Starting Over On Blackberry Lane

Grant wasn’t surprised to hear it, though. He’d thought the girl was spoiled. And a whiner. Unlike his Lou, who’d been hardworking and always had a smile, this babe had been a leech and a downer. Matt needed someone positive in his life, someone to encourage him. Grant wasn’t sorry to hear she was gone.

He did feel bad for his son, though, and it saddened him that Matt hadn’t felt he could call and talk to him. Too embarrassed, he was willing to bet, considering the fact that Grant had questioned whether he and Lexie were really a fit when Matt first started getting serious.

“Want to talk about it?” Grant asked.

“Nope.”

Then this wasn’t the time to tell his son that everything would be all right, that somehow his life would go on. He nodded. “Okay. Got any pretzels to go with that beer?”

Matt dug out a bag, ripped it open and laid it on the table. “You know what really gets me?”

Yep, didn’t want to talk about it. “What?”

“She didn’t even give me a hint that she wasn’t happy.”

“Are you sure, son?” Women left hints, verbal and nonverbal cues that they laid out like a trail of breadcrumbs for a man to follow. Only problem was, it seemed that most guys had a tendency to step right over those breadcrumbs and not even see them. He knew. He’d done his share of missing the clues when he and Louise were first married.

Matt shrugged. Now he was blinking furiously, trying to fight back unmanly tears.

Men ought to be allowed to cry, Grant thought, saving his son’s pride by pretending not to see.

“I could never please her. I mean, I was working my butt off at the restaurant and then doing roofing jobs on my days off. She was never happy, no matter what I did or how much extra money I made. What more did she want?”

Who knew?

“Well, screw her,” his son muttered.

That was how the kid had ended up here in the first place. If you asked Grant, kids jumped into relationships way too quickly. He kept his mouth shut on that topic and simply said, “I’m sorry, son.”

Matt shrugged. “Shit happens, right? That’s what you used to say. You hungry? I can make you a Philly steak sandwich.”

“Oh, man. I haven’t had one of those in ages.”

It used to be his specialty. Lou had loved to bake, but she’d found the meat-and-potatoes stuff challenging. Grant had often pitched in and helped in the kitchen on weekends. He’d been the king of the grill and of Sunday-morning breakfast.

Matt had been his kitchen buddy, always happy to help out. The kid had wound up going to culinary school at Seattle Central, turning himself into a top-rate chef. He’d often talked about having his own place someday, but for the moment he was cooking at a high-end restaurant on the Seattle waterfront that specialized in seafood.

Matt nodded and began cutting sirloin into thin strips. He seasoned it with paprika, chili powder and a mess of other herbs, then cut up onions. He dragged out the old cast-iron skillet that had been his mom’s, poured in olive oil and got to work. Half an hour later, they were both sitting at the kitchen bar, downing the best thing Grant had eaten in the last year. Oh, yeah, it was good to be in the States again.

“So, you’re going back over the mountains, huh?” Matt said and chomped off another chunk of sandwich.

“I think so. Your brother tells me there’s a real demand for handymen in Icicle Falls.”

“There’s a real demand for handymen everywhere,” said Matt, who’d been lobbying for Grant to move to Seattle. “Way more action here than over there.”

“At my age I don’t need action,” Grant informed him.

“Jeez, Dad, you’re not dead.”

There was an awkward moment as Matt realized he’d just brought the ghost of his mom into the room with that one word. “Shit,” he muttered and stuffed more of his sandwich in his mouth.

Grant clapped him on the back. “It’s all right, son. I know what you meant.”

Now Matt really looked like he was going to cry. “I miss her, Dad.”

It wasn’t hard to figure out which “her” his son was referring to. “I know. I do, too.”

Lou had been a stay-at-home mom and the heartbeat of their family. Death had come for her way too soon. So many times Grant had wished it had been him who’d had the heart attack and not her.

“I wish you were gonna stay here.”

Poor Matt. People were leaving him right and left. “It’s not that far over the mountains. We’ll see a lot of each other, a lot more than we did when I was in Mexico.”

Both his sons and their wives had come down to visit him at Christmas, and they’d all had a great time. Well, except for Lexie, who’d topped off a bad sunburn with a case of Montezuma’s revenge. She’d been miserable and she’d done her best to make everyone else miserable, too. Yep, no loss there.

“I’m coming up on weekends during the winter,” Matt threatened with a grin.

Skiing and snowboarding—both his boys loved their winter sports, just like he did. He’d see more of Matt now that he was back in the Pacific Northwest. And he’d sure see a lot more of Dan.

As he’d discovered, he wasn’t cut out for the life of an old hermit crab.

Matt wanted him to stay a few days but had to work at the restaurant for the rest of the week, and Grant didn’t want to sit around cooling his heels. He was anxious to get to Icicle Falls and get settled.

So a day later he had a truck and by late afternoon he’d arrived at his temporary new digs in one of Icicle Falls’ favorite (and more affordable) B and Bs. “You’ll get my Ingrid’s incredible breakfasts every morning,” Gerhardt bragged as he checked Grant in. “And my alpenhorn serenades.”

Grant had heard about Gerhardt’s famous alpenhorn serenades. One time he’d had too much of his German beer and serenaded himself right off the B and B’s dining room balcony and broken his arm. The guy was a character.

Grant thanked him and towed his oversize suitcase to the room. It had everything he owned in the world—a couple of changes of good clothes, his favorite old work shirt and jeans, his tool belt, toiletries and his share of the photo albums his wife had so carefully kept over the years. Everything else from his life in America he’d given to the boys or sold before he went south, and what he’d accumulated in Mexico, he’d left behind. Except for his trophy marlin, which was being shipped up to him, care of Gerhardt. He’d hang that over the fireplace once he got a house.

After he was settled in, he walked to Zelda’s Restaurant, which was owned and run by his daughter-in-law Charley. There was a bite in the air. The sun was still out but starting to cast shadows on the town before its evening slide behind the mountains. The shop owners had already welcomed spring, filling their window boxes with plants and putting up hanging flower baskets.

Icicle Falls was set up to look like a German village, with Bavarian-style architecture and murals painted on the buildings. The closest Grant had ever gotten to Germany was pictures he’d seen in magazines or glimpses of the country in movies. This place sure seemed like a dead ringer to him.

Charley’s face lit up when he walked in. “Dad! You made it.” She hurried over and hugged him and, darn, it felt good to be hugged, good to be back with family.

“How you doing, gorgeous?” he said and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Doing great,” she said.

She looked like she was doing great. At least one son and his wife were enjoying married bliss. Charley practically glowed with happiness.

“Dan should be here in about ten minutes,” she said. “We’ve got a table reserved for you.”

He followed her to a booth toward the back of the restaurant. The retired set was already there, enjoying drinks and meals from the senior menu.

“Would you like a beer while you wait?” she asked.

“You know it,” he said, and she went to put in an order for him.