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I get to my feet, and carefully set the letters aside before I start clearing our things, needing to be doing something with all this sudden breathless energy.
Something aside from throwing myself back into Reeve’s arms.
“Nothing?” Reeve gets up, too, and takes the tray from me. “The hidden message we just found written in invisible ink on the letters between your bank robber grandpa and the love of his life might just benothing?”
“We don’t know it’s about the treasure!” I protest, as he trails me through to the kitchen. “Maybe that address was just a place for them to meet in secret, or a friend’s place. Maybe he need her to pick up his cowboy boots from the cobbler and wanted to make sure she didn’t forget the address.”
Reeve makes a noise of protest, setting the dirty dishes down and starting to stack the dishwasher. “Sure, and I’d use invisible ink for my weekly grocery list!”
“But you would,” I reply, grinning. “Just for the mystery and drama.”
“OK, maybe I would,” he admits, smiling back at me. “But this means something. You know it does.”
“It could,” I allow. “But there’s no reason to get our hopes up before we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
Reeve gives an exaggerated sigh, shaking his head sadly. “You have no sense of romance or discovery, Ivy Fortune.”
For a weird reason, his mock insult stings.
“Maybe I’ve seen where all that romance and discovery can get you,” I toss back lightly. “And in Earl and Madeline’s case, it was death before they turned twenty-one.”
Reeve shakes his head, moving close enough to brush my wayward curls out of my face. “Give me time,” he says, looking down at me. “I’ll make a believer out of you yet.”
My mind goes blank. It’s that simple: thoughts and complex sentence structures disappear when he’s standing this close to me. When he’stouchingme.
I inhale in a rush. It would be so easy to lean in, too. Tilt my face up, and reach to run my hands through that damp, rumpled hair. Find his lips, and lose myself in the slow, burning heat of his embrace …
I lurch backwards, so fast, I nearly fall on my ass right there in the middle of the kitchen floor. “It’s late,” I blurt. “You should go.”
Reeve blinks, then casually steps back, too. “You’re kicking me out?” he asks, turning teasing. “Into the wild ravages of a tropical storm?”
I smile. “To your luxury rental, barely a hundred feet away,” I correct him, going to the coat closet in the hall. “I’ll even throw in a flashlight and a rain poncho.”
Reeve bundles up, and steps outside, where the storm is still raging.
“Flash the lights three times when you get back safely,” I joke, and he chuckles.
“Thanks for the hospitality.”
“Always. It’s what neighbors are for,” I add quickly.
Neighbors who’ll be fantasizing about peeling off your damp sweater for the rest of my life.
I watch through the window as the beam of the flashlight disappears into the trees. And when the lights flash on in the house – three times – I can’t help but smile.
Because I’m in trouble here …
And even worse, I like it.
11
REEVE
I never thoughtthat much about fate before this week. I mean, sure, it makes for a nice story – the idea that there are forces at work in the universe ushering us safely towards the right destination – but it had never showed up in my life.
Luck? Sure. Bad timing? Constantly. But no shining messages from the universe keeping me up at night and making me wonder about the grand plan of destiny.
Now, I know in my bones that fate is real – and boy, is it having fun tormenting me.
