Elliot takes the phone from me and looks at the screen then back up at me, eyes wide. “Holy shit, you did it.”
I grin at him. “Did you doubt me?”
He brings a hand to my face, eyes steady on mine. “Fuck, no. You’re brilliant, Amelia.” He strokes a finger down my jaw. “My girl is the smartest girl.”
I try not to let it show how much I love it when he saysmy girland gets all claimy, but god, I love it so much. I love him so much. It’s bananas fast, but I couldn’t stop the fall if I wantedto. This man is mine, and I’m pretty sure I’ve always been his. I know I fail miserably at keeping any of these feelings off my face when he grins back at me like he knows exactly what’s going through my head.
“Uh, what’s going on over there?”
Cooper’s question and the curiosity in his voice has Elliot and me looking at each other, an entire conversation passing between us. Seems we’re pretty good at that.
“We kind of have something to tell you guys,” Elliot starts, his gaze sweeping around the circle of his brothers, Hannah, and Jo and then landing back on me. I give him a nod and what I hope is an encouraging look before spinning back around to face everyone.
“So,” he starts, reaching around to take my hand, tangling our fingers together. “Back at Christmas, when Mom asked me to go find her Christmas pitcher in the attic, I found something else instead.”
Everyone listens with rapt attention as he recounts the whole story from reading the postcards to me offering to help him find Henry to our night in my office last week.
“Amelia found all the clues in the postcards, and she wrote a code basically creating a program that we could feed all the postcards into, and synced it with all the different databases she uses for her Genesis app. It’s complicated and absolutely fucking brilliant, but the gist of it is, it worked, and she found Henry.”
He flips my phone around and puts it on the floor so everyone can see the screen. “Henry James Allen, born in London, died in Rockport, Maine.”
Cooper whistles through his teeth. “Jesus, this is some family mystery. You guys are, like, super sleuths. I love it.”
“This is so cool,” Hannah says quietly.
Noah glances over at her. “Sounds like something you would write into one of your books, Han.” His tone is playful,but Hannah’s eyes shutter immediately at the mention of her writing, and I wonder what the hell that’s all about.
“You really created the program that found him?” Jordan looks at me with something like awe.
“Of course she did, because she’s freaking brilliant,” Jo says, elbowing him in the side and grinning at me.
“She sure is.” Elliot’s voice borders on reverent as he wraps his arms back around me from behind.
“So, what happens now?” Cooper looks back down at the screen, his voice thoughtful. “I mean, Grandma Clara might have known him in England, but he obviously didn’t stay there either because he died in Maine. Why was he there? Did he ever get married? Have kids? A family? Weird that they both ended up in New England. I wonder if they ever got back in touch. Sorry,” he says, pausing for a beat, shaking his head. “Lawyer brain.”
I open my mouth to say something and then close it, not entirely sure of my place here for the first time today.
“Say it,” Elliot murmurs into my ear as his brothers volley more questions back and forth.
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is you were about to say. Whatever is in your head.”
I blow out a breath, turning my head so I can see him. “I just wasn’t sure how much to get involved. How much to say. This is your family.”
Elliot’s expression turns serious, even as his voice stays soft and low enough not to be overheard. “I don’t want there to be one single part of my life that you aren’t involved in. I want you to be a part of everything.” He brings a hand to my cheek, keeping me in place and my eyes on his. “You’re mine, Ames, and every single part of me is yours. That includes my family, if you’ll have us. So, say it, baby. Say everything. Give us every single thought in your brilliant head.”
I swallow hard, a little overwhelmed at Elliot’s declaration in a room full of his family at the same time as I feel settled straight down to my bones. This is everything I want, I realize suddenly. Him, this family, book club with these women, lazy Tuesdays sprawled right here on this living room floor. So I nod, turning back to everyone.
“I coded the program to alert me as soon as it found Henry’s full name. Now that we know it, and where he was born and died, I can start looking for everything else. In the next couple of days, we should be able to know everything.” I glance at Cooper. “I can find the answers to all of your questions.”
He smiles at me and nods, then looks at Elliot. “Can we see the postcards? I think I’d like to read them.” The tone in his voice has my heart clenching. Elliot told me that Cooper feels the biggest of all of his brothers, and the evidence of that is all over his face.
“Of course,” Elliot says. “I have them all scanned, so I can send them around to you, and if you want to see the originals, I have them. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before now. I don’t know why I kept it to myself. It kind of felt like I was meant to find those postcards. Like they were just sitting in the attic waiting for me. And it’s stupid, but figuring out who Henry was just felt like something I needed to do. And it kind of…” He pauses, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It feels like maybe it brought Amelia and me together, in a way. Like maybe we needed to do it together.”
Elliot squeezes my hand as my eyes burn. I settle back deeper into his hold, leaning my head against his, soaking in the way his warm, hard body feels against mine and his strong heartbeat against my back.
“You don’t ever have to apologize for that. You told us when you were ready.” A look full of such fierce understanding passes between Elliot and Jordan that emotion crawls up my throat atthe evidence, again, of how much these four brothers love each other.
