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Oh my god. I’m really going to do this.
When he turns my hand over, he drops a black oval key fob onto my palm.
“What is this?”
“The spare,” he says, gesturing to the Porsche he’d driven here. His vintage Corvette rolls up behind it, driven by a man in an all-black uniform. “It’s yours.”
“You’re loaning me a car?” Déjà vu has me shaking my head, but he cuts me off before I can refuse.
“I’m giving you the car, and no matter what happens, it’s yours to keep.”
I should say thank you, but my thoughts are like scrambled eggs stuck to a burning pan.
“My dad…” I say instead. “I won’t be able to keep this from him. He’s going to have questions about who you are and why I’m agreeing to this.”
Rowan mulls it over for a beat. “Guess I’ll have to ask him for your hand, then.”
I swallow hard at the thought of him asking my dad to marry me. It’s not real, of course, but a cluster of warm tingles set up camp in my chest, anyway.
I’m going to be Mrs. Rowan Kendrick.
Any minute now, I’ll wake up, back in Mom’s flower shop, and this whole ordeal will have been some silly dream.
Except, the flutters I experience when he reaches inside my front pocket for my phone are entirely real. I’m too stunned to react as he flips it around to unlock it with my face ID, then helps himself to my contacts app.
“What are you doing?” I manage weakly.
Mischief pools in his gaze. “My future wife’s going to need my number.”
It’s hard to breathe when he slides the device back inside the pocket below my breasts. My nipples pucker in response, eliciting a shiver.
Rowan takes two steps backward before opening the passenger door of the Corvette, offering me a nod. “I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter Ten
Rowan
I stand upstairs facing the room Ms. Black informed me belonged to my mother.
I’m immobilized by anguish as I stare at the grooves in the plain white door—the only barrier between me and the past—but for the last two nights, I’ve dragged myself up here, only to turn right back around.
Molly’s openness about her mother, and the experiences shared with her family, broke loose memories I haven’t allowed myself to relive in too long.
I’ve spent the last fifteen years bottling up this pain, and I’m afraid of what will happen once it’s finally released.
I lift my hand to the brass knob, forcing myself to twist it, and I’m hit with instantaneous grief to see that Thomas left her room exactly as it was when she left. As if he were preserving it or possibly waiting for her to return.
At some point, the staff must have dusted in here because there’s only a fine layer coating her things, and unlike the other rooms I’ve explored, this one has dated feminine touches from the purple bedspread to the white furnishings with frames of her and her friends scattered all about.
A feather boa is draped over her vanity, and teen magazines from the eighties are stacked on its edge, which I absently flip through before approaching a set of hanging shelves with journals, photo albums, and plush animals.
Snagging two leather-bound books from the shelf, I move to sit on the edge of her bed.
I open the first one, and slam it shut immediately. My teeth ache from the force of grinding them and for several heartbeats, I question if this is a bad idea. Ripping open old wounds. Stepping into the past.
When I gradually pry it open again, I’m greeted by a photo of a younger version of my parents, huddled together as Dad stretches his arm out to capture the image.
Staring at the faces of the two people who taught me everything I know—to never give up, to be honest and live your truth, and to love fiercely—I can’t help wondering if I’ve somehow failed them.
