Graham squinted at it. “Twelve minutes,” he said, then glanced at the tourist office. “Let’s check it out.”
Inside, an older woman with a halo of wispy hair was hunched behind the desk, her head bent over a thick book. Ellie began to wander around the periphery of the small space, which was lined with brochures about everything from sailboat rides to whaling trips to blueberry-picking expeditions, but Graham walked right up to the desk.
“Happy Fourth,” he said brightly, and the woman glanced up, her face registering no recognition. If there was an element of the job that required a welcoming demeanor, then she was certainly out of her depth. She made no move to ask if they needed help, only pursed her lips and stared at them over her glasses.
Graham pointed at the computer behind the desk. “We’ve had kind of a rough morning,” he said, his voice a little too saccharine, “and I was just wondering if it might be possible to borrow your computer to check in about something. Just for one quick minute.”
From where she was standing before a panel of brochures about lobster-related activities, Ellie smirked. She had no idea what he wanted the computer for, but it was obvious the woman—staring up at him with a befuddled expression—had no clue who he was, and even Ellie didn’t believe he could make this happen on charm alone.
But he flashed her a dazzling smile, uttered a somewhat sheepish “please,” and just like that, without a word, she was moving aside, tucking the book under her arm and clearing a space for Graham to sit beside the counter, like he was in charge of all tourist-related information for the town of Hamilton.
Afterward, as they walked out to wait for the bus, she rolled her eyes at him.
“What?” he asked. “Didn’t think I could pull it off?”
She shook her head in amusement. “What’d you need to look up anyway?”
“I just wanted to make sure there was nothing new,” he said. “Before we go see your father.”
Ellie blinked at him, impressed that he’d thought of it. “And?”
“Just the same old stuff,” he said. “Graham Larkin’s a brute, Graham Larkin’s a thug. Nothing you didn’t already know.” He said this jokingly, but there was a tightness to his voice too, and she remembered that he hadn’t checked the news before they’d left. That he’d done it for her—to make sure she was fully prepared before approaching her father—touched her deeply, and as the bus came squealing around the corner, she laid a hand on his arm.
“Thanks,” she said, and he nodded. As they climbed aboard, Graham produced a few bills for the driver, and they found a seat near the front, far enough away from the few other passengers, who gazed out the windows toward the back.
“So the next time that woman opens her computer,” Ellie said, leaning against the window, “her search history is going to say something like ‘Graham Larkin punches photographer.’ ”
He laughed. “I think it was actually ‘Graham Larkin clocks the idiot who got too close with his camera.’ ”
As they wound their way out of town, drawing nearer to Kennebunkport, the houses in the windows grew larger and more imposing, huge beachside mansions with porches that jutted out over the water, all of them topped with American flags that waved crisply against the cloudless sky.
Before she’d left this morning, Ellie had found the address of the house where her father was staying, a feat that hadn’t turned out to be all that difficult. The estate had a long history of being rented by important politicians, and there was a sizable paper trail left behind by the journalists who’d made a habit out of lurking around its edges. She’d sifted through enough images that even now, hours later, she could call up the weathered gray siding and wraparound porch with perfect clarity. But what she couldn’t imagine was walking up the flagstone path and knocking on those red double doors. What she couldn’t imagine was coming face-to-face with Paul Whitman.
She turned to Graham, who was hiding a yawn behind his hand. “Okay,” she said, her voice businesslike. “I need a plan of attack.”
“Going to war, are we?”
“I can’t just waltz up to his house without knowing how this is gonna work,” she said, swiveling to face him more fully. “What if his wife’s there? And his sons?”
“Your half brothers,” Graham pointed out, and Ellie shrugged.
“I guess.”
“Well, have you figured out what you want to say to him?”
“Sort of,” she said, which wasn’t exactly true. She had no idea what she wanted to say. How could she, when she wasn’t even quite sure how she felt? She’d spent years studying his photos and watching his interviews, observing the life he’d built from afar, wondering what it would be like to be part of it. But now that she was this close, the idea that he might not be happy to see her was too devastating to consider.
After all, he hadn’t ever denied that he was her father—at least not in any kind of official capacity—but he hadn’t ever acknowledged it either. Which meant that in the eyes of the world, she was still fatherless and he was still daughterless. And there was no way of knowing how he’d react when she showed up at his door. Was it possible that he might recognize her? Would she recognize him? And not just in the way she did in the newspapers, but on a deeper level; she wondered if there’d be some spark of familiarity, of belonging, something to indicate that they were more than just two strangers standing on opposite sides of a doorway. That they were family.
Ellie wasn’t sure. She was grateful to be armed with the knowledge that he wasn’t aware of what had happened last night, that at the very least, she hadn’t yet dragged his name through the papers. But there were still so many other unknowns.
“Practice on me,” Graham suggested, sitting up taller against the back of the seat and puffing out his chest. He dipped one eyebrow and arranged his mouth into an overly serious frown. “Hello there, young lady,” he said, and the imitation of her father was so striking that Ellie gave his arm a little shove.
“Stop,” she said. “Too weird.”
Graham relaxed again, unfazed. “Okay, then what?”
“I guess I’m just gonna knock on the door and see what happens.”
“At least you’ve got the element of surprise on your side,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “He’ll be caught off guard, and it’ll give you a chance to figure out how to play it.”