Far Harbor by Joann Ross Read Free Book Online Page B

crossed the room and picked up the phone receiver that was still lying on the desktop. “I’m sorry. Did I interrupt you making a call?”
    “It’s not important.” So that’s what that annoying sound was. Ida forced a smile that wobbled only slightly as Savannah replaced the receiver in its cradle. “Tell me all about your day. I want to hear everything.”
    “You were right, as usual.” Savannah settled down on the sofa, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her legs beneath her.
    “Of course. Grandmothers are always right.” In contrast to her icy hands, Ida felt a bead of sweat form above her upper lip. Her mind turned with the heavy, slogging effort of truck tires stuck in a mud bog.
    “Offering Henry Hyatt a chance to move in here clinched the deal.”
    Henry Hyatt…. She’d treated him for prostate trouble ten years ago. It had been a cold wet June during a spring of record rains that had made it seem as if summer would never come. Ida recalled the case, as she did that of all her other patients, with crystal clarity. But surely that wasn’t what Savannah had been concerned about?
    “I’ve always loved that lighthouse, but I have to admit, Gram, I’m still having a little trouble believing that it’s actually mine.”
    Ida latched onto the clue like a drowning woman reaching for a piece of driftwood in a storm-tossed sea. The lighthouse! Savannah was buying the Far Harbor lighthouse to turn into a bed-and-breakfast. How had she forgotten such an important thing?
    “You’ll make a grand success of it,” she assured her granddaughter with renewed vigor born of her relief at having finally sorted out the puzzle. “And I’m pleased as peanuts that my offer of hospitality to Henry helped clinch the deal. But I have to warn you, Savannah dear, if that cranky old man expects breakfast in bed, like they undoubtedly do for invalids over at Evergreen, he’s going to have to sleep in the kitchen.”
    When Savannah laughed richly at that suggestion, Ida’s clenched shoulders relaxed and the blood flowed warmly back into her hands.
    “I’m so proud of you,” she said as her mind cleared and her heart lifted. “Not that I ever had any doubts. In fact, anticipating your success, I bought you a little present.” She reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a tapestry lighthouse tote bag.
    “Oh, I love it!”
    “There’s something inside,” Ida remembered.
    Savannah laughed again as she pulled out the message T-shirt. “Behind every successful woman is herself,” she read aloud.
    “And don’t you forget it,” Ida said briskly, pleased with the way Savannah was coming out of her recent divorce funk. “We Lindstrom women are tough cookies.” Although she was still furious at that shifty-eyed weasel her granddaughter had made the mistake of marrying, at least his behavior had brought Savannah home again, proving that every silver lining had a cloud around it. “They may be able to chew us up from time to time, but they can’t swallow….
    “We’ll have to call Raine right away,” Ida said decisively after grandmother and granddaughter had hugged. “And, of course, Gwen. So you can tell them the good news.”
    Everything was going to be fine. Her girls were back home again. All except Gwen, who would soon be back from science camp in time to start her senior year of high school. Even Lilith, after a lifetime of rebellion, appeared to be on the straight and narrow, happily married to Cooper Ryan and working at something she seemed to enjoy.
    Despite those recent annoying little memory glitches, life had never been better. Fretting about things she couldn’t control—such as getting older—was a waste of time and would accomplish nothing.
    As she found Gwen’s number in her address book and picked up the receiver, Ida put her concerns away and decided to let sleeping ducks lie.
     
    Five very long days later, Savannah sat on the bench in the lighthouse garden, running through the numbers again.