If for Any Reason (Nantucket Love Story #1) - Courtney Walsh Page 0,112

his embrace.

At the sound of voices in the hallway, she tore herself away from him and picked up the paintbrush. She turned away from Hollis, her adrenaline racing.

“Emily!”

It was Marisol, and she was doing that I-have-lots-of-energy-because-I’m-still-in-college kind of thing she did when she stumbled upon something fun or exciting.

“Hey, hottie Hollis,” Marisol said as she passed by.

Emily couldn’t be sure, but she thought it was possible Hollis’s cheeks were flushed. Her eyes darted to his for a split second and unlike him, she hid her smile.

This man. She couldn’t have stopped loving him now if she tried.

Every warning bell that had sounded at the back of her mind had been silenced by the sheer hope that maybe, just maybe, she was meant to have a life she’d never even dared to dream of. The one he described that night on the beach. Was there room for her in that simple life he craved?

“What happened in here? Are you painting with toddlers?” Marisol looked at the trail of purple paint down Emily’s side.

“Something like that.”

Marisol shrugged, then turned her attention back to the papers in her hand. “I made copies of the newspaper like you asked,” Marisol said. “Let me know if you need anything else. I’m headed back to the costume shop—they had a question about the Mad Hatter’s costume.”

“Thanks, Marisol,” Emily said.

Hollis turned toward her. “What’s that?”

“The newspaper from the week my mom died,” Emily said. “As much as a part of me doesn’t want to know any of this, I feel like it might be time. I’ve put it off long enough. If I’m going to confront my grandmother, I need some evidence to back me up.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Her lies.” Emily glanced at the stack of papers in her hand. Here goes nothing.

The color copies were surprisingly clear. Emily skipped over the obituary, flipping through the typical boring local news articles until she found one on the front page from August 4. Her mother’s funeral had been held in Boston, where the family plot was located, but it looked like someone from the Nantucket newspaper had made the trip. There were photos of the mourners at the cemetery, along with a brief write-up about the event, as if it were a high society function.

Emily’s stomach turned as she spotted her eleven-year-old self in one of the close-up shots. “Someone took pictures at my mother’s funeral?”

Hollis looked over her shoulder. “Kind of tacky if you ask me.”

“Very tacky,” Emily agreed. She scanned the photo, the familiar faces of her grandparents, old friends, people from a life that felt so far away now.

“I’m sorry we weren’t there,” Hollis said. “We should’ve been. My dad was just starting a new job, and he couldn’t ask for any time off.”

“Don’t give that a second thought.”

“I wanted to be there, Emily,” he said. “I tried to make sure you were okay.”

“Kind of hard for a kid to do that on his own,” she said, letting him off the hook. No sense in him beating himself up over something that was not only out of his control but also nearly two decades old.

Her eyes returned to the photo. She scanned the mourners one more time when a familiar form caught her attention. Back by the trees, behind the family and friends standing in rows beside the grave was a man, alone.

“Hollis?” Emily said, pointing. “That’s Jack.”

Hollis leaned in closer to see. “How can you tell?”

“He still stands like that,” Emily said. “When he’s supervising his crew. He sort of hunches over. But also look at his face. He’s younger, but that’s definitely Jack.”

Hollis looked over the photo again but said nothing.

“Why was Jack Walker at my mom’s funeral?” Emily said. “And why was he standing off to the back by himself? It’s weird, right?”

Hollis stared at her for a few seconds, a blank look on his face. “I guess you could ask him?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess I will.”

CHAPTER 41

AFTER HIS CONVERSATION WITH EMILY, Hollis made his way to the lobby of the arts center, where he paced back and forth, waiting for her to gather her things so they could go to her house and confront Jack Walker.

But Hollis already knew what the man would say. And he had a feeling he knew how Emily would respond. And he wasn’t sure of his place in any of it.

It was too much to hope for, that they would be able to spend time together, just the two of them, without all of this getting