CHAPTER
Twenty-five
John lowered Nora’s letter. He stood in his foyer, on the spot where he’d been standing when he’d looked through his mail.
Carefully, he set her handwritten pages on his entry table. Then he walked to his bedroom and turned on his bathroom shower. While he waited for the water to warm, blocks began to fall within him. One after another. Like stacks of children’s building blocks crashing down. Unstoppable.
When the water was hot, he stepped in, set his palms on the tiles, leaned into his arms, and cried. Sobs wracked his big body. He cried for Sherry and Nora’s mother and the other women. He cried because his eyesight was fading. He cried for the children he wouldn’t have. But most of all, he cried because Nora loved him, and he felt so unworthy of it and so incredibly relieved.
She loved him.
When he stepped from the shower, he felt clean on the inside for the first time since his meeting with Sherry. His eyes were scratchy and his throat hurt, but he was lighter. Hollowed out and ready to start over.
He pulled on a pair of track pants and returned to his foyer. He read Nora’s letter a second time. He turned over everything she’d said in his mind. Then read it again.
He carried the pages to the back of the house.
Today, he’d finally felt well enough to return to work. If Sherry’s letter had been the branch he’d grabbed to slow his fall down the endless cave, then his visit to his parents the day before yesterday had been a rope. And Nora’s letter . . . Nora’s letter was like a hand reaching down into the shadows and pulling him up.
It was near dinnertime, but the gray clouds pressing low over Lake Shore Pine made the hour feel later. Wind tossed light rain against his windows with a soft tapping sound.
He read the letter again, then placed it on the kitchen table. For the first time since he’d come inside the day Sherry had told him about Brian, he unlatched his back doors and shoved them along their track.
Outside, rain that wasn’t warm or cold peppered his face, chest, hair. He took the path to the water, continuing until he’d reached his dock’s farthest point.
Choppy whitecaps marked the lake’s navy-blue surface.
To survive as a SEAL he’d had to find a core of toughness, independence, and fierce confidence within himself. Back then, it had sometimes seemed like he’d be able to build his identity on those qualities and on the things he’d achieved after leaving the teams.
But then he’d been hit back-to-back by his diagnosis and the news that Brian Raymond was his father.
The old things, the things he’d been holding on to for a long time, had been stripped away. He couldn’t base his identity on the people he’d come from, or his abilities, or his health, or even on Nora.
All those things could be taken away. None of those things were at the core of who a person—who he—was.
Here I am, he said to God. I’m a sinner who’s been forgiven by you and who’s loved by you. That’s the only identity I have left to claim.
It turned out that was the only identity he needed. The only identity that would last.
It was freeing to recognize how short he fell, how totally inadequate he was. It meant that John didn’t have to work hard to be accepted by God. Even when he’d been at his best, his efforts never would have made him good enough for God. They definitely wouldn’t make him good enough now.
Jesus was the only good one. Everything John had received was a straight-up gift.
He didn’t agree with all of God’s choices. There was much that made him angry, that he didn’t understand, that seemed unfair. However, in addition to giving him grace, God had also seen fit to give him Nora. God had given him Nora, and it was hard to argue with that. Difficulties had come his way, but so had she.
It was a bargain he could accept.
Nora loved him.
I need to tell you that, no matter what, I love you.
That was what she’d written, and it seemed like a miracle. Maybe it was a miracle.
What could he do to answer her letter? He wanted to tell her “I love you, too” in a way that would be impossible to misunderstand.
He was ready to do his own big thing.
For her.
Nora’s employees stood in a predawn huddle in the parking lot of the Library on the Green wearing colonial clothing. Nora hurried toward them carrying a huge thermos of coffee in one hand and a box of cinnamon-sugar donuts in the other. She’d wedged cups and a stack of napkins under one arm.
Today was the opening day of the Summer Antique Fair they’d been planning for months. The Fair would open at nine, and they had a great deal to do between now and then.
“I come bearing apology gifts,” Nora announced. “I know it’s unforgivable of me to ask you all to arrive here at six.”
“Completely unforgivable,” Nikki confirmed.
Nora set the coffee, donuts, cups, and napkins on the hood of Nikki’s Camry.
“I only got four hours of sleep last night,” Amy said dolefully, reaching for the coffee. “I stayed up helping Grace with a report that had to be emailed by midnight last night. What sort of teacher asks students to email in reports by midnight?”
“What sort of mom helps her perfectly capable seventeen-year-old daughter with her report?” Nikki asked.
“The good type,” Blake answered. “I only got four hours of sleep, too, because my friend and I were making plans for the Hayride of Horror we’re doing for Halloween. There’ll be a lot of disgusting gore. It’ll be sweet.”
“I wish I’d only gotten four hours of sleep because I’d been up most of the night—for all the right reasons—with a new husband.” Nikki worked on a donut, bright pink lips speckled with sugar. “I need a new husband bad.”
Nora swiveled at the sound of a car. Willow’s familiar Range Rover pulled up and she and Britt climbed out. They were both dressed in light jackets to combat the early-morning chill.
“Your sisters always look so young and fresh,” Amy said wistfully.
“I know,” Nora answered. “It’s revolting.”
“It’s outstanding,” Blake insisted. “They’re outstanding.”
“This is a surprise,” Nora called to them as they neared.
“It’s your big day. We thought you could use a few extra hands,” Willow said.
“Thank you.” Nora was genuinely touched. Her sisters loved her more than she’d realized if they were willing to show up for unpaid duty at six in the morning.
Nora had eaten her donut on the way here in the car, so she retrieved her trusty tote bag from her trunk and extracted a clipboard and pen. She went through three pages of notes with the group, stopping whenever anyone had a question or discussion was needed to iron out a detail. The sky began to lighten to pearly gray in the east.
She was just wrapping up the final item when a small figure came jogging toward them. “Randall?”
“Are you here to help, too?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
There wasn’t any guessing about it. He prided himself on the role he played within the world of the village. That he’d gotten himself out of bed at this hour proved it. Nora handed him the last donut.
These people were her people. Her misery over John had heightened her appreciation of her family and friends.
Almost two weeks had passed since she’d written and mailed John her letter. She’d yet to hear anything. She had no way of knowing if he’d read it. And if he had read it, whether or not he’d balled it in his fist and thrown it in the trash.
She didn’t regret sending it. She’d felt led to do it, and Willow had been right—it had been important for her to voice what she’d so dearly wanted to voice. At the same time, it was harrowing to put yourself out there the way she had in her letter. Whenever she thought about the fact that she’d told John outright that she loved him, her muscles clenched as if bracing against a blow.
“Okay!” Nora said. “Are you all clear on what you’ll be doing?”
“Clear!” Nikki jerked upright and gave a crisp salute.
Randall put one thin arm forward. “Awesome Antique Fair on three,” he instructed. The rest of them laid their hands on top of his. “One, two, three.”
“Awesome Antique Fair!” they all shouted, then headed in separate directions.
Nora’s sisters kept pace with her as she took the path along the side of the library toward the central green. She fumbled in her purse for her key ring so that she’d be able to unlock the library’s door. When she found it, she turned toward the library. As she lifted her head, keys in hand, something off to the side caught her eye. The ground lights framing the long, rectangular swath of grass glowed prettily against the dew. Her attention followed the lights all the way to the end of the green where . . .
Where . . .
Nora came to an instantaneous stop.
At the far end of the green, where a blank space had always been, stood a chapel.
Her jaw sagged. Fingers of early-morning light reached across the horizon to tip the chapel’s spire and roofline. This wasn’t just any chapel.
This was the Hartnett Chapel. Her chapel. The chapel she’d loved for so long and wanted for so long. And like a dream, like an optical illusion, like a mirage, there it was, placed precisely in the spot she’d saved for it.
Astonishment sifted over her. She blinked, but the chapel didn’t disappear. A pair of birds flew past the quaint structure, winging heavenward.
She moved forward a step. Concentrating hard, she could just make out a figure on the chapel’s porch. A male figure.
She covered her mouth with her hands. Her heart leapt, then beat furiously.
“Maybe you should go over and say hello,” Willow said gently.
Nora had temporarily forgotten her sisters’ existence, but they were standing just behind her, watching her with excitement. Several yards behind them, her employees had gathered. Nikki gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Her sisters had . . . maybe all of them had . . . known about this.
Of course. John wouldn’t have been able to move a building onto her property without the help of her family and employees.
“Let me hold your bag.” Britt extended a hand, and Nora numbly passed it over.
“Keys,” Willow said.
She passed them over, too. “Thank you,” Nora said.
“Thank him,” her sisters said in unison, then looked at each other and said what they’d always said when they were kids. “Jinx!”
Nora set off toward the chapel on legs that had gone weak and wobbly. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness.
She didn’t think boyfriends were in the habit of having historic chapels moved to their girlfriend’s villages unless they wanted to give their girlfriend her dream come true. And boyfriends didn’t typically want to give girlfriends their dream come true unless they really, really liked them.
As Nora drew nearer, she could see that the chapel sat on the steel beams and specially made dollies the house-moving company used to transport buildings. The Hartnett Chapel had been lifted from Mr. Hartnett’s property, trucked here, and—at some point since she’d left work last night—deposited in Merryweather Historical Village. It lacked nothing but a fresh foundation. Once she had that laid, it could be lowered into its new permanent location.
John leaned against the siding next to the chapel’s peaked front door wearing a black jacket, cargo pants, work boots. He hadn’t shaved this morning, but his cheeks were much smoother than the last time she’d seen him. Though his eyes were tired, they were no longer ravaged by fury and hurt.
He pushed away from the wall as she mounted the portable wooden steps that led to the raised chapel. Nora stopped. They faced each other while a breeze slipped past. Distantly, a rooster crowed.
No, his eyes were no longer ravaged. Not at all. The hazel depths were warm and at peace. He looked thoroughly pleased with himself for having pulled off such a major surprise.
“Did you steal Mr. Hartnett’s chapel when he wasn’t looking?”
John broke into a full-fledged grin complete with crinkly eyes and a dimple.
Nora’s joy careened upward.
“Mr. Hartnett’s son served in the Navy,” John said. “He was injured at sea, but thankfully survived. You could say that Mr. Hartnett has a fondness for veterans.”
“Does he?”
“Yes. Plus, he read my book.”
Nora gave a soft, breathless laugh.
“He was surprisingly open to the idea of selling me the chapel.”
“John! I . . .” She gaped at him. “I adore this chapel.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe Mr. Hartnett sold it to you. And I really can’t believe that you brought it here. For me.”
“Believe it.”
“How did you . . . ?” Her thoughts spun as she tried to imagine how he’d managed this. She knew exactly what transporting a building entailed. A great deal of planning, coordination, and money.
“I contacted Nikki, and she introduced me to Hal at the house relocation company you use. Your sisters, Hal, Nikki, Mr. Hartnett, and I have been working on this project together for the last ten days.”
Speechless, Nora gestured to the beloved bell tower, the beloved door, the beloved windows. Then she let her arms drop and focused solely on John. “Thank you. Those two words sound incredibly inadequate to me in this moment but I can’t think of better ones. So. Wow. Just . . . thank you.”
He extended a hand to her. She placed her hand in his, and the sensation of his warm fingers enclosing hers caused emotion to clog her throat.
“You’re welcome,” he murmured and gave a gentle tug. Her body settled against his and there it was, that mystical click between them. That fated, meant-to-be feeling.
“I missed you,” she said.
“I missed you, too.”
She rested her palms on the cool, slick fabric of his jacket. Beneath the layers of his clothing, she could feel the unyielding planes of his chest. “It seems indubitable that you read my letter.”
He laughed. “My favorite word.”
She smiled. “Indubitable.”
“You’re right. I read your letter.”
She looked into his eyes, and he looked into hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said solemnly. “I’m sorry for the way I acted when you came to see me.”
“You were struggling.”
“That’s no excuse. Can you forgive me?”
“Yes,” she said. “Can you forgive me for how I responded that day at The Grapevine? Please?”
“Yes.”
A gap of quiet.
“After I read your letter,” John said, “I wanted to find a way to answer it that would be . . .” Humor creased his expression. “Indubitable.”
“Mission accomplished. This is the best reply to a letter I’ve ever received. This is the best gift I’ve ever received, period.”
“You’re the best gift I’ve ever received,” he said. “I love you.”
Bliss suffused her. Tingling bliss. “You do?”
“I do,” he vowed.
“I love you, too.”
“The past might be challenging, and the future might be unsure. And that’s okay. The present is all we’re given, anyway. Right?”
He’d quoted something she’d said to him after their first kiss. “Right.”
“If I have you”—his voice turned rough—“here in the present, then I have all that I could hope for, Nora.” He moved his hands into her hair and set their foreheads together. Their breath mingled and her eyes drifted closed and she never wanted to forget how she felt in this moment.
Then his lips met hers and they were kissing and this moment—this moment!—was even better than the last.
This was the moment, kissing John here on the porch of her dream come true, that she never wanted to forget. Not for as long as she lived.