“You should be.” He knelt down and inserted the knife in the corner of the box. “That knitting badge was a bitch.”
Kneeling beside him, I furrowed my brow. “Knitting?”
He shot me a get-real look. “I’m kidding.”
Of course. How could I think otherwise? I felt that old familiar embarrassment creep over me, that sense of being a screwup that I’d often felt with Kurt. I immediately fought to squelch it. “I didn’t know you knew how.”
He looked at me, his brows raised questioningly.
“To kid,” I explained. “Not to knit.”
He laughed again. My chest felt strangely warm as I watched him work the knife along the seam of the box, cutting off the soiled top flaps, then slicing off the sides. His hands were sure and steady, tanned and square and masculine. Watching them made my mouth go dry.
“Son of a gun,” he said. “Thereissomething here.” He pried up an extraneous piece of cardboard, then handed it to me. “Here—you do the honors.”
I lifted the cardboard and glanced at the top photo. It was the profile of a man in the driver’s seat of a shiny car, a car like you might see in an old Bogart movie. My heart tripped.
“Who is it?” Matt asked.
“Gran’s first love.” It was taken at a distance, but he was handsome, all right. Light hair, a dazzling smile, a muscled arm resting on the rolled-down window of an old sedan. He wore a buttoned short-sleeved shirt, and even though it was a black-and-white photo, I could tell he was tan.
“Why’d she hide his pictures?”
“She said she didn’t want my grandfather to see them, but I think she was mostly hiding them from herself. I don’t think she ever got over him.” I swallowed. “And... I don’t know. From the way the story’s going, I think a family skeleton is about to be revealed.”
I looked at the next picture. It was the same man in another short-sleeved shirt, at a closer viewpoint. This time he was lying in the grass, his hands behind his head, grinning at the photographer,his eyes warm and lively. Something about him made the hair on my arm stand up.
“Hey—are you okay?”
I glanced up and met Matt’s concerned gaze. “Yeah. I just...”
. . . think I might be looking at my grandfather.
Matt leaned over my shoulder and looked at the picture. “He looks familiar.”
Yeah. Real familiar—as in like my mother. Like me.
I swallowed and mustered a smile. “I think I might pass out from the fumes of my own funk.” I straightened and stood. “I’d better get inside and let Gran know I saved her photos. And you’d better change clothes and get to wherever you’re going. Thanks so much for your help.”
“Glad to assist.”
The fact he was being so nice about this when he’d been such a dick about me just being in his bedroom was disconcerting—so I did what I usually do when I’m disconcerted. I rambled. “I meant what I said—I’d like to pay your cleaning bill. And I promise to come back and pick up all the packing peanuts on your lawn, and...”
He held up his hand. “Don’t worry about it. The lawn service is due to come this morning. They’ll get all that.”
“But...”
“Seriously. It’s not a problem.” He peered at me. “You sure you’re okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine.”
It wasn’t a ghost I’d seen, I thought as I scurried across the lawn and up Gran’s porch.
It was my own eyes staring back at me.
17
adelaide
