“He knew who she was the whole time,” Jo argues. “He was writing to her, knowing it was her, while pretending to be a stranger. That’s deceptive.”
“But the letters were real,” Mads counters. “He wasn’t performing in the letters. He was showing her his actual self. The person she knew in real life was the performance.”
The conversation continues, and I’m nodding along, making appropriate comments, but my mind keeps drifting to my own situation. To Scott’s almost-confession in my office. To Coastal Quill’s letters sitting in my desk drawer at home.
To the increasingly impossible coincidence of two men saying the exact same things about vulnerability and armor and being terrified to show someone the truth.
“Jessica?”
I blink. Everyone’s looking at me.
“Sorry, what?”
“I asked what you thought about the ending,” Michelle says, watching me a little too carefully. “When she finally confronts him.”
“Oh. I thought it was...satisfying. She gave him a chance to explain instead of just assuming the worst.”
“But she almost didn’t,” Amber points out. “She almost walked away without asking. She was so convinced he’d been manipulating her that she nearly missed the truth—that he’d been trying to be brave enough to tell her the whole time.”
“He should have just told her,” I say, more forcefully than I intend. “Instead of all the secret letters and anonymous confessions. If he really cared about her, he would have been honest from the beginning.”
The kitchen goes quiet.
“You okay?” Hazel asks gently.
“Fine. I’m fine. I just—” I set down my wine glass. “I think secrets are complicated. Even well-intentioned ones.”
Grandma Hensley is studying me with her knowing eyes. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain landlord, would it?”
“What? No. We’re talking about the book.”
“We’re talking about a book where a woman falls for her anonymous pen pal while simultaneously developing feelings for a man she sees every day.” Michelle raises an eyebrow. “Sound familiar?”
“That’s not—I’m not?—”
“You’ve been checking that brass mailbox seventeen times a day,” Jo says. “Caroline told us.”
“Caroline needs to stop gossiping about my mail habits.”
“And you’ve been making eyes at Scott Avery at every planning meeting,” Amber adds. “The whole town’s talking about it.”
“I have not been making eyes.”
“Yes, you have,” everyone says in unison.
I drop my head into my hands. “This is an ambush.”
“This is a book club meeting that has naturally evolved into a discussion of your love life,” Michelle corrects. “There’s a difference.”
“A subtle one,” Grandma Hensley adds. “But important.”
Amber’s cat, Butterscotch, chooses this exact moment to leap onto the kitchen island.
Right onto the cheese board.
Brie goes flying. Crackers scatter like shrapnel. Grandma Hensley shrieks and throws her hands up, sending her book arcing through the air. It smashes against Jo’s wine glass, knocking it over.
“Butterscotch!” Amber lunges for the cat, who has already snagged a piece of gouda and is making a break for it across the counter.
