all. The kitchen faucet had a leak. You didn’t notice this morning?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I was baking, too, so I think I would have . . .” She trailed off in realization.
“Yep. I think Grandma does it deliberately to get me over here. Makes me feel like a bad grandson,” he said with bemusement, “that she thinks I need to be coerced to be here.”
“No, don’t think that,” she said, laying a hand on his arm.
They both went still, and he looked down at her hand before meeting her eyes.
She patted him briefly and let go, glad of her outward calm even though her heart had picked up speed. “She’s very proud that you and Brooke and Josh call her on her cell phone. She knows you pay attention. Maybe she just likes seeing you.”
They looked at each other for a moment, and when Emily felt like she could get lost in his green eyes, she cleared her throat, and said, “Your grandma tells me you brought me something?”
“Oh, yeah, follow me.” He led her into the dining room, turned on the old-fashioned chandelier—that gleamed with newness despite its design—and gestured to the box. “You know how this house used to be your grandma Riley’s? When I remodeled, I found mostly junk in the attic, but I collected a few things that I thought someone might come looking for someday.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Why, Nate, how sensitive of you.”
“Just too lazy to throw anything more away.” He folded his arms across his chest and frowned. “I think it was Grandma’s idea.”
Though she doubted that, she didn’t dispute him, seeing how uncomfortable he was. It was hard to hide a smile, but she made the effort. “What’s inside?”
“Go ahead and look.”
She slowly unfolded each tab of the box, reminding herself that she wasn’t worried about the past, that her grandmother was just too sensitive where Delilah was concerned. But would she find something here that would change how she thought about everything? And did she want to discover it in front of Nate?
But the box was open, and she let herself explore like it was Christmas morning. There was a jewelry box with several pieces of costume jewelry that might make a cool vintage statement in San Francisco. Her feelings of Christmas became even stronger as she found some homemade tree ornaments that made her gasp with delight. An empty carved wooden box must have meant the craftsman had been close to her grandmother.
And then she found more modern items, childhood toys from the sixties, several of which had images of the moon, which she knew had always captivated her mother. Even when in a hurry, if they stepped outside under a full moon, Delilah would raise her face to it for a moment’s peace. She never preached to Emily about the things she believed in, another private part of herself that she kept distant. Emily never knew if Delilah didn’t want to be ridiculed or didn’t care enough to teach her daughter.
She shook off her memories and went back to the box, finding high-school yearbooks from the early eighties, and even the fifties, a legacy of her grandparents to add to the few other mementoes she had of theirs. Lastly, there were clothbound books that might be diaries. Her mother’s diaries? she wondered, feeling both intrigued and dismayed. Did she want to be sucked into her mother’s life again, to learn secrets that might hurt her even more? Although what could hurt her more than hearing that her father had been a lie? Had the poor man even known?
“You don’t look happy,” Nate said quietly.
Startled, she glanced up, having almost forgotten he was there. He was watching her too closely, as if he could read her thoughts.
She forced a smile. “I was just remembering my mother. We didn’t get along well.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
She cocked her head as she watched him. “I hope you don’t understand what that’s like.”
“I don’t,” he answered simply. “My mother helped my father raise us even when she suffered her worst attacks of MS.”
“She sounds wonderful and brave. I’ll have to meet her sometime.”
To her surprise, he didn’t respond, even out of politeness. Protective, was he?
He gestured to the box. “Well, good night then. Hope you find something in there you’re looking for.”
She wished him the same and briefly watched him walk into the kitchen. She was staring at the box again when the back door opened and closed.