Chapter 20
Emma drove from Winslow’s to Hibiscus Lane the long way.
She told herself she wanted a few extra minutes before she saw Jake, but by the time she turned onto White Street, she knew that wasn’t quite true.
She was trying to decide how much of Rachel’s meeting she wanted to carry through the gate with her.
For nearly two weeks, Arthur and the cottage had occupied more of her thoughts than anything else.
This morning had finally given her some sense of where the legal fight was going, but it had also shown her how easily the next year could disappear into lawyers, money and anger.
Emma didn’t want that. She wanted Gloria’s will honored, and she wanted the cottage protected.
Whatever punishment Arthur deserved could be left to the courts.
The decision had brought more relief than she expected. What made her nervous now had nothing to do with Arthur. There was only one thing on her mind right now. She had kissed Jake yesterday.
Emma turned onto Flagler and passed the schoolyard, where children ran across the playground.
She noticed a laundromat, then a small coffee shop she hadn’t seen before and made a mental note to try it sometime.
That small thought caught her attention.
She was beginning to collect places in Key West as though she expected to be around long enough to return to them.
By the time she reached Hibiscus Lane, she still hadn’t decided what she was going to say to Jake about the kiss. She only knew she wanted to see him.
The gate was unlocked. Emma let herself in and found Jake working beneath the pergola. Most of the top slats were in place now, and he was standing on the low stool with a level in one hand.
He heard the gate and looked over his shoulder.
“Hey.”
Emma stopped a few feet away. Seeing him brought back the feel of his hand against her cheek so clearly that she was grateful he couldn’t know what she was thinking.
“Come down before you fall.”
“I’m on a twelve-inch stool.”
“You can still fall twelve inches.”
Jake smiled and climbed down. He set the level on the tarp and wiped his hands on his jeans.
“How did it go with Rachel?”
Emma looked toward the porch. “You might want to sit down.”
They chose the porch step instead of the swing. Emma noticed that Jake left some space between them, and she wondered if he was being careful because of yesterday. She was grateful for the care even though part of her wished he would sit closer.
She told him what Rachel had found. Gloria’s estate had been worth about one point four million dollars when she died.
Arthur had sold the Miami condo, liquidated the brokerage account and sold jewelry that had belonged to the family.
He had collected rent from the cottage for years, and Rachel believed the estate might have a claim to that money as well.
Jake listened without interrupting.
Emma explained that Rachel would ask the court to protect what remained while the will contest moved forward. There might be money recovered from Arthur, and there might be consequences for what he had done as personal representative. Emma no longer cared about pursuing every possible dollar.
“I told Rachel I want the cottage protected and Gloria’s will recognized,” she said. “After that, I’m going to let the court deal with Arthur.”
Jake looked at her. “You’re sure?”
“I think so.”
“That doesn’t sound very sure.”
Emma smiled a little. “I’m sure about the part that matters to me.”
She looked across the yard at Gloria’s lilies and the pergola Jake had nearly finished. For the first time since Samantha Larson called, Emma could think about the cottage without immediately thinking about Arthur.
“My grandmother loved him,” she said. “I keep coming back to that. She knew enough to be afraid he might take the house, but she still left him things in her will. I don’t think she wanted me to spend years punishing him. She wanted me to stop him from taking this place.”
Jake nodded. “That sounds like Gloria.”
“You never met her.”
“No, but I’ve heard enough about her from you.”
Emma looked at him. There was something comforting about hearing him say it that way.
“Rachel says the estate could recover a lot of money,” she continued. “Maybe most of what Arthur took. I’ll deal with whatever Gloria actually left me when the time comes, but I don’t want the money to become the reason I stay angry.”
Jake rested his forearms on his knees. “Then don’t let it.”
Emma glanced at him. “You make that sound easy.”
“It probably isn’t.”
“No. It probably isn’t.”
Emma could hear a dove somewhere beyond the fence and the faint sound of traffic from the next street. She had expected to feel unsettled after telling Jake everything, but instead she felt lighter.
She thought it possible that is was because the part she really wanted to talk about had nothing to do with the estate.
Jake looked over at her. “There’s something else.”
Emma laughed softly. “How did you know?”
“You drove over here with your lawyer face on.”
“I have a lawyer face?”
“You definitely have a lawyer face.”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
“You know what I mean.”
She did.
Emma looked down at her hands. Yesterday, kissing Jake had felt surprisingly simple.
She had wanted him, and no longer worried about what the future held.
If a complication was to come, it would come later, when she was alone and had time to think about Chicago, her job and how important Key West had become.
“I’ve been thinking about what happens after the hearing,” she said.
Jake waited.
“For days, I’ve been telling myself I would make decisions when the case was over. I’d figure out Chicago then. I’d figure out the cottage then. I’d figure out everything else then.”
“And now?”
“Now I think I was using the case to avoid answering questions I wasn’t ready to answer.”
Jake didn’t rush her. Emma had come to appreciate that about him. He could sit beside her without making silence feel like something that needed to be fixed.
“I don’t know if I’m going back to Chicago,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m staying here either. I only know something has changed since I got to Key West, and I don’t think I can go back and pretend it hasn’t.”
She thought about Gloria’s letter and the line that had stayed with her about making her life smaller so it would fit inside a job. At first, Emma had resisted it because admitting Gloria was right meant admitting how much of her life she had allowed work to consume.
She turned toward Jake.
“And I need to know something from you.”
“All right.”
“I know what happened with Nora changed you. I know you’ve spent three years trying to put your life back together, and I don’t want to assume I know what you’re ready for.
” Emma paused. “Yesterday happened, and I’m glad it did.
But if I’m going to think seriously about what I want, I need you to be honest about what you want too. ”
Jake looked out toward the pergola.
Emma let him take his time. Asking the question made her more vulnerable than she liked, but she didn’t regret it.
She had spent too many years arranging her life around certainty.
There was no certainty here, only a man she cared about and a future she could no longer picture as clearly as she once had.
When Jake finally spoke, his voice was quiet.
“I’ve spent three years trying not to ask anyone to change their life for me. I don’t want to start with you.”
“I’m not asking you to make the decision for me.”
“I know.” He looked at her. “But you asked what I want.”
Emma nodded.
“I want you to stay.”
His words moved her more deeply than she expected. Jake didn’t dress them up or try to make them easier for her to hear.
“I want you here,” he continued. “Not because of the cottage and not because you might inherit enough money to make staying easier. I want to see you next week and the week after that. I want to know what your days look like when you’re not fighting with Arthur or sitting in a lawyer’s office.
I want to find out what this is when everything around us isn’t complicated. ”
Emma felt her throat tighten.
Jake looked toward the garden before continuing. “But I’m not going to ask you to stay for me. If you stay, I need it to be because this is where you want your life to be.”
Emma understood the difference. A few weeks earlier, she might have wanted someone else to make the choice easier by giving her a reason she couldn’t argue with. Jake was doing the opposite. He was telling her what he wanted while leaving the decision entirely hers.
That made his answer matter more.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“You asked.”
“I know, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.”
“No.” Jake smiled faintly. “It wasn’t.”
Emma looked at him and wondered how much had changed since the first afternoon she stood at his gate believing he was simply a tenant she needed to question.
She had come to Key West expecting to settle a problem and return to the life she already knew.
Now the thought of leaving Jake behind had become part of what returning would cost her.
She wasn’t ready to decide what that meant, but she was ready to stop pretending it meant nothing.
Emma reached for his hand. Jake turned his palm beneath hers and closed his fingers around it.
“I’m going to think about this a lot,” she said.
“I figured you would.”
“That wasn’t a complaint.”
“I know.”
They stayed that way for a while, sitting on the porch step with their hands together.
Emma was aware of the swing behind them and remembered the kiss they still hadn’t mentioned directly.
She could have brought it up, but she didn’t need to.
Jake’s thumb moved once across the back of her hand, and the small gesture told her enough.
Eventually Emma looked toward the pergola.
“You still have slats to finish.”
“I do.”
“I suppose I could come back tomorrow and help.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “Help?”
“I read the bubble correctly yesterday.”
“You did.”
“So I’m improving.”
“You can hand me the level.”
Emma laughed. “Fine.”
Jake walked her to the gate. This time, when they reached it, Emma didn’t hurry toward the car. She turned to him and let herself look at the man who had just told her he wanted her to stay.
For a second she thought he might kiss her, and she knew she would let him.
Instead, Jake squeezed her hand before letting go.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Emma got into the rental car and drove back toward Winslow’s. She thought about Jake saying he wanted her in Key West. She thought about how carefully he had made it clear that wanting her there wasn’t the same as asking her to give up Chicago for him.
For most of her adult life, Emma had believed a good decision was one she could defend with facts. She could make lists, compare risks and explain exactly why one choice made more sense than another. Key West was refusing to cooperate with that method.
Emma had no idea what staying would look like.
Her job was still waiting in Chicago, although she was beginning to wonder whether she wanted to return to a life that demanded so much of her.
Even the cottage might feel different once the legal fight was over and there was nothing keeping her in Key West except her own desire to be there.
Then there was Jake, and the possibility of a serious relationship she hadn’t expected but was no longer willing to dismiss.
What she knew was simpler. The possibility of staying no longer frightened her as much as the thought of leaving without finding out.
Later, Emma sat on the patio outside her bungalow with Gloria’s notebook closed in her lap.
She thought about her grandmother and the life Gloria had built over so many years.
She thought about the cottage, her father’s initials beneath the railing and the letter that had forced Emma to look at her own life more carefully.
She thought about Jake too. Yesterday she had kissed him. Today he had told her he wanted her to stay, and Emma had discovered that hearing those words didn’t make her feel trapped. They made something she had already been considering feel possible.
Chicago was still there. Her apartment was still there, along with Priya, her job and the life she had spent years building. None of it had disappeared simply because another life had begun to take shape in Key West.
For the first time, Emma understood that she didn’t have to diminish one life to consider the other. She only had to decide which one she wanted now.
She wasn’t ready to answer that question tonight, but she no longer needed to postpone asking it. Emma opened Gloria’s notebook and read until the light began to fade.