“We did,” Elliot says, putting down his fork and dropping his hand to rest on my leg, almost like he needs the connection for what he’s about to tell everyone. I put my hand over his, happy to give it to him. “We told you all last week about the postcards and Grandma Clara’s long lost mystery love.”
“Henry, right?” Cooper asks, shoving a forkful of pancakes into his mouth.
Elliot nods. “Right. Well, the program Amelia coded did its thing, and we found out earlier tonight that Henry has a lot of family still living. We know their names and ages, and in a weirdsort of coincidence, a lot of them live in Rockport, Maine, which isn’t all that far from here.”
“There’s no such thing as a coincidence, Elliot love,” Cece says, taking a thoughtful sip of the mimosa in front of her. “The family of my mother’s long-lost love could be living anywhere in the whole entire world, but they’re living right in New England, three short hours from here. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the universe telling you that this is meant to be.”
“That what’s meant to be?” Rob asks.
“That Elliot and Amelia should go pay Henry’s family a visit. That’s what this is all about, right?” She asks, looking at Elliot and me. “You want to find out what actually happened between my mother and Henry, and to do it, you need to know what his family knows.”
Elliot nods, talking to everyone but looking only at Cece. “We do. But whatever we find out affects our whole family, so I thought you should know before we did anything.”
Cece waves that away. “Oh, honey, whatever you find out, it’ll be okay. Look at us.” She glances around at everyone, a smile on her face. “We’re all sitting here around this table, happy and healthy and together. There is nothing we could find out about my mother that would change what we are. Besides, she wants you to know whatever there is to know.”
“How do you know?” Hannah asks, face immediately flushing like she doesn’t think she should have input into this conversation. Noah leans in and whispers something in her ear, but Hannah just scowls, shoving him away and scooting her chair closer to Jo on her other side. Noah seems entirely unfazed by her prickly response to whatever he just said, grinning and tossing her a wink.
“Well, she told me, of course,” Cece says. “Paid me a visit just this morning while I was eating breakfast. We had a lovely chat.”
Jordan kicks back in his chair, crossing his arms and smirking like he’s about to stir some shit. “And when she came to visit you for that lovely chat, you didn’t think to, you know, ask her to tell you the story of her long-lost British soldier love?”
Cece rolls her eyes. “That’s not the way it works, and you know it. Elliot and Amelia have to figure it out.” She turns to us. “It was always meant to be the two of you.”
“Always?” I ask. “Seven months ago, I didn’t even know who Elliot was.”
“Always,” Cece says firmly, nodding like the matter is closed.
“She’s right about the always, Mystery Girl,” Elliot whispers, his warm breath tickling my ear. “There is no universe where it’s not you and me.”
I lean back slightly to look at him, and what I see has my breath backing up in my lungs, my heart galloping in my chest as if Elliot’s entire family isn’t sitting around the table. In his eyes are the words that have been swirling around my head for weeks. And when he reaches up to cup my cheek, I hear them as clearly as if he spoke them out loud.
“Uh, if the two of you are finished with whatever it is you have going on over there, I think we have a conversation to finish.”
I whip my head around to find Cooper smirking at us and everyone else grinning madly. Entirely unfazed, Elliot plants a kiss on my temple, turning to address the table. “I want to contact Henry’s family. Amelia found all their information, so it’s just a phone call or an email. I want to ask them if we can come to Rockport to tell them our story and ask for theirs. And I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come too. It’s your story too. All of ours, really, and you should be a part of it.”
The earnest tone in Elliot’s voice, the obvious love he has for his family, makes me fall even harder, and I wonder briefly if there will be a bottom to my feelings for him. If maybe once wesay the words, I’ll stop falling. Somehow, I doubt it. I think I am destined to keep falling for him for the rest of my days.
“No, El,” Rob says quietly. “I love that you would ask, and there has not been a single day since you were a little boy that you haven’t put this family first, but this isn’t for everyone. This is for you.”
“Your dad’s right,” Cece says, glancing approvingly at her son-in-law. “It needs to be you. Take the trip together. Meet Henry’s family, if they’re agreeable. Find out what you can. We’ll be waiting for you when you get home.”
Home.
That word again.
Conversation breaks out around the table after that. Jo stands and plops herself in Jordan’s lap, laughing when he wraps his arms tight around her and nuzzles his face into her neck. Rob puts an arm around Pam and ribs Cooper for his lack of cooking skills with Pam joining right in. Noah does proverbial backflips to get Hannah’s attention. Cece is involved in every conversation at once.
“What are you thinking, Mystery Girl?” Elliot asks, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and tucking me against him.
I glance up at him—at his deep blue eyes and soft smile and scruff covered jaw and hair that falls over his forehead in a way that makes me weak in the knees—and smile. “I’m thinking that I really, really like it here. And I really like you.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead, lingering there, warmth unfurling from the place where his lips touch my skin. “I really like you too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ELLIOT
“Even I know when to admit defeat,” Amelia groans, leaning back in the passenger seat of my car and glaring at the half empty ten-pound bag of red gummy bears in the center console like it personally wronged her.
