Dear Charlie,
If one day soon you’re my daughter, I’ll tell you all about how I had a crush on your dad before I even met him. Technically, it was a crush on his writing. He’s brilliant with words, Charlie. Someday when you learn to read, you’ll know what I mean.
By the way, sorry about the rain at the party last night.”
Amelia closed the notebook in her lap. The road was too bumpy to write, anyway. And the scenery too tempting.
Logan held a travel mug in one hand, the other on his steering wheel. The pinkish orange of dawn traced his profile and lit his eyes, and when he turned to her and smiled, she saw her future.
“You don’t have to apologize for the weather, Logan. Not even you, in all your glorious preparedness, can control that.” Amelia stuck a handful of Cheerios in her mouth.
In her car seat in back, Charlie slept. Maple Valley had faded into the horizon an hour ago.
“Those snacks were supposed to be for Charlie.”
She took another bite. “I don’t know how something so tasteless actually counts as a snack. Almost as bad as carrots.”
“And I don’t understand how you can throw out a phrase like glorious preparedness when in one fell swoop, I walked away from a presidential campaign, quit my job, and started driving cross-country with you. Or at least cross-Midwest.”
“Touché.” She tipped her sunglasses from her eyes to her forehead. “As for last night, I like rain almost as much as snow. And it was fun seeing a rainbow of umbrellas.” The whole night had been perfect, even if she had looked hilarious—hair, overalls, all of her drenched. But probably even more laughable, the way she hadn’t been able to let go of Logan all night. As if he’d poof and disappear back to LA if she released his hand.
“I still can’t believe you sold the newspaper to Jenessa Belville, though.” She sealed up the baggie of Cheerios and reached for the princess backpack she’d found in the backseat. The one with everything they could possibly need for the day-long drive. “I thought she was a paralegal or something.”
“She watched you in action. She thought it looked fun. And she’s lived with her parents for nearly ten years, not paying a dime in rent—which means she’s kinda well off, actually. No, she couldn’t pay me what Cranford could, and she may need to take the paper online until she can afford to buy a new press, but the Maple Valley News still lives.”
Amelia pilfered through the backpack, looking for a better snack. She paused when she recognized the cover of one of the books inside. She slid it out. “Logan?” She held it up. The Amelia Earhart picture book. The one he’d inter-library loaned. “The due date was weeks ago.”
“I know. I’m going to have the worst overdue fines ever.” His smile stretched. “Worth it.”
She couldn’t help it—she abandoned the backpack to the floor and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Well, anyway, it’s a good thing someone’s manning the helm at the paper because I’ve got a great headline.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Kendall Wilkins’s body is going to end up being exhumed.”
Logan spit out a drink of coffee, and it splashed against the steering wheel. “What?”
“You prematurely sent that story of ours to Belle. I might’ve solved the deposit-box mystery.”
Logan’s sunglasses slipped down his nose, and she could practically hear the cogs turning in his brain. “You did? And you’re just now telling me?”
Oh man, he’s adorable . . .
And he loved her. And he was following her to Chicago.
It was almost too much.
“Talk, Amelia.”
“I’m pretty sure Charles Lindbergh’s helmet was buried with Kendall.”
She shifted in her seat and reached over to wipe off the wheel with her sleeve, catching a whiff of Logan’s aftershave or soap or something—intoxicating, whatever it was. Enough to in one moment dissolve all thought of graves and missing helmets and dead men . . .
She flipped up the console between them, turning the middle spot into a seat, and scooted as close to him as she could, lacing her arm through his. She kissed his cheek again.
“I’m trying to drive here, woman.”
“I know, and you’re doing a fine job.”
“But . . . how . . . what made you realize . . . ?” His voice was incredulous. “You’re telling me Charles Lindbergh’s helmet—the one he wore across the Atlantic—might be in a man’s grave back in Maple Valley?”
She buried her face against his neck.
“Shouldn’t we, like, do something about that? Tell someone?”
“Eventually, yeah. But for now . . .” She sighed, warmed by sunlight and surprise and Logan’s kiss to her forehead. “Just keep driving.”