Joanna regarded him steadily. “Are you going to tell me or leave me guessing?”
He let out a heavy sigh, then reached for her hand and held on to it. “Sweetheart, you say you want to find the great love of your life, but sometimes I worry that you’re waiting for a lightning bolt to strike. Or that you’re too concerned with ... What do you call it? Red flags.”
She shook her head and raised a hand. “No, Grandad. First of all, in my defense, the last few guys I dated were total imbeciles. You’d think so too, if you’d met them. Other than that, I’ve been focused on my career. You know that. You’re the one who encouraged me and supported me through vet school.”
“I understand,” he replied, nodding, “and I’m proud of you. I always wanted you to pursue your passion, whatever it was. But when it comes to love, I sometimes worry that you have unreasonable expectations. Your grandmother and I were ...” He paused. “We had a good life together, but it wasn’t a fairy tale, especially in the beginning.”
Joanna drew back, bewildered. “What are you trying to say?”
He looked down at their hands, still clasped together. “I just want you to understand the reality surrounding our relationship. I’ve known my share of losses, and I’ve certainly made mistakes. Stupid ones.”
“With Nana?”
“No. With someone else.”
Joanna felt her eyes widen. “There was someone else? Someone before Nana?”
“Not exactly before . . .”
Joanna thought suddenly of her grandparents’ wedding portrait in the hall, hung prominently with a beautiful gilt frame, and felt her stomach churn, along with a need to look at it again with fresh eyes. To examine every detail of their wedding day—because what was he hinting at?
“Grandad ... Did you have an affair? Did Nana know?”
Appearing more frustrated than ashamed, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was complicated.” Then he stood up and gestured toward Joanna’s empty glass. “Would you like another?”
“Definitely.” She handed her glass to him, then rested her arm along the back of the sofa and watched him move to the drinks tray, unscrew the cap from the gin bottle. “You can’t say something like that to me,” she said, “and leave me hanging. Who was the woman? What happened?”
He dropped a few ice cubes into both glasses and faced her. “How about we cook dinner?”
“Are you joking?”
“No,” he replied. “I’m hungry.”
She shook her head at him. “Only if you promise to tell me more.”
“I will.”
While he finished mixing their drinks, Joanna stood up and wondered how he’d managed to keep this part of his life secret all these years. No one had ever mentioned anything about an affair. She wondered if her own parents knew.
“What was the woman’s name?” she asked.
“Emma.”
“How did you meet her?”
He handed the fresh drink to Joanna and led the way into the kitchen. “My ship ran aground on an island off the coast of Nova Scotia, and she was part of the rescue brigade. It was 1946.”
Joanna’s lips parted. All her thoughts were in a jumble. “And you fell in love with this woman?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Very deeply.” For a moment, he stared at the window, as if he were gazing into the past. “We formed a connection that was ... I can’t really explain it, except that it was very deep over a short period of time. Not exactly love at first sight, but damn close. But it wasn’t meant to be.”
He switched on the oven, then went to the refrigerator and took out a marinated pork tenderloin. Joanna sat down at the table with her drink and waited eagerly to hear more.
Chapter 31
By the time the pork came out of the oven and they sat down to eat, Joanna had learned about the wreck of theBelvedereand the week her grandfather had spent on Sable Island, a place that sounded make-believe, like something out of a children’s story. How was it possible that a community had grown on a sand dune, hundreds of miles from the edge of the North American continent? And how in the world had wild horses become the natives?
“I’m in shock,” she said, watching her grandfather open a bottle of wine at the table. “You spent a week with this woman, and you wanted to marry her?”
