Forever yours,
Jo
Ocean’s heart almost stopped. A man was standing there.
He leaned on an ivory-handled cane like it was part of him. His vest was deep red with dark brass buttons, a silver chain running across to a watch pocket. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, showing muscular forearms.
He was definitely a cool-looking dude. A scar over one eyebrow, his nose a little crooked, stubble shadowing his jaw. And his eyes. Gray, sharp, impossible to look away from. It felt like they saw straight through her.
“Wow,” she whispered. “You’re Henry Stewart.”
Henry inclined his head, voice quiet but steady. “Miss, you honor me in reading Jo’s words.”
He let the silence rest for a heartbeat before continuing, softer now. “But it hurts to think Jo suffers still because of that family nonsense. It was never her fault. I never for a moment thought it was. Whatever harshness her family showed me, it was not of her making. It was she I loved and only she. I loved her then, and I love her now. Not a day passes that I do not stand by the window, looking across the street, hoping for the lift of a curtain, the glimpse of a shadow. Anything to believe it is Jo, walking so near to me once more.”
Ocean’s mind scrambled for something to say. Anything. She didn’t dare stand, afraid that if she moved too suddenly, he might vanish. He was here. Really here. Talking to her.
* * *
“I would be honored if you brought my beloved’s letters to me,” Henry said, his voice low and deliberate. “And if it’s not too much to ask, perhaps you could do the same for me. I’d be very much obliged if you would carry my words back to her.”
“Of course!” Ocean said quickly, nodding. “Of course, I’ll do that.”
Her eyes flicked toward the door that led up to Arthur’s apartment. Her mom was standing there, watching her with a puzzled expression.
“Who are you talking to, sweetheart?” Skye asked.
Ocean shrugged, like the answer was obvious. “Henry Stewart. Who else?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Skye
* * *
My phone sat face-down on the bedside table, ringer off. I still couldn’t bring myself to tuck it away in a drawer the way normal people did.
Years of habit, I guess. Years of being the one on the far side of the country from Clare, of being the mother of a teenager who might need me at midnight, of living with Rhys’s life on ever-changing audition schedules and late-night ‘networking’. I’d trained myself to always be reachable, as if the world might collapse if I didn’t. It was ridiculous, maybe, but silence never lasted long in my life, and the phone had become proof that I could be summoned at any time. Proof that I hadn’t stopped being useful.
When the text lit up the screen early Saturday morning, for once it wasn’t from anyone I owed an immediate response. Still, the name jolted me fully awake. The strange woman I’d caught prowling through the barn as if she had a right to be in there.
Elara Vance here...
She was an early riser.
I should’ve flipped the phone face down again, buried my head in the pillow, pretended I never saw it. That would have been the sensible thing. But the message stretched on, and it occurred to me that she must have written it out in advance before pasting it into the text.
Words and lines strung together like bait on a hook. Too long to ignore, too pointed not to wonder about. Against my better judgment, curiosity slipped in and made itself at home.
The message tumbled out like a confession. Apology stacked on apology, sorry piled on sorry until the words blurred together. She’d gotten my number from the real estate agent, she explained, just so she could say it all directly. No hidden agenda, at least not on the surface.
The editor in me couldn’t help counting. How many times had she apologized in this one text? I read to the end, braced for the inevitable ask, the favor that usually came wrapped in contrition. But it never arrived. Just a single, almost disarming request—forgiveness for her intrusion.
I stared at the screen and read it again. Her words prodded me for my shortness with her, and my thoughts wandered to the barn. All that furniture still sitting there. I hadn’t had the time to deal with any of it.
“What could it hurt?” I whispered to the empty room. My fingers moved almost on their own as I typed out a reply.
If you want to come by this afternoon, we can walk through the barn together. You can tell me which piece you’d like to buy.
