Once in a Blue Moon by Eileen Goudge Read Free Book Online Page A

Grant and she?
    He handed her glass back to her. “Who knows? You may get lucky yet. Just like the brother and sister in the article.” So he had been listening. If not for his patronizing tone, she might even have thought he was sincere.
    “You make it sound like I’d have as much chance of spotting the Loch Ness monster.”
    At her sharp remark, he eyed her in puzzlement. The breeze picked up just then, lifting a lock of blond hair off his forehead. His blue eyes shone in a last burst of sunlight. “Did I say something wrong?”
    “No,” she conceded. “It’s just that I get the feeling you don’t think I’ll ever find her.”
    He hesitated before saying gently, “Did it ever occur to you that maybe she doesn’t want to be found?”
    She felt herself tense. “Why would I think that?”
    “It just seems to me that otherwise she’d have surfaced by now. Maybe there’s a reason she’s remained underground,” he went on in the same maddeningly reasonable tone.
    “Such as?”
    “She could be in trouble with the law.”
    Lindsay responded quickly, “I wouldn’t care if she was in trouble.”
    “Yes, but she doesn’t know that.” At the dark look she shot him, Grant shook his head, wearing a bewildered look. “I don’t understand. You’ve been looking for your sister for God knows how long. Certainly as long as I’ve known you. So why are you getting so worked up all of a sudden?”
    Lindsay’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know.” She sat for a moment chewing on her lip, watching a sailboat far out at sea gracefully tacking its way toward the marina, its sails bellying out as it leaned away from the wind. “Her birthday’s coming up. It got me thinking, is all.”
    “I’ll tell you what. When the day comes, why don’t I take you out to dinner, and we’ll celebrate—raise a glass to your sister in absentia. How about that?”
    She brought her gaze back to Grant to find him beaming at her as if to say, Problem solved .
    You don’t get it. You don’t get it at all. She bit back the caustic words. She wasn’t normally given to displays of temper and rarely lashed out in anger. Logic, reason, carefully constructed arguments—those were her weapons of choice. Only, who was being unreasonable here? Kerrie Ann had been missing for more than a quarter of a century. Was it Grant’s fault that he saw her search as futile? That he was unable to comprehend the deep ache she still felt (though he rarely saw his own sister, who lived in his hometown of Grantsburg, Wisconsin, she was still very much a part of his life) that defied the passage of time and seeming absence of hope?
    She sighed once more, raising her glass to her lips. “I guess it’s easier to dwell on the past than face what’s happening in the present.” She was referring to the current thorn in her side: the Heywood Group. Men in suits whose skulduggery was cloaked in corporate jargon but who were no better than a band of pirates.
    “What’s the latest from Dwight?” Grant asked.
    Dwight Tibbet was her lawyer. When she’d gone to Grant for help in fending off the Heywood Group, he’d referred her to an old friend from law school who specialized in land disputes and who, Grant assured her, was more qualified than he to handle the matter.
    “There’s talk of their invoking eminent domain.” She spoke in a low, controlled tone, determined not to spoil the day’s mood any more than she already had.
    Grant frowned. “They don’t have the authority.”
    “No, but the county does, and I have it from a reliable source that at least half the commissioners are in bed with those slimeballs.”
    “It’s just a scare tactic.”
    “Guess what? It’s working.” She felt sick just thinking about what would happen should the Heywood Group and their cronies prevail. Her only recourse would be to battle it out in court. And what chance would she, a mere property owner, have against the united front of a government body and a hotel