She shot him a look.
A sparkle lit his eyes and he nodded extra seriously. “Too early for bad puns?”
But then she laughed—half from panic, half from the ridiculousness of it all. Joe joined her, shaking loose some of the angst.
“We need to find that guy. Chase him down. Get the key.”
Joe grinned. “Wow, we’re just stacking up missing persons like it’sa full-time job. Your grandma, the mystery band, and now…Fuzzy Poncho Man.”
“Definitely way too soon,” she said, though the smile on her face stayed.
There was something electric in the air now—besides the cigarette smoke and the heavy scent of clove and fried onions. The music shifted, a vinyl-scratch twist of fate as the ironic opening riffs of “Break On Through (To the Other Side)” roared across the speakers, and Nora froze.
Maybe this was it.
Her breakthrough.
To the side of herself she kept hidden beneath perfect grades and polite smiles. The one who scribbled poems in the margins of textbooks and didn’t always want to follow the rules.
“Actually,” she said slowly, the edges of a grin forming. “On second thought…maybe we play this out. See where it goes?” It was the most let-loose thing she could have ever said.
Joe looked surprised. Then his lips curved, slow and full of something that made her stomach tumble.
“You sure?”
She didn’t answer with words. Instead, she lifted their cuffed hands high in the air, laughing as people around them whooped and danced in the mud. She swayed to the beat, singing along with Jim Morrison, loud, off-key, and completely uncaring.
And then, like it was the most natural thing in the world, Joe tugged her gently toward him—one hand on her hip, the other still bound to hers—and kissed her.
This wasn’t her first kiss, not by a long shot. There’d been plenty of awkward spins of the bottle, and one high school boyfriend who thought being “passionate” meant trying to swallow her whole.
But this kiss wasn’t rushed or awkward or desperate. Rather like stepping into a story she hadn’t realized she was already writing.
Like breaking through to the other side.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Gold Creek Park, nestled just outside Seattle, hadn’t changed much since the last time Eleanor had gazed beyond the field at towering pines. Nearly fifty years had passed, yet the air still carried that same loamy scent of moss and damp earth. Breathing it all in, she was relieved that it was all so familiar. Her brain had given her one more gift to savor. A hush hovered beneath the clouds, the quiet that existed only in places where time had kindly slowed its march.
Even the trees on the periphery seemed to remember her, their branches spreading wide, beckoning her in for a hug.
She swore one of them still had the heart she’d carved back in 1920—Jet, whose smile she could hardly summon but whose kiss still lingered. And good Lord, the clouds looked like they’d never quite left, still sprawling and stubborn in the sky like cotton candy stuck on fingers.
Shep’s arm slung casually around her shoulders, warm and anchoring. The park was filled with concertgoers, and a stage had been erected for the Seattle Pop Festival.
“What are you thinking about?” His voice was low, as if he knewshe was somewhere else entirely and didn’t want to startle her from her reverie.
“I’m thinking about the last time I was here,” she murmured, scanning the tree line. “I’d just fallen in love.”
He glanced down at her with a crooked grin. “And now?”
“Now I’m thinking about how this park, unlike me, hasn’t aged a day. And somehow, I feel like I’ve stepped straight through a crack in time. Like the air here has a memory, and it remembered me.” She bumped him gently with her hip. “Standing here with a handsome musician, his arm around my shoulder, the sun playing hide-and-seek with the clouds… Looks like déjà vu is at it again.”
“We’re in Seattle.” Shep squinted at the sky. “I don’t think the clouds ever let the sun win.”
“Hmm.” Eleanor’s mouth curved into a smile. “Seems like there’s a full-on custody battle up there.”
He laughed, but it was soft, full of affection. “Was it this gloomy when you were here last?”
