Starting Over on Blackberry Lane--A Romance Novel Page 5

  Left goodies for you.

  Yeah?

  From Tea Time.

  All right! Thanx.

  Better your thighs than mine, Griffin thought. Not that Stef would gain so much as an ounce.

  Her work done for the day, she put together a salad, which she ate sitting on the couch while surfing from one social media site to another. Her old college friend Joelle had just gotten engaged and flashed her bling on Instagram.

  Griffin looked down at her own ring. What was she going to do with it now? Sell it, she supposed. She could use the money to live on.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to stay here all by herself now that her future had changed. She liked Icicle Falls, loved the people, but somehow rattling around in this old Craftsman didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a huge house, but it felt too big for her now that she was on her own.

  She hated being alone. She’d never in her whole life been alone, always living with someone—her family, her dorm roommate, Steve. Alone was...lonely.

  If she fixed up the house she could sell it and probably make a small profit. Pay back her parents. Then what? Move to New York? Now that she was single, she had no reason not to go where the real business of food photography happened. This was the logical time for a change.

  But she’d made good friends here. Did she really want to leave them and go someplace where she didn’t know anyone? She stared at her computer screen, contemplating. These days you could keep up with friends wherever you lived.

  And she could make new friends in New York. It was the center of the universe, with lots of action and excitement and energy. She’d probably earn a lot more money in New York.

  But New York was big and expensive. And the idea of moving there was a little scary.

  Still, if she didn’t at least go check it out, would she look back in ten years and regret it?

  That brought her back to the question of the day—what was she going to do? She could stay in Icicle Falls and keep scraping by. She could move back home for a while. No, not an option.

  A text came in from Steve. I’m at my parents’ if you change your mind.

  She wouldn’t, and that made her feel a little guilty. Poor Steve. She’d really hurt him.

  But she’d done the right thing—she was sure of it.

  She spent the evening poking around online, researching, considering her options. She crunched numbers and gave herself several pep talks.

  Finally, she left a message at Mountain Meadows Real Estate explaining that she’d like to know how much money she could sell her house for and asking one of the Realtors to call her. There. At least she’d made a decision.

  Chapter Four

  Grant Masters followed the path of flying bronze fish embedded in the terminal floor as he exited the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Monday evening. Fish. He’d seen enough fish to last him for a long time.

  At first the idea of retiring early and living it up in Mexico fishing, drinking beer and flirting with pretty señoritas had sounded like paradise. He’d worked hard to build his construction company. Actually, he’d worked hard all his life. So after a year of coping with the loss of his wife and trying to run a company, he’d decided it was time not only to take life easier, but to take life easier someplace far from the memories. He’d turned Masters Construction over to his son who’d been managing most of the projects anyway, and took off.

  But he finally got tired of catching marlin and trying to use his rusty Spanish. The damned sun never stopped beating down and the weather never changed. Just another day in paradise.

  With no purpose and no sweet wife, the days were too long. He missed the mountains; he missed his kids. He even missed work. Not that he wanted to work as hard at sixty-two as he had at forty-two, but he wanted something to fill the days. Part-time would do it. He had skills. Might as well use them.

  That had been his reasoning when one night he’d sat down with a Corona and a notebook and pencil and his new company, Honey Do, was born. Every woman had a honey-do list, and a lot of women these days were single with no honey to do it. By the end of the night, he had a business plan and a plane reservation for Seattle. Next stop, Icicle Falls, where his oldest son was living.

  Now here he was, back in the States. At this time of night, traveler rush hour was past, so he didn’t have to fight the usual crush of people. He was thankful for that, as he was now too tired to cope with women mistaking him for George Clooney and wanting his autograph. There’d been enough awkward moments on the plane.

  He picked up his luggage, rented a car and then hit the freeway, heading to the north suburbs of Seattle. He’d spend a night in the city with his younger son, purchase a used truck the next day and then drive over the mountains to Icicle Falls. He already had a room reserved at Gerhardt’s Gasthaus there, and that would do until he could buy a place he liked. Something modest, perhaps in need of some work.

  But not too close to town. He hadn’t spent much time in Icicle Falls, but he knew enough about the place to know it had become a big tourist attraction. He didn’t need to encounter gawking strangers around every corner. Someplace in the woods or maybe on the river would suit him just fine—a place with easy access to mountain trails so he could hike in his spare time.

  Hopefully, he wouldn’t have too much spare time hanging heavily on his shoulders. He’d had business cards made up online, and he’d get busy posting them around town and see what happened. He was ready to start a new life.

  Louise had been gone three years now, and he still missed her like crazy. What he’d had couldn’t be replaced—he knew that. But maybe he could find something to ease the constant low-grade ache in his heart. Being close to the boys would be good.

  Yep, coming back had been the right decision. Lou would have approved.

  He hit his son’s house, a small place Matt and Lexie were renting, around ten.

  “Hey, Dad, welcome home,” Matt said, giving him a hug and a slap on the back. “You ready for a beer? I’ve got some Hale’s Supergoose double IPA.”

  “Sounds great,” Grant said and followed him into the kitchen.

  The place looked a little bare, sparse on furniture and missing those feminine touches that proclaimed there was a woman in the house. No knickknacks, no flowers anywhere, and some of the pictures had left the wall. The kitchen was downright Spartan. No bowl of fruit on the counter, no figurines of French chefs. No canisters. Not a good sign. He knew his son had been having trouble in his marriage, but the impression he was getting here suggested they’d gone way beyond that.

  “Where’s Lexie?” he asked as he settled on a chair at the kitchen table.

  Matt frowned at the bottle of beer he was opening. “She’s gone.” He handed it over and got busy with his own.

  “Gone. As in forever?”

  “Yeah. The divorce will be final end of May,” Matt said and took a long drink of his beer.

  Grant studied his second-born son. Dan had gotten Grant’s darker coloring but Matt resembled his mom—less square jawline, light brown hair, freckles. He’d been a cute kid and he was a good-looking man. He and Lexie had made a fine-looking couple. Too bad they hadn’t managed to make a fine marriage.

  Grant wasn’t surprised to hear it, though. He’d thought the girl was spoiled. And a whiner. Unlike his Lou, who’d been hardworking and always had a smile, this babe had been a leech and a downer. Matt needed someone positive in his life, someone to encourage him. Grant wasn’t sorry to hear she was gone.

  He did feel bad for his son, though, and it saddened him that Matt hadn’t felt he could call and talk to him. Too embarrassed, he was willing to bet, considering the fact that Grant had questioned whether he and Lexie were really a fit when Matt first started getting serious.

  “Want to talk about it?” Grant asked.

&
nbsp; “Nope.”

  Then this wasn’t the time to tell his son that everything would be all right, that somehow his life would go on. He nodded. “Okay. Got any pretzels to go with that beer?”

  Matt dug out a bag, ripped it open and laid it on the table. “You know what really gets me?”

  Yep, didn’t want to talk about it. “What?”

  “She didn’t even give me a hint that she wasn’t happy.”

  “Are you sure, son?” Women left hints, verbal and nonverbal cues that they laid out like a trail of breadcrumbs for a man to follow. Only problem was, it seemed that most guys had a tendency to step right over those breadcrumbs and not even see them. He knew. He’d done his share of missing the clues when he and Louise were first married.

  Matt shrugged. Now he was blinking furiously, trying to fight back unmanly tears.

  Men ought to be allowed to cry, Grant thought, saving his son’s pride by pretending not to see.

  “I could never please her. I mean, I was working my butt off at the restaurant and then doing roofing jobs on my days off. She was never happy, no matter what I did or how much extra money I made. What more did she want?”

  Who knew?

  “Well, screw her,” his son muttered.

  That was how the kid had ended up here in the first place. If you asked Grant, kids jumped into relationships way too quickly. He kept his mouth shut on that topic and simply said, “I’m sorry, son.”

  Matt shrugged. “Shit happens, right? That’s what you used to say. You hungry? I can make you a Philly steak sandwich.”

  “Oh, man. I haven’t had one of those in ages.”

  It used to be his specialty. Lou had loved to bake, but she’d found the meat-and-potatoes stuff challenging. Grant had often pitched in and helped in the kitchen on weekends. He’d been the king of the grill and of Sunday-morning breakfast.

  Matt had been his kitchen buddy, always happy to help out. The kid had wound up going to culinary school at Seattle Central, turning himself into a top-rate chef. He’d often talked about having his own place someday, but for the moment he was cooking at a high-end restaurant on the Seattle waterfront that specialized in seafood.

  Matt nodded and began cutting sirloin into thin strips. He seasoned it with paprika, chili powder and a mess of other herbs, then cut up onions. He dragged out the old cast-iron skillet that had been his mom’s, poured in olive oil and got to work. Half an hour later, they were both sitting at the kitchen bar, downing the best thing Grant had eaten in the last year. Oh, yeah, it was good to be in the States again.

  “So, you’re going back over the mountains, huh?” Matt said and chomped off another chunk of sandwich.

  “I think so. Your brother tells me there’s a real demand for handymen in Icicle Falls.”

  “There’s a real demand for handymen everywhere,” said Matt, who’d been lobbying for Grant to move to Seattle. “Way more action here than over there.”

  “At my age I don’t need action,” Grant informed him.

  “Jeez, Dad, you’re not dead.”

  There was an awkward moment as Matt realized he’d just brought the ghost of his mom into the room with that one word. “Shit,” he muttered and stuffed more of his sandwich in his mouth.

  Grant clapped him on the back. “It’s all right, son. I know what you meant.”

  Now Matt really looked like he was going to cry. “I miss her, Dad.”

  It wasn’t hard to figure out which “her” his son was referring to. “I know. I do, too.”

  Lou had been a stay-at-home mom and the heartbeat of their family. Death had come for her way too soon. So many times Grant had wished it had been him who’d had the heart attack and not her.

  “I wish you were gonna stay here.”

  Poor Matt. People were leaving him right and left. “It’s not that far over the mountains. We’ll see a lot of each other, a lot more than we did when I was in Mexico.”

  Both his sons and their wives had come down to visit him at Christmas, and they’d all had a great time. Well, except for Lexie, who’d topped off a bad sunburn with a case of Montezuma’s revenge. She’d been miserable and she’d done her best to make everyone else miserable, too. Yep, no loss there.

  “I’m coming up on weekends during the winter,” Matt threatened with a grin.

  Skiing and snowboarding—both his boys loved their winter sports, just like he did. He’d see more of Matt now that he was back in the Pacific Northwest. And he’d sure see a lot more of Dan.

  As he’d discovered, he wasn’t cut out for the life of an old hermit crab.

  Matt wanted him to stay a few days but had to work at the restaurant for the rest of the week, and Grant didn’t want to sit around cooling his heels. He was anxious to get to Icicle Falls and get settled.

  So a day later he had a truck and by late afternoon he’d arrived at his temporary new digs in one of Icicle Falls’ favorite (and more affordable) B and Bs. “You’ll get my Ingrid’s incredible breakfasts every morning,” Gerhardt bragged as he checked Grant in. “And my alpenhorn serenades.”

  Grant had heard about Gerhardt’s famous alpenhorn serenades. One time he’d had too much of his German beer and serenaded himself right off the B and B’s dining room balcony and broken his arm. The guy was a character.

  Grant thanked him and towed his oversize suitcase to the room. It had everything he owned in the world—a couple of changes of good clothes, his favorite old work shirt and jeans, his tool belt, toiletries and his share of the photo albums his wife had so carefully kept over the years. Everything else from his life in America he’d given to the boys or sold before he went south, and what he’d accumulated in Mexico, he’d left behind. Except for his trophy marlin, which was being shipped up to him, care of Gerhardt. He’d hang that over the fireplace once he got a house.

  After he was settled in, he walked to Zelda’s Restaurant, which was owned and run by his daughter-in-law Charley. There was a bite in the air. The sun was still out but starting to cast shadows on the town before its evening slide behind the mountains. The shop owners had already welcomed spring, filling their window boxes with plants and putting up hanging flower baskets.

  Icicle Falls was set up to look like a German village, with Bavarian-style architecture and murals painted on the buildings. The closest Grant had ever gotten to Germany was pictures he’d seen in magazines or glimpses of the country in movies. This place sure seemed like a dead ringer to him.

  Charley’s face lit up when he walked in. “Dad! You made it.” She hurried over and hugged him and, darn, it felt good to be hugged, good to be back with family.

  “How you doing, gorgeous?” he said and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Doing great,” she said.

  She looked like she was doing great. At least one son and his wife were enjoying married bliss. Charley practically glowed with happiness.

  “Dan should be here in about ten minutes,” she said. “We’ve got a table reserved for you.”

  He followed her to a booth toward the back of the restaurant. The retired set was already there, enjoying drinks and meals from the senior menu.

  “Would you like a beer while you wait?” she asked.

  “You know it,” he said, and she went to put in an order for him.

  A few minutes later, a cute little gal was setting an icy cold one in front of him. “On the house, Mr. Masters,” she said with a grin. “I’m Melody and I’m new here.”

  “Thanks, Melody,” he said. “And it’s Grant. May as well get on a first-name basis, since I plan on being a regular.”

  “Grant,” she repeated, smiling, and hurried off to deliver some kind of fancy drinks to two women seated at a table in the middle of the room. One of them, he noticed, was a real looker, with beautiful green eyes and chestnut curl
s. She glanced his way, blinked, blushed, then turned her head.

  No, I’m not him. Thank God no one had come up to ask for his autograph so far. It often took a while to convince people that he wasn’t George Clooney. Once he did, they were embarrassed, and so was he. He wouldn’t mind if the redhead came over, though.

  Charley was back now and saw him watching. “That’s Muriel Sterling-Wittman, and yes, she’s single.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Just lookin’. Not in the market.”

  “You never know,” Charley said. “I sure wasn’t in the market when I met your son, who, by the way, is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  Speaking of his son, there he was, obviously just out of the shower with his hair still damp, and wearing clean jeans and a shirt. “Dad, you made it,” he said and hugged Grant. Then he slid into the booth, and Charley sat down and joined him. “How was Seattle?”

  “Crowded.”

  “Matt’s pissed you don’t want to live there.”

  “Matt needs to move up here.”

  “That’s what I keep telling him,” Dan said. “He could come work for Charley.” Charley seemed a little uncomfortable at that, so he added, “Well, if her chef ever quits.”

  “He’s a good one,” she told Grant. “And he’s been with me for several years.”

  “Loyalty’s important,” Grant said diplomatically.

  “But so is family,” Dan said.

  Grant shrugged. “Then why don’t you guys open a second restaurant and let Matt run it?”

  “Not a bad idea,” Dan said, “but we’re gonna be busy for a while.”

  “Oh?” The minute he saw Dan and his wife exchange smiles he knew, but he played dumb. “With what?”

  “With a baby,” Charley said, beaming.

  “Well, now, that’s terrific news,” Grant said. “Congratulations, you two. When’s the stork coming?”

  “November,” Charley replied.