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Rachel went still. Then her whole face came undone—bright, helpless, no recovery this time.

“I thought you might not want to be vocal about that,” she said.

“I won’t stop telling you. Ever.”

“Good.” She picked her coffee back up, eyes bright over the rim of it. “Let’s go somewhere private where I can tell you just how much I love you.”

He didn’t need telling twice.

Chapter 14

Epilogue

They arrived in Keenan’s truck, which was just big enough for four adults and a weekend’s worth of luggage, and Keenan said it was character-building, and Poppy said it was cozy, and Jaxon said nothing because Jaxon apparently communicated primarily through his eyebrows, which was a system Rachel was still learning.

She’d been warned. Keith had spent the drive from Aspen Street doing what she’d come to understand was his version of a briefing: measured, factual, delivered without apparent emotion. Keenan is my brother—loud when he’s happy. His fiancée Poppy will ask you things other people only think. Kara’s my twin. Jaxon is hers—he’s fine, just give him a minute. She’d listened and filed it and thought she was ready.

She was mostly ready.

“This is it?” Keenan stood on the sidewalk in front of the Morrison place and looked at it with the frank appraisal of a man who’d spent his working life in trees. He was tall—taller than she’d expected, broader through the shoulders—and there was little similarity between the brothers. Keenan strolled off, more interested in the trees on the property than the house itself.

Jaxon, Kara’s fiancé, stared at the house. “Huh.”

“Huh good or huh bad?” Rachel asked. Jaxon was a contractor, so Rachel really wanted to know what he made of their purchase.

“Huh undecided.” He tipped his head at the porch. “That fascia board’s going.”

“I know.”

“And the gutters on the east side.”

“I know.”

“And someone at some point made a decision about that paint color that I’d like to understand.”

“Jaxon,” Kara said, from somewhere behind Rachel’s shoulder. Kara had Keith’s colors and a similar build. There was no doubt she was his sister.

Jaxon stopped. Looked at Rachel. Looked at the house. Then he looked at Keith, who was standing to Rachel’s left with his hands in his pockets, watching the exchange, very still, waiting to see how it went.

“Okay,” Jaxon said. “I can see it.”

“I thought you might,” Keith said.

Jaxon went through the whole house with his arms crossed, scanning the construction, pausing occasionally to look at a wall joint or a ceiling fixture with professional displeasure. At the exit, he said: “Bones are good. The rest is going to hurt.” Rachel took a strong liking to him.

Poppy looked up from the porch railing she’d been inspecting. “Is it true that the house came with a stipulation? That you have to be happy?”

“Not a legal stipulation,” Keith said.

“But essentially.”

“The man with the walker,” Rachel said. “Turns out that was Morrison himself. He told his daughter he’d found his people—he’s ninety-three, lives two blocks away, been waiting since his wife died to find the right people for the house. The daughter called the realtor. The realtor called Keith.” Rachel paused. “So. Essentially.”

Poppy looked at the house for a moment, then at both of them. “That’s a tall order.”

“We’re working on it,” Rachel said, and kissed Keith in front of all of them.

***