To the One I Love: That Old Familiar FeelingAn Older ManCaught by a Cowboy

by Emilie Richards

  “Poor Lacey. Stuck talking to Matt-the-Hunk Cavanaugh when you could have been comparing the price per ounce of Fab and Tide.” Deanna looked properly sympathetic.

  Lacey threw up her hands. “Okay. It was nice to see him again. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  “You know, I’ve been wondering how you’ve been doing,” Deanna said. “It’s been what, six months since the divorce?”

  “Eight, nearly nine. And you know the divorce was in the makings for a lot longer than that, so the split’s really not new. Two lawyers don’t sever their marriage bonds without a lot of negotiations.”

  “Don’t tell me you acted as your own divorce attorney?”

  “Nope, I know the old saying. A lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client. Lucky for me Geo thinks he’s infallible, even though he had no expertise. I came out of the proceedings with my fair share of everything…and just a teensy bit of his. Poor guy had to sell his brand-new Jag to buy out my share of the condo.”

  The sisters applauded gleefully. Neither of them had liked Geo, and particularly not in the years after he joined the best entertainment law firm in southern California. The job, the life, the contacts with film stars and big name producers had all gone straight to Geo’s head. He had shed the qualities that Lacey had fallen in love with like a snake shedding a worn skin. And the new, glossier Geo had been a man Lacey couldn’t live with.

  “So you’re doing okay?” Deanna said.

  Okay was too mild a word for how Lacey was doing. She knew that her negative feelings about Southern California were unfair, and that with time they would fade. The state was not to blame for her husband’s pretensions. Beverly Hills and Hollywood weren’t to blame, either. There were wonderful, sane, well-grounded people everywhere. She was just thrilled to be away from the other kind, the kind Geo had cultivated. And she was thrilled to be back in north Florida on sleepy Colman Key.

  “Turns out I didn’t like corporate law,” she said. “I don’t like big, splashy parties and casual drug use. I don’t like being judged by my designer labels. And when it came down to it, at the end, I didn’t like Geo. So yes, I’m great. I’m ready for a fresh start. More than ready.”

  Grammer appeared just then. A strand of white hair had escaped her hasty French twist and curled along her chin. She was carrying a serving platter filled with omelets folded over golden melted cheddar, red and green peppers and shallots.

  “Yum! Sit, Grammer,” Deanna said. “We’ll bring the rest.”

  Grammer didn’t argue. She took her seat at the head of the table and began to pour coffee for all of them.

  A few minutes later the whole breakfast was laid out. Lacey’s mouth watered. She had lost weight in the last year. She’d been so busy tying up the loose ends of her life that eating regularly had seemed like a nuisance. Now, for the first time, she was in the enviable position of being able to eat anything she wanted. If she gained a little, so much the better.

  She took two biscuits, and wasn’t able to resist breaking one open immediately so that the fragrant steam bathed her chin and nose. “Grammer, nobody makes biscuits like yours.”

  Grammer passed her a pot of honey with an old-fashioned spiral dipper. “It’s orange blossom. Big John brought me some when he visited his sister in Clearwater.”

  Lacey generously drizzled it on the biscuits. “How is he?” Big John was the local handyman, a bear of a fellow who was well loved by everyone on Colman Key. Over the years he’d probably fixed nearly every inch of Grammer’s house.

  “Fine, as far as I know,” Grammer said. “Probably busy as always. The whole town would fall apart without John to put it back together again.”

  They chatted about other locals, men and women the sisters had met during their summer vacations and quick trips to the key for holidays. Cissy, of Cissy’s Grill, the finest place in the world to eat breakfast—except for Grammer’s house. Red of Red’s Seafood where the shrimp was fresh and the deep fryer was always smoking. Phil, the postman who had delivered Grammer’s mail for the past twenty-five years. Grace, the daughter of Grammer’s neighbors, who was now old enough to have her own paper route and routinely threw Grammer’s newspaper into the sidewalk flowerbed.

  They were all diving for seconds when the doorbell rang.

  Marti spoke first. “Were you expecting anybody?” She looked around the table and settled on Grammer.

  “No, darling. Were any of you?”

  For a moment Lacey thought of Matt and his mysterious, sensual smile, but she shook her head along with her sisters. Matt knew she had only just gotten into town and that Deanna and Marti were newly arrived, as well. Surely he would guess they planned to spend the day catching up.

  Still, since she was closest, Lacey got to her feet. “I’ll see who it is.”

  “Good. I’m going to eat the rest of the omelets while you’re gone,” Marti said with a wink.

  “There’d better be some omelet on my plate when I get back.”

  Lacey realized as she made her way to the front door that she could have gotten a little more dressed up. Her power clothes were temporarily packed and stored, but she had brought a couple of pretty sundresses, gauzy little numbers that showed a modest amount of creamy skin. She also had shorts that did a better job of showing off her long legs than the ones she’d thrown on that morning. She doubted Matt was going to be at the door, but if he was, she would be sorry she hadn’t paid more attention to detail.

  She flung open the door, something she would have been too cautious to do in her California condo, and stared at…nothing.

  Less than a minute had passed since the doorbell rang, but no one was standing there, patiently waiting to be greeted.

  “Odd,” she mumbled. She was about to close the door when she looked down at the welcome mat and saw another white square sitting on it. At first she thought it was another magazine insert like the one she’d retrieved earlier, but on closer inspection she saw that this was an envelope. She stooped and picked it up, squinting in the bright sunlight.

  “Our adventure begins,” she read on the envelope front. “Our adventure begins?” she asked out loud. She straightened and scanned the street, looking for anything out of the ordinary. What was this? A solicitation? Would she open the envelope and find that someone wanted Grammer to have the “adventure” of buying new siding for the house or attending financial planning classes at the local high school?

  She shook her head and stepped back inside.

  Once in the Florida room she waved the envelope. “‘Our adventure begins.’ That’s what the envelope says and it’s handwritten. This was the only thing waiting on the porch.”

  “Oh?” Grammer, her fork lifted, shook her head when Lacey tried to give her the envelope. “You read it for me. I don’t have my reading glasses.”

  Lacey took her seat and waited until Deanna had poured more coffee. “My guess is that there’s a yard sale over on Shell Street. We can have the ‘adventure’ of adding used baby clothing and hand-painted ceramic Dutch boys to Grammer’s attic.”

  “I believe I already have boxes of your baby clothing up there,” Grammer said. “Little hand-smocked dresses made by my cousin. I couldn’t bear to let your mother throw them out. You might want them for your own children.”

  Lacey smiled at her. “Shall I?” She held out the envelope.

  “Indeed. Go for it, darling.”

  Lacey opened the envelope, which had been carefully sealed. She scanned it, and her brow creased.

  “What?” Marti demanded. “Share, you doofus.”

  Lacey shrugged. “Okay, but it’s really strange.”

  “Lacey!”

  Lacey began to read. “It starts with: ‘To the One I Love.’ Then it goes on.” She cleared her throat. “‘Some things are meant to be, and we’re one of them. I know I don’t have a lot of time to convince you, but if you’ll give me a chance, I’d like to try. Expect the unexpected, and I’ll be seeing you soon.’”


  She looked up. The three women were staring at her.

  “Oh, come on. You’re making that up,” Deanna said at last.

  “You know I have no imagination.” Lacey skimmed the letter again. “No signature. The handwriting looks like it belongs to a man. Big, bold, block letters. Nothing prissy about this.”

  “Let me see that.” Marti held out her hand, and Lacey gave her the letter. Marti scanned it. “Good grief, she wasn’t kidding.”

  “Told you,” Lacey said. She started in on the omelet slice that Deanna had left her. She was pretending to be nonchalant, but her brain was whirling.

  “Okay, who is this letter for?” Marti asked.

  “Not me,” everyone else said in unison.

  “Well, not me, I’m sure,” Marti said. They all fell silent.

  Deanna reached for the letter and shook her head after she’d read it out loud again. “Maybe somebody left it on the wrong porch?”

  Lacey finished her omelet. “I think it’s kind of sweet. ‘Some things are meant to be.’ I mean, don’t all of us wish that were true, that there was a man for each of us, someone who was just right, who was destined to be ours?”

  “You can say that after marriage to Geo?” Deanna asked.

  “Sure I can. I mean, Geo was definitely not that guy. He looked like the right guy, and that’s why I married him. He was the logical choice, and I’m a logical woman. We had common interests, I thought we had common values. He wanted children…”

  She trailed off, because in the end that last had been the big giveaway. Geo hadn’t wanted children, he hadn’t wanted the responsibility that came with marriage, and he probably hadn’t even wanted the same woman in his bed every night. But he had been excellent at hiding the truth and telling her what she wanted to hear.

  “You’re a romantic,” Marti said, amazed. “You! Lacey Amanda Colman Dillon. Do you really believe there’s a right guy for everyone?”

  Lacey wasn’t sure what she believed, but she was on a roll. “And you don’t? In your heart of hearts? Underneath all those feminist values we hold dear? Don’t we all at least hope there’s a guy out there who’s exactly right, who’s maybe even destined to be our one great love?”

  Marti turned to their grandmother. “Grammer, is that the way you felt about Granddad?”

  Grammer smiled. “Not exactly.”

  “See,” Marti said. “This white knight fantasy does not run in the family.”

  “So you’re saying that if this letter was meant for you, you’ll simply discard the notion that there’s a man out there who thinks you’re his perfect mate?” Lacey sat back and smiled benignly at her sister. “And you, Deanna? The same for you?”

  “But the letter is not for me,” Marti said.

  “Or me,” Deanna said.

  “Neither of you sounds that convincing,” Grammer said with a smile. “And neither do you, Lacey.”

  But Lacey was thinking of Matt Cavanaugh, who had been noticeably pleased to make her acquaintance again after all these years. Hadn’t he said something unbelievably sweet during their brief parking lot reunion? Hadn’t he laughed a little and said, “Hey, for years, I was sure you were the only one for me, you know. Damn, Lacey, until I was eighteen I was absolutely sure that you and I were meant to be. I was positive it was fate.”

  She was so busy trying to remember his exact words that she didn’t even hear Grammer’s sly statement or her sisters’ shared laughter.

  The sun was moving back toward the horizon before the sisters made it to the beach. They cut through the vacant acres in front of Grammer’s house and carefully traversed the low dunes replete with sea oats. There was a pathway that had been paved with driftwood planks over the years by the locals, and they stuck to it to avoid damaging the fragile environment.

  Lacey had been anxious to get to the beach, but even more anxious to keep an eye on Grammer. All day long she had looked for signs that her grandmother was depressed or upset by the big changes about to occur in her life, but to her eye, Grammer seemed the same. There was no For Sale sign in front of the house yet, and she hadn’t mentioned the move to the retirement center. But on a brief afternoon drive the sisters had crossed the narrow, antiquated drawbridge that separated Colman Key from the mainland and driven right by the center to get a good look at it.

  The sprawling one-story building was everything Lacey had feared. Big, bright, falsely cheerful. The grounds were so carefully landscaped that Lacey felt certain every square foot had a weed alarm. Each blade of Bermuda grass looked like it had been trimmed with a ruler in one hand and clippers in the other. There were benches scattered over the grounds, but no one was sitting on them. True, that only made sense in the afternoon heat, but the absence of residents did nothing to allay Lacey’s fears. Maybe this really was the jail she feared it to be, and the inmates were locked in their cells.

  All the way back the sisters had discussed their observations. Despite their worst fears they knew the center was probably fine. Their father wasn’t heartless, and their grandmother wasn’t a doormat. Surely both of them had checked it carefully. Certainly there had to be activities and field trips, and they all knew that Grammer would make friends quickly. But Grammer already had friends. Colman Key was filled with people who loved and respected her. Grammer was a favorite of young, old, and in between. It made no sense to move away from the community she loved.

  By the time they had spread their blankets, dabbed sunscreen on each other’s backs and argued over which station to listen to on the portable radio, they were exhausted, and they lapsed into silence.

  Lacey tilted a straw hat over her face to shield the sun’s glare and closed her eyes. She could feel the sun stealing her last reserves of energy and concentration. She drifted quickly and when she landed somewhere in another, drowsier dimension, Matt Cavanaugh was waiting for her in front of Wallace’s again.

  Last night Matt had lounged against a Cavanaugh Builders pickup, not the old blue one he’d been allowed to drive as a teenager, but a shiny red model filled with tools and ladders. He wore a dark green sport shirt with three buttons undone—odd she’d counted them—and denim shorts that revealed long, muscular, Florida-tanned legs.

  “Lacey, it’s been a long time.” He smiled, and his teeth flashed white against tanned skin. Behind the pickup, moths fluttered in the lights over Wallace’s door, and somewhere not far in the distance seagulls cawed a tribute as sunset faded from the sky. “I won’t say you haven’t changed.”

  He had changed, too. He was taller than she remembered, and his shoulders were wider. He had never been a hellion, but even as a teenager he had radiated a strong, sure masculinity, a dangerous physical appeal that had drawn the local girls to him like the moths to Wallace’s lights. She saw now that the appeal had deepened, widened, gained new breadth. There were lines around his eyes and laugh lines at the corner of his mouth. His light brown hair needed a trim, and it just curled over the tops of his ears. She was surprised at how much she wanted to brush it back with her fingertips.

  “How have I changed?” she asked.

  “The hair’s shorter.”

  Self-consciously she lifted her hand to her nape. Her dark hair was straight as a board, and between working ten-hour days and trying to keep up with Geo’s social life, the short no-nonsense bob had been her best solution. But her hair had been long once, and Matt had found great pleasure in running his fingers through it.

  “Cute,” he said. “Cute hair, but you’re not cute. You’re beautiful. You were beautiful at eighteen, though. So I’m not surprised.”

  She felt suddenly shy, almost embarrassed. “I’ve changed in more ways than the hair.” She thought of all the ways. “Not all of them good, maybe.”

  “I heard you were divorced.”

  She nodded. “And I heard you lost your wife.”

  “Jill. You probably don’t remember her. She was younger than we were.”

  “I’m so sorry. I sent flowers, but I doub
t you remember anything from those awful days.”

  “At least it was quick.”

  Jill Cavanaugh had died of an aneurysm almost three years ago. Lacey had just been settling into her own marriage by then, already beginning to suspect she had made a terrible mistake. “And you have children?”

  He grinned. “Do I.” He pulled out his wallet with a practiced swoosh, and snapped it open. She stared down at two matching blond-haired boys.

  “Twins.” She nodded. “I did hear that.”

  “Four years old,” Matt said, shoving the wallet back in his pocket. “Complete and utter brats.”

  He said it with such love that she only smiled. “You’re very lucky. They’re darling.”

  “I wondered about this moment for years.”

  She met his eyes, surprised. “What moment?”

  “The moment I saw you again.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “You think I’m just coming on to you?”

  She laughed a little. “It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

  “Well, I mean it. Hey, for years, I was sure you were the only one for me. Damn, Lacey, until I was eighteen I was absolutely sure that you and I were meant to be. I was positive it was fate.”

  She stared at him, because of course, in those days she had felt the same way. Then life had intervened. Different colleges, a summer abroad, vacations that passed in the night. They had written at first, then the letters had tapered off. He’d dated other girls, she’d tried her charms on other men. She had seen him briefly for a couple of times during those college years, but they had almost been strangers by then, wary of too much intimacy before they were really ready to settle down.

  Then sometime after graduation Matt had come back to Colman Key and married Jill.

  “I remember feeling sad the day I heard you’d married,” Lacey said. “We never had the chance to know each other as adults. But I guess that was fate, too. We both had other fish to fry.” She tried out her highest wattage smile. “Who knows, huh?”