“It was good. Thank you so much.” Mom took a deep breath. “In the spirit of full disclosure, Noah bought my ticket.”
“Oh.” Full disclosure? She and Ian were fine? “That was really sweet of you,” I said to Noah, leaning into his side.
“My pleasure.” His hand flexed at my waist. “It’s not my present, though. That’s waiting for you back at the house.”
“I told you not to spend money on me!” I chastised, but there was a tiny thrill of curiosity thrumming in my chest.
“I didn’t, I promise.” There was that grin again. He was up to something.
“I can’t hog the birthday girl all night. See to your guests,” Mom said with a watery smile. “Thank you for letting me be here. Your birthdays have always been…” Her smile faltered. “I’m just glad, that’s all.” Her gaze swept over the gallery. “This is phenomenal. I’m so very proud of you, Georgia.”
“Thank you for being here,” I told her, meaning every word. “It means a lot to me.” The advance had been paid, and any other royalties from the book would go straight to Mom’s account. She was happy with Ian. It looked like her life was going well, too, which meant she wasn’t here because she needed something from me—she was here because she wanted to be. And sure, it was only one night, in a lifetime of them, but it was enough.
I was all smiles as I made my way around the room, watching the smaller pieces disappear as they were purchased.
“This is awesome!” Hazel wrapped me in a tight hug. “And is that Lydia’s daughter behind the register?”
I nodded. “I think it might be going well.”
“It is. Trust me.” Her eyes narrowed as she stared over my shoulder. “Whoa. Who is Noah—” Her eyebrows hit the ceiling.
I turned around, blinking in confusion as Noah embraced a strikingly beautiful woman near the door. He looked up, searching the room, then grinned as he found me. He said something to the woman, then led her past the ice crown to where I stood with Hazel.
The woman’s hair and eyes were as dark as Noah’s, and her complexion the same sun-kissed olive. A man with sandy-blond hair, green eyes, and a well-tailored suit came to her side.
“I hope you don’t mind that I invited one of my closest friends, too,” Noah said with a smile. “Georgia, this is my little sister, Adrienne, and her hostage, Mason.”
His sister? Men didn’t invite their sisters to meet their flings, did they? My chest warmed, my heart aching with the possibility that this was something more to him, that we could really be more, even after he finished the book. Maybe we didn’t need the self-imposed cutoff date.
Adrienne arched a single, perfectly plucked brow at her brother, but her smile for me was instant and starbright as she swept me into a tight hug. “And I’m thrilled to meet you, Georgia. He talks about you constantly, even though he meant to say my husband Mason,” she corrected, releasing me.
“But did I?” Noah teased. “Good to see you, man.” He embraced Mason, then hugged his sister so tight, he lifted her off her feet. “You too, squirt. Good flight?”
“You know it. Stop paying for first class. It’s a waste of money.”
“I’ll spend my money however I like.” Noah shrugged.
“Hope you like arguing, because they do it a lot,” Mason said, offering his hand with an easy smile.
“Going to be honest—I’m a little overwhelmed.” I shook his hand, and his smile deepened, revealing a dimple.
“Don’t blame you one bit, and your gallery is incredible!” Adrienne said. “Oh, and happy birthday! No rush—it’s a little busy in here—but later I need to hear all about how you knocked my brother on his ass in that bookstore.”
I laughed and promised her details before she and Mason walked off to look around, taking Hazel and Owen with them.
“Have I told you how beautiful you are tonight?” Noah’s lips skimmed the shell of my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.
“About twenty times,” I assured him. “Have I told you that I’m going to do devious things to you with that tie you’re wearing tonight?” I looked up at him from under my lashes.
“Are you, now?” His eyes darkened. “And here I was making plans of my own.” He stole a kiss before I was pulled away again.
The night flew by, and before I knew it, I’d sold every piece I’d marked for sale. The ones for display, the crown and the tower pieces, stayed right where I wanted them—with me. The gallery slowly cleared out, until it was only my close friends and the cleanup crew.
“He gets major points for this,” Hazel said as she was getting ready to leave.
“Hey now,” I teased, hugging her goodbye. “Team Georgia, remember?”
“I am team Georgia,” she promised. “That man flew his family out to meet you. Your mom, too,” she finished quietly as Noah said goodbye to his sister.
Adrienne had already promised to come by for lunch the next day. She’d refused the guest bedroom, but Mom had agreed to stay with us tonight. She’d already taken her rental car to the bed and breakfast to fetch her things.
“I know. He’s…” I sighed, looking over at Noah.
“He’s just as much in love with you as you are him,” Hazel whispered.
“Don’t start.” I shook my head, refusing to set myself up for major heartbreak.
“I’ve never seen you as happy as you are tonight, as you have been for the last few months, actually.” She took my hand. “You’ve been through enough bad, G. You have to let the good in, too.”
She hugged me again before I could formulate an answer, then Owen tugged her out the door, mumbling something about them still having a babysitter for the next hour.
The house was dark and quiet when Noah and I got home, but Mom arrived just after we’d hung up our coats. Noah’s eyes drifted to my legs, bare under the short black dress I’d chosen from my recently unboxed stash.
“I’m going to head up and call Ian before bed,” Mom said with a sly smile, carrying her small bag even after Noah had offered to take it up for her. “You two don’t have too much fun. Happy birthday, Gigi.”
“Night, Mom.” I didn’t even cringe at the nickname, glancing over at the twenty-nine roses Gran had sent with a first edition, signed copy of The Sun Also Rises.
“It’s present time,” Noah said, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. “It might not be Hemingway, but you had me on a limited budget.”
I groaned. “You’ve already given me enough.”
“Trust me, you want this.”
I turned in his arms. “I want you.” If he actually knew how badly, he probably would have run screaming from the house.
He kissed my forehead and took my hand, leading me into the formal living room where he’d pitched his writing skills just a few short months ago. The furniture had been pushed to the side, opening the space, and he’d brought the tall foyer table in to hold a medium, beribboned box off to the side of the fireplace, which he turned on with the flip of a switch.
“Gran added that in the remodel.” I nodded toward the gas fireplace. “Said it was a foolish, lavish expense, but she didn’t care.”
“Well, thank you, Gran.” Noah shrugged out of his suit coat and laid it over the wingback chair, which sat opposite the box. “Now, open your present, Georgia.” He leaned his shoulder against the fireplace mantel and crossed one ankle over the other.
“The present that didn’t cost you anything.” I arched a brow.
“Not a penny.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Well, I paid for the box. And the bow. Honestly, it was just something I happened to stumble upon while locating my shoes.”
I rolled my eyes but walked over to the box, looking for an opening. “Did you tape it shut?” I teased.
“Nope. Just lift.” There was so much excitement in his eyes that I couldn’t help but feel it rub
off on me.
I gripped the sides of the box and lifted. My heart leaped into my throat and tears stung my eyes. “Oh, Noah.”
He came forward and took the box from my trembling hands, but I was too busy staring at my gift to see where he put the wrapping. Then he was at my side.
“Is it…” I was almost afraid to say the words, content to let it be real, even if only in my mind.
“It is.” He nodded, his smile soft.
“But how?” I reached a shaky hand toward the vintage record player, running my fingers over the timeworn edge of the casing as it sat open on the table before me.
“I found a panel loose in the back of my closet at Grantham Cottage a couple of weeks ago,” he said, maneuvering the arm of the phonograph so it rested above a dustless record. “The same closet where the heights marked on the closet doorframe weren’t painted over like the rest of the house.”
My eyes flew to his, somehow knowing what his next words would be. “They were Grandpa William’s, weren’t they?” I guessed.
He nodded. “My guess is that’s why she never sold the cottage. I went to the county and looked up the property records. It was originally owned by Grantham Stanton—Jameson’s father. Your great-great-grandfather.”
“It’s where they lived for the first few years,” I whispered, putting it all together. “But Gran said the record player was destroyed.”
A corner of Noah’s mouth lifted. “Whatever got destroyed, it wasn’t this. Scarlett must have hidden it in the wall.”
“But she never went back to get it?” My brow puckered. “Come to think of it, I don’t know if I ever heard of her going in the house. She’d always had it managed.”
“Grief is a powerful, illogical emotion, and some memories are safer left boarded up and undisturbed.” He flipped the switch on the record player, and to my complete shock, it turned on.
“You found Jameson’s phonograph,” I whispered.
“I found Jameson’s phonograph.” He dropped the arm and the needle made contact, filling the room with Billie Holiday’s voice.
My eyes slid shut, imagining them in that field, starting out the love affair that led to my existence, the love that had haunted Gran the rest of her life, even though she’d eventually married again.
“Hey,” Noah said softly, backing into the center of the room and holding out his hand for mine. “Come dance with me, Georgia.”
I walked straight into Noah’s arms, feeling the last of my barriers give way.
“Thank you,” I said, resting my cheek on his chest as we moved gently together, rocking to the music. “I can’t believe you did this all for me. The dinner, and your sister, and Mom, and the phonograph. It’s too much.”
“It’s nowhere near enough.” His voice lowered as he tilted my chin to look in my eyes. “I am completely, wholeheartedly, madly in love with you, Georgia Constance Stanton.” The intensity in those words was echoed in his eyes.
“Noah.” My heart clenched, and the sweet ache I’d tried like hell to stifle broke free and filled every desiccated, love-starved cell in my body as I let myself believe, let myself love him back.
“This isn’t a fling for me. It hasn’t ever been. I wanted you from the first second I saw you in that bookstore, and knew you were the one the minute you opened your mouth to tell me you hated my books.” He nodded slowly, a smirk playing at his mouth. “It’s true. And I don’t need you to say it back. Not yet. In fact, please don’t. I want you to say it in your own time, when you’re ready. And if you don’t love me yet, don’t worry, I’ll win you over.” He rested his forehead against mine as we swayed.
Oh God. I loved him. Maybe it was reckless and foolish, and too damned soon, but I couldn’t help it. My heart was his. He’d won me over so completely that I couldn’t imagine a single day without him. “Noah, I l—”
He kissed me quiet, stopping my declaration. Then he carried me upstairs and made love to me so thoroughly, there wasn’t a single inch of my skin that didn’t know his hands, his mouth, his tongue.
By the time the sun came up, we were both famished, drunk on a cocktail of orgasms and sleep deprivation as we kissed our way downstairs like a pair of teenagers, staying as quiet as possible so we didn’t wake Mom.
We were a total cliché—Noah wearing last night’s dress pants while I’d hastily buttoned his shirt over nothing but a pair of boy-cut briefs. I didn’t care. I was in love with Noah Morelli, and I was going to make him pancakes—or eggs. Whatever was quicker and got us back into bed.
He kissed me deep and long in the foyer, tugging me toward the kitchen.
“What is that?” I drew back at the sound of rustling paper coming from the office.
Noah lifted his head, his eyes narrowing at the slight gap in the office doors. “I shut those last night before the party. Wait here.” He swept me behind his back, then strode silently to the French doors, pushing one open carefully to look inside. “What the hell are you doing?” he growled, disappearing inside.
I followed, racing through the open door.
It took a second to figure it out. Mom sat in Gran’s chair, her cell phone poised above the desk, a shirt box open to her left and a small pile of papers in front of her.
She was scanning the manuscript.
Chapter Twenty-Six
May 1942
Ipswich, England
William cried, and Scarlett rocked him gently, swinging him side to side as the air-raid sirens wailed above them. The shelter was full and dimly lit, but she imagined her expression mirrored those around her. There were a few children huddled in the corner, playing a game—for the younger ones, this had become routine, just another fact of life.
The adults passed around reassuring smiles that were anything but. The air raids had picked up in the last week, the Germans bombing city after city in retaliation for the bombings in Cologne. Though the raids had never ceased completely, Scarlett had grown complacent over the last few months, and though this wasn’t the first time she found herself in a shelter, waiting to survive, or not, this was the first time William had.
She’d known fear before. Felt it in those moments the hangar had exploded back in Middle Wallop, or the times Jameson came home late, or not for days, while they escorted British bombers. But this fear, this terror clenching her throat with an icy fist was a new level, a new torture in this war. It was no longer only her life that hung in the balance, or even Jameson’s, but that of her son’s.
William would be six months old in a couple of days. Six months, and all he’d known was war.
“I’m sure they’ll give us the all clear in just a moment,” an older woman told her with a kind smile.
“Certainly,” Scarlett replied, adjusting William to her other hip and pressing a kiss to the top of his head through his hat.
Ipswich was a natural target, Scarlett knew that. But they’d been lucky so far.
The sirens stopped, and there was a hum of collective relief throughout the long tube that served as their shelter underground.
The ground hadn’t shaken, though that wasn’t always a sure way to tell if they’d been hit, only that they hadn’t been hit nearby.
“There aren’t as many children as I would have expected,” Scarlett said to the older woman, mostly to distract herself.
“They built shelters at the school,” she explained with a proud nod. “They can’t fit all the children, naturally, but they go to school in shifts now, taking only as many children as can fit at once. It’s thrown more than a few schedules into upheaval, but…” She trailed off.
“But the children are safer,” Scarlett assumed.
The older woman nodded, her gaze flickering to William’s cheek.
“I can appreciate that,” Scarlett said, holding William just a little tighter.
Six months ago, evacuating the children fro
m London and other major targets had felt so logical to her. If the children were in danger, of course they should be evacuated to safer areas. But holding William in her arms, she couldn’t imagine the strength those other mothers must have had to put their children on a rail, not knowing exactly where they would be headed. She couldn’t get past her own gut check reaction that William was safest with her, but in her own need to stay close to Jameson, was she ultimately placing William in more danger?
The answer was unequivocally yes, and she couldn’t deny it, not seeing as she now held him in an underground air-raid station, hoping and praying for the best.
The all clear sounded through the station, and the crowd began to file out. The sun was still shining as she exited the air-raid station. What had felt like days had only been hours.
“Passed right by us,” she heard an older man say.
“Our boys must’ve frightened them off,” another added with pride.
Scarlett knew better, but she didn’t say so. Her time plotting the bomber raids taught her that fighters weren’t often a deterrent. They just hadn’t been the target. It was as plain as that.
She walked the half mile home, talking gibberish to William the entire time while keeping her eyes on the sky. Just because they were gone now didn’t mean they wouldn’t return.
“It might just be the two of us for tonight, little one,” she said to William as she opened the front door. With the increased raids, Jameson hadn’t been allowed to sleep off-station in over a week. Their house was only fifteen minutes away from Martlesham-Heath, but fifteen minutes was a lifetime when there were bombers approaching.
She fed William, bathed him, fed him again, and had him put down to bed before she thought about eating, herself.
She couldn’t stomach much, especially not knowing where Jameson was. It had been frightening to move his markers across the plotting board, to know when he engaged the enemy, to know when members of his squadron had fallen, but it was worse not knowing.
Scarlett sat at her typewriter, opened the smaller box that she had added to her collection in the past few months, then took out her latest page, and continued writing. This box was for their story—she couldn’t just lump it in with the other sketched-out summaries, partial chapters, and unfinished thoughts. If one story had to be kept up-to-date, it was this one, just in case it was all she’d have to give to William.
The Things We Leave Unfinished Page 32
