conclusion, T.J. shot another quick glance toward her son. “Is he still on the island?”
The café owner quickly shook her head. “He left yesterday afternoon. I saw him drive his red Jaguar onto the ferry myself. Hard to miss that car,” she explained, impressed despite herself. It wasn’t often that a luxury car showed up on the island with its gravel roads and rugged terrain. Even the newly monied who’d built million-dollar summer homes in the more remote areas drove modest SUVs or trucks. On Harbor it was considered bad form to be too ostentatious. “The 3:10 ferry,” she added, wanting to be as accurate in her account as possible.
Brad was no longer on the island. He’d come. Asked his questions. And gone.
T.J. should have felt relief knowing he was no longer there. And she supposed she did. She just didn’t feel enough to relieve the uneasiness still knotting her stomach.
“Take it from me,” Maddy said, all friendship and sympathy. “It’s never easy when your past turns up. Especially in the form of a man. The good news is that once they’ve satisfied their curiosity about whatever brought them back, they’re usually gone.”
T.J. forced a faint smile, as much for Maddy’s benefit as her own. “Do you think that’s it? That he was just curious about us?”
“It makes perfect sense that he would be. Any man with a soul doesn’t forget that he ran out on a woman who was going to have his child. Maybe something happened to make him turn philosophical, and he’s looking at where he messed up his life. Maybe he’s just come out of a relationship and wants to go back to something familiar. Or,” she suggested, brightening, “it could be that he finally smartened up, realized what a jerk he’d been and he’s finally wanting to make things right.”
It was clear enough to T.J. that Maddy, the ever-hopeful romantic, was seeing a hint of potential in the man. T.J. could practically hear the local matchmaker’s mental wheels grinding out her argument now. She would insist that Brad needed to do his share of groveling to properly prove how sorry he was. But, like the prodigal son, if he was sorry enough, he could be welcomed back into the fold. After all, he was the child’s father. And T.J. really had cared a great deal about him.
The thought that Brad Colwood might want to make up for abandoning her and her son would never have occurred to T.J. on her own. In all her twenty-seven years, she had never once known any man who returned to repair the damage he’d left behind. If a man came back at all, it was only to collect something he had forgotten, then move on again leaving a little more pain in his wake.
Reminding herself of that hard-learned bit of reality, hating the sense of foreboding it gave her, T.J. did her best to mask her growing trepidation. There was something Maddy didn’t know. Something T.J. had mentioned to no one.
Brad’s appearance yesterday wasn’t his first attempt to get information about her and her son. He had written to her three months ago asking how she was doing and if she would please tell him about their child. He’d wanted a picture.
That letter had been the first communication she’d received from him since he’d bailed out on her after learning she was pregnant. She’d ignored it, along with the sense of unease it gave her. Just as she had ignored a second letter that had come two weeks ago.
As far as she was concerned, Andy was hers and no one else’s. Brad had no right to information about him. Not now. Not after so long. She didn’t care if he had faced some sort of epiphany about himself or if his heart had been broken and he was seeking solace in an old relationship. She especially didn’t care if he was simply curious. She wanted nothing to do with the man who had refused to acknowledge his child and left her to have her baby alone.
“He can’t make things right,” she finally replied to Maddy. “Things are right just the way they are. I’m just going to hope he’s dropped off the planet again.”
The middle-aged Irish woman opened her mouth, undoubtedly to ask T.J. what she would do if he came back, but the bell over the door gave a melodic tinkle. Two ladies in cargo shorts and tank tops strolled in, their pale skin pink from a morning in the sun.
The women gave the bestseller display a desultory once-over. Seeing nothing they were interested in, the blonde in the black baseball cap turned to the brunette in the red one and they left to join the stream of summer people clogging Harbor’s main street. The door had yet to swing closed when three more potential patrons wandered in.
The long, low moan of a ferry whistle filtered inside.
“This obviously isn’t a good time to talk. Look,” Maddy continued, her voice low as she backed up the aisle with T.J., “I didn’t mean to hit you with this out of the blue. I really thought you’d seen him. I just wondered what had happened.”
T.J.’s smile was soft, forgiving. She liked Maddy, but she wouldn’t have told the woman what had happened even if Brad had shown up. There wasn’t a malicious bone in the older woman’s body, but Maddy was notorious for trying to fix peoples lives. She also never failed to solicit everyone else’s opinion about how that could be accomplished—which meant anything she said to Maddy would be all over town in under an hour.
“Don’t worry about it, okay?” she asked, truly hoping she wasn’t about to become a staple on the local grapevine. “I’m glad you let me know he was here.”
“Miss?” An elderly woman in an orange T-shirt and pea-green sun visor had stopped near the wildlife section. She waved to T.J. over the shoulder-high bookshelves. The older gentleman in baggy safari shorts, dark dress socks and sandals had to be her companion. He wore orange and pea green, too. “Can you help us?”
Eyeing the couple as she and T.J. returned to the counter, Maddy whispered, “If anyone asks, the pies today are apple and fresh blueberry.”
“What about your cobblers?”
“Peach and cherry.”
“Chowder of the day?”
“Fresh corn.”
“Got it.”
The bell over the door sounded again, the call of seagulls drifting inside along with the fresh salt air and an eclectic blend of buyers and lookers. T.J. loved the hustle of summer and the variety of people who visited the friendly little shop. Just as she loved the quiet solitude of the island when fall and winter came and the residents could reclaim their turf from those who had come to watch the whales, kayak in the coves and hike the lush forest. She liked belonging here.
At the moment, she was simply thankful she was busy. Busy was good. Busy meant she didn’t have time to obsess over what Brad’s reappearance might mean.
She soon discovered that she didn’t have to be consciously thinking about it for the development to affect her. What Maddy had told her silently preyed on her nerves as she went about her chores, helping customers, answering their inevitable questions about the history of the island, the best places to spot dolphins, where they could find rest rooms. The distractions helped. But she couldn’t shake the agitation that put her senses on alert and had her darting furtive glances toward the door every time it opened.
The sight of any tall blond male with angular features caused her stomach to drop.
She was overreacting. She knew she was. Maddy had said she’d seen Brad leave on the ferry, and as sure as rain in the northwest Maddy would let her know if he was back. Still, T.J. couldn’t help the prickling sensation
