21. Eli
E li walked out from his office on the main floor and froze at the controlled chaos that gripped the Summer House.
How had he not heard this racket? Well, he’d been on a conference call with a headset on for the last two hours going over final drafting changes with a very particular client building an office complex in Savannah.
The lengthy discussions over front elevations melted from his brain as he tried to process this flurry of silk and satin, flowers and music, and many women—some he knew, some he didn’t. They were all buzzing about like honeybees building a comb.
This, he remembered, was the “forty-eight-hour event prep day” Tessa and Lacey were coordinating. He hoped it would be nearly finished by the time he got back from picking up Kate at the airport.
Tessa was clearly in charge, giving orders, whispering to Lacey, and orchestrating the madness like a symphony conductor.
The salon owner he’d met earlier, Akari, draped gowns over the back of the sofa while someone he assumed was her assistant unzipped each bag lovingly.
A few unfamiliar models walked around in bridal gowns, their skirts fanning out as they moved. Nolie flitted through the chaos, her excitement tangible, clasping her hands and exclaiming over lace details and embroidery.
Even Aunt Pittypat was in the midst of it, yipping from her perch on the couch, her tiny paws twitching in anticipation of being scooped up and adored.
Vivien and Crista were elbows deep, too, helping lay out the men’s clothes Eli, Jonah, and Peter had been fitted for.
He glanced at his watch, impatient for his phone alarm to let him know it was time to leave for the airport.
“Do you want to try on your shoes?” Vivien asked him, holding black dress shoes that looked like medieval torture devices.
“Not particularly. I’m an eleven. I’ll wear anything.”
“These run tight.”
“I’m sure they do. I’ll make it work, Viv. Can I borrow your SUV to get Kate and the crew? I don’t want to stuff them into my truck.”
“Of course.” She held up the shoes. “Put one on.”
“Lacey, I need all the veils!” Tessa called out.
“And we have tiaras,” Akari added.
“Ooh, tiaras!” Nolie scampered closer. “Is that like a crown? I love crowns.”
Eli took a step backwards, the impact of all this femininity too much for him. “I’m, uh, going up to talk to Jonah,” he said, pointing to the garage.
“Chicken,” Vivien muttered.
He laughed and threaded his way through mountains of silk to the kitchen to escape, grabbing Vivien’s keys from the entry table on his way out.
In the garage, he took the steps up to the sanctuary of the apartment, and almost immediately felt the change. The space smelled of wood shavings and fresh paint, the remnants of their latest project—finishing the baseboards.
The kitchenette wasn’t done yet, but they could finish that in May. He’d hoped to have furniture in before Kate, Jo Ellen, and the kids came, but it didn’t quite happen. They’d figured out the sleeping arrangements, though. Kate would bunk with Tessa, Jo Ellen would go upstairs in what used to be Kate’s room, and the kids were on air mattresses downstairs.
It would be like camping. It would be like old times on the property. For Eli, with Kate in his arms again, it would be like heaven.
He meandered through the living and kitchen area, toward one of the bedrooms, surprised not to hear a sound. Jonah usually played music while he painted, but it was silent.
Was he even up here?
Eli stuck his head in one of the bedrooms, blinking at the sight of his son huddled over in a corner.
He sat with his head between his legs. His shoulders were hunched over as he stared at the floor, a half-empty bottle of Gatorade dangling from his fingers. His long hair, usually tousled in an effortless way, was a mess like he’d been running his hands through it for hours.
When he looked up, sunlight cut across his features, highlighting the tension in his jaw, and red-rimmed eyes.
“What’s going on?” Eli asked.
“Nothing.” The word was gruff, whispered, and definitely not true. Something was most certainly going on.
Eli crouched in front of him, but Jonah’s gaze didn’t connect.
Didn’t matter. Eli knew that pained expression, with agony in his eyes and tears ready any minute. He’d seen it for years after Melissa died, every day—hollow, aching, lost.
He considered making conversation about what was going on downstairs or the progress on the trim or the fact that he had to leave soon to get Kate.
No. Now was not the time to avoid the subject.
He dropped onto the floor. “C’mon. Talk to me.”
Jonah exhaled sharply, rubbing his palm against his knee. “Where do I start? First of all, Carly doesn’t believe in me.”
Eli stilled. “What?”
Jonah let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “She thinks the culinary program is a long shot. That I’m wasting my time.” His grip tightened on the bottle. “Maybe she’s right.”
Eli’s chest ached at the words. “If she loves you, she believes in you.”
Jonah let out a sharp breath, his eyes flickering up to meet Eli’s. “I don’t have a good track record, and I don’t blame her for doubting me. You know, after all this, I’m not sure if she loves me. How’s that for sinking into the depths of self-doubt?”
The last words were mumbled and choked like they were competing with a sob he really didn’t want to give in to.
“Holy hell, I miss her so bad,” he added, swiping at a tear.
Somehow, he wasn’t sure how, Eli knew he wasn’t talking about Carly. The woman he missed was his mother.
“She was, like, my secret weapon, you know?” he rasped, confirming Eli’s guess. “Like I could do anything when she was alive. Now I just drown in second guesses and insecurity.”
Eli stifled a grunt, not sure what to say to that admission.
“I could take on the world when she was in my corner,” Jonah went on. “And, man, she lived in that corner. She always, always believed in me. No matter what. She said, ‘You were made for more, Jonah.’ She never said what ‘more’ was, but she sure made me believe I was made for it.”
Eli closed his eyes, easily hearing his long-departed wife’s voice. Always strong, always happy, always…invincible.
Until she wasn’t.
“She was good like that,” Eli said. “She was a professional cheerleader for the people she loved.”
“How’d you do it?” Jonah asked, looking hard at him. “How’d you start a business and…succeed? I mean…without her?”
Eli considered all the ways to answer that, and wondered which would be the most helpful. The truth was he believed in God, who’d gotten him through every dark night and lonely day. His Father in Heaven had guided, protected, and inspired Eli.
But he expected Jonah would roll his eyes at that, not receptive at all to Eli’s testimony of faith right now.
“I knew it was what she wanted,” he said simply. “She’d have been furious if I gave up. And I do believe I’ll see her again. I know that. So next time I hold your mother, I do not want her to give me that look.”
Jonah puffed out a breath and it turned into a soft laugh. “I know that look. Nothing worse than disappointing Melissa Lawson.”
Eli looked at him. “Then you can’t give up this dream, Jonah.”
He closed his eyes and dropped his head back hard enough that it thudded against the wall. “If I go to the interview tomorrow, I’ll break my streak.” He glanced at Eli from under his lashes. “Fifteen years. I’ve never missed it. Not once.”
“And to think I didn’t even know you were in Atlanta the past four years.”
“I didn’t want to see you,” Jonah said, then held up his hand. “Don’t take that the wrong… No, never mind. Take it any way you want. Things were rough between us, Dad, and I knew I’d disappointed you by quitting school. But I had to see her. On this day, the last time I ever hugged her.”
He was quiet for a moment, his gaze distant as he remembered.
“I left for school that morning and she knew I had a Calc 1 exam, and she also knew I hated that teacher with a white hot fury and was really worried about the test. But she was so encouraging, so sure I’d nail it. She made me promise her I’d get an A.” He winced. “I did, but I never got to tell her.”
Eli could feel his heart drop so hard, it practically hit the garage floor.
“Anyway…” Jonah blew out another loud exhale. “I go for me. It’s like a dose of confidence and hope and all the things she gave me. I go sit by that grave and…you don’t want to know.”
Part of him did, but part of him really didn’t. “Listen. Kate and the kids are getting in today, tomorrow you do the interviews, and, hey, you can miss that fashion show on Saturday. Go then.”
“It’s not the same. The date…”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I’m superstitious.”
Eli snorted. “If you’re going to believe in something you can’t see, touch, or understand, I have a much better option for you.”
“No, thanks.”
Leaning in, Eli forced Jonah to look up and lock eyes. “She would not want you to miss the interviews.”
“Don’t.” Jonah’s voice was sharp, his posture stiffening. “You don’t get to tell me what Mom would or wouldn’t want. I knew her as well as you did. You had a life before her—I never knew one day without her.”
Eli pressed his lips together, his hands clenching into fists against his knees. He wanted to argue. He wanted to shake Jonah and make him see what he saw—that Melissa wouldn’t want him stuck, wouldn’t want his grief to dictate his future.
But he also knew what it felt like to be told how to grieve. It wouldn’t help.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored the alarm reminding him to leave for the airport.
He looked back at Jonah, at the storm brewing behind his eyes. He didn’t want to leave. Not now. Not when his son was unraveling in front of him.
“That’s your Kate reminder,” Jonah said. “Go pick them up.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“Go, Dad. I’m fine. I want to be alone anyway. I’m fine. You don’t want them all to pile into an Uber.”
Eli stood slowly, hesitating before he reached out, gripping Jonah’s shoulder. A firm, steady squeeze. “This isn’t over,” he said, voice low. “We’ll talk more.”
Jonah didn’t look up, but after a long pause, he gave the barest nod.
“Kate can help you,” Eli added. “She’ll blow in here and want to cook dinner and?—”
“I’ll just disappoint her, too.”
No one was going to get through to him right now. Maybe together, he and Kate would, later tonight.
Eli exhaled and turned for the door, his chest tight. As he stepped back into the hallway, he felt the weight of the unfinished business settle deep in his bones.
* * *
The moment he saw Kate’s smile, Eli’s heart lifted from the dark place it had been since he left Jonah. The woman walking next to her as they exited the small airport security area smiled at him, too, and he instantly recognized Jo Ellen Wylie.
He likely wouldn’t have known her on the street, since she was thirty years older than the last time he saw her. However, standing next to Kate, it was like those years disappeared and he was looking at “Aunt Jo Ellen” once again.
Now, instead of her long, dark hair, she had soft waves of silver, still thick enough to fall to her shoulders. While her face was etched with the lines and age expected on a woman closer to eighty than seventy, she carried herself with an effortless grace he remembered well.
She didn’t need help walking, but he could see her sort of lean into Kate, as if she liked knowing her daughter was next to her.
He recognized Kate’s kids from the many pictures she’d shown him last month. Matt, a lanky teenage boy with a mop of dark hair, loped behind them, reminding Eli of when he was fifteen and the growth and changes in his own body surprised him daily.
And seventeen-year-old Emma strode next to him with confidence, her shiny strawberry blond hair swinging from a long ponytail as she elbowed her younger brother to tell him to pay attention to where he was going.
His gaze shifted back to Kate, who hustled a little faster as if she couldn’t wait to reach him, mirroring exactly what he was feeling.
Five feet apart, they hesitated for a split second, then both laughed softly as they came together for a hug.
“Hi,” she whispered in his ear, the single syllable somehow the perfect greeting.
“Hi, back.” He added a squeeze and drew back, smiling into her eyes and wishing he could swoop her up and kiss her, but not with the audience.
He had no idea what she’d told them about the budding relationship, and didn’t even know exactly what this enigmatic woman in his arms was feeling at that moment.
There’d be time for a kiss soon enough.
Turning, she gestured toward her mother. “You two remember each other?”
“Jo Ellen.” Eli came closer and gave her a light hug. “Been a few decades.”
She laughed softly and patted his back. “So good to see you again,” she said. “I always thought you were the nicest boy.”
“Just the nicest old man now,” he said on a laugh, easing away to greet the kids. “Emma? Matt? I’m Eli Lawson. Hope you two Ithaca natives are up for a few beach days this weekend.”
Emma shook his hand, giving him a warm smile that looked very much like her mother’s. “I haven’t seen the sun since 2021,” she deadpanned.
Laughing, Eli reached his hand to Matt, who popped his wired headphones and shook his hand. “I actually don’t think I own shorts. I don’t believe in them.”
Eli laughed. “You’ll change your mind.”
They all had carry-on only, so Eli took Jo Ellen’s bag and they headed back to the parking lot, with Kate chatting about his beautiful design for the Summer House. He let the compliments roll off him, more grateful for her presence than anything.
“So how are things at the beach?” she asked him as they reached Vivien’s SUV.
“Sheer chaos,” he told her, then shared with all of them the madness of event preparation.
All the way back to Gulf Shore Drive, Emma peppered him with questions, her keen intelligence—another thing she’d inherited from her mother—on full display.
Matt was quiet, though he seemed to perk up at the sight of the Gulf. Jo Ellen, next to him in the passenger seat, got more and more slack-jawed as they drove over the Destin bridge toward town.
“Oh, my,” she said on a sigh of mixed emotions. “I remember when this section was nothing but pepper trees and scrub oaks.”
Eli nodded. “You’ll hardly recognize some parts of Destin. But the white sand? The turquoise water? That never changes. You’ll remember it from all those years when we spent summers here.”
Jo Ellen turned to him, shifting her attention from the scenery to the driver. “I understand Maggie is out of the country.”
And we’re going right there, he thought.
“She’s in the Netherlands. Well, she might be in France now. She went with her gardening club on a spring flower tour.”
“She always could grow things,” Jo Ellen said softly. “We had an apartment together in college and she practically turned the dining room into a greenhouse.”
He slid her a smile, encouraged to hear her talk about her friendship with his mother. He was so used to the very mention of the Wylie name eliciting Maggie’s darkest glare.
It certainly seemed like the profound dislike and distrust only went one way. Which, he guessed, made sense if Artie was the one who turned Roger in to the police.
Her comments opened the door for what he had on his mind from the moment she got off the plane.
“I’m so sorry about your husband,” he said gently. “I loved Uncle Artie. I have some of my best memories of Destin with him.”
She gave him a grateful smile, enough sadness in her eyes that he knew the grief was still raw, even at seven months. Heck, for him, it had been raw at seven years.
And look at Jonah…
“I’m so relieved to hear you say that,” she replied, bringing him back to this conversation. “Under the…well, I’m glad. He liked you so much, Eli.”
Eli just nodded and navigated traffic, not sure what else could or should be said.
Honestly, he was tired of thinking about the whole subject. If this dark history and mysterious falling out would be the reason he and Kate couldn’t pursue a relationship, he’d be furious and disappointed.
Let it be distance. Let it be time. Let it not be God’s plan.
But please, please, please don’t let this thing—whatever it could be—get stomped out by his own mother.
He glanced up into the rearview mirror to look at Kate, curious if he could read her expression and see if she was thinking the same thing. But all he saw was the light in brown eyes that he’d missed so much.
After a second of eye contact in the mirror, she slid her glasses down her nose and winked at him, making him feel…like he was the third teenager in this vehicle.
“Goodness, we had so many adventures and memories here,” Jo Ellen said as they passed a few large hotels. “It’s quite eerie being back. Bittersweet, in a way.”
“It was the best,” he agreed, glancing over his shoulder to check on the kids next to Kate. “I think summer in Destin when you’re teenagers should be mandatory. You guys up for it?”
“What?” Matt sat straight up. “Can we, Mom?”
Emma gave him a look like he was crazy. “You can. I just got a job at the Ithaca Yacht Club this summer and I’m not giving that up for anything.”
Eli’s heart dropped a little, her news dashing his hopes that Kate might spend the summer here. “What are you doing at the Yacht Club, Emma?” he asked.
“Right now, just working the boat rentals, but I’m certified as a lifeguard and hope to get slotted into one of those jobs.”
“Lots of lifeguards in Destin,” he said. “Plus beaches and bonfires and now we have a boat with the house. Thanks to Tessa, who somehow managed to persuade a client to pay her with a cabin cruiser.”
“Of course she did,” Matt said on a laugh.
“I can’t wait to see Aunt Tessa!” Emma gave a clap. “She’s so much fun.”
“She’s busy,” Kate said.
“And she’s going to put you in a gown and parade you up and down the boardwalk,” Eli added, making the last turn. “Which you will be able to see in less than a mile.”
The excitement level rose as they cruised Gulf Shore Drive and the kids—and Jo Ellen— ooh and ahh ed over the beautiful beachfront homes.
“Holy cow,” Matt crooned. “Who gets to live like this?”
“You, at least this weekend,” Eli said, stealing another glance at Kate. “And maybe this summer if your mom brings you back.”
She narrowed her eyes playfully, but something told him she wasn’t opposed to the idea. Buoyed by that thought, he turned into the driveway.
“Welcome to—” His voice caught in his throat when he saw the empty spot that had been home to Jonah’s van for the last six or seven weeks.
He never drove it. It was basically parked there permanently and… where did he go?
“The Summer House,” Kate finished for him, staring at the same empty spot, with the same look of surprise.
“This is so cool!” Matt practically threw the door open the second Eli stopped, and before he knew it, they were piling out onto the driveway.
Where was Jonah? If he had to go somewhere, wouldn’t he have taken Eli’s truck, which was sitting right there? Maybe Tessa needed him to run an urgent errand, and he couldn’t find Eli’s keys, although he left them on the entry table where everyone left keys in case cars had to be moved.
Maybe he decided to take a drive to escape the chaos of the event planning, and he wanted his van.
Maybe—
Kate stepped up next to him, a question in her eyes.
“Will you take them up and do the introductions?” Eli asked. “I’ll bring the bags in, but I need to call him.”
“Of course.” She swooped into action, letting Eli step away and pull his phone out.
Seeking privacy, he slipped into the entrance to the first floor while Kate took everyone up to the main living level.
Inside, the large gathering room designed as a family hangout space was now home to more dresses, racks, and clothes. But no one was around.
The door to Jonah’s room was closed. His heart sinking, Eli knocked once, then pushed it open and let out a sad, low moan.
The bed was unmade, but there were no signs of life. No clothes, no cookbooks, no hints that Jonah Lawson lived here. Because he didn’t. He’d taken his meager belongings and left in his van.
Eli just leaned against the wall and let disappointment rock him.
Of course Eli knew where he was, or where he was going. He’d make it by midnight, maybe later, in that dilapidated vehicle. He’d sleep in some parking lot, marching through that massive cemetery at dawn, and he’d…
He’d miss his interviews and the opportunity that more than a few people had worked to help him get. Including Kate.
“Where is he?”
He turned to find her in the doorway, looking dismayed.
“Did you call him?”
“I don’t have to,” he said, walking into the room and sitting on the edge of the unmade bed. “I know where he is. He’s giving up the interviews and the program, even though he knows that will disappointment me and you and the mother of his baby.”
She came closer and sat next to him. “Let’s call him, Eli. Let’s talk to him and get him to turn around.”
“He won’t answer.” He looked at her, aching for their first time together in weeks to be different. Reaching to her cheek, he tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I missed you,” he murmured.
Her breath hitched. “I missed you, too.”
And then, before he could talk himself out of it, before he could remind himself of the million complications between them, he closed the space between them and kissed her.
Kate melted into him, her hands resting lightly on his chest as he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss.
For a moment, nothing else existed. Not the stress. Not the worry. Just her.
When they finally broke apart, Kate let out a breathless laugh. “Well. That escalated quickly.”
Eli chuckled, pressing his forehead against hers. “Tell me you’re glad you came.”
She curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “I’m very glad I came.”
Tomorrow was going to be one of the hardest days of the year, but for once he didn’t have to face it alone. If only Jonah had waited…
“Eli?” She leaned into him, pressing her lips to his ear. “I have an idea…”