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“Then let’s go the rest of the way. I want to see. I think I deserve it.”
Wayne yanked Ghost’s reins around and clopped up ahead, guiding Elise around the far side of the Grand Hotel and then back up toward the Pontiac Trail head. Over here, the horses were enormous, far grander than anywhere else on the island, with a gorgeous view of the water beyond. Elise’s breath caught as she eyed each home, demanding of each:do you live there, Dean? What about there? Or there?
Finally, Wayne stalled his horse and pointed. The house was four stories high, regal-looking, as though it had been yanked from the pages of an illustrated Victorian novel. It was far and away more romantic than Elise’s place back in Calabasas. Here, overlooking the Straits of Mackinac, the old world merged with the new. It was absolutely breathtaking.
That moment, the door to the Victorian-like house screeched open. A gorgeous golden retriever—maybe the very one Elise had seen on her very first morning near Arch Rock?—burst forth. His ears flapped in the wind.
Elise’s eyes flashed back toward Wayne. All the color had drained from his cheeks. He gripped his reins and burst forward, escaping the view of whoever approached.
A man in his late sixties, early seventies, appeared in the doorway. He wore a plaid shirt, a pair of jeans, and his mustache was cowboy-worthy, the kind featured in old western films.
He was the same man Elise had seen that first morning—the man who had cut past her without glancing her direction.
That had been her father.
This man. This man before her.
This hunched over, old man.
Her mother had once loved him.
And he had kept the secret of their love with him forever.
Now, Elise was the result of that secret.
As he followed his golden retriever into the yard, he lifted a hand in greeting, thinking she was just another tourist. Another passer-by.
To him, she was just invisible.
She was nothing.
But the love she felt for him was everything.
**
To be continued...
