it.”

      “Sounds like a mistake to me.”

      “Why?” He shot the word at his brother like a dare, but Matt looked unaffected.

      “You’ll just encourage her to go to other people for what she needs.”

      “No one knows the truth.”

      Matt shrugged. “You’re probably right. But what if you’re not? Better answer her questions yourself than have her asking around town.”

      Unfortunately, that sounded like good advice. He lifted an eyebrow at Matt.

      “How did you get to know so much about women, little brother?”

      Matt grinned. “My wife’s training me.” He sobered. “Seriously, Adam. Just get through it the best you can. Give the woman a few noncommittal details and say you trust her artistic sense to come up with the design. She’ll get busy with the design and stop bothering you.”

      “I hope so.” But somehow he didn’t think Tory was the kind of person to do anything without doing it to perfection.

      He got up slowly, letting the chair roll against shelves crammed with shipbuilding lore. “Guess I’d better go back to the church and make peace with her, if I can.”

      Adam slipped in the side door to the sanctuary and stopped in the shadows. Tory, on the ladder, didn’t seem to hear him. He could take a minute to think what he’d say to her.

      Unfortunately СКАЧАТЬ