Chapter Seventeen
What We Find When We’re Lost
They’d been searching for so long. Eva’s voice was completely gone, reduced to a whispered rasp. Charlie wasn’t even calling anymore—just walking with grim determination, checking every shadow, every doorway, every possible place a spaniel might hide.
The Christmas market was closing down, vendors packing up their wares, and several had joined the search after hearing about the missing dog. “We’ll keep an eye out,” they promised, but Eva could see that even they thought it was hopeless. Eight hours was too long. Something had happened.
“Maybe we should go back to the inn,” Eva suggested gently. “Check if she’s returned home—”
“She hasn’t.” Charlie’s voice was flat, defeated. “Florence would have called.”
They were standing in The Shambles, where they’d first met over spilled wine that now seemed like a lifetime ago. The narrow street was empty except for a few late tourists taking photos of the crooked buildings.
“Charlie,” Eva said softly. “We need to think differently. Tilly’s smart. If she’s not in any of her usual places, maybe she found somewhere new. Somewhere …” She paused, remembering Tilly’s talent for finding hidden things. “Somewhere only she would think to look.”
Charlie turned to her, a flicker of hope in his exhausted eyes. “Like where?”
“Hidden gardens. Forgotten spaces. The kind of places tourists never find.” Eva pulled out her phone, ignoring the fourteen missed calls from her mother.
“When I was exploring yesterday, I noticed some gates that looked like they led nowhere. Behind shops, between buildings. The kind of places that look abandoned but—”
“But might be perfect for a curious spaniel.” Charlie was already moving. “There’s one off Fossgate. Another behind the old bakery on Gillygate.”
They split up briefly, checking the hidden spaces Eva had noticed during her wanderings. It was Charlie who called out—not Tilly’s name, but Eva’s, his voice cracking with emotion.
Eva ran towards the sound, finding him standing at a gate so overgrown with ivy it was nearly invisible. Through the tangle of dead vines, she could hear it—a familiar bark.
“She’s in there,” Charlie said, his hands shaking as he fought with the rusted latch. “I can’t get it open—”
“Together,” Eva said, adding her hands to his. The gate groaned, protested, then finally swung inward with a shriek of old hinges.
The garden beyond was like something from a storybook Eva had read as a child—tiny and forgotten, surrounded by the backs of buildings that had turned their faces away.
In the centre, next to a stone bench that was more moss than stone, sat Tilly.
Her tail started helicoptering the moment she saw them.
“Tilly!” Charlie crashed to his knees, and the spaniel bounded into his arms, covering his face with kisses.
She was covered in dirt and dead leaves from whatever adventure she’d been on. Twigs stuck out from her fur at odd angles, and her paws were caked with mud that she immediately, generously, shared with Charlie’s coat.
As Tilly covered his face with kisses, Eva noticed something that made her breath catch—tangled in the spaniel’s collar was a small sprig of mistletoe, fresh and green despite the season, as if she’d found the one living piece in the entire forgotten garden and decided to wear it home like a prize.
“You stupid, wonderful, infuriating dog. Don’t you ever—ever—do that again.”
He buried his face in her fur, his shoulders shaking.
Eva realised he was crying—really crying, all the fear and relief and exhaustion of the hours searching poured out.
She knelt beside them, her own eyes burning, one hand on Charlie’s shoulder and the other stroking Tilly’s silky ears, carefully extracting the mistletoe sprig and tucking it into her pocket.
It felt warm against her fingers, like a blessing or a sign—Margaret’s garden offering up one last bit of magic, delivered by a muddy spaniel who knew exactly where they needed to be.
“She’s okay,” Eva whispered. “She’s okay, Charlie.”
“I thought I’d lost her.” His voice was muffled against Tilly’s fur. “I thought she was gone like everything else.”
They stayed like that for several minutes, a small huddle of relief in the forgotten garden. Finally, Charlie lifted his head, wiping his face into his own shoulder to absorb the tears that had involuntarily fallen. His eyes were red, his defences completely shattered.
“Let me get her lead on,” he said, his voice still shaky. He pulled the leash from his pocket, clipping it to Tilly’s collar with hands that trembled slightly. “I’m not taking any chances.”
Tilly, for her part, seemed perfectly content to be leashed, sitting proudly as if she’d accomplished something important by leading them here.
“Eva,” Charlie said, one hand firm on Tilly’s lead. “What I said earlier, about the job, about you leaving—”
“You were scared,” Eva said gently. “And you had just seen me with Aidan, looking at brochures—”
“Looking tempted.” Charlie’s voice was quiet but steady. “And you were, weren’t you? The travel, the writing, the chance to stay in Britain properly.”
Eva took a breath, choosing honesty. “Yes. For about five minutes, I was tempted. On the surface, it sounded like everything a practical version of Eva would have wanted. Security, with a hint of adventure and a ‘real career’.” She met his eyes.
“But I’m not practical Eva anymore. I haven’t been since I followed a mysterious book to York and spilled wine on a grumpy mapmaker.
Plus, I know I can’t trust the lines Aidan spins. You taught me that remember.”
“You didn’t accept?”
“Charlie.” She waited until he was looking at her, really looking.
“I couldn’t accept. How could I help him package history for profit when I’ve seen what real history means?
When I’ve walked these streets with you, heard Margaret’s story, felt the weight of what we’d lose?
” She paused. “When I’ve fallen in love with this place and everyone in it? ”
Charlie studied her face in the dim light filtering through the overgrown garden. “Everyone?”
“Well, Tilly mostly,” Eva said, her heart hammering. “But I suppose her difficult owner has grown on me too.”
Something shifted in Charlie’s expression—a wall coming down, maybe, or a door opening. But before he could respond, Tilly stood and trotted to the bench, her lead pulling taut as she pawed at something beneath it.
“What have you found now?” Charlie asked, keeping a firm grip on the leash as he followed her.
It was Eva who knelt down to investigate what Tilly had been pawing at. Beneath the bench, she pulled out a small metal box, rusted with age. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, was another of Margaret’s notes—this one dated 1994, the writing shakier but still recognisable.
“Read it,” Charlie said quietly, wrapping Tilly’s lead around his hand an extra time.
Eva read aloud, her voice soft in the quiet garden:
“December 1994
I come here when the memories are too heavy. This was where we met in secret, after he could walk again. Where we planned a future that never came to pass.
He asked me to wait for him. Said he’d come back after the war, that we’d have that farm in Pennsylvania, that life we’d dreamed of between hospital walls.
I wish I’d known if he’d have waited for me. If I’d been brave enough to follow him, would he have kept his promise? Or would I have been just another war bride forgotten when real life resumed?
I’ll never know. That’s my penance for choosing safety over love. But sometimes I sit here and pretend he did come back. That I was brave. That love was enough.
MW”
When she finished, Charlie was sitting on the bench where his grandmother had sat for over fifty years, Tilly pressed against his legs, her lead wrapped securely around his hand. The weight of all those visits, all that regret, seemed to settle over the garden like fog.
“She never knew,” Charlie said quietly. “She spent her whole life wondering, and she never knew the truth.”
“What truth?” Eva sat beside him, the cold stone seeping through her jeans.
Charlie reached into his coat with his free hand and pulled out a letter—yellowed with age, the envelope bearing Walter’s time stamp of 1946. “I read Walter’s letter. While Tilly was missing, before I realised she was gone, I finally read it.”
His hand shook slightly as he unfolded it, still keeping Tilly’s lead secure with the other.
“They put him back on the ground, to serve. But he was sent home after being wounded again. Badly this time—lost partial use of his left arm. By the time he could write, months had passed. He didn’t know if she’d waited, if she’d moved on. He was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“That he’d ruin her life. That she’d feel obligated to a damaged soldier who couldn’t even work his family’s farm properly anymore.
So, he wrote to release her.” Charlie’s voice caught.
“He said he loved her too much to make her choose between duty and happiness. That he wanted her to find someone whole, someone who could give her the life she deserved.”
“Oh, Charlie.” Eva felt tears sliding down her cheeks.
“They both chose what they thought was noble,” Charlie said bitterly. “And they both spent the rest of their lives regretting it. He never married—there’s a postscript from his sister, after he died in 1987. She thought Margaret should know that he’d kept her picture by his bed for forty years.”
The silence in the garden was complete, even the distant sounds of York muffled by the surrounding buildings. Eva thought of Margaret coming here for decades, sitting on this bench, wondering. Never knowing that across an ocean, Walter was wondering too.
“All that love,” Eva whispered. “All that time. Wasted because they were too afraid to fight for it.”
“Or too noble,” Charlie said. “Too concerned with doing the right thing to see that the right thing was each other.”
He turned to her then, his eyes intense in the dim light. “Eva, when I saw you with Aidan today, looking at those brochures, I thought—I was so sure you’d choose the practical path. The safe or set path Aidan was paving for you.”
“Like Margaret did?”
“Like everyone does, eventually.” His voice was raw. “My parents chose their careers over me. Sophie chose New York. Even Gran chose duty over love.”
Eva reached for his free hand, lacing their fingers together.
His skin was cold from the December night.
“I’m not basing my decisions on obligation anymore, Charlie.
I’m choosing York. I’m choosing the inn, Florence, mystery tours with Trinkett, and hidden gardens full of history.
” She squeezed his hand. “I’m choosing the cranky mapmaker who shows me hidden angels before singing country music in pubs and loves his dog more than most people love anything. ”
Charlie stared at their joined hands. “Even if the inn closes tomorrow? Even if there’s no magical happy ending?”
“Especially then.” Eva thought of Margaret’s note, of all those decades of wondering. “I’d rather fail at something real than succeed at something that doesn’t matter. I’d rather be here, fighting a losing battle with you, than anywhere else with a fancy title and a corporate credit card.”
Charlie lifted their joined hands, pressing his lips to her knuckles in an old-fashioned gesture that made her heart skip. “You terrify me, Eva Coleman.”
“Good,” she said. “You terrify me too. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe being terrified means it matters.”
Tilly, apparently deciding the emotional moment had gone on long enough, stood and shook herself, then headed purposefully towards the gate, pulling Charlie along.
“I think she’s telling us it’s time to go home,” Charlie said, but he didn’t let go of Eva’s hand, managing to hold on to both her and Tilly’s lead as they walked.
They made their way back through York’s ancient streets, Tilly trotting ahead but frequently checking to make sure they were following, Charlie keeping the lead short.
The Christmas lights reflected in puddles from the afternoon rain, turning the city into something magical despite everything hanging over them.
“Tomorrow’s the deadline,” Eva said as they approached the inn.
“I know.”
“The construction crews were multiplying when I left. Aidan’s confident he’s won.”
“He probably has.” Charlie’s voice was steady, accepting. “But maybe winning isn’t the point. Maybe the point is that we tried. That we didn’t just let it happen without a fight.”
They paused outside the inn, looking up at its crooked Tudor frame, its windows glowing warmly against the night. Tomorrow it might belong to Aidan’s company, destined for conversion into soulless luxury flats. But, tonight, it was still theirs—still home.
“Whatever happens tomorrow,” Eva said, “I want you to know that I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you want me to.”
Charlie turned to her, something vulnerable and hopeful in his expression. “What if I never want you to?”
“Then I guess I’m staying,” Eva said simply. “At least for the time being. Not for forever. But for now.”
He smiled then—a real smile that transformed his face. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Something about the way he looked at her confirmed her fear was just that: a silly little fear, not reality. Charlie felt something for her, she knew it and damn it she was going to be brave enough to find out exactly what that was.
Florence appeared in the doorway, relief flooding her face when she saw Tilly.
“Thank God! I was about to organise a search party.” She looked between them, noting their joined hands, and something in her expression softened.
“Come in, all of you. There’s soup on the stove and decisions to make.
Tomorrow’s coming whether we’re ready or not. ”
As they followed Florence inside, Charlie finally relaxed his death grip on Tilly’s lead, though he didn’t unclip it until they were safely inside with the door closed.
Eva felt the weight of Margaret’s final note in her pocket.
Tomorrow was 23rd of December—the deadline that would change everything.
But tonight, she’d found something in a forgotten garden that Margaret had spent over half a century looking for: the courage to choose love over safety, hope over certainty.
Whatever tomorrow brought, Eva wouldn’t spend the rest of her life wondering what if. She’d learned that much from a nurse who loved an American soldier, and a spaniel who knew exactly where to lead them when they were lost.
Sometimes the best discoveries weren’t the ones you went looking for, but the ones that found you when you were brave enough to stop running.