My Cone and Only (King Family #1) - Susannah Nix Page 0,47

at the handwriting. “That’s my grandmother’s name.” She flipped through them, then slipped the top envelope out of the bundle. Being careful of the old, fragile paper, she slid the letter out and unfolded it.

I watched, curious, as her eyes skimmed over it and the corners of her lips curved. “It’s a love letter.”

“To your grandmother?”

“Listen to this: My dearest Lillian, What can I say after the precious gift you gave me last night? I am shamelessly in your thrall. From this day forward, I exist only to give you pleasure and draw forth more of those little moans and quivers that gave me so much joy.”

“Whoa.” I grinned as I sank down on the corner of the mattress. “That’s kind of racy.”

“I know, right?” She grinned back at me before looking down at the letter again. “Your body is my home, my harbor, my sanctuary, and I intend to lavish every inch of it with the care and attention it deserves when next we are able to come together.”

I blew out a breath. “Wow.”

Andie’s eyes were bright and amused. “I’m both impressed and grossed out.”

“Respect to your grandad. Dude clearly had some serious game.”

“I guess this helps explain how my grandparents stayed together for sixty years. They were high school sweethearts, only sixteen when they started going steady. My grandfather said it was love at first sight. He always used to tell me that the first time he laid eyes on my grandmother he knew she was the girl he wanted to marry. Can you imagine?”

“Not really.” I swallowed a lump in my throat, thinking of the wish I’d made at almost the same age. The night Andie had fallen asleep next to me under the stars, and I’d wished I could marry her one day. And how I’d never felt that way about anyone else. Not once, in all the years since.

She flipped the letter over and kept reading. “I want to be with you, now and always. My heart burns for you. My body aches for you. My soul belongs to you.” Andie laughed as she looked up from the letter. “I never realized my pawpaw had such a flair for melodrama.”

“I think it’s sweet.” I’d never sent anyone a letter like that in my life. There was only one woman who’d ever inspired anything approaching that sort of devotion in me, and she was sitting right next to me, pissed because I hadn’t been able to tell her honestly how I felt.

The closest I’d ever come was the songs I’d written, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever find the courage to play them for anyone.

Andie arched an eyebrow at me. “I thought you were allergic to romance.”

My throat grew tight, and I dropped my eyes to my lap. “Just because it’s not for me doesn’t mean I can’t be happy for other people.”

“Hmm.”

When I glanced up again, Andie was frowning at the letter. “What?”

“Can you read those initials in the signature?” She thrust the letter at me.

I squinted at the old-fashioned writing. The letter had been signed only with a pair of initials. “HB? Yeah, that’s an H. It’s HB.”

“Well, that’s disconcerting.”

“Why?” I handed the letter back to her.

She stared at it again, frowning. “Because my grandfather’s name was Joe Fishbaugh.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “He didn’t write this letter.”

12

Andie

I couldn’t stop reading those damn letters Wyatt had found. The rain had long since stopped and he’d gone back to work outside, but I was still right where he’d left me.

I’d been sitting on the floor of my bedroom for the last two hours poring over every one of the love letters my grandmother’s secret suitor had written her. Something about them had me captivated. Maybe it was the outpouring of emotion and stark longing scrawled across the pages, or the apparently illicit nature of their relationship. Or maybe it was just the mystery of it all.

Who had written these letters to my grandmother while she was supposedly dating the man she would go on to spend the rest of her life with? What had happened to him? What had happened to them?

It was clear from the multiple references to their trysts that it hadn’t been a one-sided infatuation. My unmarried eighteen-year-old grandmother had met up with this mystery man repeatedly to engage in behavior that would have been seriously scandalous at the time. Based on the dates, their affair took place in the year before she married my grandfather—two years after they allegedly met