Page 23 of Escape to Lighthouse Cove

He led them up one side of the double staircase, back to the thickly carpeted hallway where Grace knew Noah’s study was, the dark wood-paneled walls lined with muddy-looking oil paintings. Really, the whole house seemed trapped in the 1800s, or even earlier. She wondered when it had been built, and why no one had wanted to update it even a little.

Isaiah tapped on Noah’s study door and then frowned as he opened it. No one was inside.

“He might be in the gym still,” he murmured, while Jacob slipped his hand from Grace’s and went straight to the chessboard by the fire. As Isaiah continued down the hallway, Grace hovered uncertainly for a moment before deciding to follow him. While Jacob was reacquainting himself with the chessboard, maybe she could have a discreet word with Noah about her son’s current limitations. She suspected he was already aware of Jacob’s shyness, but it couldn’t hurt to make it clear that her son wasn’t speaking at all.

“Grace and Jacob are here,” Isaiah said from the door of the gym while Grace waited behind.

“What?” Noah sounded both surprised and irritable, and Grace immediately tensed. “Why?”

“For Jacob’s chess lesson,” Isaiah replied imperturbably, and Noah let out a groan.

“Isaiah, I told you I wasn’t doing that,” he snapped. “You really need to stop interfering?—”

“Noah—” Isaiah began, sounding uncharacteristically stern, while Noah swore, making Grace stiffen all the more. She heard him clamber off some kind of gym equipment, the snap of a towel.

“I know you think if you push us together enough something will happen,” Noah told him through what sounded like gritted teeth, “but forget it, okay? Tell them to go home. I really have zero interest in bothering with some broken Barbie and her weird little kid.”

He came round the doorway, a towel looped around his shoulders, a gray shirt darkened with sweat around the neck, a pair of navy-blue sweatpants riding low on his hips. His face was drawn into harsh lines of discontent, while Grace stared at him, transfixed with icy horror, before she did the only thing she could think of—she turned around and fled.

13

Noah stared at Grace hightailing it down the hallway and he cursed out loud. He hadnotmeant for her to hear that. He hadn’t even meant to say it, not really. He’d just been annoyed at Isaiah for his unrelenting pushiness, and desperate not to see Grace again after that whole nightmare thing. He’d told himself he’d maturely moved past it, but the reality was the more he’d thought about it, the more humiliated and horrible he’d felt.

And now Isaiah was looking at him like he’d just gleefully drowned a kitten, and Grace was already at the end of the hallway, heading for the stairs.

“Grace.”

With seemingly no other option, Noah took off after her, down the hall and then the stairs. By the time he was catching up to her, she was already out the door, practically sprinting toward the gates at the bottom of the hill.

“Grace!” He bellowed her name, loud enough for Margaret Babcock down by the cottages to hear, and knowing her, she was probably straining to listen anyway. Grace kept running. “You’ve left Jacob behind,” he called, and that finally made her stop, her back, taut and quivering, still to him. “I’m sorry,” he told her more quietly. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did.” Slowly she turned around. Her face was pale, her golden hair blowing in the wind. She looked like a bruised reed, her body, dressed in slim-fitting jeans and a long cashmere cardigan, swaying slightly. “You didn’t even know I was there,” she stated in a clear, quiet voice, “so it wasn’t as if you were saying it to hurt me or get rid of me. You said it because you meant it.”

“I was saying it to get rid ofIsaiah,” Noah replied, feeling exasperated as well as seriously guilty. It had been a cruel thing to say, and hehadn’tmeant it. He raked a hand through his sweaty hair. When would he ever learn? When would he everchange?

Unfortunately he was pretty sure he knew the answer to that.

“He arranged the whole thing without asking me,” Noah explained, “and I was annoyed—I know that doesn’t justify it, but I’m just trying to explain.”

“No explanation needed or wanted,” Grace replied stiffly. She straightened as she pushed silky strands of hair out of her face. “But just for the record, I thoughtyouhad invited Jacob to come for chess lessons. I didn’t realize Isaiah had done it all. If I had…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll get Jacob and we’ll be out of your way.”

Without waiting for him to reply, she walked tensely by him, back into the house. Noah followed, wretched with misery. This wasn’t the first time he’d self-sabotaged himself into serious trouble. Far from it.

Growing up, Jem had been the quiet one, the one everybody felt tender toward, and he’d always been far too mouthy to make up for it, and annoyed people in the process. They’d been quite the duo, back in the day, Jem saying basically nothing and Noah acting like a clown, as if that would somehow make things better. Or maybe he’d just wanted to be different; it had been hard being a twin, especially when your twin was the gentlest, quietly kindest kid around.

What had started out as a little annoying soon became seriously so, especially as he’d got older, and become louder, obnoxious and arrogant. He could see it now, even if he hadn’t been able to then. His cockiness had been sharpened by success, and he’d let himself believe that being cutting was the same as being clever. That Jem could be the quiet, nice guy, and he could be the funny, cocky one that peoplereallyliked.

It had been easy in New York, when people were impressed by a witty or cutting remark, but he’d learned eventually, the hard way, how much it hurt—the people he loved as well as himself. How making fun of something wasn’t all that great a party trick and ultimately madehimlook like the loser.

He’d realized he never wanted to be that way again, and he’dthoughthe’d changed, but it seemed that when he felt cornered, it came out again—the snark, even the calculated cruelty—a willful choice rather than an instinctive reaction, because what better way to push people away and prove you really were as bad as you thought you were?

He could besucha jerk.

Slowly, his steps heavy, he followed Grace up the stairs to the study where Jacob was standing by the fire, his little shoulders rounded, his gaze intent on the chessboard. The little boy reminded him so much of Jem it made his chest hurt.

“Jacob.” Grace’s voice was gentle, but Noah heard the tremble underneath. “We need to go, sweetheart.”

Jacob looked up, his gray eyes—the same clear color as his mother’s—widening before his mouth firmed, and he gave one decisive shake of his head. Noah could practically hear theno… just as he’d been able to with Jem.