Page 55 of Key West Homecoming

She looked into his eyes, “Where you can look after it.”

Jake’s smiled, “If you wish.”

She’d spent the last several days fighting to prove that the cottage belonged to her, yet she had no desire to alter anything Jake had planted done to it. She was beginning to understand that ownership wasn’t the only thing that mattered.

By the time they finished walking through the garden, the afternoon light had softened. Emma checked her watch.

“I should let you have your evening.”

“I’ve got nothing to have.”

“I interrupted you. I’m sure you have to finish what you were doing when I arrived.”

“That’s about a five-minute job.”

Emma smiled.

“I should go anyway. Rachel wants me back at nine tomorrow to talk about what happens next.”

Jake picked up the bucket and walked with her toward the gate.

Emma slowed before reaching it.

The cottage looked different in the late light. The bougainvillea fell over the porch railing, and the lilies followed the fence in a long sweep of color.

Three days earlier, Emma had stood outside this same gate and wondered how Arthur could have been so wrong about the place.

Now she knew.

“Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for taking care of the property.”

He looked toward the cottage.

“I like taking care of it.”

Emma believed him.

She wanted to tell him about the will in her bag, and that somehow seeing the garden today had made the cottage feel even more like something her grandmother had deliberately left for her.

She decided there would be time for that.

“Good night, Jake.”

“Drive safe.”

Emma let herself through the gate and walked toward the rental car. Before getting in, she looked back once.

Jake was still standing near the path with the bucket in his hand.

Four days ago, he had been a stranger living in her grandmother’s cottage. Now, when Emma looked at the lilies and the freshly painted porch and the little tree beside the steps, she saw how much of what she remembered had survived because Jake had quietly preserved all of it.

She got into the car and drove back toward Winslow’s as the last of the daylight faded over Key West.

CHAPTER 10