Free B000FC1MHI EBOK by Barbara Delinsky Page A

HAVEN’T CALLED, BUT IT’S BEEN A BAD COUPLE OF DAYS, he wrote in the all-caps style he insisted on using, though shouting was not his way. He was a quiet man of necessity; being married to as forceful a woman as Janet, he couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Julia had often suspected that since Janet didn’t use a computer, he spoke loudly on the web simply because he could.
    I GOT YOUR MOTHER SET YESTERDAY AND THEN HAD A MAJOR PROBLEM HERE AT WORK. I’M JUST NOW COMING UP FOR AIR. SUFFICE IT TO SAY THAT WE’RE BOTH GRATEFUL YOU CAME AWAY FROM THE ACCIDENT UNSCATHED. GIVEN THE SITUATION, JANET FEELS YOU OUGHT TO RETURN TO NEW YORK. LET US KNOW.
    Stung, Julia didn’t reply.
    Actually, “stung” barely covered it. She was angry.
    Heart pounding, she closed out her email, turned off the computer, and, putting the anger to use, set off for town. There, she bought the makings of half a dozen casseroles and as many batches of cookies. The first of the funerals wasn’t until Monday, but she wanted to take something to the families involved—and she was a good cook. She couldn’t do gourmet the way her daughter could, but she knew basics. She had thrown innumerable parties for Monte’s colleagues, and even apart from what a caterer brought, she always prepared something herself. She often gave home-baked bread or cookies as gifts when they went to friends’ homes for dinner. As for bereaved families, someone was always dying in Monte’s circle of clients, which went to show what happened when you represented clients who had taken long lifetimes to amass a fortune worth investing. Bottom line? Julia was a pro at making homemade little somethings to satisfy one or another of Monte’s professional needs.
    That said, she would have gladly cleaned rabbit cages if Zoe had shown her what to do. She found the rabbits surprisingly clean, and the scent in the barn unexpectedly pleasant, what with those little bursts of chrysanthemum extract and rosemary oil to keep the flies at bay.
    But Zoe was still out with the search, looking for Todd Slokum.
    So Julia baked. The familiarity of the activity was a comfort at a time when she was feeling unhinged. Monte hadn’t helped. Her parents hadn’t helped. If her life were a boat that had been torn from its mooring, she was all on her own as far as tying up again went. Embracing the old and familiar was one way to do it, albeit a stopgap measure. She didn’t know what the long-range answer was.
     
    Four o’clock came and went, and still Noah waited for Ian to call. He didn’t budge from the boat. There was nowhere better to go. Lucas was aboard one minute and loping down the dock the next, seeming unfazed by the gravity of the moment. But Lucas was a dog. He had no way of knowing Hutch was gone for good.
    Noah knew it and grieved. But grief wasn’t all. Making plans for the funeral had been an eye-opening experience in a pathetic kind of way. Had he known what Hutch wanted? No. They had never talked about funerals. They had never talked about Noah’s divorce. Or about his mother’s death. They had never talked about Ian. Or about why Noah had returned to Big Sawyer to haul traps after the divorce, rather than continue on in New York. He was good at what he’d done there, and had made a lot of money in a very short time. They had never talked about that, either.
    What did they talk about? They talked about the weather. They talked about the boat and the traps and the buoys. They talked about the day’s catch, the price it would bring, the new minimum-size regulation the state was rumored to be considering. They talked about the Trapper John ’s engine overhaul and My Andrea ’s new GPS. They talked about the lime-grape-lime buoys that were popping up in waters traditionally fished by Big Sawyer lobstermen. And they talked about the weather, again.
    These were the things lobstermen discussed. Noah could discuss them as well as he had discussed the pros and cons of an IPO with