all that easy to live with either. Maybe they made each other miserable.”
“You know all that sage advice came from you and not me. I just asked a question.”
His chin lowered and he smiled at her with only his eyes. “Well, you started me thinking in the right direction. But this little talk was supposed to be about you. I’m trying to make up for lost time and you go and turn the tables. So what happened to you in college?”
Emily picked up her phone and checked the time. “We have to pick up the kids in four minutes. Just enough time to hide the letters.”
“Man, you’re good. But you’re not off the hook. Are you going to tell Dorothy about these?”
“Yes.” She added two sheets of yellowed paper to the stack. “Right before I leave.”
A cord on Jake’s neck stood out. “Which brings us right back to the question I probably shouldn’t have asked but still want answered.”
The light glinting in his eyes alluded to something more than unfinished spiritual business. She focused on the drawstring of the velvet pouch. A few more seconds under that light and she wouldn’t remember her own name, let alone the reason she had to leave town. “I’ll go put these away.”
She reached the second floor before realizing she’d taken the steps two at a time.
Her cane was at the bottom of Honey Creek and she hadn’t needed it yet.
CHAPTER 20
That one looks really old.”
Adam ran to a rectangular headstone about three feet high. It leaned slightly forward, casting a stretched-out shadow.
“That’s him! That’s Edwin!” On Adam’s heels, Emily high-fived him and turned to Jake. “That’s the guy who wrote the letters to his father in England.”
Shifting the drawing pad to her left arm, Lexi set the pink plastic box of peeled crayons on top of it. Her eyes narrowed as she watched Adam and Emily dashing to another grave marker. Jealousy, pure and simple. It might as well have been stenciled on her forehead. The relief on her face when Jake had assured her Emily was moving was like the sun popping through a thunderhead.
When he tried seeing the world through the eyes of an almost-teen who’d recently lost her mother, it made at least a little sense. Adam and Emily were hitting it off like they’d known each other for years. In spite of the age difference, Lexi could be looking at Emily as a threat to the bond between her and her twin. And if Lexi saw Emily as in any way usurping her mother’s role, her little defensive claws would bare the way Pansy’s had when she’d left the scratches Lexi thought she was hiding.
Adam waved. “Lex! Uncle Jake! Come here.”
With a sigh as big as she was, Lexi marched toward them. “What?”
“We found the first guy buried here. He was born in 1785.”
“It’s not the original marker,” Emily added.
“Joseph Mitchell 1785–1846.” Jake read the inscription over Lexi’s shoulder. “First recorded burial in English Settlement Cemetery.”
“He probably just had a wooden cross when they first stuck him in there.” Adam tapped the granite with the toe of his shoe. “Bet he’s happy to have this thing.”
Lexi did her famous “Ewww” and crinkled her nose. “You make it sound like he’s still there.”
“Maybe he is.” Adam tortured her with a wicked laugh. “There was a guy in the eighteen hundreds who tried injecting acetate of alumina into dead people’s carotid arteries. Like six quarts—that’s how much blood is in the human body. Which means he must have drained all the blood out fir—”
“Adam.” Jake covered a maverick smile as he told Adam to get on with the necessary facts.
“So he buried the bodies and dug them up a year later. They all looked fresh as a daisy.”
“Disgusting.” Emily’s lips rippled in an adorable wavy line.
“What’s disgusting is bodies that aren’t embalmed and the worms eat through the coffins and devour the—”
“Adam!” A trio of voices ordered him to cease and desist.
With a grin and a shrug, Adam took two huge strides to another stone. “You tell me all the time how good it is that I like learning, but nobody ever wants to listen to what I learn.”
“Ignore the boy.” Jake stepped next to Emily. Lexi turned away and walked across the cemetery. There goes my conscience. He put his hand on Emily’s back as he pointed to an inscription. JAMES SOTCLIFFE. DIED OCT. 28, 1856 AE 33. “Makes you grateful for modern medicine, doesn’t it? A lot of these