Lighthouse Beach

by Shelley Noble

  Clancy lifted one side of his mouth. “I’m guessing that spill is your temper and not ’cause you’re blind as a bat.”

  Mac turned on him. “That’s just why I didn’t want her to say anything.”

  “Well, at least it isn’t a brain tumor. I’m starving.” He picked up the carving knife and attacked the roast with gusto.

  “That’s great news,” Jess said. “Isn’t it just an in-and-out procedure?”

  “Portland has a good outpatient center,” Clancy said. “Stay there overnight, get your post-op evaluation the next day, and you’re back here for lunch.”

  “And who’ll watch the lighthouse?”

  “Lighthouse can watch itself for a night or two.”

  “Are you going to pay the insurance when some damn tourist or kid trespasses and gets hurt and sues the crap out of the town?”

  “Oh, hang the lighthouse. Or get old Harry Packard. He can watch it and be glad of the work.”

  Mac handed a bowl of potatoes to Jess to pass. “Harry Packard’s a drunk.”

  “I’ll be here to watch Harry,” Lillo said, taking the bowl from Jess and helping herself.

  Clancy rolled his eyes at her. She knew how he felt about her “decision,” as he and Ned insisted on calling her move back to Lighthouse Beach. It hadn’t been her decision. Her misfortune, her bad luck, her stupidity had been the factors that decided her fate.

  Lillo put down the bowl. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having trouble seeing? We could have taken care of this weeks, months ago.” She glared at Mac, angry that she didn’t trust Lillo with her problems, and even more, she was hurt that Mac couldn’t.

  “You have your own life to deal with.”

  “No, I don’t. I mean—” Lillo swallowed the sudden tightening in her throat. Would she never be trusted again? Hell, would she ever stop making everything about her? Mac was suffering.

  “I don’t have anybody to drive me,” Mac groused.

  “I can drive you,” Lillo said.

  “Hell, I’ll drive you,” said Clancy, “providing that old bucket of yours still runs.”

  “You won’t be here.”

  “Why not? I can be here, I’m retired—basically.”

  “That’s just why I didn’t want Allie to announce this to the world.”

  “Oh, shut up, woman. Nobody’s feeling sorry for you. You’re too damn ornery to feel sorry for. If a friend wants to help you, let ’em.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Diana.

  “Absolutely,” Jess added.

  “Fine, if just to shut you up.”

  “Whew,” Allie said under her breath.

  “You did good,” Lillo told her, just as quietly.

  “Glad that’s settled,” Clancy said. “Diana, keep moving that bowl of mash around. I’m starving.”

  “You know,” Ned said, “we could be at Mac’s right now, eating whatever she cooked, and it would be better than this.” He lifted a spoonful of the thin goulash and dribbled it back into his bowl.

  “Why don’t you go on, then?” Ian said.

  “Because believe it or not, I’d like to spend time with my old friend.”

  “Or are you just afraid to sit down at the table with Lillo and have her bite your head off?”

  “She came in to help today,” Ned said, pushing the goulash away and going to the fridge to look inside. “Totally empty. How do you survive?”

  “Usually I go to the grocery. But I’ve been busy this week.”

  “How are the foal and mother doing?”

  “Nimbly called. They’re both on their feet and eating.”

  “Which is more than I can say for us. You didn’t make this, did you?”

  “No. Mrs. Kravitz did and it was good the first couple of times, but then I had to add water to it.”

  “The mind boggles. How is the new CEO?”

  “What CE— Oh.” Ian gave him a dark look and pushed his bowl away.

  “I’m calling Sal and asking him to deliver some pasta and salad.” Ned pushed his chair back from the table. “But you’re not off the hook about the CEO.” He went into the hall to phone Sal, then came back to the kitchen. “Twenty minutes. Want another beer while we wait?”

  “Sure.”

  Ned opened two more beers, set one down in front of Ian, moved the bowls of diluted goulash to the sink, and sat down.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” Ned asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “She’s been here nearly every day since they arrived … I’d say that’s something.”

  “She won’t stay away.”

  “Do you want her to?”

  Ian studied his beer bottle. Turned it around so the other side was facing him. “No.”

  “So you guys get along?”

  “Not really. We just ride.”

  “You know you’re getting harder to talk to every time I visit. You need to get out and practice, man, before you become some rusty old recluse with a long beard and crossed eyes who only converses with horses.”

  “That’s pretty much me already, except for the beard and the crossed eyes.”

  “Do you think that’s healthy? Why don’t you go into Portland and do some group? It helps. You know it does.”

  “I know. I’m just busy.”

  “Bullshit, but I know better than to argue. So tell me about the CEO.”

  “Her name is Diana.”

  Ned took a swig of beer to hide his grin. He’d learned over the past few years that if you wanted to get information from Ian, you had to wait for it.

  “So Diana, what about her?”

  Ian pushed his fingers through his hair, a gesture that surprised Ned. “Hell, I don’t know how to talk to her. Hell, talk to anybody, but especially to her.

  “And I took her to the bluff and she said I didn’t seem like the kind of guy who liked kids.”

  “What would she know? Those types are married to their career.”

  “I thought she was questioning my expertise.”

  “Was she?”

  “No, she said I always did something, I forget what exactly. That I always took what she said in the worst way or something like that.”

  “And you did.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Ned looked across the table. He’d known Ian for almost twenty years. He’d been full of fire and optimism with a belief in his ability to make the world a better place. Ned didn’t understand people like him. The Doctors Without Borders types who selflessly gave their time and expertise to people who as soon as they were healed from one thing were just as likely to succumb to something else—poverty, disease, or war.

  Ian had learned that the hard way. And he’d reacted like any normal man would … and he had never forgiven himself for it. Ned saved lives, but he never put his own life on the line to do it. He didn’t think he had the temperament or even the guts to put his life on the line once, much less day after day, month after month, year after year.

  “Go for it,” he said. It was a stupid idea … a CEO and a traumatized veterinarian. But could it do either of them any real harm?

  “I’m not sure I remember how. Or even if … nah. They’ll be gone and things will go back to normal.”

  “Hell, Ian.” Ned pushed his chair back and stood. Walked across the narrow space in the kitchen not taken up by the table. “You and Lillo, two of the most talented people I know, are sitting here, wasting away, because of shit that was totally out of your control.”

  “The difference being,” Ian said as calmly as Ned was frustrated, “for Lillo, things were out of her control. For me, I was the one out of control. There’s a difference.”

  Ned collapsed back onto his chair. “I get that. I just don’t get why she’s still so fucked up.”

  “Count your blessings.”

  Neither of them spoke for a while, just drank their beer, thinking their own thoughts. Ned had never been so glad to see a delivery guy in his life. He never knew how far to push Ian. He’d
certainly pushed Lillo too far last year. Had he done more harm than good? Had he pushed her further into her isolation? He didn’t want to do that to Ian.

  He loved them both dearly, and he just couldn’t figure out how to help either of them.

  The rain came overnight like the reports said it would. It was a doozy. Rattling the windows of the cottage, the wind howling around the corners like something from a ghost story. The lights must have gone out sometime during the night because when Lillo dragged herself out of bed at eight o’clock, according to her phone, the kitchen clock said five thirty.

  She made coffee and looked out the kitchen window. The rain was still coming down, hitting the puddles of the parking lot at an angle and setting off sprays of water. A day for curling up with a good book. Except that she had guests, didn’t have a good book at hand, and had meant to make herself go back to the clinic this morning.

  Who said the road to hell was paved with good intentions? Well, if she was going to the clinic, she might as well get started. She was sick to death of having her life on hold. Self-imposed though it was.

  For the last few months she’d actually thought she was getting her life back on track, learning to live with her failures and her hideous mistake. She didn’t dwell on it 24/7 like she had done during the first few months back in Lighthouse Beach, or for the months she’d tried to hold on before that, determined to make amends, to make it work, until she couldn’t try anymore. She’d thought she’d made progress, was on her way to living out the rest of her life, if not with happiness then at least without doing harm.

  But that had all changed with Jess’s wedding invitation. She’d taken a chance and it had torn her tenuous existence right down the middle.

  So what now? Did she go or did she stay? She hummed that line while she sipped coffee and watched the rain.

  Then she crammed a change of clothes into her backpack; she’d need them by the time she walked to the clinic. She put on her rain slicker and boots, pulled up the hood, tucked her head in anticipation of the rain, and went outside. Stupid idea. Nobody but the desperately ill would venture out on a day like this.

  The clinic was bound to be quiet today.

  They wouldn’t need her.

  There would be a lot of time sitting around doing nothing.

  Clancy and Agnes and maybe even Ned would want to chat.

  She could make herself busy. The files probably needed organizing.

  But you could chat and file at the same time; filing wasn’t brain surgery.

  She reached Main Street. She could turn right and give meaning to why she was standing out in the rain. Or she could be the coward that she was beginning to see she was and turn around and go back home.

  While she was standing there a familiar Range Rover drove past. Stopped. Reversed. Stopped. The passenger window lowered.

  Ian Lachlan leaned over the passenger seat. “Need a ride?”

  Lillo nodded and got in.

  They sat looking at each other for a few seconds.

  “Where to?”

  Lillo shrugged.

  Ian waited.

  Someone honked. Ian pulled the Rover to the side of the street.

  “I just let Ned off at the clinic. Convinced him not to ride when he could get a lift.”

  Another silence.

  “Were you going there?”

  Lillo shrugged. Started to thank him and get out, but he stepped on the accelerator and the Rover shot forward. He didn’t turn back toward the clinic but drove straight, up the road to his office and home, the place that had once been her home. She knew where they were going, she just didn’t know why.

  It was a place she didn’t like to visit. Not because she was envious that Ian owned it now. She hadn’t wanted to return there; she was happy in the cottage. Ian’s house held many good memories. Too many good memories.

  She didn’t really want to go there now. A few weeks ago she would have demanded he stop and let her out. Might have even jumped out of the car if he’d refused. But last week was a dim memory and what seemed like logic then no longer seemed to make sense now.

  So Lillo sat back, letting the metronome sound of the wipers calm her, let her fate and Ian Lachlan take her where they would.

  The house appeared dimly through the sheets of rain. Wavering and indistinct like a melting picture, a remote dream.

  Ian stopped the Rover at the front steps and reached across her to open the passenger door.

  She smiled. Was that his attempt at chivalry? Maybe he was afraid she wouldn’t get out and he’d be stuck with her. Would serve him right.

  “The doors have been sticking lately,” he said, and got out of the SUV.

  They ran up the steps to the porch, where they dropped their rain gear and went inside.

  “I haven’t had time to do much with the decor.”

  “No, you haven’t,” Lillo said, looking around. The once-cozy living room, crowded with the plush overstuffed furniture, the sofas and love seats, reading chairs and ottomans her parents loved, was gone. Today an old couch and a big club chair and ottoman were placed around the fireplace, now just a gaping box surrounded by quarry-cut stone and looking like it had never seen a stocking hung with care in its life. But it had. Many of them. Twice a year: once in December for the family and local friends and once for Christmas in July, when campers added their stockings to the collection.

  She tried to imagine Ian as a little boy hanging his stocking, and failed.

  “You want to change? The bathroom’s in—never mind; you know where it is.”

  “Thanks. I’m fine.” She was beginning to wonder why she was here. Why he thought she’d want to come, and why she hadn’t stopped him.

  “I can make tea—or something.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  He shot his fingers through his hair. It was wet from the rain and it was left sticking up in shiny dark spikes.

  He walked to the fireplace, back to the couch where Lillo had just sat down. He looked down at her. She looked up at him, wondering what was happening. Outside, the rain continued to fall, enclosing them in this slightly chilly, barren room.

  He sat down. “Ned says you’re fucked up.”

  She was so shocked that for a second she couldn’t even react. Then her first response was to slug him.

  She did.

  He didn’t even try to protect himself.

  “Sorry,” she said. “A case of shooting the messenger.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you think I’m fucked up?”

  “I guess that’s what some people would call it. I get it.”

  “What would you call it?”

  He shrugged, and for a moment Lillo saw utter defeat in that taciturn face.

  “I don’t know, but you better get rid of it while you still can.”

  “How? How do you get rid of your demons, Ian?”

  “On a good day, one demon at a time.”

  “And on bad days?”

  “I’ve never wanted to cope more in my life and I don’t know how to get there, so I suggest you figure it out before it’s too late. And you end up like me.”

  “I feel like maybe it’s already too late.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t let it be.” He stood. “I have to see to the animals. Then I have to go out to Hansen’s for feed. Stay as long as you want. Or I can drive you home.”

  She watched him go. Taking care of the animals, taking care of her in his own way. She knew he was right; she wished she could help him, but she knew she had to help herself.

  Chapter 18

  “For crying out loud, Diana, you’ve been pacing all morning. Come get a cup of coffee and sit down.”

  “I’m floating in coffee,” Diana said, but she dropped the curtain across the front window. Water was gushing down the path toward the cottage, there was no sign of the rain letting up, and she was about to miss her daily ride with Ian. Actually, eleven o’clock had come and gone. Did he expect her? Had he
given up on her? Did he even notice she wasn’t there?

  She went over to the kitchen and took a cup from Jess.

  Jess scrunched her eyebrows at her. “You’re not really thinking about going over to the stables, are you?”

  “Well, the horses do need to be fed and the stalls mucked out.”

  “Gee, I wonder how Ian managed without you for so long? Oh man, you’ve got it bad.”

  “‘And that ain’t good,’” Diana countered.

  Allie’s head appeared from behind the fridge door. “That is the saddest song I ever heard.”

  Diana and Jess just looked at her.

  “Duke Ellington, right? Nina Simone? My mother loved her.”

  “Lost me,” Diana said.

  “‘I Got It Bad,’” Allie said, bringing out two apples and a bag of English muffins. “We’re going to have to make a food run soon.”

  “What about I got it bad?”

  “It’s the title of a song. A real tearjerker. I’d play it for you if I could pick up a signal.”

  Diana put down her cup. “Not in this rain.” She wandered back to the window. It was not letting up and she wondered if it was true. Did she really just want to ride or did she have it bad for Ian Lachlan?

  “Well, if you’re that worried about the horses, maybe you should tromp through this downpour to check it out.” Jess grinned. “And arrive looking like a drowned rat.”

  “I’m not that desperate,” Diana said.

  “Good,” Allie said. “But I’m that hungry. Jess, is there anything else for lunch besides apples and English muffins?”

  “Ugh,” Diana said. “Do you think somebody in this town delivers?”

  “In this weather? I doubt it.”

  Jess opened a cabinet and brought out a jar of peanut butter. “Mac probably has some wonderful soup simmering on the stove. Do you think that’s where Lillo is?”

  Diana turned from the window for the umpteenth time. “Who knows? I can see the keeper’s cottage from here, but we might as well be on a deserted island … in the rain.”

  “She’s got it bad,” Jess said.

  “Looks like it to me,” Allie agreed.

  “I’m standing right here,” Diana said, and went to retrieve her coffee cup. She leaned her elbows on the pass-through counter. “There’s not even a radio here. Not that there’s a station to pick up.”