She grabbed the notebook and flipped it open.
There, consuming a great majority of the unlined cream pages was the even, leaning script of Camille Devereux.
She’d used the notebook as a journal. A diary. Dating each entry and signing them, too.
Frantic to know everything she could before the uninvited guest barged in on her, Maggie shuffled through the pages, skimming and scanning and seeing that, sometimes, her mother signed her name as Camille Merkle.
It was confirmation, but Maggie still wanted more.
“What happened to Joseph?” She murmured into the notebook as the sound of movement neared the barn.
And then she saw it. Dated precisely two months before Maggie’s birthday: a final entry.
Maggie’s eyes absorbed the words with fervor.
January 4, 1975
A letter came today. It was addressed to Mother and Father, but the information was for me, of course. My suspicions are now confirmed. Joe’s dead. He’s not M.I.A. He’s not a P.O.W. He’s none of those hopeful initialisms they tell us about. He’s just dead, and now I don’t know what I’ll do. How can I be a mother without Joe?
My due date is near. I have no hope of happiness. I have no one to raise my family with. All I have are my austere parents and cruel sister. The same people who are kicking me out of my own house! They say I did all of this on purpose.
Well, I loved him on purpose, didn’t I?
So I suppose they are right.
Joe told me he would propose. He told me he’d come back, and we would get married and go start our own farm together, away from them. He told me we would have a happy family and make our own way in this world. He told me he would be okay.
But now neither of us are. None of us are.
At least, I’ll have my baby.
A tear formed in the corner of Maggie’s eye as she read and reread her mother’s words. Marguerite had said they didn’t know Camille was having twins, but it had never seemed as interesting a note as when Maggie read her own mother’s words on the matter.
Despite having the truth at long last, despite knowing that her father died in war and her mother in childbirth, all she could dwell on were her mother’s penultimate thoughts.
None of us are.
“Are you okay?”
It was Rhett.
Strong, kind, patient-but-not-patient-enough Rhett.
Maggie looked up, and the tear spilled down her cheek, drying along her neck. She smiled. “Yes. Actually. I am.”
Her stomach churned at the sight of him. His forehead creased and his eyes were wide. “What is it?” he asked.
“I just... I found some of my mother’s things,” she began then blinked. “Weren’t you driving to Corydon?”
He closed the barn door behind him and joined her on the sofa, sitting precariously on the edge, all his weight on the heels of his feet, his jeans stretched tightly across his thighs.
Maggie met his gaze.
“Maggie, I’m frozen. I hate what I told you. I hate where we are.” He looked down at her notebook and then to the other things sitting neatly on the sofa between them. “What is this stuff?” he asked, distracted by his own concern.
She smiled and set the notebook down on her other side, picking up the dog tags and photo album together. “It’s my dad,” she answered, lifting her shoulders and looking into Rhett’s eyes, which had grown misty. “Are you okay?” she asked, dipping her chin and peering at him from beneath her eyelashes.
Eyelashes she had painstakingly brushed with mascara that very morning because she’d woken up early to look extra pretty.
Eyelashes that were now bleeding that mascara slowly as she began to cry in earnest. Quietly, softly. With him.
Rhett pressed the back of his hand to her cheek and brushed the wetness before leaning in. “I’m okay now that I’m back here,” he whispered, lifting his other hand to her other cheek and cupping her face gently.
“I guess that makes two of us,” she whispered back, closing her eyes and letting go of herself.
She felt the warmth of Rhett’s face as it grew nearer to hers, and in that moment, there, at the farm, Maggie had every answer she had ever wanted in her life.
She knew the heartbreak of her mother.
She knew the name of her father.
And she knew her love for Rhett Houston.
So when he pressed his lips against hers, she kissed him back.
And it was a very good choice.
Epilogue
Two Months Later.
Though Rhett had never felt as deep a romantic connection in his life, he respected Maggie’s decision to take things slow.
So he started building his own house.
Fortunately, he wouldn’t be far—just down off Main Street on a previously empty lot that had long been for sale but had never seen any interest.
He and Maggie had made a deal.
They would date. Formally. Seriously. But they wouldn’t live together.
Maggie was a changed woman, she’d said. The sort of woman who didn’t live with a man before marriage. Period.
And Rhett, in the wake of his own failed live-in relationship, couldn’t agree more. This time, he would do things right.
The only way to handle the situation was for Rhett to make a home in Hickory Grove as he’d originally planned. Then, once he and Maggie grew closer and she grew further from the trauma of her “divorce” and the upheaval of the move, they could talk about the next step.
Mainly, that Rhett wanted to propose.
This, of course, was no secret. But he was patient. Patient enough to give Maggie and the kids time to know him better. Time for them to one day become something of a family. A patchwork family, perhaps, but a family... without rushing. It was for the best.
And anyway, it would be nice for him to have his own space. The barn was a good bachelor pad for the time being, but he was ready to move out and build a new place. A place of his own until it was time to take that next step.
His buddy, Luke, and Maggie’s brother, Dirk, (who’d been back in town for a few months during his off-season) pitched in when they could. Rhett hired out when he had to. And Maggie was available to oversee any design choices. But the place was a simple project, by all accounts.
Two bedrooms and one bath.
Open floor plan.
Four walls.
Just enough so that Rhett could sleep there and have small get-togethers. Theo and the guys for football, come fall. Maggie for dinner and a movie. And there was plenty of land for Ky and Dakota to explore. All in all, it was working out better than expected.
And, by late summer, the new house was ready. Or, ready enough for Rhett to move out of the barn.
Gretchen, naturally, was more than thrilled. She was excited to move in behind him and sprawl out. She’d even found the rest of the antique sewing machine she’d been desperately searching for.
Just as soon as Rhett wheeled out the last of his sparse furniture, Gretchen was there, waiting in the wings with Theo, her boxes of books stacked neatly in anticipation of a final resting place.
In fact, Gretchen didn’t want to sleep in the barn. Not yet. She was too frightened, she’d said. But she wanted it for her workspace. And, eventually, as a little apartment. Once she got used to the idea of being an adult with her own place. Maybe when she could have someone stay the night with her... eventually.
Now, as the giddy teenager and her dutiful boyfriend stood like sentinels at the barn doors, Maggie helped Rhett lift a side table into the bed of his truck before brushing her hands on her jeans. “I’m going to miss you around here, you know?”
“I’ll be just down the road. You can come over whenever you’d like. No need to knock.”
She smiled. “Are we still on for dinner?”
“Of course.” Rhett slid his hands around the small of her back and brought her in for a discreet kiss.
Maggie accepted it shyly then leaned back. “I’d
better go help those two.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder at Gretchen and Theo, who were inside squabbling about where to put the boxes—in the loft for the future or on the floor of the barn where they’d be accessible. “We need to vacuum first!” Maggie hollered.
Rhett smiled and opened his truck door to get in, reaching into his back pocket to remove his phone first.
But it wasn’t there.
He strode back toward the open barn door to meet Maggie, who was waving his phone at him, a knowing smirk on her face.
“I knew you would find a reason to stick around,” she joked, pressing the device to his chest and raising on the balls of her feet to kiss his cheek in a final goodbye. “You left it on the staircase to the loft.”
Rhett took the phone and returned her kiss, suddenly wishing he wouldn’t be down the road. Or in the barn. Or anywhere else that was a different location from that of the love of his life.
“Thanks,” he replied, peeking at the screen before tucking it into his shirt pocket. But as his eyes glanced over the message that was glowing up at him, his face fell. “Oh,” he murmured to himself then looked up at Maggie.
“What is it? Is everything okay?”
“It’s my sister. Greta,” Rhett answered. “I don’t know. All she wrote was to call her A.S.A.P.”
“Call her,” Maggie urged, crossing her arms and frowning.
Rhett did, and Greta answered the phone through sobs.
“Greta, calm down. I can’t understand you,” Rhett said, meeting Maggie’s look of alarm with his own wide eyes.
His little sister sputtered and heaved another sob before coming up for air. “He... he dumped me,” she said at last, choking on the last two words as if they were poison.
“The tech guy? Your... your fiancé? Kadan?”
Maggie squeezed her eyes shut in front of him, and he had to look away. Dealing with Greta’s love problems made him feel awkward and clumsy.
Greta spat back, “Who else, Rhett?”
A grimace took hold of his face and he again looked at Maggie for help. She shrugged and chewed on her lower lip, shaking her head in sorrow on behalf of the poor woman.
“Sorry. I’m sorry, Greta. But, well, why?”
Maggie made a face at him and took the phone. “Greta, this is Maggie. Are you okay, sweetheart?”
The two women carried on a brief conversation, Maggie’s back turned to Rhett protectively.
After some minutes, she pulled the phone from her ear, tapped the red circle at the bottom, and passed it back to him.
“Well?” Rhett asked, worried for his little sister.
“We’re going to get her.”
His breathing slowed, as though someone with better wisdom had stepped in to make the right decision. “Okay,” he began, ready to help lay out a plan of action. But Maggie turned her head over her shoulder and called out to Gretchen.
“Don’t move anything else in there!” She looked back at Rhett, fire in her eyes. “We might have company.”
Learn what becomes of Maggie, Rhett, and Greta in The Innkeeper’s House, the next book in the Hickory Grove series.
Other Titles by Elizabeth Bromke
Birch Harbor:
House on the Harbor
Hickory Grove:
The Schoolhouse
The Christmas House
The Innkeeper’s House
Maplewood:
Christmas on Maplewood Mountain
Return to Maplewood
Missing in Maplewood
The Billionaire’s Mountain Bride
The Ranger’s Mountain Bride
The Cowboy’s Mountain Bride
Acknowledgments
A huge thanks to the special people who helped me paint a picture of rural Indiana life and the workings of a farm. Dorothy and Robert Flanagan and Jeanette Engelhard, thank you for your insider knowledge and for taking the time to share your worlds with me. If I’ve done the farmhouse and barn justice, it’s only because of you.
Christina Butrum, I’m so glad to have connected. Your notes and suggestions on fine-tuning were invaluable. I can’t wait for Maple Glen! Krissy Moran, thank you for your confidence and validation and, of course, your help with turning a manuscript into a book.
I am so appreciative of Ed, who is not only my partner in life but now also my partner in business. Your perspective and hard work has made all the difference.
A big hug to my family for your patience and support. Without it there is nothing.
Always, I write for my Little E., my muse and my reason.
About the Author
Elizabeth Bromke is the author of the Maplewood series, Hickory Grove series, and Birch Harbor series. In her writing, Bromkes weaves the triumphs and trials of modern relationships. Her settings are rural and notalgic, lending themselves beautifully as backdrops to emotional, heartwarming stories.
In her free time, Elizabeth enjoys reading, walking, and spending time with family. Learn more at elizabethbromke.com today.
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