A smaller one, more the size of a greeting card, slid out between them, and had Liz’s full name on it. Tanner peered back into the safe, and then fished farther back, producing two more. One for Peony and one for Jake’s mother, Heather, which was wrinkled and slightly yellow with age.
“What have we found?” Tanner murmured, looking at them.
They were standing in silence, staring down at the envelopes, when the square of light at the door darkened. Jake looked up over the top of the desk to see Peony was standing there, her hands firmly planted on her hips.
“So you found it. What was that old fox hiding?”
* * *
Liz looked at the letters sitting on the kitchen island counter, lined up in a row. No one had opened them yet. Jake stood, hands in his pockets. Tanner was in the dining room on the phone to Brady.
“You went into Brett’s yelling room?” she said, watching Jake as he shifted the letters with his fingers then stuffed his hand back into his pocket. He looked lost, unsure, a bit haunted.
“Yelling room?” Jake asked.
“S’what I called it when I was younger,” Liz answered. “Brett would go in there in the evenings, and I’d hear him yelling sometimes. The window faces the side of the house, where our bunkhouse was. I always wondered if he watched sports in there or something so as not to disturb Veronica. Had no idea it was—”
She stopped, realizing it was likely where he’d kept all the information about finding Jake and his mother. Or whatever else he didn’t want anyone finding out about. Lord knew what that was, the number of secrets they had uncovered in the past few weeks.
Her mother bustled back in, an armload of something that she dumped onto the counter. It was motley shades of pink, with red splashed in random places. Jake picked it up, thumbing over the stitching.
“Something about a handmade thing gives it value, you know? Even if you don’t know who made it right away,” she said.
“My mother’s sense of style was practical. Didn’t matter what it looked like, as long as it did the job,” Jake replied, and set it down again. He must have sensed that Liz was confused because he looked up at her and the side of his mouth quirked up.
“My mother made this.”
“Ah,” Liz replied, and touched the blanket. “This is just like the ones we have out at my place. They’re really great in the winter, but I always thought they were, ah—”
“Ugly as fuck? Yes,” Jake supplied, and they giggled together.
Peony gave Jake a reprimanding eye for his language, then smiled. “Take it. Yours. It shouldn’t be just left to get dustier than it already is. Not everything about Heather’s memory is bad, my dear.”
Jake nodded and slid it over to one side, the lost look sliding across his face again. Tanner strode back in a moment later, his phone in his hand. He pinched the bridge of his nose and bowed his head.
“Brady okay?” Liz asked.
“He’s headed back. Be a half hour or so, he said.”
“Where’d he go?” she asked.
“Didn’t say. I saw him right before he took off. Stalked out of the stables like he was bein’ chased before I caught up to him,” Tanner added, leveling his eyes at her, raising one eyebrow.
“Okay, well, I’ll go first ,then,” Liz exclaimed, hoping to derail that conversation, because she didn’t want Tanner to ask if Brady’s mood had anything to do with her conversation with him. She was still thinking about what Trevor had said about Brady’s real father.
“No point in waiting,” she added for good measure.
She picked up the envelope for her, reading her name looped on the front. Her full name. Elizabeth Jaqueline Baker. The one her mother used when she needed to get Liz’s attention.
“These are private, Liz, if you want to look at it later, that’s okay,” Jake said, coming over to her and ducking down to catch her eye. “There’s no rush.”
Part of her wanted to hurl the damned thing into the garbage unseen. Brett wasn’t her father. There had been a small part of her, when her mother had married him, that thought maybe he could become that for her, but it had never really happened, and perhaps that was partly on her for not fully trusting him.
But Brett had always been gruff, like he didn’t know what to say or do with a girl, kept her at arm’s length. He could reprimand her fine, but there was never any softness sent her way as a kid, and definitely not when she got old enough to argue with.
She didn’t hold a grudge against him for that, but it had stung a bit when she’d turned eighteen and he’d given her the keys to the bunkhouse she and her mom had originally lived in. He’d unceremoniously barked that it was time she took care of herself, and that was that. She’d moved out of the spare room that Jake now stayed in, no longer a part of whatever it was they had settled into as a family of five.
“I don’t care. Not like he was my dad or anything. Barely put up with me,” she muttered, and decided she did want to see what was inside after all, to confirm it. She lifted the flap with her index finger and ripped the envelope open.
