Kendall picked it up as gingerly as she would an explosive, her chest too constricted to draw a full breath. The photo was wrinkled and warped, as if it had been exposed to moisture, but the photo was still clear enough to see it was of a woman and a little girl, perhaps three years old, taken in front of a forest backdrop. The girl beamed at the camera, but the woman was instead looking at the child. The expression on her face was laced with such adoration that it hurt to look at.
“What is it?” Gabe asked carefully.
“I think . . .” She dragged her eyes away from the photo, nearly too stunned to form words. “I think it’s me. And my mom.” She handed the photo to Gabe shakily.
“She looked just like you,” he said softly. “No wonder everyone in town recognized you.” He studied it for a second before handing it back to Kendall.
Somehow, it had never occurred to her to wonder why there weren’t any photos of her or Carrie in the house. Kendall’s first impulse was to believe that Connie Green had cut them ruthlessly and definitively out of both her life and her memories. But this photo seemed to suggest otherwise. The wrinkled surface seemed like it had been handled frequently, carried around . . . even wept over?
And the photo itself . . . this was no two-dollar photo booth knockoff. This was a professional studio shot, one that Carrie had paid for and sent to her mother. There was no other way she could have gotten it.
Kendall was gripped with the sudden, desperate need to know what was in the letters. “Open them, Gabe. I have to know.”
Gabe carefully unfolded the letter on the top and then another and then another. “They’re dated,” he explained. “It makes sense to read them in order.” He picked up and scanned the first one, then lowered it slowly. “They’re from your mother.”
Kendall caught her breath, swaying with the kick of her heart. Even after finding the photo, she hadn’t dared to hope. “Are they bad?”
Gabe kept reading, and she didn’t exhale while she waited for him to answer. A tiny smile surfaced on his face, but it was tinged with sadness. “No, it’s not bad. I think you should read it for yourself.”
Kendall took the letter with trembling hands. Her mom’s handwriting took a minute to decipher, loopy and girlie. She half expected the i’s to be dotted with hearts. This was not a woman’s handwriting. It was a girl’s. The date said that when it was written, Carrie had only been twenty-three. Kendall would have been five. Right before she’d been abandoned. What if this revealed the reason her mom had left her? What if she learned—?
“Kendall.” Gabe’s gentle tone brought her back to the present. “Just read it. Trust me.”
She picked it up again.
Dear Mom,
I made a huge mistake. I’m so sorry I left the way I did. I was hurt and angry and I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought you were trying to take my daughter away from me. I thought I could do everything on my own.
I’ve made a huge mess of things. Kendall is getting so big so fast, and I just can’t do this anymore. Not without you.
Please . . . can we come home?
Your loving (and very sorry) daughter,
Carrie
Kendall swallowed hard, trying to make sense of what she was reading. For the first time in her life, her mother was a real person, with loopy handwriting and the sad perspective of lost youth. Kendall might have had to grow up faster and younger than her mom, but they’d both come to the understanding of how hard and unforgiving the world could be. Whatever the reason Carrie had left, she’d wanted to come home.
And she’d wanted to bring Kendall with her.
Tears slid down her face and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. “What’s the next one?”
The look on Gabe’s face as he started reading struck fear into her heart.
“What?”
“I don’t know yet, Kendall. Maybe you should let me read through all of them to see how they end first.”
“No, I have to know.” She’d been looking for this information her whole life, and now that it was right in front of her, she couldn’t stop. She put out her hand and Gabe reluctantly passed her the letter.
Mom,
Did you get my last letter? I sent it a week ago and I haven’t heard back from you. Kendall and I are in Denver. I’m looking for a job now because we’re out of money, but I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t need to.
I know I made huge mistakes. I know you may never forgive me. But don’t make your granddaughter suffer for my stupidity.
Please let us come home.
Carrie
Kendall blinked. “What? Connie didn’t respond?”
Gabe was flipping through pages as fast as he could skim. “No, I think it’s okay . . . There’s one more like that, here . . .” He passed it over, but from his tone, she didn’t even read it, just set it aside. “No, there’s a reason. Read this one next.”
Mom,
I’m so relieved you’re okay and I’m relieved you weren’t ignoring my messages. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you called. We had to move motels unexpectedly, but the desk clerk was nice and liked Kendall and saved the letter for me when I went back to see if you’d written. We’re at a new place (address below). Don’t worry about me, though the money you sent is really appreciated. I have another job interview next week, and I should be able to get a phone set up after that. Let us know when you’re home from the hospital. I tried to call, but they wouldn’t let me talk to you.
I love you. I’ve been telling Kendall all about you and she can’t wait to meet you.
Love,
Carrie
“Connie was in the hospital?” Kendall remembered the stack of medical files that she hadn’t gone through. She’d just assumed that they were from her most recent illness, the one that had eventually gotten the best of her, but it sounded like there had been an earlier one. Not that the knowledge would have helped her without the letters for context. Her heart still beat rapidly. This was like some soap opera or one of those mystery crates that were the rage a few years back. It didn’t feel like her life. “What else is there?”
“That’s it,” Gabe said softly. “That was the last one from Carrie. There’s just this.” He held up a thicker envelope, one that she had mistaken for a stack of folded letters. It was still sealed, addressed to Carrie at a Littleton motel. A big Return to Sender was stamped on the front.
Kendall took it from Gabe slowly, an ominous feeling growing inside. She slid her finger under the flap, the seal still strong after all these years. Here was a full page of slanted, spidery writing that was obviously not Carrie’s. Kendall recognized it from the notes in the banker’s boxes. Connie’s.
Dear Carrie,
My love, I’m so worried about you. I haven’t heard anything from you in the last several weeks. I’ve called every motel in Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs looking for you, but I’ve gotten nowhere. Even at your old addresses, they say they don’t have anyone by that name. Were you listed under an assumed name?
Come home. Your place is here. I know you wanted to get back on your feet first. I know you didn’t want to return as a prodigal. Stop worrying about all that. You’re so close and I don’t know where else to look.
I love you,
Mom
Kendall lowered the paper. “That’s it?”
“There’s nothing else in there.”
“They just . . . lost touch? How could that happen? She was going to come home. She was going to bring me home. . . . How . . . ?” Only when Gabe gathered her against him did Kendall realize she was sobbing. How could this have happened? Carrie had been so close to coming back. Why hadn’t she just driven up into the mountains? If she was in Denver, if she had enough money for a motel, surely she had enough money for a car or a rental for the day or even a taxi ride. Knowing what Kendall knew now, it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d set foot in this town with nothing but the clothes on her and her daughter’s backs . . . someone would have
helped them.
So what happened?
All this time Kendall thought she wanted to know the truth, but now the truth was just as incomprehensible as it had always been. Even worse, because now she knew how close she had come to having a real family.
Chapter Twenty-Two
SLEEP PEELED BACK from Gabe’s consciousness in layers, bringing in the dim light of predawn. He lay there for one moment, reorienting himself, wondering what had awoken him. Then he made a small movement, and the cold, damp air sliced through him like a knife.
His eyes snapped open to see a cloud of breath forming in front of him. He turned his head slightly to where Kendall lay curled up in a ball, mere inches from where he lay beside her on the bed under the heavy comforter and a sleeping bag. He’d held her while she cried for what seemed like hours, until her sobs had stilled and she’d fallen into a deep, troubled sleep, still clinging to him. She hadn’t even moved when he’d transferred her to the mattress or when he’d later extracted himself to change the propane bottle in the heater, which had evidently run out sometime in the bitter cold of early morning. It didn’t help that he’d had to crack the window to vent carbon monoxide; even that thin stream of cold air had been enough to drop the temperature precipitously. He was suddenly glad that he’d thought to throw the sleeping bag over them.
Carefully he eased himself out from beneath the coverings and thrust his feet into his boots. Kendall didn’t stir. Either she was perpetually sleep-deprived—which was entirely possible—or she was just exhausted from the emotional revelations of the night before. Not that Gabe could blame her. After a lifetime of wondering what had happened to her mother, after days of wondering why her grandmother hadn’t sought her out, the answers she thought the letters would contain remained just out of her reach.
Gabe took the duffel bag with him as he left the bedroom and descended the stairs to the kitchen, where Kendall had left the propane stove. Had he thought about it, he would have brought up that bottle to use for heat, but they had managed to stay warm anyway. And not in the manner he’d been trying to avoid. Their kisses of the previous evening had been far from his mind while Kendall was sobbing in his arms.
He took the pot Kendall had used for the soup and scrubbed it out with snow, then filled it with more snow to melt for their coffee. A glance overhead showed the clear skies that typified Colorado after a storm, a pale gray in the predawn that would deepen into a blinding blue. From the looks of it, they’d gotten almost two feet from a storm that shouldn’t have even netted them an inch. So much for weather predictions. There was a reason why Gabe never removed his cold-weather kit from his truck, even during the summer.
When the snow was finally melted and headed toward boiling, he twisted off the heat and shook in crystals from a canister of instant coffee. No doubt their first stop upon getting back into town would be Delia’s, but they’d both need a shot of caffeine in order to brave the cold trip back around the lake. He was just pouring the coffee into two mugs when Kendall appeared in the door of the kitchen, sleep still blanketing her features.
“Do I smell coffee?” she asked hoarsely.
He wordlessly handed her the mug but kept his distance, studying her.
She sipped the coffee and offered him a rueful grin. “Instant.”
“Best I could do.”
“I wasn’t complaining.” She stood there, sipping from the mug, until she finally lowered it and looked him full in the face. “Gabe, about last night. I didn’t mean to fall apart.”
Was she actually apologizing for having feelings? “I would be surprised if you didn’t. It’s a lot to take.”
Embarrassment colored her cheeks and she looked away. “I keep looking around at all of this and thinking, I would have memories of this if . . . but I can’t fill in the if. What happened? Why did my mom never come home? It sounded like she and my grandmother reconciled. I was found in Denver. Sixty miles from here! So why did no one ever make the connection? What happened to my mom?”
The pain in her voice hadn’t eased since last night, but there was something different about it. For one thing, she was calling Connie and Carrie her grandmother and mom. She might not have gotten the answers she wanted—the answers she deserved—but what she had learned had changed everything.
“I don’t know, Kendall,” he said finally. “We may never know. And even if you could, you might not like what you find out. How important is it to have the whole truth?”
She took a long moment to consider. “I think I need to know everything. It may not be possible, but nothing could be worse than spending my whole life thinking my mother had dumped me because she didn’t want me.”
And in that moment, Gabe vowed that if it was in his power, he would make sure she found out.
“So what now?” she said finally. “Are the roads clear?”
“I doubt it. The county roads might be plowed, but everything in and out will still be deep. Not that it’s a problem in my truck, but we might need to wait to get yours out.”
“As long as you don’t mind driving me back here until I can get my car, I’m okay with that.”
He blinked at her. “I thought you were finished. Wasn’t going through the paperwork your last task?”
“That’s true. But there was one space I was overlooking.” The corner of her mouth quirked up. “The attic.”
Gabe frowned. “This house doesn’t have an attic. There’s no access in the ceiling and there’s definitely no staircase.”
“It has an attic. It has a triple window you can see from the exterior.” Her eyes sparkled excitedly. “It hit me as soon as I woke up. It got cold, but it wasn’t that cold because the house is so well insulated. So I started thinking about what might be over us, between us and the snow on the roof, and then I realized that the roofline guarantees there’s an attic. They probably closed it up to make the house more energy efficient.”
Gabe stared at her, impressed. It would never have occurred to him to look beyond the obvious. There were plenty of newer houses that had fake windows to look like attic space when there was really nothing but rafters and mice above. “I wouldn’t even know where to look.”
“Oh, I do.” Kendall seated herself at the kitchen table, mug in hand. “It’s in the master bedroom closet.” At what must be his shocked expression, she laughed. “It makes sense. It was renovated in the 1980s. The original architecture would never have incorporated a master bath or a walk-in closet. I think the closet is where the stairwell used to be, and the space underneath, which would have been a window nook, got converted into the master bath. If we punch through the ceiling in the walk-in, I think we will find nothing but drywall and insulation, rather than the original lath and plaster.”
“Is it possible that you could be wrong?” He imagined going in with a sledgehammer only to break through hundred-year-old wood.
“Anything’s possible, but I’m not wrong.”
Gabe slowly took the seat across from her. “What are you hoping to find up there? More antiques?”
“No. History. Proof.”
“Of what?”
“Of who built this house and why.” Her eyes flashed with a glint that seemed just a little bit wild. “I’ve decided, Gabe. This place is mine. Should have always been part of my life. I’m not letting them tear it down.”
His heart leapt, but he quashed his sudden relief with a smothering dose of practicality. “What does that mean? Are you staying?”
Kendall’s expression shuttered, and he realized then that he’d been wise to temper his enthusiasm. “Staying? No. I still have a life back in California. But let’s just say that there’s too much of my history in this house to let it turn into rubble. Especially now that I know Phil Burton is my uncle and he chose to keep that fact from me.”
Gabe’s mouth dropped open. “Phil Burton is your uncle?”
“I take it you didn’t know?”
“No! I would have told you. How did you find out?”
> “Bruce at the snowmobile place. He went to school with Carrie and my father . . . or at least the guy she was dating at the time. I mean, I could probably do some sort of genetic testing, but I doubt Burton would submit to that.”
“He does go to the coffee shop pretty often,” Gabe said slowly.
Kendall just laughed. “Steal his DNA? I’m pretty sure that’s illegal unless you’re the police. And unless he’s wanted in a murder or something, that’s not going to happen.” She sat quietly for a moment. “I don’t think it matters that much to me anyway. It wasn’t like my father stuck around. My mom was the one who raised me, at least for the first several years. That’s more important to me than who might have gotten her pregnant.”
Gabe nodded along, though his mind was turning. Kendall might think it didn’t matter to her now, but it had only been twelve hours since she had gotten some pieces of her past back. If the other parts turned out to be harder to fill in, she might very well want to connect the dots on the other side of her family. But it wasn’t his place to push. She would do what she wanted when she was ready. And given all the trauma involved in her past, she might never be ready.
That only took him back to another glaring question. Yes, she’d kissed him. Yes, there was a definite connection between them. But she wasn’t planning on staying. And it was obvious she wasn’t a believer. After what had happened with Madeline, he had vowed that he wouldn’t date someone who didn’t share his beliefs. That meant whatever this was would never make it past that initial stage of attraction.
Except he was already long past that point. He wasn’t quite ready to say that he was in love with her, but he was headed that direction. And in those moments after she had kissed him, he’d thought she might feel the same way. If he were smart, he would wish her luck and leave her to her own devices, spare them the pain that would inevitably come if they got any more attached.
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