“These are their baby portraits,” she said. “So, this necklace must have belonged to Amelia Bushrod.”
“Okay, wait.” He closed his eyes to see the family tree. “Great-great?”
She nodded. “The wife of Thaddeus Jr. and daughter-in-law of Big Bad Thad himself. The woman who built Gloriana House and named it for…” She tapped one side of the locket. “This little lady right here. Her first-born.”
“Wow. That’s something.”
Leaning back, she sighed, pressing the locket to her chest. “Oh, Dec.”
He tried to read her expression, surprised to see it so sad after such a great find. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t sell this house,” she whispered. “There’s so much history and so many treasures. Who knows what else is hidden in the walls?”
“All kinds of pieces of your family.”
She nodded, her mouth turned down. “My mother never really cared or connected, you know? It was Grandmama’s house, and my mom and my dad lived here because…” She gave a soft laugh. “I don’t even know why. Convenience and habit and because it’s huge.”
“And your dad really doesn’t want to keep it, if only for posterity?”
“He only wants to make my mother happy, and she wants to live on a boat and paint sunsets. When I talked to her this morning, she couldn’t have been more overjoyed by the prospect of a multimillion-dollar payout and no giant house to maintain.”
She stared at the locket for a long time, her chest rising and falling with slow breaths. “But this family is so special,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “And this house…”
“Is special, also.”
She glanced up at him, looking a little surprised he would say that. “It’s such a shame to…”
“Sell the house?” he guessed.
She looked up from the locket into his eyes, a storm brewing. “Would you really…” She took another breath, searching his face.
“Would I what?”
“Would you…”
He closed his hand over hers when she didn’t finish. What did she want? Some work on the house or…something more permanent? Something that he woke up ten times in the middle of the night thinking about?
He took a breath and added some pressure on her hand. “Look, I know it might be hard to believe because a lot of time has passed, but, Evie, ask me what you want me to do. I can’t ever say no to you.”
She looked down at their joined hands. “You told me that once, you know.”
He knew. He remembered. Declan’s promise. A list of promises he smashed to kingdom come literally less than an hour after he made it.
“So go ahead, ask me.”
A vein pulsed in her throat as her chest rose and fell with another breath.
“Would you…” She popped off the stairs and pointed to the chandelier. “Go up to the attic and find the winch to lower that so I can clean that monster?” she asked, rushing the question as if she couldn’t get it out fast enough.
That was what was causing her so much visible stress? Somehow, he doubted it. “Sure.”
“And will you really fix the window sashes and also nail down the floorboards and maybe help me paint?” Again, she asked quickly, like she didn’t want time to change her mind.
“That’s why I’m here.” One of the reasons, anyway. “Are you trying to drive the price up even further?”
“I want to honor the house, Declan. I want to return it to its original beauty. I want to do that for my grandmother and great-grandmother and…” She pressed the locket to her chest. “My great-great-grandmother who built it. The least I can do is fix Gloriana House.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, standing up to get close to her. “Of course I’ll help you, and what I can’t do, I’ll help you find someone who can.”
She turned to him, only then realizing they were inches apart. “I know this isn’t your favorite place to spend time.”
“But you are one of my favorite people to spend time with.” He felt his lips lift in a smile that mirrored hers.
“Really?”
“Some things don’t change, E.”
“But…” She held his gaze, slicing him wide open with those cut-crystal eyes. “Then why did you freeze me out, Dec?”
There it was. The question he’d known was coming. And he didn’t have a good answer, not one worthy of this fine woman. “Because I’m an idiot.”
She gave him a look that said she thought the explanation was as lame as he did.
His heart hammering, he lifted his hand to her hair, stroking the near-black silk as he held her gaze. Then he slipped his fingers under her hair, grazing her neck, easing her a little closer.
“Evie?”
“Yes?”
He heard the breathlessness in the word, the need for him to give her a better reason than I was a mess living in an emotional hole as dark and dank as a basement in an old house.
“Oh wait.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone, reading the screen. “Vestal Valley approved me to do Judah’s surgery on Saturday.”
“That’s awesome.”
She nodded, stepping back, out of his touch. “Let’s take it one day at a time, Dec. We both need…time.”
After twenty years? He didn’t really need any more time, but maybe she did. Time and a hell of a better explanation.
She held up the locket and let it dangle between them. “We’ve already found a treasure. Who knows what else could happen?”
He knew. He knew exactly what could happen. If he could apologize for shutting her out for twenty years and be man enough to explain why.
And if that wasn’t incentive enough, he didn’t know what was.
Chapter Eleven
Evie couldn’t help letting him off the hook. Sometimes, all you can do for an animal in pain is let them curl into a ball and ride it out. She could sense
