“But it’s not this. And going somewhere because you should versus because it’s what you want really?—”
“Stop,” he says. “Right the hell there, Rue.” He steps directly in front of me and grips my face with his hands until my lips pucker. “I’ve spent the last eight years trying to be what you told me I wasn’t when you told me to leave.”
“I—”
“I did a lot of missing you and growing up because of it.” I can’t make a noise through the too-tight lock his hands have on my face. “And I’d rather be with you—and Bennie—in whatever town you want me in and doing whatever job there is there—more than anything else. Got it?”
I nod, falling a little more for him on this busy street.
He kisses my mouth, hard, before dropping his hands. “It’ll take me a little time to figure it out—I have a business—but I will figure it out. I will be with you and Bennie. Okay?”
“Savannah and St. Augustine?” I ask, recalling the meetings in those cities for new locations in the coming weeks.
“I’ll figure it out.”
I hate how vague that answer is, but I believe him. Body and soul. It’s not a mapped-out answer like Jonathan would have given me, but there’s also a reason I’m standing here with Nash and not him. “Okay.”
He grins, kisses me once again, then grabs my hand, neither of us saying another word until we’re on the familiar street in front of the familiar house.
“Why that face?” Nash asks, looking from the vine-covered stone wall of the house to me.
“Cap,” I say, recalling how it all happened on that first day in front of this yellow house with its black shutters and historically preserved trim details. “This is the house we were in front of on your tour when he made me ask you if you knew about Anson Burns.”
“Coincidence?”
I don’t think anything with that man is a coincidence.
“We need to find the bench. If this is the house Anson bought and the bench means what I think it does, we need a peek into the backyard.”
The wall is too tall for us to see over. Nash looks around a side.
“Fence down here,” he says. “We can at least see into the backyard.”
At the fence, my heart sinks.
Twenty-five years ago, this backyard may have been an overgrown jungle with an old stone bench that I’d bet the whole cache of gold was above the whole cache of gold, but today it’s a slab of concrete dotted with palm trees surrounding a modern swimming pool.
Nash’s eyes meet mine, and like I can’t seem to avoid doing today, I start to cry.
Like every other spot we’ve been, it’s not here either.
Fifty-One
“You bring Penny?” Cap asks when I trudge into his room.
“Did you one better.” I unwrap the treat before handing it to him.
His chuckle rattles in his lungs then he takes a bite of the ice cream sandwich. “Not as good as Penny, but it’ll do.”
I settle into the chair next to him and we eat in silence.
“Where’s Nash?”
“Returning a few calls for work.”
He grunts and takes another bite. “What’d you find?”
“Nothing.” I sigh. “Entire yard was covered in concrete. You know to look there?” My brows raise; his too. “Don’t think I didn’t notice it was the same house you made me ask Nash about the letter on that tour.”
