Page 158 of Key West Homecoming

Now he noticed everything.

The pale green trim had probably been chosen decades ago and repainted several times since. The current coat was tired but salvageable. The shutters were hand-built. Jake knew how much work had gone into them because he had restored one at the cottage during his second summer.

Whoever had lived here had cared about the place.

The house needed work, but it was the kind Jake understood. The shutters could be restored instead of replaced. The trim needed to be taken back and painted properly. The porch step could be shored up from underneath.

The garden needed someone with patience.

Standing there, Jake realized he wasn’t looking at the house as another project.

This felt different.

For three years, Gloria Kendrick’s cottage had been exactly what he needed. It had given him quiet when quiet was the only thing he knew how to want. He had been grateful for every day there.

But the cottage belonged to Emma now.

It always had.

Jake thought about David’s initials beneath the porch railing and Gloria holding on to the house all those years. Emma had inherited more than a piece of property. Except for her uncle, she’d claimed the memories that held her family together. It was clear that Emma had to return to the cottage in whatever way she wanted.

He looked at the blue cottage again.

Someone could buy it, hire a crew and make it look new in six weeks. Jake found himself hoping that wouldn’t happen.

He remembered what Edmund had told Emma about noticing what she kept reaching for instead of trying to decide everything at once.

Maybe that applied to him too.

Jake took out his phone and typed in the number from the sign.

He didn’t call.

Not yet.

He saved it and walked back toward Hibiscus Lane.

Emma arrived at twelve-thirty carrying a container of coffee cake Rebecca had sent home with her.

“Coffee cake,” she announced as she came through the gate.

Jake looked up from the porch. “I’ll have some of that.”

“Rebecca’s daughters got up at ten and ate three quarters of it. This is what survived.”

Jake took the container from her.

“How was your morning?” Emma asked.

“Quiet. I took a walk.”

“Where?”

“Just around.”

Emma gave him a look. “That sounds suspiciously vague.”

“It was a vague walk.”