“Damn!”
Grace waited until she was behind the wheel before she vented her disappointment in a single quiet expletive, but quickly dismissed the plaintive thought. There was an edge to Nick’s mind that she enjoyed and the occasional dinner would have been…pleasant. But she wasn’t looking to share her life with anyone.
It had been one of the hardest things to explain to Max. It wasn’t just that she no longer wished to be married to him, but that she no longer wished to be married at all. He’d even asked for first refusal should she ever change her mind, like they were discussing a painting, or a house. Perhaps that was another reason why she had divorced him.
As she pulled out onto the main road heading towards Kendal, she found herself uninsulted by Lisa’s snide comments on her age. Grace was entirely at ease with having turned forty. She suspected the other woman was having a crisis about the big three-oh.
She’d discovered Nick was thirty-two—eight years her junior. An interesting little coincidence, given that Max was eight years her senior.
She’d first met Max at some arts event with her mother at the Theatre By The Lake in Keswick. He hadn’t had the means to indulge his passion for art back then, but after a few minutes in his company, she instinctively knew he would achieve whatever goals he set himself. Grace had just emerged from a wishy-washy relationship that she’d mistaken for true love, and to find someone so incisive and unashamedly ambitious was a breath of clear air.
Max had tried to sweep her off her feet—the Italian in him—only to find her remarkably grounded. It had taken him three months to coax her into bed, and another six before she accepted his proposal.
Their interests were similar, they rarely argued, and everyone had assumed they had the perfect marriage. Looking back, Grace realised her own compliance had been partly to blame. Perhaps if she had pushed against him a little harder at the beginning, created a bigger space for herself, she wouldn’t have found herself so utterly stifled at the end.
She thought back to Max’s invitation to Florence. Fifteen years, she thought with just a twinge of regret. She still enjoyed his company, but they were not on their way towards retaking their vows, and a weekend in Italy was likely to have him making plans in that direction.
It was a shame Nick was unavailable. She could have done with a distraction. But a man with those kinds of attachments was definitely out of bounds. She was disappointed that she’d picked up an interested vibe from him. One or other of them should have known better.
It worried her that she’d found him so easy to talk to. Maybe I just need a friend, someone I can talk to?
Still, she shouldn’t have told him about the robbery case that had started her career, however much she’d left out. He might mention it around the station, or ask Richard Sibson. Someone might tell him the rest of the story…
To say Grace wasn’t proud of how it ended was putting it mildly. A month after his acquittal, the robber decided empty domestic property might prove a softer target. Only, the house he’d chosen turned out not to be empty after all. An elderly aunt of the holidaying owners was staying there. Disturbed, the burglar beat her senseless and tied her to a chair. He made his escape, leaving the old lady still bound, terrified and humiliated. Some hours later, she suffered a massive stroke, from which she would never recover.
Painstaking forensic investigation had tied the criminal to the crime, layer on layer, irrefutable.
It was Max who’d pointed out the newspaper story. Grace was never sure why. Perhaps he’d hoped to discourage her from dabbling, send her scurrying back to the safety of hearth and home. Instead, it was what finally drove her away.
Now, her hands tightened on the steering wheel, trying to force the memories out of her mind. She tried to concentrate on the girl, Edith. If she was allowed to slip through the cracks, who knows what disaster might be waiting to happen there?
Grace frowned over how best to approach her as she dropped down the hill into Kendal. She navigated the one-way system through the town centre, crossing over the River Kent and climbing the twisting road towards Grayrigg and Tebay.
It was just as she neared Grayrigg that she caught sight of a sign set back into the ivy surrounding what might have been a farm entrance. The Retreat.
Something jogged her memory. She checked the mirror and hit the brakes before backing up a few yards on the deserted road to turn into the driveway.
Edith works here, she remembered. No harm in calling in, is there?