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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

ELLIOT

“ E ven I know when to admit defeat,” Amelia groans, leaning back in the passenger seat of my car and glaring at the half empty ten-pound bag of red gummy bears in the center console like it personally wronged her.

I chuckle, laying a hand on her leg and squeezing. “It was an impressive effort. You can save the rest for the car ride home.”

“No way.” She shakes her head vigorously.

“I never want to see another gummy bear as long as I live. I need a new favorite candy because gummy bears are being demoted on account of eating five pounds of them in two hours before ten a.m. and the ensuing stomachache.” She reaches for the travel mug in the center console and takes a sip, frowning when she finds it empty. “And I’m out of Diet Pepsi.”

I grin at her disgruntled, it’s too early in the morning for this voice. “Check the back seat.”

She turns in her seat, reaching back and finding the small cooler I stashed back there. Unzipping it, she stares down at the two rows of Diet Pepsi cans surrounded by ice packs and then stares up at me. “You hate Diet Pepsi.”

“I sure do.”

“Not only did you buy me ten pounds of my favorite candy in my favorite flavor, but you packed me eight cans of a soda you once called the devil’s sauce in ice so they would stay cold?”

I flick my turn signal to get off the highway at our exit.

“It’s your favorite soda, and I dragged you out of bed before seven a.m. to drive to Maine to track down the family of my great-grandmother’s long-lost love.

That deserves all your favorite snacks. Or maybe former favorite snacks, since you seem to have turned on those innocent gummy bears. There are Oreos back there too.”

Amelia pops the top on one of the cans, pouring the soda into her travel mug and putting the empty can back in the cooler. She holds the mug in one hand, sliding her other hand around the back of my neck, playing with my hair in the way I love. “You really are the perfect man.”

I reach back and take her hand in mind, bringing it to my mouth to kiss her knuckles.

I love taking this ride with her, driving up the still-frozen New England coast, talking about everything and nothing.

It feels like a special slice out of time.

Like it’s just her and me and nothing else matters.

It makes me wish we could drive forever. “Only for you, Ames.”

“Are you feeling okay about today?” she asks, running her thumb over my palm in a calming gesture. “You didn’t sleep so well last night.”

She’s right; I didn’t. I spent the night tossing and turning, my twisty brain making an appearance to play through a million scenarios of how today might go.

If it were anyone else asking, I would play it off, pretend to be fine.

But Amelia isn’t anyone else, and I want her to have the full truth of me.

“My brain wouldn’t shut off. Lines from Henry’s postcards kept running through my head, and I was weirdly nervous about today.

It shouldn’t matter. Whatever happened between Henry and Clara happened such a long time ago.

It should be low stakes. It felt like low stakes for a long time.

A fun mystery to be solved. But now…” My voice trails off, not sure how to explain the way I’m feeling.

“It feels important.” Amelia squeezes my hand, bringing our joined hands to rest on her thigh. “Like knowing whatever you’re about to know will change you.”

I blow out a relieved breath. It feels so good to be known by her. “I guess I just wish they had told us on the phone what they knew, instead of making us wait until we drove up here.”

The they being Bonnie and Jane Allen, Henry’s two daughters, who I spoke to on the phone a week ago. When I explained who I was, they seemed weirdly unsurprised, almost like they had been waiting to hear from me, and that’s the part that’s freaking me out.

“I’m the I’ve got it handled guy. And while I’m self-aware enough to know being that guy doesn’t always serve me, I also know that uncertainty isn’t something I do well with.

It’s what kept me up last night. This was all fun and games until it was the night before we actually might solve it.

Now the stakes feel higher. I don’t know why. ”

“Because you care,” Amelia says simply, laying her other hand on top of our joined ones. “You’re a good man, El, and, let’s face it, you’re a total romantic.”

I huff out a laugh at that because, yeah, and she smiles at me like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. “You don’t like the idea that your great-grandmother had a big love she had to walk away from. It hurts you, even though you never really knew her.”

I let Amelia’s words settle in as I pull the car to a stop in front of a sprawling white clapboard house. It’s situated at the very end of a dead-end street, and I can see the shimmering, still frozen water of Penobscot Bay through the leafless trees.

She’s more right than she even knows, and the words to tell her why are pushing up into my throat, but I shove them down because now isn’t the time. Unlatching my seatbelt, I turn and face her, taking both of her hands in mine. “I’m really glad you’re here with me. I couldn’t do this without you.”

Her face softens and she holds my gaze. “You could have. And if it wasn’t me, it would have been one of your brothers. Or Cece. Or your parents. You don’t ever have to be alone unless you want to be.”

I lean in, capturing her lips with mine in a slow, soft kiss.

“You’re the only one I want to do this with.

To do everything with. It’s you, Amelia.

Always only you.” I drop my forehead to hers, breathing her in, feeling everything inside of me settle.

Like there is nothing in the world I can’t do as long as I have her with me.

“It’s you too, El,” she says quietly, bringing a hand to my cheek.

I see everything I feel for her reflected in her eyes and I know that one way or another, this day ends with me giving Amelia another one of my truths.

Maybe the most important one. The idea of that makes what we’re about to do feel easier.

Lighter. So many things feel that way when she’s standing next to me.

Overwhelmed with gratitude for her, feeling excited for what we’re about to do for the first time today, I press a kiss to her forehead and lean back. “So, what do you think, Ames? Want to go solve a mystery?”

She grins at me, brown eyes filling with fun as she reaches back for the box of postcards we brought with us. “With you? Always.”

The front door to the house opens before we even make our way up the front walk.

Two women who look to be about Cece’s age stand framed in the doorway, twin smiles on their faces.

Dressed alike in corduroy pants, fisherman’s sweaters, and thick wool socks, their silver hair pulled back in ponytails, they look like a Maine winter personified.

“Welcome,” one of the women says, stepping forward with her hand outstretched. “I’m Jane Allen, and this is my sister Bonnie. You must be Elliot Wyles.”

I shake her hand, smiling back. “I am, thank you so much for having us. This is my girlfriend, Amelia Sullivan.”

Amelia steps forward, box tucked under her arm. “It’s so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.”

“Sullivan?” Bonnie asks, studying Amelia with interest. “You related to the Sullivan guy who invented all the phones?”

I glance over at Amelia, wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have said her last name, but she just gives Bonnie a friendly smile and nods. “Sure am. He’s my brother.”

“Well, you tell that brother of yours that I don’t like the swipe up feature on the new version of the Redwood one little bit. I liked the button. There should always be a button.”

Amelia grins and reaches out, shaking Jane’s hand.

Everything about Amelia right now is open and friendly, like she has decided to like these women at first sight.

“Bonnie, it’s great to meet you. I told Gabe that exact thing when he showed me the designs for the new phone, but he was all, it’s so sleek this way . What can I tell you? It’s a man thing.”

Both women laugh at that, and Bonnie gestures for us to come inside. “There is very little in this world that is made better by the involvement of a man. They mostly just fuck it all up.”

Amelia snorts out a laugh and links her arm though mine as we make our way through the cozy, open concept first floor. “You are so right about that, but this guy here isn’t so bad. He’s one of the good ones.”

Bonnie waves at a two-seater sofa, and Amelia and I sit, Bonnie and Jane taking seats on the sofa across from us.

Bonnie’s gaze bounces between us and settles on me.

“I could tell he was one of the good ones the second we started talking on the phone. Thank you for making the trip all the way up here. I’m sorry we were a little cryptic on the phone, but we thought it would be better to talk in person.

I assume since you’re both here, Amelia knows everything you know? ”

I nod, taking Amelia’s hand and lacing our fingers together. “She does. She’s the one who found you.”

Jane’s eyes light up with interest. “How did you do that?”

Amelia shrugs. “My brother isn’t the only tech savvy Sullivan.”

I bump my shoulder with hers. “She’s underselling it massively.

She coded a program that combed through the letters your father sent to my great-grandmother, looking for clues to his identity.

It put them all together and found him. Then once we had his name, she set it to look for any family he may have had, and she found you. She’s brilliant.”

“Definitely one of the good ones.” Bonnie murmurs. “Like dad. He was one of the good ones too.”

I nod at her. “I know he would have been. You can tell by the postcards he sent. By how much his love for my great-grandmother pours out of his words. I brought them with us in case you wanted to see them.”

“Thank you,” Jane says. “We would really like to read his words. But we don’t need to see the postcards to know how much he loved Clara. We saw it all the time.”

Amelia takes a sharp breath and whips her head around to look at me before turning back to the sisters. My heart thuds with anticipation, and suddenly I know for sure that this day is not going to go at all the way I thought it would. “What do you mean you saw it all the time?”

Jane glances at her sister, and Bonnie nods. Jane looks back at us, soft smile on her face.

“Elliot, honey, Clara and my father may have been long-lost loves at first, but they didn’t stay that way. They found each other again later in their lives and were together for close to thirty years. They were deeply in love for every single minute of those years, right up until the day she died.”