"I thought about doing it weeks ago, but I put it off. Because- No, I don't really want to do it. But I'll try to take a page out of Violeta's book. When the chips are down, it's better to forgive."

She moved to him, took his face in her hands. "You're going to get that celebration after all. In fact, I'm going to go down and start on that. We should put those letters somewhere safe."

"I'll take care of it."

"Eli, why do you think Edwin kept the letters?"

"I don't know, except Landons tend to keep things. The chest of drawers may have been his, and putting them in that hidden niche might have been his way of keeping them but not seeing them."

"Out of sight, out of mind, like Violeta." Abra nodded. "What a sad man he must have been."

Sad? Eli thought when she left. He doubted it. He thought Edwin Landon would have been a self-satisfied son of a b.i.t.c.h. No family tree grew without a few bent branches, he supposed.

He used his laptop to search for the contact number for an old friend, then took out his phone. Forgiveness, he discovered, didn't come easy. But expediency did. Maybe forgiveness would follow, and if not, he'd still have answers.

CHAPTER Twenty-eight

WITH HER HAIR BUNDLED UP, HER SLEEVES HIKED TO HER elbows, Abra looked up from layering slices of potato in a ca.s.serole dish when Eli came into the kitchen.

"How'd that go?"

"Awkward."

"I'm sorry, Eli."

He only shrugged. "More awkward for him than for me, I think. Actually, I knew his wife better. She's a paralegal at my old firm. He teaches history at Harvard and sidelines in genealogy. We played basketball a couple times a month, downed a few beers here and there. That's all."

That was enough, to Abra's mind, to deserve a little loyalty and compa.s.sion.

"Anyway, after the initial stumbling around and that strained and overenthusiastic 'Good to hear from you, Eli,' he agreed to do it. In fact, I think he feels guilty enough to make it a priority."

"Good. It helps balance the scales."

"Then why do I want to punch something?"

She considered the potato she'd just sliced in several vicious whacks. She knew exactly how he felt.

"Why don't you go pump some iron instead? Work up an appet.i.te for stuffed pork chops, scalloped potatoes and green beans amandine. A manly celebration meal."

"Maybe I will. I should feed the dog."

"Already done. She's now stretched out on the terrace watching people play in what she considers her yard."

"I should give you a hand."

"Do I look like I need one?"

He had to smile. "No, you don't."

"Go, pump it up. I like my men ripped."

"In that case, I might be a while."

He sweated out the frustration and the depression that wanted to walk hand in hand. And once he'd showered off the dregs, he found he could let it go.

He had what he needed, an expert to solve a problem. If guilt helped solve the problem, it didn't and shouldn't matter.

On impulse, he took Barbie for a walk into the village. It struck him that people spoke to him, called him by name, asked how he was doing without any of the wariness, the awkwardness he'd become so accustomed to.

He bought a bouquet of tulips the color of eggplant. On the way back, he waved to Stoney Tribbet as the old man strolled toward the Village Pub.

"Buy you a beer, boy?"

"Not tonight," Eli called back. "I've got dinner waiting, but keep a stool open for me Friday night."

"You got it."

And that, Eli realized, made Whiskey Beach home. A stool at the bar on Friday night, a casual wave, dinner on the stove and knowing the woman you cared for would smile when you gave her purple tulips.

And she did.

The tulips stood along with candles on the terrace table with the surf crashing, the stars winking on. Champagne bubbled, and right there, right then, Eli felt all was right with his world.

He'd come back, he thought. Shed the too-tight skin, turned the corner, rounded the circle-whatever a.n.a.logy worked. He was where he wanted to be, with the woman he wanted to be with and doing what made him feel whole, and real.

He had colored lights and wind chimes on the terrace, pots of flowers and a dog napping at the top of the beach steps.

"This is ..."

Abra lifted her eyebrows. "What?"

"Just right. Just exactly right."

And when she smiled at him again, it was. Just exactly right.

Later, when the house lay quiet and his body still thrummed from hers, he couldn't say why sleep eluded him. He listened to the rhythm of Abra's breathing, and the m.u.f.fled yips from Barbie as she dreamed, he imagined, of chasing a bright red ball into the water.

He listened to Bluff House settle, and imagined his grandmother wakened late at night by noises that didn't fit the pattern.

Restless, he rose, thought to go down for a book. Instead he climbed up to the third floor to the stack of ledgers. He sat at the card table with his legal pad, his laptop.