as he weighed his sister’s logic. In summer, tourists and summer residents overran the island, and most of the faces were unfamiliar. The permanent population of Harbor was just over 1,200 and spread out at that. But the locals did tend to keep track of those who truly belonged there.
Thinking about it, even he knew people who knew T.J. His sister, for one. And, as his sister had just mentioned, T.J.’s mother. But, then, there wasn’t anyone on Harbor who owned a VCR who didn’t know the outgoing, middle-aged hippie who still wore love beads and tie-dye with her flowing gauze skirts. Her store was probably the only one in the San Juans where a person could get a free astrological reading along with the latest video release and an herbal cure for whatever ailed him.
“Oh, and I saw T.J. once myself with children during story hour at the bookstore,” Lauren continued helpfully. “She seemed great with them. Nurturing, I guess you’d say. Anyway, the place I usually run into her is at her mom’s shop. All we’ve ever really talked about is books, videos and herbs. But as far as I’m concerned, she’s one of the nicest people in town. Very sweet. Very generous.” She paused. “I heard she does something with animals, too.”
The wary feeling Sam had experienced when his sister’s name had first come up with T.J. slithered up his back again. His sibling’s description of the woman was beginning to sound like a sales pitch.
“Sam? Are you still there? You’re not saying anything.”
He paced to a stop in the middle of the deserted room. “You’re not trying to set me up with her, are you?”
A choke of disbelief filtered across the line. “You asked what I know about her. All I did was tell you what I’d heard and give you my impressions.”
“Yeah, but you were the one who suggested she talk to me about flying lessons. And Mom’s latest solution to my life is for me to find myself someone to marry so I’ll have help raising the kids.”
“Oh, good grief,” Lauren muttered. “I suggested you because I think you’d be a good teacher. And our mother is making you paranoid. I know as well as you do that you don’t just go out and find someone to spend the rest of your life with. Besides,” she continued, ever so reasonably, “if I were to set you up with someone, it wouldn’t be T.J. From what I’ve heard from Maddy, she’s far too independent for marriage. Maddy should know, too. She told me she’s tried to fix T.J. up for years. She even tried to get her and Zach together before I met him.” A shrug entered her voice. “T.J.’s not interested in a relationship.”
For a moment Sam said nothing. Maddy O’Toole owned the Road’s End Café, which happened to be the place for gossip on Harbor Island. Sam didn’t frequent the establishment himself. Between his work and his children, he took little time for socializing, and any meals out were usually at Hamburger Heaven, Jason’s favorite. He remembered his wife talking about Maddy, though. And he knew from Zach that anything that happened on Harbor usually filtered through the Road’s End. Word was that gossip obtained from Maddy was pretty much gospel.
“You know, brother dear,” his sister gently chided, “you would know these things if you’d get out and get a little more involved in what’s going on around you. All you do is work. You’re not doing yourself any favors turning into a recluse.”
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. He dearly loved Lauren. There had even been a time after his wife’s death when he hadn’t known how he would have survived without his sister. But the last thing he wanted was for her to get started on her favorite theme. He wasn’t being reclusive. He just didn’t have the time or the inclination to add anything—or anyone—else to his life.
“I’m involved with you and Zach and my kids,” he defended, forcing a smile into his voice. “That keeps me crazy enough.”
Taking the hint, Lauren chuckled. “We keep you sane. It’s Mom who makes you crazy. Just remember that she means well. And that she loves you. And, Sam,” she concluded, “T.J. is probably just the person you need. From what I’ve heard, she can deal with practically anything.”
T.J. wasn’t dealing well at all with what she’d just heard.
“Brad was here?” Her voice dropped to a disbelieving whisper. “On Harbor?”
Maddy O’Toole stood next to her in the cramped bookstore aisle between self-help and romance and lowered her voice another notch.
“I thought for sure he had come by to see you,” the forty-something redhead quietly declared. The he she referred to was Brad Colwood, the man who had fathered T.J.’s six-year-old son, then disappeared like smoke in a stiff breeze. “I mean, he was asking everyone around here about you. Edna at the ferry office. Linc over at the aquarium. Me and Mary and Alice,” she enumerated, adding herself and her waitresses to the list.
“I was here all day, Maddy. Libby didn’t work yesterday because Bert’s arthritis was acting up. I couldn’t even leave for lunch.”
“Your mom didn’t hear about him being here?”
“I didn’t see her yesterday. But she would have called if she had.” Crystal had about as much use for Brad as she did another bunion. “I’m sure she would have.”
“Well, I don’t have a clue what to make of his coming here, then. Actually, I wasn’t even sure what to make of him,” the puzzled woman confided. “I barely recognized him when he came into the café. His ponytail was gone, and the clothes he was wearing were straight out of GQ. I swear the watch he wore cost as much as Alice’s divorce. And his car—”
Canceling any further inventory, Maddy shook her head to get herself back on track.
“Anyway,” she murmured, “he spent a good twenty minutes working his way through his chowder and asking about everybody else he’d known here before he finally got around to asking about you. He said he’d heard you’d had a child and started asking questions about Andy.”
“He knew his name?”
Maddy hesitated. “I can’t remember if he mentioned it first. Or if someone else did.”
A sense of unease had hit T.J. in the stomach the moment Maddy said she’d seen Andy’s father. Now it balled into a knot of pure apprehension.
Grabbing Maddy by the wide pocket of her green Road’s End apron, T.J. tugged her friend farther down the aisle. Two teenage girls were giggling over a hottie on the cover of People magazine. Wanting to get out of earshot, T.J. came to a halt by a postcard carousel and cast a furtive glance toward the service counter angled against the back wall. Her son had flopped on the floor behind the counter and was coloring in his coloring book next to his pet de jour.
“What kind of questions did he ask?” she insisted.
“Mostly he wanted to know what kind of child Andy is. If he’s bright. What he’s interested in. That sort of thing. And he wanted to know if you’d ever married.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you worked here at the bookstore and that he should ask those questions of you.” Maddy’s protective concern turned to compassion. “He really sounded interested, T.J. When I told him to come see you, he said he wouldn’t know what to say. It was almost like he was trying to get the courage to see you again. Maybe he didn’t come here because he never got that courage,” she suggested. “It could be that he heard how well
