Jack chuckled and paused to wipe the counter. “No, I’m just really good at reading people. A perk of the job.”
Emma took a long sip of her drink, and it burned a path down her throat before settling in her stomach. “Sounds like a downside to me.”
“Not if you manage to help someone having a bad day.”
Emma ran her finger along the rim of the glass. “No offense, but I don’t think you can help. Jules set this whole thing up to help us all reconnect, but I don’t think it’s in the cards for us. Too much time has passed.”
Even without their issues, Emma and her parents viewed the world very, very differently.
With nothing in common, how was Emma supposed to mend fences with them?
How was she supposed to bring them back together?
For Jules’s sake, she desperately wanted to find the common thread to tug them together, but after tonight, she had to wonder if it even existed.
Jack patted her hand and lingered, his warm and familiar touch sending an unexpected jolt through her. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out. You’re Emma Sullivan. You always find a way.”
She was still turning his words over in her head when Jules hurried over to pull her on stage. All through a rousing rendition of “Last Christmas,” Emma tried to shake the feeling off, but she couldn’t. When they drove home in silence and everyone retired for the night, she still felt the heavy pit in the center of her stomach—the one she thought she’d outrun all those years ago.
Emma had never fit in with her parents, and all that time and space hadn’t changed a single thing.
Why had she been naïve enough to let herself hope otherwise?
Why couldn’t she just let it go?
Chapter Ten
“How many cups of coffee have you had?”
Marley was still fidgeting when she swung her gaze back to Emma, her smile stretching from ear to ear. “About three so far.”
With a slight shake of her head, Emma plucked the empty cup out of her hands and set it down on the nearest table. “Okay, I think you should lay off the coffee for a bit. We need to focus.”
Marley pushed her glasses up her nose. “We do, but this is all just so interesting. It’s the most exciting thing to happen to me in a while.”
Emma patted her back. “You definitely need to get out more.”
“Once the mystery is solved, we can go out.” Marley waved her comment away and gestured to the photographs and letters spread over the table. “Thanks for letting me make copies of those, by the way. The past few days, I’ve been up late into the night, researching, and my friend got in touch with another friend of hers.”
“And?”
Marley glanced around the half-empty library, bathed in the soft glow of the early morning light, and shifted closer. She dropped her voice a whole octave, and Emma strained to hearher. “You were right about the letters. They’re written in some kind of code. I thought we wouldn’t be able to crack it without any kind of guide from your grandpa, but I was wrong.”
Emma’s pulse quickened. “So, your friend was able to decode it?”
Marley rolled up the sleeve of her pullover and glanced down at her watch. “She should be emailing me soon. She just had a bit of a hard time with the phrasing. Your grandfather loved a good mystery.”
Emma’s lips lifted into a half-smile. “Sounds like him.”
Even though he’d died when she was eight years old, all of her memories of him were of a spry and lively man with silver hair, a spring in his step, and a mischievous smile. Whenever he’d watch her, he’d always make it a point to turn everything into an educational moment, and he used to have Emma eating from the palms of his hands.
She’d loved every minute of it.
Without him to stoke the flames of curiosity, life had gotten a little quiet.
Now, she was starting to remember what it was like—the thrill and rush of uncovering adventures and mysteries long since forgotten.
Even the fact that this would have a personal impact on her family didn’t deter her.
