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War, about twenty years after the Whitlaws.
They had nearly as many acres and only a few less cattle, which was
most of the reason Wade Whitlaw wanted Hattie Tyree. She came with
a respectable amount of acreage as a dowry, land the Whitlaws had
wanted for years.” Brad’s lips quirked in a secret smile. “But
that’s another story altogether.
    “ Anyway, Hattie wasn’t about to see her
daughter go landless or penniless. She got her brother Ben Tyree to
give my mother a nice bit of farm and pastureland along upper
Shake-It Creek north of town. It was a good place to grow up. You
would have liked my grandmother,” Brad added quietly. “She kind of
reminds me of your grandmother. True integrity. And lots of
soul.”
    For a while they ate in companionable
silence. As delicious as the food was, Claire didn’t really taste
her Shrimp Scampi. “You make me feel ungrateful,” she admitted at
last. “I’ve been so wound up in my recent past that I forgot I had
an excellent childhood. And I’ve been blessed with two parents who
are still living. They’ve worked together every day of their
married lives, running a small educational publishing company.
Miraculously, they almost never raise their voices to each other.
They’re the ones who thought of asking Grandma to take Jamie and me
when our lives fell apart. We could have gone to live with them, of
course, but they thought the complete change of scene would
help.”
    “ And has it?”
    “ Oh, yes,” Claire murmured, “I think it
has.”

Chapter Five
     
    “ Hey, Cuz!”
    Brad peered over the deck’s railing, waved a
friendly salute to a group of young men in the parking lot below.
Each carried a surfboard and wore nothing but swim trunks. Tall,
bronzed, beautiful, not a day over eighteen, the quintet was as out
of place in a town full of senior citizens as a race of aliens.
“How’s the surf?” Brad called.
    “ Dying,” was the mournful reply from
the tallest of the five surfers, a slim, broad-shouldered young man
with sparkling blue eyes and hair so short it was only a shadow on
his well-shaped head. “You know it’s only good when it’s storming,
cuz. The last three days were great, but it’s time to pack it in.
Gulf’s about as flat as my board.”
    With a polite nod to Claire and a wave to
Brad, the young man ambled off. His friends trailed behind, each
juggling his surfboard to keep from banging into a group of seniors
walking to their cars.
    “ My cousin Slade,” Brad explained. “His
father’s Garret Whitlaw, my mother’s younger brother and heir to
the Whitlaw acres.”
    A chorus of shrieks rose from the parking
lot. Claire scanned the gathering shadows below, seeing nothing but
six gray-haired seniors clustered outside their cars staring after
the sound of squealing tires echoing along the road that led back
to town. At the first scream Brad was at the railing, looking ready
to leap into the lot below. Just as suddenly, his shoulders
slumped, he sank back into his chair, planted his elbows on the
table, and pillowed his forehead against clenched fists.
    “ What’s wrong? What happened?” Claire
demanded.
    “ I don’t know that boy,” Brad vowed. “
I don’t know his friends. I’ve never seen that bunch of young
hellions before in my life.”
    Taking a closer look, Claire could see that
Brad’s shoulders were shaking, his lips twitching. “Okay,” she
said, “what did they do?”
    “ Mooned the seniors.”
    “ You’re joking!”
    Brad shook his head, which was still bent
over his coffee cup. “It was only two of them. And Slade wasn’t one
of them. I think.”
    Claire chuckled. “It’s what you said last
night, isn’t it? It’s tough to be young in a town full of senior
citizens. The temptation to break out must be enormous.”
    Brad lifted his head, reached for his coffee.
“There are only a very few places the kids can surf. And,
fortunately for the town’s peace of mind, only a few times a year
when the surf’s