Filed To Story: The Things We Leave Unfinished Novel Free
“I think so, too,” Noah agreed, his voice going rough. “And I’ll put it back if you want me to. We were looking for anything that might identify it, and it was right there…like it was waiting to be found, engraving and all. The team I hired said they’d never seen anything like it.”
My fingers closed over the band. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sure you’re getting a call this week. American. British. I’m not sure who at this point.” He swallowed. “That wasn’t the only reason I went to England. I know this might piss you off, and I don’t have any proof, but I don’t think…” He shook his head, then took a deep breath and started again. “I think the book-our book-was written by two separate people.”
“That’s because it was.” I smiled slowly, feeling the heavy metal of the wedding band against my palm.
Noah’s eyes widened and his lips parted.
“The oldest pages-the unedited original ones, were written by Scarlett during the war.” I swallowed. “And the newer ones, the edits and additions…those were all made by-“
“Constance,” he guessed.
I nodded. “How did you know? I didn’t until about six weeks ago.” What had he seen that I hadn’t?
“The book tipped me off. I wouldn’t have figured it out if our book had been the last one she’d written…and not the first. Then, it was the marriage license. She told Damian it took her years to remarry because it didn’t feel like her first marriage was over, which was easily interpreted that she was still in love with Jameson…until I found the death certificate for Henry Wadsworth and the years matched up. It wasn’t enough-just a hunch, and I didn’t want to shatter your trust in her without having a damn good reason, but I decided to stop digging before anyone noticed.”
“Gran-Constance told me. She wrote it all down the year before she died and had it delivered. Once I read it, I called you, but you were already gone, so I called Adam.”
“And changed the end of the book.”
I nodded.
“Because you love me.” His eyes searched mine.
“Because I love you, Noah. And because Gran had her happy ending in real life. She fought for it. She didn’t need you to craft it for her-she’d already earned it, already lived it. You gave Scarlett and Jameson the story they deserved. The crash, the evasion, the Dutch Resistance-all of it. You finished a story that fate had wrongfully cut short. Gran…she couldn’t do that. She left it unfinished because she couldn’t let them go-couldn’t let Scarlett go. You set them free.”
He cradled my face in his hands. “I would have done it for you. Would have given you whatever you wanted no matter what anyone else thought.”
“I know,” I whispered. “Because you love me.”
“Because I love you, Georgia, and I’m done living without you. Please don’t make me.”
I wound my arms around his neck and arched to brush my lips across his. “Colorado or New York?”
“Autumn in New York. August and September, at least.” He smiled against my mouth. “Colorado winter, spring, and summer.”
“For the leaves?” I guessed, nipping his lower lip gently.
“For the Mets.”
“Deal.”
August 1944
Poplar Grove, Colorado
“Be careful around the steps, love,” Scarlett said to William as he toddled along the edge of the newly finished gazebo, his hands gripping the individual spokes of the railing as he went.
He grinned over his shoulder and kept going.
She abandoned the record she’d selected and rushed across the floor, scooping him into her arms just before he reached the stairs. “You’re going to be the death of me, William Stanton.”
William giggled, and she blew a kiss into his neck, then shifted him to her hip as she walked back to the phonograph. The fall breeze rippled her dress, and she tucked her hair to the side to keep it out of William’s grasp. The strands were longer now, falling midway down her back, her own personal calendar for how long it had been since she’d kissed Jameson goodbye in Ipswich.
Two years, and no word…but no remains, either, so she held on to hope and the spark of certainty that flared to life in her chest when she thought of him. He was alive. She knew it. She wasn’t sure where or how, but he was. He had to be.
“Which one should we listen to, poppet?” she asked their son, setting him down in front of the small collection of records on the table. He picked one at random, and she put it on. “Glenn Miller. Excellent choice.”
“Apples!”
“Right you are.” The sound of The Glenn Miller Orchestra filled the space as she led William to the blanket she’d spread out on the far end. They snacked on apples and cheese-she wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to how much food was available here in the States, but she wasn’t complaining. They were lucky.
There were no air-raid sirens. No bombs. No boards to plot. No blackouts. They were safe. William was safe.
She prayed every night that both Jameson and Constance would be, too. Her fingers brushed over the small scar on her palm, thinking of its match in England. Had the cut above her sister’s eye scarred over, too? She’d been bleeding when she forced them onto the plane that day the bombs had blasted them out of the street in Ipswich, barely sparing the three of them.
She’d packed up two new dresses for her sister yesterday and shipped them off. It had been nearly a year since Henry had slipped on the staircase and broken his fool neck, and according to her last letter, she’d met a handsome American GI who was serving in the Army Veterinary Corp.
William lay down on the blanket, and Scarlett ran her hands through his thick, dark hair as he drifted into an afternoon nap, his lips parting in sleep just like Jameson’s. When she was certain he was out, she untangled herself carefully, then made her way back to the record player.
She knew she’d pay for the indulgence later, that she’d miss him even more, but she changed out the record for Ella Fitzgerald anyway. Her heart stuttered as the familiar song began to play, and for that moment, she wasn’t in the middle of the Colorado Rockies, and those weren’t golden aspen leaves swaying in the mountain breeze all around them-no, those were the tips of long summer grass in an overgrown field just outside Middle Wallop.
She closed her eyes and swayed, allowing herself one moment to imagine he was there, holding out his hand as he asked her to dance.
“Need a partner?”
She gasped softly, her eyes flying open at the sound of the voice she’d know anywhere. The voice she’d only heard in her dreams for the last two years. But there was only the phonograph before her, William asleep on the floor beside her, and the rush of the creek as it bent around them.
“Scarlett,” he said again.
Behind her.
She spun, her dress whipping against her legs in the breeze, and quickly tugged her hair out of her eyes to clear her field of vision.
Jameson filled the entrance to the gazebo, leaning against the support beam, his hat tucked under his arm, his uniform new but travel-worn, no longer RAF, but United States Army Air Force. His smile widened as their eyes locked.
“Jameson,” she whispered, her hands flying to her mouth. Was she dreaming? Would she wake before she could touch him? Tears pricked at her eyes as her heart warred with logic.
“No, baby, no.” Jameson strode across the space, his hat falling to the deck below. “God, don’t cry.” He cradled her face in his hands, wiping the tears away with his thumbs.
His hands were warm. Solid. Real.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.