“There is a treasure, Francesca,” he said softly. “At least, I’m pretty sure there is.”
Francesca initially barked with laughter, then stopped when she realized he wasn’t joking. “Did you find it?” She lurched up from the mattress and gaped at him. All this time, had Jefferson’s horse-race-betting wealth come from her dead husband’s family’s treasure?
“No,” Jefferson said, his face shadowed. “I searched and searched but couldn’t find it. The night Benjamin caught me wasn’t the first time I was down there.”
Francesca’s hands were clammy. “Tell me,” she begged. “I don’t understand.”
Jefferson told her the most incredible story: the accurate tale that had drawn him to the White Oak Lodge to begin with. “Many, many years ago, my great-grandfather visited the White Oak Lodge,” he began. “He came to America briefly to make money as a whaler, and he palled around with some gruff whalers who frequented the White Oak Lodge. This was long before it was some luxurious resort, obviously. But he took a liking to it and to the Whitmore folks and stayed on longer than the others. He was homesick, apparently, and liked Mrs. Whitmore’s cooking.
“While my great-grandfather was staying at the Lodge, Nantucket had the coldest and snowiest winter on record,” Jefferson went on. “The Lodge grew painfully cold, and they huddled around the fire, waiting for the snow to melt and for winter to end. Occasionally, Mr. Whitmore would go downstairs to fetch firewood or salted meat or whatever else they keptdown there. They had it stocked for winters precisely like those. Once, Mr. Whitmore recruited my great-grandfather to go down there and help him. It was then that my great-grandfather saw the tunnels and how expansive they were. It really captured his attention. He couldn’t get the tunnels out of his mind. One night, when everyone was sleeping, he went down and started exploring. This happened over and over again, with my great-grandfather creating a map in his mind. He knew where all the provisions were located. He knew where they kept the old furniture and the things they would have rather forgotten. But it was after a month of exploring that he discovered the treasure.”
Francesca slapped Jefferson on the shoulder. She was in disbelief. “You’re lying,” she said. “Or your great-grandfather was lying!”
“This is the story that’s been passed from generation to generation,” Jefferson said, hand on his heart.
“Why didn’t he take the treasure then and there?” Francesca demanded, deciding that this was a fantastical story that she’d try to enjoy rather than believe in. She settled back down on her pillow and grinned at her love.
“The story goes that the snow melted the very next day,” Jefferson went on. “Sunshine poured over the island, and the whaling boats started up again. It was going to be my great-grandfather’s last chance to leave the island and go back to England. More snow was surely coming, and he was going stir-crazy in the White Oak Lodge.”
“I can relate to that,” Francesca breathed, remembering her early days of motherhood.
“He promised himself that he would return to the Lodge before his dying day and take the treasure,” Jefferson said. “But when he got home, he discovered that his old love had had a child, and that child was his. He was a father for the first time, and he didn’t want to miss it.”
“Everything changes after that,” Francesca agreed quietly. Respect for this ancient man filled her heart.
“But he drew a map,” Jefferson went on, his finger pointed at the ceiling. “I’ll show it to you when we get back to Tuscany. It’s the most treasured possession I have.”
Francesca grinned madly at her love, surprised and confused by him. How had he kept this secret from her for so many years?
“I couldn’t find it, obviously,” he said. “But it’s not as though I knew those tunnels inside and out. And I got distracted when I was at the White Oak Lodge, obviously. I didn’t know which way was up, most days, when I was falling in love with you.”
Francesca fell into him, drawing his body into hers and closing her eyes. She didn’t believe in any such Whitmore treasure, couldn’t fathom it beneath the soil of the White Oak Lodge. But if the rumor of that treasure had brought Jefferson Albright into her life, she was grateful for it. It had delivered her a second chance at a different life.
Chapter Twenty
Present Day
It was mid-October when Francesca entered the hospital in Nantucket for surgery. True to his word, Benjamin held her hand at her bedside and spoke sweetly to her before the anesthesiologist came in. He kissed her palm and told her he’d see her on the other side of this.A third chance at love?Francesca thought as Benjamin shaded to black before her, as the drugs took over and plunged her into darkness.
When she woke up post-surgery, Benjamin was there beside her again, his eyes filled with tears, but his firm hand over hers. The surgeon, a woman named Bethany Sutton, came in shortly after that to tell Francesca that the surgery had gone exactly as they’d planned and that they would be in contact regarding her upcoming chemotherapy sessions. “We’re going to beat this thing,” Bethany said, using the “we” in a way that so many Americans did. But Francesca was thrilled to be back in the United States, back with her family, back on an islandshe’d called home so long ago. Her life was big and long and complicated and wonderful.
A little while after she woke up, the rest of her family came in: Allegra and Lorelei, weeping and smiling and yelling at their mother for not telling them about her cancer; Nina and her children Will and Fiona, both of whom had made Francesca “get well soon” cards; Charlotte; Alexander and his three children, who looked frightened for her but said all the right things, as polite children always do. Through it all, Benjamin sat beside her, holding her hand and smiling at their children. Where is Jack? She wanted to ask all of them. Why hasn’t someone gone out and found Jack yet?
Two days after her surgery, Francesca was cleared to go home. Benjamin drove her back to the rental she shared with Allegra and Lorelei and set her up in the bedroom downstairs. Allegra made a bunch of food that Francesca felt too sick to eat, which distressed Allegra a great deal. They’d never seen their mother turn down a meal before, certainly not an Italian meal. Francesca promised them she’d be better soon. “It’ll be a long road,” she said. “But I’m not done living yet.”
It was because of her children and her first husband that she pushed herself to keep going.
Benjamin was careful never to overstep, which was something Francesca appreciated. But on the third day after she’d returned to the rental, she asked him to lie on the bed with her and talk to her for a little while. “I want to hear a story,” she said. Her lips were cracked, and she needed water desperately. He saw that and brought her water to her before lying on the bed as she’d told him to.
“I want to tell you a story about the mid-2000s,” he began tentatively, lacing his fingers through hers. Often, he checked her expression for signs that he was overstepping. She wanted to tell him that he couldn’t possibly overstep. That her body feltsafe when he was there. This was a rarity in this life. She’d lived long enough to know.
“I’d been hiding from my life and from reality for many years at that point,” Benjamin went on. “But I managed to get a fake passport. I had this idea that I would move somewhere like Thailand and never look back. But against my better judgment, I decided to go to Italy first. I thought maybe history could repeat itself. I thought maybe, against all odds, I could get you back.”
Francesca’s breath caught in her throat. “You didn’t,” she said.
“I did,” Benjamin said. “I still remembered exactly where your parents lived, so I went there first, hoping I’d be able to find you in the vicinity. I couldn’t have imagined that you were living right next door.”
Francesca felt heat flash across her neck.He found me, she thought, incredulous.
