He looked surprised she seemed okay with the bottom line. “I usually ask one-third up front, but we can make it a little less if—”
“No, it’s okay, but thank you. I have my checkbook. Let me run inside.” She got up and opened the door. “You sure you don’t want a glass of wine? A beer?”
“A beer would be great, thanks.”
She came back with her bag over her shoulder, a glass of wine in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. Linc held the door for her, and took the bottle.
“How’d you keep this cold?” he asked.
“Cooler with a lot of ice.” She put her wineglass on the table and got her checkbook from her bag. “I’m so excited, Linc. This is the first house that will be just mine.” She dug around the bottom of the bag until her fingers located a pen. “I make it out to . . . ?”
“Shelby and Son.”
She wrote out the check and handed it to him. He looked it over, then folded it and put it in his shirt pocket. “Can I use your pen?” he asked.
Grace handed it over, and Linc signed the contract attached to the estimate. He gave the pen and the paperwork back to her, and she signed it as well, then handed his copy to him.
“Bookselling is more lucrative than I thought.” He slipped the piece of paper into the folder. “Sorry. None of my business.”
“I don’t mind. I’d be curious, too, if I owned a business like yours, and I had a contract for six figures with a customer whose only visible means of income was a part-time job in a bookshop.” She put her copy of the contract into her bag and looped the strap over the back of the chair. “I have savings, some from the proceeds of the house I sold in Pennsylvania.”
“I thought you said this was your first house?”
“I said it was the first place that was just mine. The house I sold was the house I’d bought with my ex-husband.”
“I didn’t know you’d been married.”
“Almost ten years. We met in law school. Started dating, fell in love, married, and my dad hired us both at his firm after we graduated. Dad was a hell of a lawyer, a great man. An incredible father.” Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, remembering him.
“Your dad passed away a few years ago, right?”
She nodded. “And that’s when the shit hit the fan. He was barely in his grave when my husband told me he wanted a divorce. He waited until after my father died to tell me, because he was hoping Dad would pass the firm directly into my hands. When he realized that wasn’t happening, he walked.”
“He—” Linc looked dumbstruck. “He left you because—well, any reason for leaving you would be a lame one. He must be the biggest asshole on the planet.”
Grace smiled, enjoying Linc’s indignation on her behalf.
“Yes, he is. Because that’s not all.” Grace took a long sip of wine. “Come to find out he was having an affair with one of our paralegals.”
Linc appeared speechless.
“Yeah,” Grace said. “And to top it off, I found out she had hacked into my computer and stole some files. Long story I won’t go into now, but suffice it to say she used the files to make me look badder than bad, like the most pathetic loser on the face of the earth.”
“Holy—what did you do?”
“What could we do? We called the FBI and had her arrested.”
Linc burst out laughing. “Remind me not to mess with you.”
She took another sip of wine and watched him pick at the label on his bottle. “Anyway, my sister and I inherited some from the firm’s sale, and he had a life insurance policy in our names, so I can buy my house and some pretty things for it.” She grinned. “Plus I have my own business creating websites. Does your company have one?”
“We’ve never needed one. We’ve always gotten our business through word of mouth.”
“You should think about it. I do one hell of a job.”
“I just bet you do.” He finished the beer, turning the empty bottle around in his hands for a long moment. “Grace, I’m sorry you had to go through all that. I can’t believe any man is that stupid.”
“Well, apparently there is one,” she said.
“You’re better off without him, if he’s so blind he couldn’t see—” Linc hesitated to finish the thought.
So of course she had to ask, “See what?”
“What he had in you.”
“Thank you. That’s very nice of you to say.”
Then, because he may have thought he’d said more than he’d meant to say, he changed the subject. “So how was the visit with your sister?”
“It was great. And Chris came home. Chris Dean?” She watched his face for a reaction, but there was none. “They finally told the moms they were dating, and it’s obvious they’re serious about each other, to the delight of both said moms.” She paused, then added as if she’d just remembered: “He asked for your phone number.”
Linc nodded but didn’t comment.
Grace couldn’t let it go. Her curiosity was getting the best of her. “He called you Friday night from Dusty’s, didn’t he?” It really wasn’t a question.
“Yes, he called.”
“I think he was hoping you’d come out and join us. It sounded as if he wanted to see you again.”
“I guess.”
She stared at him, willing him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she said, “I didn’t realize you were such good friends.”
Linc laughed. “Grace, you are about as subtle as a sledgehammer. If you want to know why he called, just ask.”
“Okay. I’m asking. Even though we both know it’s none of my business, which you could remind me, but you apparently have much better manners.”
Linc took a deep breath and peeled a little more paper from the bottle he still held. “Chris and I were really good friends all through school. He and I actually started his first band together.”
“Wait.” Had she heard correctly? “You were in a band with Chris Dean? Seriously?”
“Yup. Sometimes we practiced out on the island, where the noise wouldn’t bother anyone, other times in someone’s garage. We wrote a bunch of songs together and played at parties, and it was all fun and games. Then we graduated, Chris went off to college, and I didn’t. I stayed home because my mom had died three years earlier, and my dad was at loose ends, and my sister was in all kinds of trouble. Chris wanted me to play with them on the weekends, but I couldn’t. I was going to community college at night and trying to help my dad during the day and trying to keep the lid on Brenda. So Chris found someone else to play in my place, and that’s history. The guy who replaced me is still with Chris.”
“So, in other words, if you had stayed with him, you’d be a member of DEAN now?”
“Yeah.”
“Yow, that’s heavy, Linc.” She could hardly believe anyone would give up an opportunity like that and not be bitter over what could have been. She couldn’t help herself from asking, “How do you feel about that?”
“How do you think I feel? Pretty crappy, actually, if I let myself go there, which I try not to do. And for the most part, I don’t think about it. If I had to do it again, I know I’d make the same decision. I couldn’t walk out on my dad. My mom’s death was a real blow to him. I missed my mother, and I grieved for her, but my father was really having a hard time.” Linc stared off in the direction of the pond. “And Brenda was being Brenda, with no regard for anyone but herself.”