“Hi,” she whispered in his ear, the single syllable somehow the perfect greeting.
“Hi, back.” He added a squeeze and drew back, smiling into her eyes and wishing he could swoop her up and kiss her, but not with the audience.
He had no idea what she’d told them about the budding relationship, and didn’t even know exactly what this enigmatic woman in his arms was feeling at that moment.
There’d be time for a kiss soon enough.
Turning, she gestured toward her mother. “You two remember each other?”
“Jo Ellen.” Eli came closer and gave her a light hug. “Been a few decades.”
She laughed softly and patted his back. “So good to see you again,” she said. “I always thought you were the nicest boy.”
“Just the nicest old man now,” he said on a laugh, easing away to greet the kids. “Emma? Matt? I’m Eli Lawson. Hope you two Ithaca natives are up for a few beach days this weekend.”
Emma shook his hand, giving him a warm smile that looked very much like her mother’s. “I haven’t seen the sun since 2021,” she deadpanned.
Laughing, Eli reached his hand to Matt, who popped his wired headphones and shook his hand. “I actually don’t think I own shorts. I don’t believe in them.”
Eli laughed. “You’ll change your mind.”
They all had carry-on only, so Eli took Jo Ellen’s bag and they headed back to the parking lot, with Kate chatting about his beautiful design for the Summer House. He let the compliments roll off him, more grateful for her presence than anything.
“So how are things at the beach?” she asked him as they reached Vivien’s SUV.
“Sheer chaos,” he told her, then shared with all of them the madness of event preparation.
All the way back to Gulf Shore Drive, Emma peppered him with questions, her keen intelligence—another thing she’d inherited from her mother—on full display.
Matt was quiet, though he seemed to perk up at the sight of the Gulf. Jo Ellen, next to him in the passenger seat, got more and more slack-jawed as they drove over the Destin bridge toward town.
“Oh, my,” she said on a sigh of mixed emotions. “I remember when this section was nothing but pepper trees and scrub oaks.”
Eli nodded. “You’ll hardly recognize some parts of Destin. But the white sand? The turquoise water? That never changes. You’ll remember it from all those years when we spent summers here.”
Jo Ellen turned to him, shifting her attention from the scenery to the driver. “I understand Maggie is out of the country.”
And we’re going right there, he thought.
“She’s in the Netherlands. Well, she might be in France now. She went with her gardening club on a spring flower tour.”
“She always could grow things,” Jo Ellen said softly. “We had an apartment together in college and she practically turned the dining room into a greenhouse.”
He slid her a smile, encouraged to hear her talk about her friendship with his mother. He was so used to the very mention of the Wylie name eliciting Maggie’s darkest glare.
It certainly seemed like the profound dislike and distrust only went one way. Which, he guessed, made sense if Artie was the one who turned Roger in to the police.
Her comments opened the door for what he had on his mind from the moment she got off the plane.
“I’m so sorry about your husband,” he said gently. “I loved Uncle Artie. I have some of my best memories of Destin with him.”
She gave him a grateful smile, enough sadness in her eyes that he knew the grief was still raw, even at seven months. Heck, for him, it had been raw at seven years.
And look at Jonah…
“I’m so relieved to hear you say that,” she replied, bringing him back to this conversation. “Under the…well, I’m glad. He liked you so much, Eli.”
Eli just nodded and navigated traffic, not sure what else could or should be said.
