Patti. Always Patti. Kaine raised an eyebrow at Grant, but he didn’t seem to follow her suspicion. Of course not. Her mysterious caller and the handprints on the window of her car had all been from a man. Patti couldn’t be behind any of it.
Kaine’s pulse was racing. “It’s not an accusation, Mr. Mason. We’re just trying to find out what happened there so many years ago. My great-great-grandmother almost gave her life to uncover what happened to these women. To Gabriella, to Joy’s grandmother . . .” Kaine looked down at Joy’s family tree. “Maggie.” She put her finger under the name. “This woman probably knew everything.” Kaine turned to Grant. “Why would she know what happened and take her story to the grave? She never let on that she alone could solve the entire mystery surrounding Foster Hill House. Why?”
Mr. Mason broke into Kaine’s string of questions. “Maybe she didn’t want to upset her future.”
“Huh?” Kaine couldn’t help the perplexed curl of her upper lip.
Mr. Mason shrugged. “Sometimes the only way you can silence the bad being done and protect the ones you love is to hold it all inside and never breathe a word.”
The plush carpet was soft beneath Kaine’s bare feet. She sat cross-legged in the middle of Joy’s living room floor, Grant beside her. Midnight’s arrival had sent Joy and Megan to bed. Kaine picked a piece of fuzz off the leg of her bright pink lounge pants as Grant pushed a copy of a newspaper clipping toward her. She took it from him and their fingertips grazed. Kaine froze and looked at the man across from her, but he was engrossed in a library book on the history of Oakwood, comparing it with another page in his hand. She studied his hair that stuck up in ruffled places, the straight line of his nose, his carved lips, and his jaw. His arms were strong beneath a long-sleeved blue United States Navy T-shirt, and he wore his own pair of sweats that made Kaine wonder what it would be like to snuggle up with him. Instead, here they were dissecting incomplete town documents with copies afforded them by Mr. Mason and library resources.
Grant leaned forward and picked up his iPad. “I’m going to see if I can pull up that census that Mr. Mason had. I bet we can find Ivy Thorpe if we look hard enough.”
Kaine had called her sister, but Leah hadn’t come through with Ivy’s married name. She didn’t ever remember hearing it, and outside of Prescott, all they recognized was Thorpe, the name Ivy had seemed to hand down. As if she had never married yet mothered the future genealogy.
Kaine didn’t respond but instead reached for a book. Somewhere in all these documents and books, the puzzle pieces had to fit together. Tomorrow, she was going to read every single diary entry Gabriella had penned on the pages Kaine had carefully placed in a shoe box and slid under the bed in Megan’s room. Joy had finally acquiesced to reading her grandmother Maggie’s diary. Kaine longed to read it herself, but what for her was a puzzle piece to her situation, to Joy was an emotional journey into her grandmother’s tumultuous past. Perhaps, with those previously unknown pieces, the links would connect.
“Hey.”
Kaine looked up.
Grant was studying her, the tablet propped in his lap. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Kaine breathed. “Yeah, I’m fine.” And she was. For the moment.
Grant shoved the tablet from his lap and reached for her. Without considering any consequences, Kaine followed his lead and nestled into his side as he tucked her there. She was right. He was nice to snuggle into.
He bent his neck to look into her face, and Kaine tipped her head back.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Grant traced his finger down her cheek.
Kaine’s skin tingled along the trail his finger made. “I know.”
Grant’s eyes smiled back at her. Kaine might consider drowning in them someday, if she could only get past her fear.
“We’ll get through this,” he reassured her.
“We?” Kaine baited him. Maybe it was wrong to, but she couldn’t help herself.
“We sounds good to me.”
Kaine couldn’t argue. But it had only been a month since she’d come to Oakwood. It was so soon, so early in knowing him, so—
His lips were soft. Gentle. Confident. Kaine closed her eyes. Maybe God did speak, but through circumstances and not words. Maybe He had led her here not to uncover something tragic but to answer her prayer for hope. Kaine leaned into Grant’s caress. Maybe Grant was part of that hopeful equation.
He kissed her again, never increasing in passion, his kiss merely expressing the beginning of their tenuous relationship. Grant pulled back and leaned his forehead against hers.
Kaine was thankful he’d kept the kiss light. Her insides were dancing with the thrill of the moment and also the fear of what was to come.
Grant twisted and reached for one of the library books. His movement, casual and sure, assuaged her trepidation. He was a genius when it came to squelching her anxiety. He was taking things slowly, and Kaine might be beginning to love him just a little for that.
“Can I show you something?” he asked.
Grant held out a book opened to a page with a glossy black-and-white photo of Ivy. Kaine met Ivy’s eyes. They were alive in the photograph, filled with spirit, and there was a small quirk to her upper lip as if she was smiling. Not in humor, but as if she knew something the photographer didn’t and was satisfied to take her secrets to the grave.
“Why does she look like she’s hiding something?” Kaine said.
Grant bent over the book. “She does, doesn’t she?”
“I wonder if . . .”
“If what?” Grant’s voice lowered.
“If she knew the truth after all. Like Maggie.”
“You mean, what if Ivy did solve the mystery of Foster Hill House?” Grant’s eyebrows flexed upward.
“Yes. But, she never told anyone.”
Grant’s eyes dropped to her lips, then raised back to her eyes. He offered a lazy smile, and Kaine tried to make sense of her frazzled and fragmented thoughts. “I suppose that’s a possibility.”
Kaine avoided Grant’s smoldering gaze and instead studied Ivy’s face. Her mouth, her cheekbones, her hair swooped into a haphazard pile on the top of her head, dress with puffed sleeves, and a locket.
“Grant!” Kaine’s finger landed on the locket with a flash of her red chipped fingernail polish.
Grant slid Kaine’s finger aside. “So it is Ivy’s locket.”
“That’s the one we found in the attic!” Kaine straightened on the floor to face Grant, but her finger pounded Ivy’s face.
Grant scooped up his iPad. He flicked his fingers in opposite directions on the screen, enlarging the scrolling handwriting. “I have the census here. Okay. We need to find out about what happened to Ivy after all this.”
Kaine peered over his shoulder. “I don’t know her by anything other than Ivy Thorpe.”
Grant nodded. “I know. But what about her father? Let’s look for the name Thorpe and just see what we find.”
Was it wrong that she rested her chin against his shoulder just so she could smell his spicy scent? He didn’t seem to mind as he worked the tablet.