“Before she left...” He realized he should clarify. “I mean the one I want. Not my ex-wife.”
Winona’s smile turned serene. “I know what you mean.”
Did she? He really had no idea. But in this quiet, bright little room, just Winona and him, alone, well, it seemed like the right choice to take her at her word. “I started to tell her how I really feel for her. I wanted to let her know what’s in my heart...”
Winona said nothing. She waited for him to finish.
He did. “Because I love her.”
“But youdidn’ttell her?”
“No.”
“You changed your mind?”
He shook his head. “She wouldn’t let me say it—and I let her stop me. I shouldn’t have let her do that. I should’ve said it anyway.”
Winona touched his curled-up fingertips again, and he relaxed them until they opened as before. “Timing matters,” she said. “That might seem wrong. It might even seem unfair. But sometimes, there’s no point in saying your love out loud if the one you love can’t hear you yet.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Winona lifted one narrow shoulder in a tiny shrug. “Think on it.”
“I will.” He stared into the old woman’s eyes. And the truth just popped out. “It’s Vanessa. I’m in love with Vanessa.” There. Finally. He’d said it. And it felt damn good to say it, so he said it again. “I love your great-granddaughter.”
Winona granted him an angel’s smile. “Yes. I know.”
Huh? That made no sense at all. “I don’t understand. Vanessa said she didn’t want her family to know about us. I’m surprised that she told you.”
“She didn’t. Vanessa never said a word. But I have spent many years watching and learning. Sometimes the secrets of the heart are open to me. I simplyknowthings—secret things, the things we all try to hide about ourselves. That first time I met you, at the barbecue on Independence Day, I knew then that you were already falling in love with my great-granddaughter. And the moment I looked in your blue eyes today, Jameson, I knew that it had happened, that youarein love with Vanessa.”
He had no idea what to say to that. Maybe no words were necessary. After all, Winona clearly had him pegged.
She said, “Sometimes I know the deepest secrets, the ones in people’s hearts, the ones they haven’t even shared with themselves. For instance, Vanessa...”
He leaned in, eager for anything the old woman might share. “Yes, what? Tell me.”
Winona lowered her voice to a whisper. “Vanessa’s been hurt. Love hasn’t been kind to her.”
“I know that. She told me.”
“She told you because, deep in her wounded heart, shedoestrust you. And she’s hiding the truth from herself. But that doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Whoa. Slow down a second there. What truth are you talking about?”
“Why, that she’s in love with you, too.”
Should that news have surprised him? It didn’t. He believed that Vanessa loved him—and that loving him scared the hell out of her. What he needed to do next to get through to her, that was the real question.
“And you must be patient,” Winona said.
“Yeah,” he replied glumly. “You mentioned that already.”
“Patient and available, too.”
“Oh, come on, Winona. How can I be available when she’s already dumped me?”
“Find your opportunities. She misses you.”
