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“I guess,” she said. And then sighed. She didn’t want to talk about this with Josiah, but she wanted to talk about it with someone.

And not her grandma either, since she didn’t want to upset her grandma.

Plus, she knew her grandma would tell her that she needed to be kind.

She’d heard that lecture often enough when she was a kid.

She doubted it had changed in all the years she’d known her grandma, and she knew her grandma was right.

“That sounded like a ‘no’ to me,” Josiah said, and there was humor in his tone.

“Don’t women have the prerogative to say the exact opposite of what they mean?”

“It wasn’t quite the exact opposite, but it seems like they take it whether they have it or not,” Josiah returned, and there was still humor in his voice.

It was like that was something he had accepted from the female gender.

She didn’t necessarily think it was a good thing, but she knew she had a proclivity toward that.

And she didn’t consider it lying, even though technically it was.

She just considered it…not burdening other people with what she was thinking.

“If you want to talk about it, I’m stuck here for a while, so you can if you want to. I have been told I’m a good listener.”

He really was a good listener. Far better than Ted. When she talked to Josiah, he actually heard what she said and remembered it.

He was able to form replies that made sense and have a conversation about it.

Ted had trouble having conversations about anything that didn’t directly involve him.

Claire hoped that she was a little better than her husband in that regard, but it seemed like Josiah only got to talk about her life, although he had opened up about his mother the other day.

She should ask about her, but before she did that, she decided she would go ahead and tell him what was bothering her. Maybe it would be too much for him. That would save her from having to talk to him the rest of the day anyway.

“I met Grace on the beach.”

“Grace Honea?”

“Yeah. That’s probably not her name anymore, but yeah.”

“I remember you and she were best friends in high school.”

“Until she stole my boyfriend from me.”

“He was your boyfriend, was he?” Josiah said immediately, and Claire closed her mouth.

“No. He wasn’t.” She had to admit that hadn’t stopped her from accusing Grace of stealing him.

Because Grace knew she liked him. But Trevor had never shown any interest in Claire.

He had always had eyes only for Grace, which had made Claire insanely jealous.

And even though she wasn’t madly in love with Trevor, she had told her friend that she was, just because of the friend code, where friends didn’t date a guy that their friend was madly in love with.

Except that had only kept Grace and Trevor apart for a little while. And then they hadn’t been able to resist the pull of the two of them together and had gone out together for a while.

Grace had been upset the entire time, though, because Claire wouldn’t talk to her .

Claire had used that as an excuse, but in reality, it was just the idea of being around Grace that made the tragedy seem more real.

Putting some distance between them made it go away slightly, and she couldn’t hardly stand being around Grace, so she’d used the fact that Grace had “stolen” Trevor from her to keep them apart.

It was kind of complicated and really dumb now that she thought about it, but it had seemed to make sense at the time.

“So what was the problem?” Josiah finally prompted when she didn’t say anything.

“Remember when Yolanda died?” She hadn’t said her name for years, maybe not even for a decade.

“I don’t think anybody would forget that.”

“I know.”

“It was you and Grace out there with her.”

“I know.”

She didn’t want this. She had enough on her plate. But she’d started, so she kept going. “It was hard to be friends with Grace after that. Especially since it didn’t feel right without Yolanda with us.”

“I always wondered why not. I thought Grace and Lauren felt the same. I’m not sure why. Anyway. Go on.”

“So I just said that I liked Trevor. Even when I really didn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yeah. It was…mean, I guess. It was just my little way of torturing Grace. She really liked Trevor. And he was obviously head over heels for her. But they couldn’t be together because Grace wouldn’t date him because she thought I liked him.”

“That gave you a power trip.”

“I guess. But it also made it so that Grace couldn’t be completely happy. Or something like that. I guess I figured if I was suffering because of the tragedy, she should too.”

“And she wasn’t?”

“I think she probably was, looking back. She just hid it better than I did. And I didn’t understand that even though she didn’t look like she was suffering, she was. Maybe I didn’t look like I was either.”

“But they ended up dating for a while.”

“They did. And I was mad at Grace the entire time. I wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t sit with her, talked Lauren into going with me, and generally made her life miserable. I was such a brat.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, but I kind of agree with you. I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

“Yeah. It was that bad. Eventually, Grace broke up with Trevor because she couldn’t stand not being my friend.

But it was too late. We had almost graduated, and things were never the same between us.

She left in a blaze of glory, determined that she was going to go conquer the world, and I guess I followed not long after, thinking the same thing. ”

“It’s ironic that you’re both back here.”

“Oh, she’s back to stay?” Claire asked, surprised. She’d had in her head that Grace was just visiting.

“Yeah. She moved back early this spring. Maybe late winter. She…moved in with her mom, who appreciated the help, because I’m pretty sure she’s getting married.”

“My goodness. It’s been a long time since I talked to her mom, and she was always so good to us girls.” Just the thought alone brought back a ton of memories that she’d thought had been buried forever. They weren’t all bad. In fact, most of them were good.

“Yeah. She was a good woman.”

“You knew her?” Claire asked, surprised.

Not that he knew her necessarily, because it was a small town—of course he knew her.

But he wasn’t a great friend of Grace’s, as far as she knew.

She felt an odd sensation inside of her.

Uncomfortable and unwelcome. Was that jealousy?

Man, she didn’t want to be a jealous kind of person.

“I knew her around town. She always had cookies and a smile. I can remember stuff like that. Not that my mom wasn’t the same.

They were good friends, but after my mom got sick, they didn’t lose touch exactly, but Grace’s mom lost her husband about the same time, and they just weren’t able to get together and comfort each other and everything. ”

“That’s too bad.”

It was funny how people lost touch. Sometimes deliberately, like Grace and her, and sometimes not because of any deliberation at all. She hadn’t come to see her in a long time, but it wasn’t because she didn’t love her grandma or want to see her.

“So are you going to get in touch with Grace?” Josiah asked .

“I don’t know. I know I should, but I don’t really want to.”

“You know, you were just telling me earlier that you felt overwhelmed, like if something happened to your grandma, that would be the last thing you could handle. But… You know that Grace could be an ally, right?”

The way he said it made her feel like she was missing an opportunity.

And she probably was. He was right. Grace had never been anything but kind to her, even when she hadn’t been kind at all.

In fact, she’d been deceitful. Maybe that was why she was dragging her feet.

If she were to meet with Grace, she’d have to admit what she had done and apologize.

And how selfish is that? When people apologized, it lifted the burden from themselves, not the other person.

But she supposed she’d been raised to think that apologizing was weak. It showed that a person wasn’t strong. Which really wasn’t true, because it took a lot of courage and guts to apologize. It didn’t take anything except stubbornness and nastiness to withhold an apology.

And there she was, being stubborn and nasty.

“Grace was always a really good friend. I don’t know why I was so mean to her.”

“Grace was perfect,” Josiah said offhandedly, like that explained everything.

“You think I was jealous?”

“I didn’t say that,” he said.

She tried not to get offended, but she felt the irritation rising up in her. Of course he assumed she was jealous of Grace. Who wouldn’t be? Grace was gorgeous and, like he said, perfect. She had good grades and everything always went her way.

But wasn’t that Claire too? Didn’t she get good grades?

Other people thought she was fairly good-looking, even if she looked in the mirror and saw all of her flaws.

And she had planned on being successful as well.

She’d married successfully, according to world standards.

Of course, there had been something so terribly wrong with her that her husband wasn’t able to stay faithful to her and couldn’t work it out even though they’d tried.

That was a little embarrassing, and maybe that was part of the reason she didn’t want to talk to Grace. Because she would have to admit what a failure she’d been, where Grace probably had the perfect life.

Although she was with Trevor. So at some point, she’d had issues too. And she was back in Raspberry Ridge.

“Maybe Grace isn’t as perfect as what you think she is. She came back for a reason,” Josiah pointed out, and it was interesting that Claire’s thoughts had been going in that direction already. He just accelerated them.

“You think she’s back for the same reasons I am?

” she asked, not really hoping. Because she wouldn’t hope that kind of pain on anyone.

The kind of pain where a person’s family exploded, their children were crying, their hopes and dreams were lost in a sea of infidelity and lies and playing around.

The kind of pain where a mom had to watch her children go halfway across the country to spend the summer with their dad, knowing that it would be almost three months until she saw them again.

“I don’t know. I heard that she and Trevor were back together, though.” He stopped scraping for just a moment and leaned back, looking up at her. “It’s kind of sad that I know more gossip from around here than you do. You really need to get out more. I’d like to just hand over my man card now.”

It was much-needed levity in the conversation, and she laughed.

“I’m sorry. I guess I am depending on you for my gossip. Grandma could probably tell me all this, but… She wasn’t feeling the greatest this morning, and I was thinking that she probably was taking a nap after she got done with her devotions.”

“Maybe you need to make sure she goes to the doctor,” he said casually. Too casually, she thought.

“Really? We talked about this before—you didn’t seem to think it was imperative.”

“I thought you said you were going to suggest it to her.”

“I did. But I was waiting for the right moment. You think I should do it now?”

“I don’t think it would hurt,” he said, and again, his words sounded studied, like he was weighing them before he said them.

It made her suspicious, but she didn’t know how to ask what was going on.

After all, he wouldn’t know anything that she didn’t.

She was the granddaughter. He was just the hired help.

Grandma wasn’t going to talk to him before she’d talk to her.

“Maybe I’ll do that when we go in for lunch.”

They worked for a few more hours, talking occasionally about light subjects, the weather, ideas for the house, and the kitchen project that he was going to be starting soon. She hated to admit it, but she really did enjoy working and talking with Josiah. He was one of the good guys.