Page 45 of Key West Homecoming

Jake ran a hand through his hair and left it pushed back from his forehead.

For a while, he didn’t look at her.

Emma let him have the silence. She remembered sitting at her desk in Chicago after Samantha’s call and feeling as though the facts of her own life had shifted while she wasn’t paying attention. She suspected Jake was feeling something similar now.

Finally, he looked at her.

“So what happens now?”

“My lawyer is filing papers this morning to stop the sale. After that, she’ll challenge what happened in probate and start looking at everything Arthur did with the property.”

“You think you can get the cottage back?”

“I think I have a real chance.”

Jake nodded slowly.

“And Arthur?”

“That depends on what they find.”

He picked up his mug again but didn’t drink from it.

Emma looked at the porch around them. She’d come to Key West believing Arthur had stolen something from her. Now she understood that his choices had reached much farther than that.

“There’s something else you need to know,” she said.

Jake waited.

“My lawyer considers you an important witness. She’ll probably want to talk to you and see the original letter. She may ask you for copies of your rent checks or your lease.”

“That’s fine.”

“I also told her I trust you.”

His eyes lifted to hers.

Emma hadn’t planned to tell him that part, but now that she had, she didn’t regret it.

“You do?” he asked.

“I do.”

Jake looked down at the coffee in his hands.

For the first time since she’d arrived, some of the tension left his face.

“You knew some of this yesterday?” he asked.

“Some of it, but not enough. I wanted to tell you, Jake. I just wasn’t going to come here with suspicions and turn your life upside down until I knew what was real.”

“Fair enough.”

“I promised I’d come back when I knew more.”

“You did.”

“And now you know what I know.”