Page 15 of Stolen Harmony

“The last thing I said to her,” he choked between sobs, “was ‘stop calling me.’ And then she stopped. Forever.”

The words gutted me. I moved before I could think better of it, lowering myself onto the couch beside him. I didn’t touchhim—I didn’t dare—but I was close enough to catch him if he splintered further.

“I killed her,” he whispered hoarsely. “I killed her by not loving her enough to answer the phone.”

“No.” The word came out fierce, more command than comfort. “Don’t you dare put that on yourself. She had an accident. It was raining, a deer ran across the road, she swerved?—”

His head snapped up, eyes red and wild. “She was thinking about coming to see me, wasn’t she? She was going to New York because I wouldn’t take her calls.”

I hesitated. I couldn’t lie to him. Not about this.

“She thought about it,” I admitted softly. “She looked up train schedules, hotel prices. But she hadn’t decided. She was just… desperate to see you. That’s all.”

His tears streaked down his face, devastation etched into every line. “But she thought about it because of me. Because I was being a bastard.”

I shook my head, my own throat burning. “She thought about it because she loved you. Because no matter how many times you pushed her away, she wanted to try again. She never stopped wanting you, Rowan. Never.”

We sat in silence for a moment, both of us wrung out from the emotion. Then I did something I'd sworn I wouldn't do. I reached into my wallet and pulled out the letter I'd carried for two years, folded and refolded so many times the creases had become permanent scars.

“She wrote this to you,” I said quietly, “right before our wedding. She was going to send it, but she got scared.”

Rowan stared at the envelope like it might bite him. His name was written in her careful script, the ink slightly faded but still clearly hers.

“What does it say?” he whispered.

“I don't know,” I said, and it was the truth. “I never read it. It was meant for you.”

I placed the letter carefully on the coffee table between us, within his reach but not forcing the decision. He stared at it for a long moment, then looked up at me with something that might have been gratitude mixed with the lingering anger.

“I can't,” he said finally. “Not yet.”

“It'll be here when you're ready.”

The letter lay between us like a bridge neither of us was brave enough to cross.

“I built it,” I said eventually, when the silence became too heavy to bear. “The studio she dreamed about.”

He looked up sharply. “What?”

“After she died. I took every plan she'd made, every dream she'd shared, and I made it real.” My voice was rough with emotion. “It's a business now. Harbor's End Music Production. I help young musicians, kids who sound like you did at seventeen.”

His breath hitched. “You built her dream?”

“It's how I keep loving her,” I said simply. “She wanted to help people make music. So I do. Every day.”

Something shifted in his expression that made my chest tight.

“Are you sorry you married her?” he asked suddenly, his voice smaller than it had been all night.

“No.” The word came out without hesitation, fierce and sure. “Never. Loving her was the best thing I ever did, even if it was only for three years. Even if it ended the way it did.”

I paused, studying his face in the lamplight. “But I'm sorry you never got to see her happy. Really happy. The way she was when she talked about you, when she imagined the three of us finally being afamily.”

“She was happy with you,” he said, and it sounded like a confession pulled from somewhere deep.

“She would have been happier with you in her life too.”

He was quiet for a long moment, staring at the letter on the table. Then, without a word, he reached for it with trembling fingers. He held it for a moment, studying his mother's handwriting on the envelope, before slipping it carefully into his coat pocket.