Dear Rebecca,
I’m sorry I’ve not been around the distillery much the last few days. I need to talk to you, alone.
D
Emerson looked at the envelopes…there was no address on them. Just her mother’s name. Whoever had sent them had either handed them to her or popped them in her mailbox. Perhaps they were from a first love.
How she wished her mom was with her now, so she could ask her how to handle her heart, which felt as though it had been macerated.
She pulled another envelope. When she opened the letter inside, small pieces of paper fluttered to the ground like confetti from within.
Rebecca,
I need to go away. I can’t imagine being here every day and seeing you as I have for the past few months. I can’t sit here and watch you and Paul go on about your lives as if I meant nothing to you. And I hate that you thought so little of me that you felt the need to share this with Paul.
If you had given me time, if you had given me the opportunity, I would have willingly shown you how good we could have been together. The kind of life we could have had. I would have given you the world, because I love you.
How can you say we wouldn’t have been good together? You never gave us a chance. If we had met before you saw Paul, who is to say what might have happened? And how can you be so sure of a man you have known mere months?
I have torn up the check you sent me. Do you really think this was about the money? I invested that money in the distillery for us. For you and me. Do you think I want it back if I can’t have you? You insult both of us by returning it. Keep it, burn it, pay for your goddamn wedding with it. I don’t want it back.
Paul will never be the man for you. He lacks ambition. He lacks the drive to turn the business into anything other than a petty enterprise. So, keep the money. It will not do anything for Paul, just like he won’t do anything for you.
It was never about the money. It was always about you.
D
So, there had been another investor.
Emerson began to gather the torn pieces of paper together on the desk. Like a good jigsaw puzzle, she looked for the corners, for the straight edges. She gathered anything with writing on it…the bank logo, the lines of the check, her mother’s handwriting.
The light was fading outside the window, and Emerson clicked on the desk lamp. The amount came together quickly: ten thousand dollars. The date came next, mere days before the official opening of the distillery.
Days.
She put her mother’s signature together and the amount written in words.
And finally, the name.
Donovan Finch.
Emerson reached blindly behind her for her father’s chair and slumped into it. For whatever reason, Donovan Finch had been there at the beginning. She had no idea how her father and Donovan knew each other, but they had. And from the check, they had all gone into the distillery together.
She wondered if it were possible to go back to the very first bank records for the business. Ten thousand dollars, while a lot of money, was not enough to renovate an entire building. Even allowing for inflation, it would only be worth a little over twenty-five thousand dollars. Perhaps he’d wanted a minor share.
Perhaps her father had invited a friend along on his venture.
Emerson pressed against her temples with her fingertips. Her brain was going to explode.
Connor had been right about one thing in that document. His father had been involved. And if that was what was fueling the consideration to acquire the distillery, she had a modicum of sympathy for Donovan.
But to continue a grudge over thirty years was messed up.
Either way, she had it in writing from Donovan that the distillery was to keep the money.
And she had no intention of handing over any part of the distillery in return.
Connor peered one last time through Emerson’s living room window before climbing back into his car.
Two stupid hours he’d spent, trying to do the right thing before he left work, only to find a bigger mess waiting for him outside. Whatever Emerson had seen, whatever she thought she knew, needed discussing. He needed to apologize and come clean. And he needed for her to see things as they were.
That he was madly in love with her.
Whatever had happened in the past was the past.
He’d driven home after his altercation with his father, deciding to check there first. He’d given Emerson his spare key to let herself in before they went out to dinner on Saturday, on the off chance he was out, and she hadn’t returned it. Given his condo was on his way out of town, it made sense to check there first.
He’d debated where to look next. He’d tried her phone a couple more times and messaged.
When she hadn’t gotten back to him, he’d driven over to the distillery. Olivia had told him that Emerson had left for home due to a headache. From the cheery greeting, Emerson hadn’t told Olivia anything about her message to him. And he didn’t want to borrow trouble by asking.
Instead, he’d driven over to her house. And here he was now, like a fucking peeping Tom, peering in through her windows even though her car wasn’t in the driveway and there wasn’t a single light on inside the place.
Although, if she had a headache, perhaps she’d taken a car service home, or perhaps Jake had dropped her off. The lights would be off if she had a headache, right?
He tried her cellphone one more time, not surprised when it went into voicemail again. What if she were really sick? What if she were asleep? Either way, he should be with her, taking care of her, with or without the bomb that had exploded
