in any of you,” she told him, her tone surprisingly gentle. “One phone call would put an end to their heartache.” She leveled her gaze straight at him. “And to yours.”
“My heart’s just fine, thanks all the same, and I didn’t come here to get a lecture from you,” he said. “I left grade school a long time ago.”
“But you haven’t outgrown the need for a friendly nudge from someone older and wiser, have you?” she chided.
It was the second time in less than an hour that someone in town had seen fit to pull rank on Patrick. It was Caleb’s push that had gotten him over here, and for what? He hadn’t done a thing to help Alice Newberry, and he’d gotten another lecture on his own life in the bargain.
“Forgive me for saying this, Mrs. Dowd, but in this case you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know enough to recognize a miserable man when I see one standing in front of me,” she said. “You won’t be truly happy until you settle this.”
“Maybe it can’t be settled and maybe I don’t care about being truly happy,” Patrick retorted. “Maybe all I care about is being left alone.”
That said, he whirled around and left the school, regretting that he’d ever let Caleb talk him into coming over here in the first place. Some days a man would be smart to listen to his own counsel and no one else’s.
Alice had never been so humiliated and embarrassed in her life. Of all the boneheaded things she could have done…not only had she lost control of her students and let one of them nearly drown, she had done it in front of Patrick Devaney.
Everyone in Widow’s Cove knew that Patrick had turned into a virtual recluse. He lived on that fishing boat of his, ate his meals at Jess’s and, for all Alice knew, drank himself into oblivion there every night as well. What no one knew was why, not the details, anyway. There had been some sort of rift with his parents, that much was known. He’d left his home, about thirty miles away, and moved to Widow’s Cove. That thirty miles might as well have been thirty thousand. From what she’d heard, none of them had bridged the distance.
Alice almost hadn’t recognized Patrick when he’d emerged from the ocean dripping wet and mad as the dickens. His hair was too long and stubble shadowed his cheeks. He looked just a little disreputable and more than a little dangerous, especially with his intense blue eyes shooting angry sparks.
Alice remembered a very different Patrick from high school. Although she’d been two years older, everyone at the county high school located here in town knew each other at least by sight. Even as a sophomore, Patrick had been the flirtatious, wildly popular, star football player; his twin brother, Daniel, the captain of the team. The two of them had been inseparable. Now they barely spoke and tried to avoid crossing paths. No one understood that, either.
Alice hadn’t been surprised that Patrick hadn’t remembered her. Not only had she been older, but in high school she’d kept her head buried in her books. She’d been determined to go to college, to break the pattern of all the women in her family, going back generations, who’d married seafaring men, borne their children and lived in fear each time a violent storm approached the coast.
Too many of those men had been lost at sea. Too many of the wives had raised their children alone, living a hand-to-mouth existence because they’d had no skills of their own to fall back on. It had been such a bitter irony that her own father had been lost to that same sea—not in a boat, but in a car—and that he’d taken Alice’s mother to her death with him.
Alice could still recall the heated exchange when she’d told her parents of her plans. They’d both thought she was casting aspersions on their choices, that by wanting more she was being ungrateful for the life they’d struggled to give her.
Maybe that was why, even when Patrick had been lambasting her for what had happened this afternoon, Alice had felt a strange sort of kinship with him. She knew all about family rifts and unhealed wounds. He, at least, still had time to heal his before it was too late. Maybe they’d met so that she could pass along the message she’d learned, assuming they ever crossed paths again.
She was about to leave school for the day when the screechy public address system in her room came on with a burst of static. “Alice, my office now, please,” Mrs. Dowd said in her usual tart manner.
Alice sighed. She thought they’d already been over today’s transgression and moved on. Apparently she’d been wrong. Maybe Matt Foster had called and made an issue of what had happened to Ricky. Maybe he’d forced the principal’s hand.
Gathering her things, she headed for the office, filled with a sense of dread. Even though living in Widow’s Cove hadn’t yet brought her the peace she’d hoped for, she didn’t want to leave, and that was exactly what being fired would mean, since there was no other kindergarten class for miles and miles along this remote stretch of coast.
She tapped lightly on the principal’s door, then walked in when the woman’s sharp tone summoned her.
“There’s something I thought you should know before you go off on break for the next week,” Loretta Dowd said, a surprising hint of a smile on her usually stern lips.
“Yes?”
“Patrick Devaney was here.”
Alice stared at her. Had he come to complain that she wasn’t responsible, that she had no business being in charge of a classroom full of children?
“Why?” she asked, barely able to squeeze the word out past the sudden lump in her throat.
“I believe he wanted to save your job if it was in jeopardy. I told him it wasn’t, but I think the attempt spoke very well of him, don’t you?”
Alice nodded, too shocked for words. Patrick had come rushing to her rescue? He’d been furious with her. Obviously someone was behind it. Molly perhaps. Of course, as fast as news spread in Widow’s Cove, it could have been anyone. Few people in town hesitated to share their opinions of right and wrong under the guise of being helpful. Someone had definitely given him a nudge, no question about it.
“Be sure to thank him when you see him,” the principal said, a twinkle in her eyes.
“I hadn’t planned—”
“The man dove into the icy water to save one of your students,” Mrs. Dowd said, cutting her off. “And then he came charging into my office to save you. Don’t you think the least you can do would be to take him some homemade soup as an expression of gratitude?”
Alice stared at her, trying to process this bit of advice. If she wasn’t mistaken, Loretta Dowd was matchmaking. “What are you up to?” she asked, stunned that the woman even had an interest in Alice’s love life.
The principal drew herself up and gave Alice one of her most daunting looks. “I am not up to anything,” she declared fiercely, but the indignation came too late.
Alice could see quite clearly now that Loretta Dowd was a complete and total fraud. She was not the strict, unfeeling disciplinarian everyone feared. She had a heart.
“If you can’t make soup, I made a fresh pot of chowder this morning,” the principal added.
Alice grinned. “I can make soup. In fact, I made some last night and there’s plenty
