Ivy stared at Casey over the frames of her oversize sunglasses.
“How do you know this…contraption…is safe to drive?”
Casey’s jaw dropped, and she gave her steering wheel a soothing caress. “Don’t listen to her, Addy. I know you won’t let me down.” Then she turned her attention to her best friend. “It was in Boone’s garage. Or barn. Or whatever you want to call it. And it looked a hell of a lot better than it did when we left it on the side of the road a few weeks ago. Also…” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth and kept her eyes on the road ahead of her, since moving forward was all she could do now. “He left a note on the dashboard.”
She hadn’t seen it when she’d first gone looking for him the day before, but once Casey realized that Boone was gone and Elizabeth was back in Carson City, she needed to take matters into her own hands, even if it meant having the car towed from the barn to whoever might be willing to give her something for it.
“Um, hand it over, darlin’, especially if it means the security of knowing I’m not riding in a death trap. I’d kind of like to spend Christmas with my fiancé and also maybe, possibly make it to the wedding.”
Casey rolled her eyes behind her own sunglasses, then gave a quick nod toward the back seat where her bag sat on the floor. “It’s in the front pocket. Just promise me you’re not going to—”
“Oh, I’m one hundred percent reading it aloud so we can dissect Mr. Murphy’s every word,” Ivy interrupted before contorting her body so she could reach into the back seat and retrieve the letter. “Also, I cannot believe you saved this very important information until now. How did you not call me the second you found it?”
Casey sighed. “I’m trying this new thing,” she explained, “where I marinate in my feelings for a bit before reacting. Also, it gave me time to work on the new hair color. I guess my hair and I needed to marinate alone for a while.”
Ivy placed a hand on Casey’s forearm and gave her a soft squeeze. “I’m proud of you—of how strong you are. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’m proud of me too,” Casey admitted with a sad smile. Maybe she hadn’t figured out the key to everlasting happiness or what the right next step was as far as her future with her career or with Boone—if they even had one—but for the first time in too many years to count, Casey Walsh felt comfortable in her own skin, in acknowledging her past and how it still shaped her present. The future, though, that was all hers to determine, and it started with Adeline.
“Okay,” she said to Ivy. “Let’s hear it.” Casey had already committed almost every word to memory, so she guessed it didn’t matter if she heard it one more time.
Ivy unfolded the paper—stamped with Boone’s telltale mechanic fingerprints—and read.
Dear Supergirl,
I’m not sure if this is brave or the coward’s way out, putting my thoughts down on paper instead of saying them out loud to you face-to-face, but here we are. First, if you found this note, that means you came looking for Adeline, and let me assure you that she is finished and good to go. Aside from repairing the damage from the accident, she’s got brand-new tires fit for Nor Cal winters. Keys are in the glove box. Second, I was an ass for walking out on you the other night right after what happened with your dad. It was shit timing, and I own that. I’ve wanted for so long to tell you all the things you don’t know about me, all the things I’ve done to get my life under control—things I’m proud of and that I work at every single day—but instead it came out like a weapon used to hurt you, because I was hurting too. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Walsh. I only ever wanted to make you happy—from the time I was nine years old. When I left Meadow Valley a few weeks ago, I thought it was to move on with my life, but I realize now it was because I was running from it—running from how I felt about you. While I know it doesn’t make sense, please trust me that my leaving now is for you. To make you happy the only way I know how, even if we aren’t together.
I have only ever loved one person outside my family, Casey Walsh, and that’s you. Wherever life takes us from here on out, I want you to at least know that much.
Love,
Boone
Casey mouthed the last lines along with Ivy as her friend read them with a tremble in her voice.
“Are you okay, Ives?” Casey asked.
“What? Yes. I’m not crying, you’re crying,” Ivy bellowed as her eyes leaked evidence to the contrary.
Casey did cry the first time she read the letter and maybe the second and third time as well. But now she could hear his words with the confidence that no matter what happened next, they’d both be okay. And just because Boone was gone didn’t mean all was lost. She could still show him in the best way she knew how that she loved him—the boy he was and the man he’d become—too.
When they finally made it to the vintage car buyer’s lot in Carson City, Casey was ready to take one last look at her past and then finally let it go.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ivy asked as they rolled to a stop.
Casey nodded. “And Carter will be here to take us to the meeting with Elizabeth?”
Ivy checked her phone and nodded. “He’s about a half hour behind us, which should be perfect timing.”
Casey blew out a breath and then hugged her steering wheel.
“Thank you, Gran,” she whispered. “Even though you’ve been gone for years, you shaped my life in so many ways, and for that I will always be grateful. But I need to let go of who I was and figure out who I’m going to be moving forward. Love you.”
She turned the car off, pulled the key from the ignition, squared her shoulders, and opened the driver’s side door. Then she tried to coolly exit the vehicle, only to be snapped back into place.
“Seat belt,” Ivy whispered with a giggle.
“Right,” Casey said, biting back a grin. She unfastened her seat belt and gave the vehicle’s interior one last look before hoisting her bag onto her shoulder and finally breaking free.
“What do you mean, you already sold it?” Boone asked, pacing the floor in Elizabeth’s Carson City office, which was half packed up and ready to be moved to her new place in Los Angeles.
She shrugged. “Well, I didn’t actually sell it. I leased it. For six months. The tenant didn’t have enough collateral to purchase the property outright, but they had quite the compelling argument to convince me to maintain ownership and let them lease it with the option to buy later on down the road once their business was under way.”
Boone stopped pacing long enough to pinch the bridge of his nose in an attempt to ward off a full and complete meltdown.
“I had to spend the last three days in LA negotiating with three different buyers before getting the price I wanted for my bike, the price that would give me enough to make a down payment on the shop and…” He trailed off. What he actually meant to do with the shop once it was back in his hands had nothing to do with Elizabeth. What mattered was that he was here, ready to do what needed to be done to make the grandest of grand gestures, and she had gone and sold the place out from under him. “We had a deal,” he finally added.
Elizabeth shrugged. “It was a verbal agreement to meet and discuss a deal. It wasn’t a promise.”
He finally sat down in the chair opposite her desk and let out a sigh. “I thought after that night last week that we were okay. Did I miss something in the last handful of days that said otherwise?”
Elizabeth folded her hands and set them on top of her desk.
“We are okay, Boone. We’re better than okay. At least I am,” she admitted. “I realized that night how much your life and your heart belong to Meadow Valley and the people in that town. I also realized it was wrong of me to take advantage of and manipulate you just to get a few extra minutes of your time. You’re a good man, Boone Murphy. I want you to be happy. But I also want me to be happy too, and if that means leasing your shop for a worthy six-month contract, then so be it. Someday you’ll understand. Heck, you might even thank me.”
Thank her? How could he thank her for taking away his last shot at making things right?
An alarm sounded on his phone, and Boone pulled it out of his pocket to see the reminder that the next bus back to Meadow Valley left in fifteen minutes.
“I…um…I have to go,” he stammered.
Elizabeth stood and brushed nonexistent wrinkles from her skirt. Then she held out her right hand over her desk.
Boone shook it absently.
“It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Murphy,” she said with a warm smile. “Truly it was, Boone. I really do wish you all the best.”
He swallowed, then nodded. “Yeah. You too, Elizabeth. I hope you find the happiness you deserve.”
She dropped his hand, stepped around the desk, and placed her hands on his shoulders. “You too.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Sometimes I think you just need to stop looking so hard, though, and let the happiness find you.”
Let the happiness find you.
What the hell did she mean? Boone spent the entire bus ride back to Meadow Valley trying to reconcile Elizabeth’s change of heart as far as selling him back the shop with her oddly vague advice.
He pulled out his phone and opened up his banking app, checking his balance to see that the transaction for the bike had cleared. There it was, a pile of money sitting in his account with no shop and no future to show for it—at least not the future he’d intended.
Maybe this was the universe’s way of calling him selfish for trying to keep Casey in Meadow Valley after she finished school without even asking her if she wanted to stay. She deserved to sow her career-related oats however she wanted, to gain the experience she’d always told him she needed before settling down in a shop of her own.
Then the answer hit him. It was like he’d been struck on the back of the head with a frying pan, not in the Oh my god, an intruder kind of way but instead the Wake up, Murphy, and focus on the obvious piece of the puzzle you somehow missed way.
Boone chalked the missed opportunity up to the change in his life’s routine and all the thoughts swirling around in his head. He realized he’d been focusing on the wrong piece of the puzzle. It didn’t matter what Elizabeth said or did to throw him off-kilter. He had the answer now, and all it would take—he hoped—was a quick phone call to set it all in place.