Page 131 of Here & There

Angus waves at him like he’s a bug, but I can see the affection in the older man’s eyes. “Almost as much as he talks about my grandson when he doesn’t bring him along.”

The pointed look he gives Mac makes his son roll his eyes as he explains again that he’s with Cal today.

The three of us go for a walk down in the garden, and after a little talk about the weather, I glance over at Mac, who gives me a nod and a wink. Time to pitch Angus my plan.

This time is a thousand times easier than Stu. When I ask Angus if he’d like to give a little speech at the start of the Oysterfest weekend, he claps his hands together and grins. “Would I!”

We go over the plans, and just like that, that piece of the plan is set.

“So,” Angus says as we pass through the rose garden a few minutes later. “My son tells me you haven’t had any luck finding your grandmother.”

My heart lifts. Mac told him I wanted to ask him some questions, and he remembered. It lowers itself down into my chest a moment later, though, when he looks at me apologetically. “I’m afraid that name doesn’t ring a bell for me either.”

But it’s not the crushing blow it would have been a few weeks ago. “It’s fine,” I say. “I’ve pretty much set the search for Shelby Fox aside, probably permanently. For all I know, my mom grew up in Newfoundland, with how much she’s told me.” Not that I found a Shelby Fox on that side of the country, either.

I explain everything that’s happened so far—conversations in town, my searches on the internet, my trip to the library, and Elizabeth up at Widow’s Walk.

“Is there any reason you can’t ask your mother where she is?” Angus asks after hearing me out.

I chew my lip. “That’s always been the last straw, one I’m not sure I want to deal with. She hasn’t been truthful with me about my grandmother in the past. I worry she’ll tell me something that’ll put me on another wild goose chase.”

“That what this has been?” Angus asks.

“Kind of.”

Then my eyes go to Mac’s on his other side. “Except it hasn’t been fully fruitless. If I hadn’t decided to look for her, I never would have met your son.”

Angus smiles. “And the rest is history, so they say.”

“So they say,” I laugh.

Mac looks embarrassed, but he winks at me, sending a skittering of little butterflies through me. I love this man. I love this town. Moving to Redbeard was the right decision. I know it was.

I think of Deanie and the people at home.

The sadness on Mom’s face in that restaurant. The complete absence of my father.

But I can’t think about that now. I can’t be here and there.

I think Mac sees my thoughts wandering off, so he suggests we should get back. I know he wants to be home when Nate and Cal get back too.

As we turn around, my eyes land on the top of the Widow’s Walk poking up through the forest way up the mountain.

“Hey, Angus,” I ask, just because I’m curious, “was Elizabeth in a…relationship with the Widow?”

He follows my gaze. I wonder, for a moment, if I’ve overstepped somehow.

But Angus gives me an impressed look. “Indeed, she was. It was quite the scandal. The Widow was a widow, of course. Her husband had died years back. A sailor lost at sea. My father knew him.” He looks at Mac, then back up at the mountain. “She was born and raised in that house. Her mother was too. She rented out rooms to make ends meet after Wilt died. Elizabeth was one of her boarders. A decade her junior too. But you know, I don’t tell anyone how to live their lives, so if I ever heard anyonecomplaining, I told them I was raising taxes on their house and their house alone.”

He cackles.

“Could you do that?” Mac asks, looking skeptical.

“Absolutely not. But you’d love to see the way it’d shut those closed-minded folks up fast. Nothing those type hate more than taxes.”

“Those are the kind of tips you could use if you ever ran for mayor,” I tell Mac.

Angus stops cold, his hands out. “Son! Did you change your mind? Will you do it? We need that big-footed galoot out of office!”

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