God’s plan for Tessa certainly wasn’t what anyone expected, but wasn’t that His greatest trick? The fun-loving dynamo who’d spent her life in search of the ever-elusive high of a good timehad finally fallen into the arms of a man who’d once been an equally untethered teenager.
Now, more than thirty years later, both of them were grounded, loving, settled, and ready to be first-time parents to an adopted daughter.
Eli chuckled to himself, always in awe of the way his Father took the most unlikely people and guided them in His will. He squinted toward the sky, silently praying for Tessa and Dusty and thanking God for this day and this life…even if it wasn’t going quite the way he wanted.
Nodding at an electrician setting up a speaker, Eli ventured down the boardwalk to the sand, mulling the fact that he and Kate had barely talked since he came back from Atlanta. They were quite cordial when others were around—she congratulated Meredith on the win over Vance and continued to shower Atlas with her love.
He tried to be “normal,” trusting that he and Kate weren’t the types to turn their heartache into household drama. He didn’t know how well she’d handled their breakup, but he sure felt an ache all week long.
Holding his coffee, he slipped past a florist weaving baby’s breath over the railing and let his bare feet hit the sand. His mind drifted back to last night, after an impromptu “rehearsal” dinner, when he and Kate found themselves alone for a few moments in the kitchen. The distance and tension was so real and so sad.
He had no idea how that would unfold later today when Kate stood next to her sister and he sat in the front row watching the nuptials.
“Eli?”
He turned to find Emma hustling toward him, sidestepping the electrician as she rushed closer. Her strawberry-blond hairswung free, still damp from a shower, and she wore shorts and a T-shirt she’d change out of later.
She was clutching something against her chest.
“Talk to you?” she called.
“Sure.” He waited for her, taking in the determined set of her jaw, which, of course, reminded him of her mother. “Walk with me?” he suggested.
“Yeah, yeah.” She popped onto the sand, also barefoot, still grasping what looked like a notebook. “Before everything starts and everyone’s around and I can’t get you alone,” she added as she joined him.
“Okay.” He took a sip of cooled coffee and studied her over the rim. “What’s going on?”
She held out the book. “I found this on Mom’s nightstand. It’s one of Vivien’s diaries from a hundred years ago.”
“A hundred?” He laughed. “That makes me feel old. How’d it end up in your room?”
“I don’t know,” she said, glancing at the spiral-bound notebook. “But no one said these were secret diaries, so I hope I don’t get in trouble for reading one. Aunt Vivien was seventeen when she wrote this.”
He nodded. That would have been…1994, he figured after some quick math.
“It’s so cool that she still has them,” she said.
“I found a box of those diaries when we demo’d the original cottage,” he told her. “How they ended up in the rafters of the garage, I’ll never know, but I gave them to Vivien as their rightful owner. No one will be mad that you read it. Your Aunt Tessa has treated us to a few hilarious readings this summer.”
“It not all hilarious,” Emma said, her voice serious. “Some of it is kind of sad. And some, a little…prophetic.”
He threw her a look, fighting a smile. “Prophetic?”
“Not like the Bible prophetic,” she replied with a laugh. “But…I don’t know. I guess history does repeat itself.”
He slowed his step, mostly at the tone in her voice. “How so?”
She flipped open to lined journal pages, filled with feminine handwriting. “May I?”
“Doesn’t seem like anyone’s going to stop you,” he teased.
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head and taking his coffee cup, replacing it with the notebook. “You read it.”
“The whole thing?”
“This page. This entry. Right here.” She pointed to handwritten words. “Out loud, so I can hear it.”
He gave a soft laugh and played along, holding the book a few inches away since he didn’t have reading glasses with him.
