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I turned around. “What do you mean?”
“I wrote to you. I just never sent them. I wrote you letters every week during basic and while I was deployed that first time. Afterward, they became more sporadic, but I still wrote.”
I began to breathe more quickly, feeling a heaviness on my chest. “You did? For all those years, you still wrote to me?”
“Yeah, it was the only way I could still feel connected to you. I never gave up on us, Lettie. I just didn’t know how to come back after it had been so long.”
I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. “When was the last letter? Where are they? Did you keep them?”
Tuck licked his lips, and I watched him inhale deeply. “I kept them all. The last one was after I got hurt, before I came back.”
My eyes filled with tears. “Would you let me read them?”
He shrugged. “If you want to. They are yours.”
I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him softly. My eyes flitted behind him, and I saw something bright red up in the tree.
“Tuck,” I whispered. “There’s a cardinal.”
He turned slowly, still holding onto me, and looked up into the tree.
I looked more closely and realized that there were actually two birds in the tree. Two cardinals. “And look, that’s the female next to him. They must be mates.”
“How can you tell?”
“Most of the time, cardinals will mate for life,” I answered. “So these two are likely a bonded duo.”
“Anne and Gilbert,” Tuck replied.
“Lettie and Tuck,” I corrected, immediately feeling cheesy. “Anyway, I’m freezing and I’m afraid you are on the verge of frostbite, so can we go back inside and warm up with an entire pot of coffee?”
Tuck nodded. “Yeah, and do you happen to have any yeast? I could go for some donuts.”
SEVENTY-ONE
LETTIE
“I’m goingto get some clothes on, and then we’ll get started on those donuts,” Tuck said after taking his boots off and heading toward my room.
I followed him and tugged on his arm. “No! Don’t get dressed. It should be illegal for you to wear clothes. I think I should make that a rule whenever you come over. Instead of “shoes off at the door,” it’s more like Tuck’s clothes off at the door.”
He laughed and tugged at my pajama top. “Okay. Well, if I’m baking in my underwear, so are you.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and squinted my eyes. “But I don’t have a bra on.”
Tuck tilted his head and made a clicking noise with his mouth. “I don’t make the rules.”
I puckered my lips and stood with my hand to my hip. “Fine, deal.”
Then I stripped off my bird pajamas and stood bare-chested in a pair of lacy blue underwear, and I watched his eyes take me in.
A smirk formed on his face. “I officially love this rule. I could get used to this.”
We moved to the kitchen and began baking—mixing the ingredients, playfully tossing a little bit of flour, not minding that we would have to clean it up later. When it was time to roll the dough, Tuck wrapped his arms around me, his hands on mine, and we rolled together, flattening the dough to cut out the donuts.
He moved my hair to one side and kissed me in the crook where my neck met my shoulder. My ticklish spot. I laughed, my head toward the ceiling, and he kept kissing me until I turned around and we abandoned the donuts for each other’s lips. I loved kissing him. I was determined to make up for all the years of kisses we had missed out on, and I knew that if these were the only lips I ever felt on mine for the rest of my life, I would be more than happy.
He pulled away and brushed a piece of my hair from my face. His eyes never wavered from mine, his pupils dilated, and I noticed that his hands were shaking slightly.
