The Things We Leave Unfinished
Page 1
Praise for
The Last Letter
“Yarros’s novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance…”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Thanks to Yarros’s beautiful, immersive writing, readers will feel every deep heartbreak and each moment of uplifting love in this tearjerker romance.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“The Last Letter is a haunting, heartbreaking and ultimately inspirational love story.”
—InTouch Weekly
“I cannot imagine a world without this story.”
—Hypable
“A stunning, emotional romance. Put The Last Letter at the top of your to-read list!”
—Jill Shalvis, NYT bestselling author
“This story gripped me from start to finish. The Last Letter is poignant, heartfelt and utterly consuming. I loved it!”
—Mia Sheridan, NYT bestselling author
“The Last Letter is so much more than a romance. It’s a testament to the strength of bonds forged from trauma and loyalty. It’s an exploration of motherhood and the importance of family. But above all, it’s a story of survival, forgiveness, and the healing power of unconditional love.”
—Helena Hunting, NYT bestselling author
Praise for
Great and precious Things
“A moving story that is sure to please.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A poignant and skillfully crafted second-chance romance.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Without a doubt, Great and Precious Things is Yarros’s best work to date.”
—USA Today bestselling author Adriana Locke
“A heart-wrenching, sincere, and beautifully emotional story…. Our hearts broke and soared in equal measure.”
—Totally Booked blog
“As perfectly, devastatingly beautiful and haunting as all her other stories. Bring tissues.”
—Readers Retreat blog
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Wishing for a Cowboy, by Victoria James
Forever Starts Now, by Stefanie London
Follow Me Darkly, by Helen Hardt
Montana Mavericks, by Rebecca Zanetti
Back in the Burbs, by Avery Flynn
The Rebound Surprise, by Laurel Cremant
A Lot Like Love, by Jennifer Snow
The Sweetheart Deal, by Miranda Liasson
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Rebecca Yarros. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
10940 S Parker Road
Suite 327
Parker, CO 80134
rights@entangledpublishing.com
Amara is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Edited by Stacy Abrams
Cover design by Bree Archer
Cover images by CatLane/GettyImages,
cappels/GettyImages,
pkanchana/GettyImage
Interior design by Toni Kerr
ISBN 978-1-68281-566-3
Ebook ISBN 978-1-68281-588-5
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition February 2021
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Also by Rebecca Yarros
Great and Precious Things
The Last Letter
The Flight and Glory Series
Full Measures
Eyes Turned Skyward
Beyond What Is Given
Hallowed Ground
The Reality of Everything
The Renegades
Wilder
Nova
Rebel
To Jason—
For the days the shrapnel works
its way to the surface and reminds us
that after five deployments
and twenty-two years in uniform,
we’re the lucky ones, my love.
We are the lightning strike.
Chapter One
Georgia
My dearest Jameson,
This is not our end. My heart will always remain with you no matter where we are. Time and distance are only inconveniences to a love like ours. Whether it’s days, months, or even years, I will be waiting. We will be waiting. You’ll find me where the creek bends around the swaying aspen trees, just as we both dreamed, waiting with the one we love. It’s killing me to leave you, but I’ll do it for you. I’ll keep us safe. I will wait for you every second, every hour, every day for the rest of my life, and if that’s not enough, then eternity, which is exactly how long I’ll love you, Jameson.
Come back to me, my love.
Scarlett
Georgia Ellsworth. I brushed my thumb over my credit card, wishing I could wipe hard enough to erase the letters. Six years of marriage, and the only thing I’d walked away with was a name that wasn’t even mine.
In a few minutes, I wouldn’t have that, either.
“Number ninety-eight?” Juliet Sinclair called out from behind the plexiglass window of her booth, like I wasn’t the only person at the Poplar Grove DMV and hadn’t been for the last hour. I’d flown into Denver this morning, driven into the afternoon, and hadn’t even been to my home yet—that’s how desperate I was to rid myself of the last pieces of Damian in my life.
Hopefully, losing his name would make losing him and six years of my life hurt just a little less.
“Right here.” I put my credit card away and walked up to her window.
“Where’s your number?” she asked, holding out her hand and wearing a satisfied smirk that hadn’t changed much since high school.
“I’m the only one here, Juliet.” Exhaustion beat at every nerve in my body. If I could just get through this, I could curl up in t
hat big armchair in Gran’s office and ignore the world for the rest of my life.
“Policy says—”
“Oh, stop it, Juliet.” Sophie rolled her eyes as she walked into Juliet’s booth. “I’ve got Georgia’s paperwork, anyway. Go take a break or something.”
“Fine.” Juliet pushed away from the counter, vacating her seat for Sophie, who had graduated the year before us. “Nice to see you, Georgia.” She flashed a saccharine-sweet smile in my direction.
“You too.” I offered her the practiced smile that had served as my glue for the past few years, holding me together while everything else disintegrated.
“Sorry about that.” Sophie cringed, scrunching her nose and adjusting her glasses. “She’s… Well, she hasn’t changed much. Anyway, everything appears to be in order.” She handed back the papers my lawyer had given me yesterday afternoon with my new social security card, and I slid them inside the envelope. How ironic that while my life had fallen apart, the physical manifestation of that dissolution was held together by a perfect, forty-five-degree staple. “I didn’t read the settlement or anything,” she said softly.
“It was in Celebrity Weekly!” Juliet sang from the back.
“Not all of us read that tabloid trash!” Sophie retorted over her shoulder, then gave me a sympathetic smile. “Everyone here was really proud of the way you held your head up through…everything.”
“Thanks, Sophie,” I replied, swallowing the lump in my throat. The only thing worse than failing at the marriage everyone had warned me about was having my heartbreak and humiliation published by every website and magazine catering to the gossip lovers who devoured personal tragedy in the name of a guilty pleasure. Holding my head up and keeping my mouth shut when cameras were thrust in my face was exactly what had earned me the nickname “The Ice Queen” over the last six months, but if that was the cost of keeping whatever was left of my dignity, so be it.
“So, should I say welcome home? Or are you just visiting?” She handed me a little printed paper that would serve as my temporary driver’s license until the new one came in the mail.
“I’m home for good.” My answer may as well have been broadcast from the radio station. Juliet would make sure everyone in Poplar Grove knew before dinner.
“Well, then welcome home!” She smiled brightly. “Rumor has it your mom is in town, too.”
My stomach twisted.
“Really? I…uh…haven’t been over there yet.” Rumor has it meant Mom had been spotted in either one of our two grocery stores or the local bar. The second possibility was much higher. Then again, maybe it was a good—
Don’t finish that.
Even thinking Mom might be here to help me would only end in crushing disappointment. She wanted something.
I cleared my throat. “How is your dad doing?”
“He’s good! They think they got it all this time.” Her face fell. “I really am sorry about what happened to you, Georgia. I can’t even imagine if my husband…” She shook her head. “Anyway, you didn’t deserve that.”
“Thank you.” I looked away, spotting her wedding ring. “Say hi to Dan for me.”
“Will do.”
I stepped into the afternoon light that painted Main Street with a comforting, Rockwellian glow, and sighed in relief. I had my name back, and the town looked exactly how I remembered. Families strolled by, enjoying the summer weather, and friends chatted against the picturesque rocky mountain backdrop. Poplar Grove had a population smaller than the altitude, big enough to demand half a dozen stoplights, and was so tight-knit that privacy was a rare commodity. Oh, and we had an excellent bookstore.
Gran had seen to that.
I tossed my paperwork on the front seat of my rental car, then paused. Mom was probably at the house right now—I’d never demanded she give back her key after the funeral. Suddenly, I wasn’t so eager to head home. The last few months had sucked out my compassion, strength, and even hope. I wasn’t sure I could handle Mom when all I had left was anger.
But I was home now, where I could recharge until I was whole again.
Recharge. That was exactly what I needed before seeing Mom. I headed across the street to The Sidetable, the very store Gran had helped start with one of her closest friends. According to the will she’d left, I was now the silent partner. I was…everything.
My chest tightened at the sight of the for sale sign on what used to be Mr. Navarro’s pet store. It had been a year since Gran told me he’d passed on, and that was prime real estate on Main Street. Why hadn’t another business moved in? Was Poplar Grove struggling? The possibility sat in my stomach like sour milk as I entered the bookstore.
It smelled like parchment and tea, mixed with a little bit of dust and home. I’d never been able to find anything close to its soothing scent in any chain store while I’d lived in New York, and grief pricked at my eyes with my first breath. Gran had been gone six months, and I missed her so much, my chest felt like it might collapse from the hole she’d left behind.
“Georgia?” Mrs. Rivera’s jaw dropped for a second before she smiled wide from behind the counter, balancing her phone between her ear and shoulder. “Hold on one second, Peggy.”
“Hey, Mrs. Rivera.” I grinned and waved at her welcomingly familiar face. “Don’t hang up on my account. I’m just stopping in.”
“Well, it’s wonderful to see you!” She glanced toward the phone. “No, not you, Peggy. Georgia just walked in!” Her warm brown eyes found mine again. “Yes, that Georgia.”
I waved once more as they continued their conversation, then walked back to the romance section, where Gran had an entire stack of shelves dedicated to the books she’d written. I picked up the last novel she’d published and opened the dust jacket so I could see her face. We had the same blue eyes, but she’d given up dyeing her once-black hair around her seventy-fifth birthday—the year after Mom had dumped me on her doorstep the first time.
Gran’s headshot was all pearls and a silk blouse, while the woman herself had been a pair of overalls, dusty from the garden, and a sun hat wide enough to shade the county, but her smile was the same. I grabbed another, earlier book just to see a second version of that smile.
The door jingled, and a moment later, a man on a cell phone began to browse in the general fiction aisle just behind me.
“A modern-day Jane Austen,” I whispered, reading the quote from the cover. It had never ceased to amaze me that Gran had been the most romantic soul I’d ever known, and yet she’d spent the overwhelming majority of her life alone, writing books about love when she’d only been allowed to experience it for a handful of years. Even when she’d married Grandpa Brian, they’d only had a decade before cancer took him. Maybe the women in my family were cursed when it came to our love lives.
“What the hell is this?” The man’s voice rose.
My eyebrows flew upward, and I glanced over my shoulder. He held a Noah Harrison book, where—go figure—there were two people in the classic, nearly kissing position.
“Because I wasn’t exactly checking my email in the middle of the Andes, so yes, it’s the first time I’m seeing the new one.” The guy practically seethed as he picked up another Harrison book and held them up, side by side. Two different couples, same exact pose.
I’d definitely stick with my selection, or anything else in this section.
“They look exactly the same, that’s the problem. What was wrong with the old— Yes, I’m pissed off! I’ve been traveling for eighteen hours and in case you forgot, I cut my research trip short to be here. I’m telling you they look exactly the same. Hold on, I’ll prove it. Miss?”
“Yes?” I twisted slightly and glanced up to find two book covers in my face. Space much?
“Do these look the same to you?”
“Yep. They’re pretty interchangeable.” I slid one of Gran’s books back onto the
shelf and mentally whispered a little goodbye, just like I did every time I visited one of her books in a store. Was missing her ever going to get easier?
“See? Because they’re not supposed to look the same!” the guy snapped, hopefully at the poor soul on the other end of the phone, because it wasn’t going to go well if he was using that tone with me.
“Well, in his defense, all his books read the same, too,” I muttered. Shit. It slipped out before I could censor myself. Guess my filter was just as numbed out as my emotions. “Sorry—” I turned to face him, lifting my gaze until I found two dark brows raised in astonishment over equally dark eyes. Whoa.
My ruined heart jolted—just like every heroine in one of Gran’s books. He was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen, and as the now-ex-wife of a movie director, I’d seen my fair share.
Oh no, no, no. You’re immune to good-looking men, the logical side of my brain warned, but I was too busy staring to listen.
“They do not read the—” He blinked. “I am going to have to call you back.” He moved both books to one hand and hung up, pocketing his phone.
He looked about my age—late twenties, maybe early thirties—stood at least six feet tall, and his black, just-out-of-bed hair fell carelessly over tanned, olive skin before reaching those lifted, black brows and impossibly deep brown eyes. His nose was straight, his lips carved in lush lines that only served to remind me exactly how long I’d gone without being kissed, and his chin was shaded in a light shadow beard. He was all angular, sculpted lines, and, given the flex of muscle in his forearms, I’d have bet the store that he was pretty well acquainted with the inside of a gym…and probably a bedroom.
“Did you just say they all read the same?” he questioned slowly.
I blinked. Right. The books. I mentally slapped myself for losing my train of thought over a pretty face. I’d had my name back for all of twenty minutes, and men were off the menu for the foreseeable future. Besides, he wasn’t even from around here. Eighteen hours of travel or not, his tailored slacks blatantly screamed designer, and the sleeves of his white linen shirt were rolled in that casually messy style that was anything but casual. Men in Poplar Grove didn’t bother with thousand-dollar pants or have New York accents.