Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
SCOTT
Jessica hasn’t said a word in ten minutes.
She’s staring out the window as Twin Waves disappears behind us, replaced by marsh grass and tidal creeks and the occasional blue heron standing sentinel in the shallows. The road narrows from two lanes to one, oyster shells crunching under the tires.
“You’re taking me somewhere remote to murder me,” she finally says. “I should have seen this coming.”
“If I were going to murder you, I wouldn’t use my own car. Too much forensic evidence.”
“That’s disturbingly well-reasoned.”
“I watch a lot of true crime.”
“Of course you do.” She shifts in her seat, tucking one leg underneath her. “The brooding businessman secretly watches murder documentaries. That tracks.”
“What did you think I watched? Stock market reports?”
“Honestly? Yes.”
I take the turn onto the long drive, live oaks arching overhead, Spanish moss catching the afternoon light. Jessica goes quiet again, but it’s a different kind of quiet now. Curious.
The cottage comes into view through the trees—two stories of weathered cedar shingles, tin roof gone soft gray with age, porches wrapping around three sides like arms waiting to embrace. The dock stretches out into the tidal creek, The Meet Cute bobbing gently at her mooring.
Jessica leans forward. “Scott. This is beautiful.”
“It was my Grandmother Vera’s.” I park and kill the engine, suddenly nervous in a way I haven’t been since I was seventeen and trying to ask Marcy Hanson to prom. “She left it to me when she died. Fifteen years ago.”
“You’ve had this place for fifteen years, and I’m just now seeing it?”
“I don’t bring people here.”
She turns to look at me. Really look. I can see her processing that information, filing it away.
“But you’re bringing me.”
“Apparently our friends decided for us.” I open my door before I have to explain further. “Come on. Let’s see what kind of disaster they created.”
The disaster is magnificent.
We stand in the doorway, taking in the scene.
Candles cover every available surface—the coffee table, the mantle, the windowsills, the side tables, the floor along the baseboards.
Pillar candles, votives, and tea lights in little glass holders.
A candelabra I don’t even own, which means someone brought their own to this ambush.
Rose petals are scattered across the heart pine floors in a trail leading toward the kitchen.
And from the Bluetooth speaker on the bookshelf, Etta James is crooning “At Last.”
“Did they buy out every Yankee Candle in a fifty-mile radius?” Jessica asks.
“I think they raided three churches and a spa.”
“Is this romantic, or are we summoning something?”
I walk over to the Bluetooth speaker on the bookshelf. An old iPad is propped next to it—not mine—with the screen still lit. The Spotify playlist is named “Operation: Make Them Talk.”
I turn the iPad to show Jessica. She bursts out laughing—real laughter, the kind that crinkles her eyes and makes her whole face transform. I haven’t heard that sound in weeks.
She moves into the room, carefully stepping around the candles, and approaches a note on the coffee table. She lifts it and reads aloud.
“‘Don’t mess this up. This was a team effort. Grayson may or may not have swiped your key. Sorry not sorry.”
“Ohhh,” I mutter. “He pretended he needed to use the bathroom yesterday. I’m an idiot.”
“‘—Caroline designed your ambiance—’” Jessica gestures at the candle inferno.
“‘Amber graciously donated your food, and Hazel provided table linens from the wedding venue. Jo selected your wine, while Mads handled moral support and enthusiasm. I planned everything because none of you children know what you’re doing.’” She looks up.
“It’s signed ‘Grandma Hensley’ with a P.S. ”
“What’s the P.S.?”
“‘The entire town has money riding on this. Don’t disappoint us.’”
I scrub a hand over my face. “Grayson mentioned. He has money on Christmas.”
“Of course he does.”
Jessica sets down the note and wanders toward the kitchen, following the rose petal trail. I follow as she takes in the old wavy glass in the windows, the way the late afternoon light turns everything golden, and the worn floorboards that creak in places I’ve memorized over decades.
She stops in front of the stove.
“‘Bless your heart, but get out of my kitchen,’” she reads from the hand-painted wooden sign. A smile tugs at her mouth. “I like her already.”
“That sign has been there since 1987. My grandfather tried to help her make Thanksgiving dinner once. Once.”
“Smart woman.”
On the counter are Salty Pearl containers. A handwritten note in Amber’s loopy script provides reheating instructions, complete with underlined warnings about not overcooking the shrimp.
Jessica opens one container, inhales. “Oh, this is the good stuff. Shrimp and grits?”
“Amber’s grandmother’s recipe. She only makes it for special occasions.”
“Is this a special occasion?”
The question lingers. I could deflect and make a joke. Retreat behind the walls I’ve been building since I was ten years old.
Instead, I say, “I want it to be.”
Jessica doesn’t respond. But she doesn’t look away either.
“I’ll get the wine,” I say, because I need to occupy my hands before I do something stupid like reach for her. “Should we trust Jo’s taste?”
“Jo once described a wine as ‘angry but in a romantic way,’ so honestly, it could go either way.”
We eat on the screen porch as the sun starts its slow descent toward the marsh.
The food is perfect. The wine is surprisingly good—Jo described it on a Post-it as “complicated, like you two fools”—and the view is what it’s always been: endless grass and water and sky, the kind of beauty that makes you forget anything else exists.
Jessica has kicked off her shoes. Her feet are tucked underneath her on the old wicker settee, and she’s on her second glass of wine, and some of the tension has finally left her shoulders.
“I could live on this porch.”
“Vera practically did, in the summers. She had a bed out here for years and always said the movement of the water was better than any sleeping pill.”
“She sounds amazing.”
“She was.” I lean back in my chair as a great blue heron picks its way through the shallows. “She was the only person who ever made me feel like being soft wasn’t a weakness.”
Jessica is quiet for a moment. “What do you mean?”
I should deflect. But we’re here and she’s asking, and I’m so tired of hiding.
“My father had opinions about how men should be. Strong. Practical. Dismissive of anything that couldn’t be measured or monetized.” I take a sip of wine. “He thought my mother ruined me with her books. Called me ‘your mother’s son’ like it was an insult.”
“That’s awful.”
“He wasn’t wrong about everything. I did learn to hide. I just got very good at it.”
Jessica sets down her wine glass. “Is that why you became V. Langley? To hide the soft parts?”
“Partly. And partly because I couldn’t stop writing even when I was supposed to be someone who didn’t believe in love stories.”
“Vera knew?”
“She was one of the only ones.” I look at Jessica. “Until you.”
Something shifts in her expression. I can’t read it—hope? Fear? Both?
She stands abruptly. “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Down the hall, second door on the—”
“I’ll find it.”
She disappears inside, and I let out a breath.
Too much. Too fast. I pushed too hard.
But then her voice comes from inside the house. “Scott.”
“Yeah?”
“Why do you have a framed photo of yourself with a bowl cut and a Backstreet Boys shirt?”
I close my eyes. “We’re not discussing that.”
“This is incredible.” Her voice moves closer. She appears in the doorway, holding the photo, grinning like she’s discovered buried treasure. “Is this from a school dance? Are you wearing a vest?”
“It was 1998. Everyone wore vests.”
“You have frosted tips.”
“I’m asking you to leave.”
“No way. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” She tilts the frame, examining it from different angles. “What’s that in your hand? Is that a corsage? Scott Avery bought a girl a corsage and posed for photos?”
“Her name was Marcy Hanson, and she dumped me two weeks later for a guy with a car.”
“What a dumb girl.”
She blinks, like she’s surprised herself.
I take advantage of her momentary confusion to snatch the photo from her hands. “This is going in a locked drawer. Possibly a safe.”
“Too late. That image is burned into my memory forever.”
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t.”
She’s right. I don’t. Not even close.
Jessica finds the cross-stitched pillow next.
We’re back inside, cleaning up dinner, moving around each other in the small kitchen with an ease that feels dangerous. Every time she reaches past me for a dish towel or brushes against my arm on her way to the counter, I feel it like electricity.
She doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she notices and is pretending not to. I can’t tell.
“‘All men are idiots,’” she reads, picking up the pillow from the couch. “‘I married their king.’” She laughs, that full-body laugh I’m starting to live for. “Please tell me she cross-stitched this herself.”
“Took her six months. Grandpa displayed it in the living room for forty years.”
“I’ve never met her, and I love her.”
“She would have loved you too.” The words slip out before I can stop them.
Jessica’s laughter fades. She’s holding the pillow against her chest now, something soft in her expression.
“You think so?”
“I know so. She loved people who said what they meant and weren’t afraid to speak their mind.” I lean against the counter. “You gave my book a two-star review because you thought I could do better. Vera would have respected that.”
“I didn’t know they were your books.”
“Doesn’t matter. You were honest. That was rare. That was—” I stop to regroup. “She would have liked you.”
Jessica sets down the pillow carefully, smoothing the cross-stitched letters with her fingers. She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “Show me the books.”