Page 100 of Waiting For A Girl Like You (Haven House #4)

A hush settled over the graveyard, bringing with it the kind of quiet that felt less like absence and more like attention. Like something—or someone—might be truly listening.

“You have a new grandson. His name is Albert Benjamin Fairweather, and he has gray eyes like Evie, but she thinks they’ll turn brown like Samuel’s before too long. I don’t know anything about babies, so maybe Evie’s right.”

The wind blew a little harder, spreading her hair from her face, and when she caught that familiar floral scent that always seemed to come in moments like this, Jamison closed her eyes and allowed herself to believe in the magic of Laura Jean.

“I won’t ever know anything about babies, Mama. Not my own, at least.”

She suddenly felt small and let the words tumble from her, wanting her mother to understand what she was going through.

“It hurts, but I’m okay. Liam and I will be okay.

I won’t take anything for granted. There won’t be a second of my life with him where I won’t appreciate all I have and what we’ll build together. ”

“What is going on?” Simone’s sharp tone had Jamison popping up to stand. “Y’all can’t wait two seconds for us to bring a shovel?”

Liam and Carter had started digging near the bench with their hands, convinced they’d found the right spot, but Simone didn’t appear impressed with their work when she and Bernie came through the entrance.

Abe rolled in behind them, the hum of his motorized chair faint beneath the rustling trees. He often worked alone in the graveyard and knew every corner of it better than anyone. “I have equipment for this,” he said dryly. “And don’t you touch those flower beds, Liam.”

Flower beds .

Jamison’s head turned, her gaze taking in the entire rear of the graveyard. “Shadows in the flower beds,” she murmured. “That’s what he meant.”

She waved to get Liam’s attention and pointed toward the flower beds Abe had designed at the end of each section of headstones. Layer after layer, the neat rows were laid out to guide visitors through.

And from the bench, the trees overhead cast long shadows across them.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

Liam sat down on the bench, his legs spread as he postured himself as Michael would. It never failed to amaze her how observant he was around people, picking up on the small nuances that crafted personality and behavior.

“What is Liam doing?” Selah whispered to their father when they arrived with Lenora and Xavier.

“I have no idea,” their father replied. “Abe’s remodel is fantastic, but this place is still a maze of the unknown. Half the tombstones and markers don’t have names on them.”

“Liam, give me some guidance here.” Izzy rushed up the incline with Will in tow and headed to the opposite side of the graveyard. “Are we looking for something in particular?”

Will went over to sit with Liam, the two of them in quiet conversation for a moment.

“Look for a grave marked with the name Grace. It’s impossible even to entertain this idea, but Sinclair said the lovers who remain in the river.

According to Carter’s great-uncle, two people drowned in the bayou. One of them was named Grace.”

“Carter’s uncle?” Simone’s brows snapped together. “Someone better start explaining.”

Jamison did her best to run through the whole thing. Rowan and Annabeth joined them halfway through, both looking rumpled as if they’d been taking a mid-morning nap. “And now we think the journals might be buried out here.”

“This is insane,” Annabeth muttered. “But okay, let’s do this.”

Xavier held up a tiny plastic beach shovel. “I’m gonna help dig!”

“Give Uncle Liam a sec, X-man,” Lenora said. “Watch him work it out first. It’s creepy, but it’s kind of cool to see the Cohens do their thing. ”

“It is creepy, but my boys know what they’re doing.” Bernie stood with Simone, the two women seeking the small shot of sunshine breaking through the trees. “If those journals are here, they’ll find them.”

Will spoke quietly to Liam, who nodded. “I agree with that, but how?”

“Sometimes, the truth is bigger than us,” Will replied. “And we have to learn to go with it.”

Staring off at the rear corner of the graveyard, where the incline began to drop and slide into the bayou, Liam’s dark eyes narrowed on something. “Hey, X-man, pass me that shovel.”

Happily, Xavier obliged, and Liam continued to stare at the spot, his head tilting to the side. “Jamison, those two stones back there on the ground. Right by your left? What do they say?”

She hurried to the two stones close to the fence line. “Nothing. They’re unmarked like half the graves here.”

But she saw it then. The two markers. They were perfectly lined up together.

“Wait, these stones are… even? I guess that’s the best way to say it. They’re not haphazardly in a spot like the rest of the older stones.”

Liam jogged over with Xavier’s shovel. “This is it.”

“But the bench?”

“I thought that at first, but something is telling me to look here.” They crouched together on the ground, with Liam grinning at her. “I don’t understand it either, but here we go.”

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” Will said, helping Simone and Bernie traverse the thick roots protruding from the ground.

“Or, as I like to say, go with your gut no matter what, even if it’s telling you, you’re crazy. ”

Everyone converged around them, with nothing but the occasional creak of branches or the rustling of leaves filling the silence while Liam worked. Jamison went to help him, but almost toppled over when her veil caught on a nearby fallen branch.

“Here, let me help you.” Working to set her free, her father extracted the veil from the gnarled branch. “There we go.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“Sure thing, Princess. ”

“Are we really digging up graves?” Lenora asked with concern. “Because if so, I might need to take Xavier back to the house.”

“Of course we are. This is Jamison’s wedding day.” Annabeth dropped to her knees next to Jamison and nudged her shoulder. “What else would we be doing?”

“It’ll be shallow,” Abe said, watching Liam intently. “If Sinclair buried something, I’d have noticed. I come out here every week, and it would have caught my attention if the earth had been disturbed by a large hole.”

Carter stepped away from the group to stand at the fence line.

His head tilted as he stared out over the bayou.

“I thought I was crazy, but listen. There’s something out there, and it sounds like singing.

” He pointed to the pilings protruding from the water.

“Those pilings have some sort of metal on them, and it’s creating a sound when the wind blows. ”

Everyone stopped and listened, and sure enough, Jamison could finally hear what Carter had been going on about. “I’ve never noticed it before, but I hear it.”

Her father frowned. “It does sound like a woman singing. Those pilings are from the old mill and were once part of the loading area, I think?”

“I don’t hear anything.” Rowan joined Carter at the black wrought-iron fence. “Nope. Nothing.”

“Yeah, there is. It’s like a lullaby,” Selah argued, pulling Xavier up to settle on his shoulders. “Can you hear it, big guy?”

“I hear it!” Xavier swayed as he listened. “It sounds pretty.”

Liam carefully shoveled dirt from around the two small stones. “Must be a Fairweather thing because I don’t hear it.” He paused and nodded at a spot to the left of the markers. “Abe, look at this. We’re missing grass here, and the dirt is more compacted.

Abe narrowed his eyes, nodding. “Yeah, you’re right. The surface looks normal, but it’s loose around the edges. Dig deeper, but do it slowly so you don’t damage anything buried.”

Liam worked the dirt loose around the missing patch of grass, and—perhaps an inch below the surface—a box began to take shape.

“Oh my God,” Jamison whispered. “My husband is a genius.”

Liam paused to flash her a grin. “You just called me your husband. ”

“Do we need to be worried about bombs?” her father interrupted. “I know you’re excited, but we’re dealing with Michael Sinclair here.”

“No,” Liam replied softly and returned to his digging. “CeCe is here. He would never destroy this place.”

Will nodded in agreement. “The tone in the journals showed how much he loved her, and those were simple words on paper. I can’t imagine him ever hurting CeCe, even after death.”

Extracting the box from the ground took less than five minutes. Metal and with no lock to keep anyone out, Liam placed it in the center of the group. “Selah, step back with Xavier. Just in case.”

They waited while Selah and Lenora moved Xavier out to wait on the trail.

“Here we go.” Liam flipped up the latch, and everyone leaned in when he lifted the lid. Cradled at the bottom of the box were books wrapped in cloth, and he gently pulled each one out. “Thank you for not killing us, Sinclair.”

The soft leather bound journals were labeled numerically on their spines, and as Liam opened the first one, he snapped it closed again when he read the first page. “This isn’t for me to do.”

About to burst with anticipation, Jamison fought the urge to snatch the journal from him and read it herself. “What do you mean?”

“Michael Sinclair wrote his journals to his mother, and CeCe did the same.” Holding the book out, Liam nodded for Simone to take it. “These are written to you, Simone. CeCe considered you her mother even up until the end.”

Simone stared at the offering, tears welling in her eyes.

With a shaking hand, she took the book and flipped to the first page, her bottom lip quivering as she read.

“Sometimes the family you’re given isn’t the one you’re meant to keep.

My name is Cecilia Miller, and when I was born, I had mothers and sisters and brothers who weren’t mine by blood, but were mine, nevertheless.

We lived in a place called Haven House, where every day was an adventure. This is my story.”

Annabeth went to her mother’s side, wrapping an arm around her to keep Simone steady.

“Oh, my.” Simone ran her fingertips over the page.

“Oh, my baby. Look at you still making those curls on the tips of your letter T.” She tilted the book to proudly show Bernie.

“CeCe always had a problem with writing the uppercase T because she just wanted it to be a lowercase, but Devon taught her how to make it fancy so she would get excited to write it correctly.”

Annabeth pointed at the next passage. “If you have somehow found these and cannot return them to me, please forward my journals to a woman named Simone Howard. She was my mother in the truest sense of the word, and I want her to know I never forgot her and always held her in my heart , ” she read and then laughed through her tears.

“ And if you cannot locate Simone Howard, please send them to her daughter, Annabeth. My sister, and forever twin to my soul.”

Rowan came up behind Annabeth to look at the book, but Jamison had a sneaky suspicion he was doing it to remain close in case she needed him. The same could be said for Izzy, who had taken Abe’s hand while he pretended not to cry.

“CeCe dedicated her life to keeping everyone safe from Toby, and when she tried to fight back, and find her happiness, they killed her for it,” Jamison told everyone.

“I know he wasn’t a good person, but you should have seen that house.

Michael built CeCe her version of Haven House and would have given her the happily ever after she deserved. ”

Simone remained quiet, reading to herself, and when she finally lifted her head, she stared directly at the man she had spent a lifetime traveling on the long road of grief with, neither of them ever able to escape it.

“Benjamin, he needs to be here with CeCe.”

The late morning breeze coming in off the water teased the tips of her father’s hair, ruffling it about. Jamison thought it made him look young again, and when his gaze dropped to Laura Jean’s marker, everyone waited to hear him deny Simone’s request.

But he didn’t.

“If that’s what you want, SiSi.” With a bittersweet smile, Benjamin Fairweather nodded. “We’ll bring him home to Haven House.”