Wayne’s stomach curdled with sadness.
“When I brought it up with Mom this morning, she just brushed it aside and said that it’s another person after Grandpa’s money,” Michael said. “But from what I heard last night, you know her a little bit better than the others do. What do you think?”
“She’s one of the better people I’ve met in my life,” Wayne told him, his voice cracking. “She’s actually on her way off the island, and I think we both want to protect ourselves from heartbreak. At this age, heartbreak is something we’re so aware of.”
“But if there’s anything I’ve learned from my years away, it’s that you can create whatever life you want. You can draw it up out of thin air,” Michael said.
Wayne chuckled. “You really think that?”
“I do.”
“You have the optimism of a traveler,” Wayne said. “Someone who has seen every inch of the world.”
“Maybe just every inch of the continent,” Michael said, his grin widening.
The sails surged out with a sudden gust of wind. Wayne rose to tidy them, to turn them back toward the coast. Out there on Lake Michigan, the boat pulsed to-and-fro, hardly aloft, hardly controlled, as the grey autumn skies pressed harder down upon them. If Wayne had learned only weeks ago that he would be out on the water with Michael—the prodigal son—he would have said, Not in a million years.
But here they were together.
And maybe, just maybe, second chances were possible after all.
Chapter Seven
Elise fell into step beside her sister. Tracey’s hair fluttered in the light breeze, and her cheeks immediately brightened pink in the chilly air.
“You must be so cold here,” Tracey said with a laugh. “A California girl facing a Michigan winter. I can’t imagine it!”
“But the leaves,” Elise said, “And the air and the water and...”
“And the lack of tourists,” Tracey finished. “And the sense of community that comes over this place when the summer season is over! Oh, I could go on and on, but I think you sense it, too.” After a pause, she added, “Wayne told me that you’re a screenwriter. That you’re working on something about the island.”
“I’m just playing around with some ideas,” Elise said. “I don’t know what will come of it.”
What else did Wayne tell you about me? Why did he bail on me last night? Why did he bring you to the bed and breakfast this morning? Was it a kind of peace offering? Or was it just a distraction to keep me guessing about what he might do next?
“Well, I would love to read it sometime,” Tracey said as she snuck a hand into her coat pocket and jangled out keys. “But right now, I want you to see this line of dresses I just got in to the store. They arrived a month late if you can believe it. They would have sold beautifully over the last few weeks of the season, but now...”
She placed the key into the lock and led Elise into the grey shadows of the boutique, the very one in which the women had first spotted each other.
“Here they are,” Tracey said, dropping to her knees in front of several boxes toward the side of the front room. With tender hands, she brought out a gorgeous maroon dress, with a low-cut top and a cinched waist, then a silver dress with a higher neckline and gorgeous button detail, and a dark jean skirt, which would have hit Elise at the knee.
“The designer lives down in Florida,” Tracey explained. “I met her a few years ago when I went down there on a personal vacation. Tell you the truth, I was going through a pretty rough breakup at the time, and I needed time away from the island to get some perspective.”
Elise took the clothes from Tracey’s extended hand and added them to an empty rack so that she could analyze the fabric better.
“I guess I’m doing something like that now,” Elise said. “My divorce was finalized only recently. And then, with my mother... I just wanted to see everything from far away.”
“That’s the funny thing about those trips, though, isn’t it? The fact that no matter how far away from home you go, you’re still there with yourself,” Tracey said, her smile fading slightly. “I begged my older sister, Cindy, to meet me down there when I got a little sick of myself after a week or so. Gosh, this must have been four years ago. Before so many things happened. People now long-gone were still alive. People seemed happier. Dad was so much more vibrant back then.”
Elise swallowed the lump in her throat. “You said there was so much I missed. But I’d love to know what you meant. What is your life like? What was it like to grow up here on Mackinac Island? And Dean... What was it like to have him as a father?”
“He had a difficult time with all of us kids, I think,” Tracey said. Her smile was nostalgic. “He was trying his best to make his way in the world, you know. It didn’t take him long to become the richest man on the island. There’s no telling why it all happened the way it did. Maybe it had something to do with Alex’s illness. He felt he had to become something strong enough for all of us. Maybe it had something to do with your mother and the life he hadn’t been allowed to have with her. I honestly don’t know.”
Elise nodded somberly. Something like that had gone through her mind.
“But me? Well, I have a daughter. Just one. Her father is still around, but we don’t exactly see eye-to-eye. He’s high up at one of the ferry companies. I’ve joked for years that he’ll be the one to push me off a ferry on one of my trips across, one of these days,” Tracey said with an ironic laugh.
“How old is your daughter?”
“She’s twenty-one,” Tracey said.
“So is my daughter!” Elise said.
Tracey and Elise shared a tender moment. Elise’s mind hummed with potential future images. Penny and Tracey’s daughter—soon later revealed to be named Emma—together on the island, getting to know one another, laughing the way cousins were supposed to laugh.
Elise was amazed at how easy it was to talk to Tracey, especially as the ice melted between them. Elise tried on various dresses and skirts and chattered easily with Tracey, who told her more stories about growing up on the island, about her father. Tracey was also curious about Allison Darby, about what kind of woman she had been.
“That sounds like Dad’s type, all right,” Tracey confessed. “I can’t imagine it. Getting swept up in a romance on the set of a movie... It must have been the time of Dad’s life. And then to come home to three screaming kids, one of them so sick we weren’t sure if he would make it? I’m sure it was a nightmare.”
Elise nodded as she added another dress to a hanger and hung it back on the rack. “I have a lot of compassion for him. And I don’t want anyone to regret what came before.”
“How could we?” Tracey said somberly, her hand across Elise’s shoulder. “You’re perfect.”
That moment, the door burst open to reveal a woman who looked almost identical to Tracey.
Her eyes were enormous; her lipstick was jagged and smeared across her lips; she looked as though she had been crying.
Immediately, Elise panicked.
“Cindy? What’s going on?” Tracey asked as the door clipped shut behind yet another Swartz sister.
“Have you heard from Michael?”
Tracey shook her head. “No. But he was never one to call me anyway.”
Cindy collapsed against the counter and exhaled deeply. “When I got home this morning from yoga, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I waited for a while, thinking maybe he just went to the store? Or for a walk? But now, it’s been hours and hours, and I... I just...I fear the worse.”
Her eyes turned toward Elise with sudden curiosity.
After a long pause, Tracey said, “I don’t think your first assumption should be that he ran off again.”
Elise recognized that she had stepped into some family drama that she knew nothing about at all.
Cindy’s eyes continued to hold Elise’s. “Don’t tell me. You’re her, aren’t you?” Her eyes snapped back toward Tracey, who shrugged. “Seriously,
Trace?”
“Don’t be so snippy,” Tracey returned.
Cindy laced her fingers through her hair, looking more annoyed by the minute. “I just don’t know why you have to complicate everything, all the damn time. Jesus.” She turned quickly, pressed her hand against the glass door, and then walked out of the boutique.
Tracey shot after her, grumbling to herself. Elise followed, wanting to apologize, to return to the Bloomingfeld, to pack and head for the hills. She paused in the center of the street as a carriage clunked beside her, its horses whining.
Tracey whipped around, even as she chased after Cindy, and called, “Come on, Elise! I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Not now.”
Elise groaned and hustled after them until Cindy came to a crumpling halt near the docks. She placed her hands on her knees as she gasped toward the pavement. Tracey and Elise caught up to her. Tracey placed her hand on her older sister’s back and said, “Just breathe for a minute. Have you tried to call him?”
Cindy gasped for air. “I did try to call him. Just like I’ve tried to call him every few weeks for the past three years.”
Suddenly, Cindy yanked herself back upright, slid a hand under her nose, and gazed at Elise. Her expression wasn’t exactly friendly.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” she said, her voice steady.
Elise’s stomach curdled.
“Come on, Cindy. Calm down. I was just getting to know her.” Tracey stuttered.
“No. I don’t care who you are. I don’t know what you want. The thing is, Wayne has been through enough. His wife was my best friend in the world, and she was taken from us. He’ll never get over her, just like I never will. I just need you to understand that. No tourist like you can come in here and change all that’s come before.”
Elise had no idea what to say.
She turned her eyes toward the water again as her throat constricted. Her eyes filled with tears.
Wayne’s wife had been his greatest love.
She’d left an enormous shadow.
And all of these people? They had lived their lives with Dean Swartz, with his wife, Mandy, with all the cast and characters of this gorgeous island.
Elise was forever an outsider.
But before she could speak, she spotted Wayne’s sailboat—the Tara—nearing the docks. Wayne managed the sails, while another guy in his mid-twenties stood near the tip, his chin lifted and the wind rushing through his dark locks.
Elise was captivated.
As the boat grew closer, her heart raced, her hands grew clammy, and her eyes held tears.
She really could have loved him.
“There! He’s on the sailboat with Wayne!” Tracey said to Cindy, grabbing her shoulder and turning her away from Elise. “You should have known he was with Wayne. He was always with Wayne.”
Chapter Eight
Wayne tied up the sailboat to the dock as Michael tidied up, zipped up his jacket again, then gave Wayne a large grin, one that reminded Wayne of a much younger Michael—a Michael who’d often fallen over with laughter when he, Tara, and Wayne had played Monopoly at their house.
Out there on the water, they had made the first steps toward reforming their relationship.
It was a gift that Wayne hadn’t thought he would have.
That moment, the dock he had attached the boat to shook with severe, stomping footsteps. Wayne turned quickly to find Cindy, glowering, her hands in fists. She stood over the boat, her eyes toward her son. Behind her, Tracey hustled up—and far toward the end of the dock, still on land, looking on the verge of running for it, stood Elise.
“Why don’t you just tell her how you feel? If there’s anything I’ve learned from the past three years, it’s that we don’t have that much time. We have to fight for what we want,” Michael had told him out on the water.
“Hey, Mom,” Michael started.
Wayne didn’t want to wait around to see what kind of interaction Cindy decided to have with Michael. Obviously, he hadn’t communicated his trip out on the sailboat—had probably scared her to pieces—and now had to face it.
Wayne hustled down the dock. When he stepped off, Elise turned her eyes toward his. They glinted beautifully, catching that somber, autumn sun. She wore a coat that Wayne might have said was a little overly-thick given the time of year.
A California girl.
Wayne stepped toward her. His tongue felt thick and unwieldy. Since the dinner the previous night, he hadn’t heard a single thing from her, and her demeanor had been anything but warm when he had appeared at the Bloomingfeld with Tracey earlier.
“Hello,” he said finally.
The word wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
How could he possibly explain himself?
“Hi.”
Her eyes escaped his and fell to the ground. Maybe the dinner had been the final nail in the coffin. Maybe it was the push she needed to get off the island.
We’re all looking for something. Maybe she found her family here; maybe she learned that even that wasn’t enough.
“Can I walk with you for a while?” he asked.
Elise turned her eyes toward Cindy, Tracey, and Michael, who remained out near the boat.
“Who is that guy?” she asked.
Wayne slipped his fingers through his hair. “It’s difficult to explain, I guess. There’s so much to explain. I don’t even know where to start.”
Elise’s eyes shimmered with tears. “You don’t need to explain.”
“I want to,” Wayne told her, his voice somber.
They fell into step alongside one another. Wayne glanced at her several times as they walked along Main Street, struggling to read her. After several moments of silence, Elise was the first to speak.
“Tracey is a wonderful person,” she said. “Kind and generous, creative and interesting. I can’t believe I went my whole life without knowing her.”
“I’ve known her almost my entire life,” Wayne said with a dry laugh. “And Cindy, well. She’s the reason I met my wife.”
They neared Bloomingfeld and passed right on by. Elise made no move to leave him. Her hand was just an inch or so to the left, away from his, and Wayne ached with desire to hold it.
Even throughout his bachelor days on the island— his playboy ways, he hadn’t wanted to hold someone’s hand. Not like this.
This was a feeling he hadn’t had since the early days with Tara.
“But that was a long time ago,” he continued, as they traced an easy path, past the road that led to his house, toward the Grand Hotel itself. “And now, my wife has been gone three years.”
At the entrance to the Grand Hotel grounds, Elise stopped short, turned her perfect face toward his, and said, “I just lost the most important person in the world to me. I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to lose her. But even now, I know the pain follows you.” She swallowed and then turned her eyes back toward the ground. “And I’m so sorry that anything like that ever had to happen. You don’t deserve it. Nobody does.”
Neither of them spoke for a while after that. Wayne allowed Elise to lead them across the green grass, around the lilacs and lilies and the bright pink and purple roses. They continued to walk beneath trees, and then on toward the steps, which led up toward the Grand Hotel’s world-famous porch.
As Wayne walked behind her, he tried to imagine it: Elise as a California woman, in the wake of her mother’s death—learning suddenly of this film, Somewhere in Time, and her mother’s role in it.
Suddenly, a silly movie about time travel and everlasting love became an answer to a question Elise had probably had since her childhood. Who is my father? Where did I come from? Who is my mother, really?
At the top of the staircase, Wayne watched as Elise paused and turned around to gaze out across the grounds.
“I’ve only seen it once,” she whispered. “But that scene when Jane Seymour calls for him and runs across the grounds...” She shook her head and
bit hard on her lower lip. “I’ve never felt that way about someone. Never felt that urgent fire to run toward someone as quickly as I could because I couldn’t take another moment without being in their arms.”
Wayne wasn’t sure what to say. In his memory, he had loved Tara with that very fire and when she had been taken from him, his insides had felt like ice for a very long time.
Elise turned back and stepped onto the porch. Together, the two of them entered the hotel, which creaked ominously with the autumn winds. The carpet, the décor, the chairs, the paintings that hung on the walls: everything seemed of a different time. Elise’s eyes grew wide as she walked slowly through.
“I haven’t stepped foot inside before,” she said, pausing near an old, black and white photograph of the hotel itself. “It’s where my mother stayed during the filming. Apparently, Dean Swartz would sneak in to meet her.”
After a long pause, Elise turned to look at him. That eye contact felt like a punch through the stomach.
“Sounds like his love for her was enormous,” Wayne offered.
Elise nodded sadly. “Not enormous enough, apparently.” Her shoulders slumped slightly as she added, “Where were you last night, Wayne? I’m sorry to ask. The whole island has been very eager to tell me just how little you want to be tied down—that you’re not the kind of guy to get involved in anything. And I guess I have to understand that, especially after all you went through. But the text message, just minutes after I was meant to arrive...”
“It was cruel,” Wayne whispered. “And I can’t take it back. But you have to believe that all I wanted in the world was to sit across from you at my table last night. I had the meal made and everything.”
Elise pressed her lips together. “Maybe you just realized that it’s too complicated?”
Wayne shrugged. “Everything is complicated. That’s one of the only things I’ve really come to terms with over the years. Nothing ever gets easier, and it’s all a mess.”
“Maybe I should get that tattooed on my back,” Elise said.
Wayne was so surprised at the joke that his laugh was a little too loud. The woman who operated the reception cast him a strange look.
Lost Loves (Secrets of Mackinac Island Book 4) Page 5
