…we should just let it go.

Alec sat back again, slowly, a small smile on his lips. For the first time, Annie’s words elicited no fear in him. None at all.

He left Kiss River and drove down the island. No one would ever guess it had been foggy an hour or so earlier. The sun was already blazing across the Banks, and as Alec drove over the bridge into Manteo, it lit up the boats on the sound.

He parked in front of the retirement home, but that was not his destination. Instead, he walked across the street to the quaint little gray and white antique store, frowning when he noticed the closed sign in the front window. It had not occurred to him that it was too early for the shop to be open.

There was a car in the driveway, though. He peered through the front door and could see light coming from a room at the back of the shop. He knocked, and in a moment a woman came to the door.

She opened it a few inches. “Can I help you?” she asked. She was sixty or so, Alec guessed. Gray-haired and grandmotherly.

“I know you’re not open yet, but this is important,” he said. “I’m looking for an antique doll for my daughter. I think my wife used to buy them here for her.”

“Annie O’Neill?”

“That’s right.”

She opened the door wide. “You must be Alec.” She smiled. “Come in, dear. I’m Helen.”

He shook the hand she offered.

“I’m so pleased to meet you,” she said. “Annie bought the dolls for her daughter’s birthday, right?”

“That’s right. I’m a little late with it this year.”

“Better late than never.” Helen leaned against a glass counter filled with old jewelry. “Annie was such a good customer. Such a lovely person. She gave me that.” She pointed to a stained glass panel hanging in the front window. The little gray antique shop stood against a background of grass and trees. Yet another creation of Annie’s he had never seen.

“It’s nice,” he said.

“I was so sorry to hear about…everything,” Helen said, as she led him into a small back room, where dolls sat here and there on pieces of antique furniture. One of them—an imp with red hair—caught his eye immediately.

“Oh, that one.” He pointed toward the doll. “Without a doubt.”

“I had a feeling you’d pick her. It’s the first one with red hair I’ve seen, and when I got it in a month or so ago, I thought to myself, wouldn’t Saint Anne have loved this one? Her face is a very high-quality pearly bisque, and she has her original human hair. That all makes her quite expensive, though.” A small white tag was attached to the doll’s arm, and Helen turned it over so Alec could see the price written on it.

“Wow.” He smiled. “Doesn’t matter.”

Helen picked up the doll and carried it to the front of the store. She stuffed some tissue paper into the bottom of a large box and placed the doll inside. “Annie used to like to wrap them up herself,” she said. “I think she made the paper. But I suppose…would you like me to wrap it for you?”

“Please.”

She cut a length of blue and white striped wrapping paper from a roll and began taping it around the box. “Annie came in here all the time,” she said, cutting off a piece of tape. “She just lit up the store. We still talk about her.” She attached a premade bow to the top of the box and slid it to him across the counter. “Everyone misses her so much.”

“She’d like that,” Alec said, handing her a check. “I think being forgotten was one of her biggest fears.”

He could hear Lacey’s music blasting from upstairs when he got home, but he stopped in the den first to call Nola.

“I have some news,” he said, “and you’re not going to like it. Brace yourself, okay?”

“What’s that, hon?”

“I’m resigning from the lighthouse committee.”

There were two beats of silence before Nola spoke again. “You’re joking,” she said.

“No.”

“Alec, why in God’s name would you…?”

“I couldn’t begin to explain it to you, Nola. I nominate you as the new chair, and I wish all of you great luck with your endeavors.”

“Wait! Don’t you dare hang up. You owe us an explanation, Alec. I mean, really, don’t you think? What am I supposed to tell the others?”

He ran his fingers over the silky blue on Lacey’s present. “Tell them I’ve had an epiphany,” he said. “Tell them I’ve been set free.”

He carried the box upstairs and knocked on Lacey’s door.

She let out a little scream. “Don’t come in yet, Dad,” she said.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I’m not dressed. Just a second.”

He heard her frantically rooting around in her room, and he wondered what he would find when he was finally allowed in.

She opened the door after a minute or two. She was dressed in her usual shorts and T-shirt, with her hair tucked under a wide-brimmed straw hat.

“What’s with the hat?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She was a little winded. She looked at the box in his hands. “What’s that?”

“A very belated birthday gift.”

She took the box from him and sat down on her bed, and he leaned against the door frame to watch her. She bit her lip as she raised the lid.

“Oh.” She gasped. “She’s incredible, Dad.” She lifted the doll from the tissue paper and touched its hair. “A redhead.” She looked up at him. “Where did you ever find one with red hair?”

He shrugged and looked secretive.

Lacey stood up and placed the doll in the center of the shelf above her dresser, just below the poster of a leather-vested, long-haired thug.

“Well,” she said, sounding suddenly timid. “I have something to show you too, but you’re gonna freak, Dad.”

Alec smiled and folded his arms across his chest. “You know what, Lacey? I think I’m just about unfreakable right now. What is it?”

She kept her eyes on him as she slowly lifted the hat from her head, revealing exceedingly short red curls. She had cut off every speck of black, leaving herself with very little hair at all, but all that was there was red.

“Oh, Lace,” he said. “It’s beautiful.” He pulled her against him, and she stayed easily in his arms. He held her close, pressing his cheek against the damp curls and breathing in the sweet, clean scent of her hair.

Someday he would have to tell her the truth about her parentage. Someday he would have to tell Tom. But not now. Right now, she was his.



CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR


Was it this painless to end a marriage?

Olivia got out of bed with the realization that she had not once thought of Paul since he left the house the afternoon before. Of course, she had worked late last night, later than she had to, letting the patients absorb her time and attention. She’d worked until she was so exhausted that she knew sleep would be immediate and dreamless once she got in bed.

Now, as she showered, as she dried her hair, she had the feeling she was carefully holding thoughts of Paul at bay, as if letting them in, letting them get a grip on her, might be more than she could manage.

She was thinking of Alec, though. She had the day off, and as she busied herself with housework, she listened for the phone to ring, willing him to call. She would not call him again. He needed to work this out in his own good time.

Around noon, she reluctantly left the house to go to the store. She had two bags of groceries with her when she turned onto her street an hour later, and she spotted Alec standing on the pier behind her house. Although she was three or four houses away, her view of him was nearly unbroken, and she stopped her car to watch him. He was leaning against one of the pilings, shading his eyes to look out at the sound. An aching tenderness filled her. What a horrendous day he must have had yesterday. As stunned as she had been by what she’d learned about her husband, it could not compare to what he’d learned about his wife.

She drove on, and he must have heard her pull into the driveway, because by the time she started unloading the groceries, he was helping her.

“I’m glad to see you,” she said, looking at him over the top of the car. “I wasn’t sure if you’d call, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“I thought I was taking a risk coming over here.” He lifted a bag of groceries into his arms. “I figured maybe Paul would be here, and I’m not ready to meet up with him yet.” He stopped midway to her front door. “He’s not here, is he?”

“No.” She unlocked the door. “Come in.”

He followed her into the kitchen and set his bag next to hers on the table. “So—” he glanced up at her as they began unloading the groceries “—have you spoken to him?”

She put a quart of milk in the refrigerator, then leaned back against the counter. “He stopped over yesterday afternoon,” she said. “He was very apologetic, very distraught. Absolutely dripping with remorse.” She heard the mockery in her voice and wondered if she sounded as hard to Alec as she did to herself. “He’d been a fool, he said, and he destroyed the taped interviews he’d made of Annie and burned all her pictures.” She shook her head. “I guess he never did lose his flair for drama. I told him about the baby, and if guilt could kill, I would have had a dead man on my hands.” She smiled ruefully. “He said he wants us to get back together, that we should try to work things out for the baby’s sake, but I just…” Her voice caught suddenly, surprising her, and she turned her face away from Alec.

“It’s all right, Olivia,” he said quietly. “Let it out.”

She shook her head. “But I’m not sad.” Tears filled her eyes and she wiped at them with her fingers. “Really, I’m not.”

Alec reached his arm toward her. His fingers slipped around the nape of her neck, and she let him pull her to him, shutting her eyes as his arms closed around her.