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Unable to sit, Burke stood up to pace the room, thinking through the implications. He couldn’t imagine falling in love with the same woman as one of his brothers. How would he feel? He couldn’t imagine it would destroy his relationship with his family, but it might have.

His curiosity didn’t let him pace for long. He picked up the book and finished searching the margins.

When he didn’t find any further references to Janica, he picked up the next book, a compilation of folktales of early America from both indigenous and colonizer perspectives. It wasn’t a book Fox had owned, and the copyright showed it had been published over fifty years before.

Now that he was looking for references to his grandmother and to love triangles involving brothers, Burke took his time to analyze the notes from that perspective.

A story about two brothers being pulled apart had its page turned down. At the end of the story, Jay had written so many regrets.

Without the context of his thoughts on Janica, Burke wouldn’t have noticed the comment as significant. He noted down the page number and kept searching.

He found a few underlined sentences that could be part of their family mystery.

No man can force the sun to reverse its course so that he can make reparations.

Brothers in war. Brothers in peace.

Heaviness weighed on his soul.

Burke found himself swallowing hard at times. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he found dozens of references about regret.

Whatever had happened between the brothers had ripped at Jay.

Eventually, Burke took a few pages out of a notebook and tore them into strips. The bookmarks would be easier to find than checking his phone for reference pages for each.

He grabbed Jay’s remaining books from the shelf and continued his work. Checking the inner margins took more time, but he couldn’t leave the puzzle half-done.

That had him thinking of Rissa and how she would enjoy the challenge of finding the quotes and figuring out how they pertained to the family mystery.

She’d always enjoyed puzzles and mysteries, which was part of what made her such a fantastic teacher. She loved finding out how and why things worked.

Watching her through the week and earlier today with Charlie and Ella had shown him she’d found her calling.

This led him to his own thoughts of how they could make their relationship work. Now that he’d found Rissa again, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to let her go without a fight.

Regret practically seeped from the books spread around him. Burke wouldn't follow in Jay’s footsteps. He wouldn't let regrets consume him.

Which meant he needed to get his shit together and let Rissa know exactly how much she meant to him. It was far too early in their relationship to throw around the love word. Her life had taught her to be wary of people and love.

He needed a plan to help her believe in him, in love, and in happy endings.

Burke imagined Jay cheering him on as he picked up another book. He’d let his subconscious work on his Rissa plan while he discovered more about Jay.

Chapter 11

Answers and Questions

Rissa made another tiny snowball and tossed it for Frizzle. The Yorkie loved to snatch them from the air. “Your warrior instincts are superb, Frizzle. You’d be an asset to any army.”

Which was a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Frizzle might weigh less than six pounds, but her guardian nature made her an excellent guard dog. No one would sneak up on whatever army she protected.

As if on cue, Frizzle’s ears perked up, and she ignored the snowball Rissa had just tossed to turn her attention to the farmhouse.

Burke walked their way, arms laden with books. The sight made her smile and reminder her of how he would help her tote her books to and from the library. She’d never been sure her father wouldn’t destroy them in a drunken rage, so she’d taken to storing them at Burke’s, except for her current read, which she kept beneath her mattress.

She walked his way and took the top few books off the stack. “Let me help you. You carried enough of my books in the past.”

He grinned and leaned down to brush his lips over hers. “You were always happiest with a stack of books to read or a puzzle to figure out.”