Mom looks at Dane, then back to me. “Okay.”
“Is Grandma back there?”
“She went home to get ready for the party.”
So the kitchen is empty.
Good.
I pull Dane down the hallway and into the kitchen, where I lock the door and shut the blinds.
And then I head to the desk.
I didn’t clearly see Grandma pop the secret compartment, but when I can’t figure it out on my own, I tell Dane what I’m trying to do, and within moments, he has it open.
But the recipe isn’t there.
“What the hell?” I mutter.
I lean into the drawer, peering into the corners, looking under the cover to the compartment, feeling around. “Is there another lower compartment?”
“What are you looking for?”
“A recipe.”
“Stored in a secret compartment.”
“It’s old. And ...” I pull out the folded photocopy of Lucy’s letter. “I think the handwriting matches.”
He sucks in a breath. “You think the recipe was the dowry.”
“I do. But the recipe isn’t here, and I don’t want to jump to conclusions. I want to see if the handwriting matches.”
“If the dowry was a recipe, and Lucy wrote it for Maud, why wouldn’t she have just written it again?”
I bite my lip and stare at him. “That’s a very good question.”
An excellent question, in fact.
My shoulders droop.
My entirebodydroops.
“There could be a logical explanation,” Dane says. “You could be right. And it would explain continued hostilities.”
“I don’tlikethis as an option,” I whisper. “It means my family did really shitty things to yours and then benefited from it for years.Decades.Generations. But—”
“It makes sense,” he says quietly.
I sigh and drop my forehead to his chest like I’ve leaned on him for years, and he loops his arms around me like he’s comforted me just as long.
How does this feel so right when it’s so new?
And when it’s ending tomorrow? If not sooner?
“I am so grateful for you,” I tell him.
His grip around me tightens. I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him back, our bodies lining up. A hard ridge presses into my belly, growing harder and thicker with each passing second.
