Page 43 of Key West Homecoming

Emma took that as a good sign.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“Very well.”

“You have a lawyer?”

“As of this morning.”

Jake studied her. “You look different.”

“Different how?”

“Like you slept.”

Emma smiled. “I did, actually.”

“Come sit down.”

She climbed the steps and took the wicker chair she’d used the day before. Yesterday’s beer bottles were gone, and the porch had been swept again.

Emma was beginning to notice that nothing around Jake stayed neglected for long.

He remained on the step with his coffee while she set her legal pad on her lap.

Emma had spent part of the morning deciding how much to tell him. Rachel had made the answer simple. Jake was involved whether Emma liked it or not, and he deserved to understand why.

“My grandmother left me this cottage,” she said. “There’s a later will in the county records that says so.”

Jake didn’t move.

“It was signed two years before she died. My uncle either didn’t know about it or chose not to tell anyone about it. When my grandmother died, he took an older will through probate. Under that one, everything went to him.”

Jake lowered his mug slightly.

“So he owns the house?”

“That’s what the probate records say right now. The problem is that the later will says something different.”

“And that one gives the cottage to you.”

“Yes.”

Emma watched him take that in.

The cottage was quiet around them. A breeze had finally started moving through the yard, stirring the leaves of the key lime tree beside the steps.

“My uncle told me the cottage was in terrible condition,” she continued. “He said there was nothing here worth dealing with and that eventually it would probably have to be sold for the land.”

Jake looked toward the porch railing he’d painted.

Emma followed his eyes.

“I know,” she said. “I believed him.”

“You hadn’t seen it?”

“Not in years.”