Page 83 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

Zach laughed, but in a distracted way that reminded me so much of his father that it made my heart hurt.

Actually, that was a lie. He laughed in a distracted way that reminded me so much ofJasperthat it made my heart hurt. Bates had always been a chip off the old block, tall and loose-limbed and with those piercing blue eyes that saw so much more than they let on. Zach didn’t have the same look of either his father or grandfather, but the mannerisms were there. He was much more outgoing and cheerful—his mother’s influence, no doubt—but the vein of seriousness ran deep in these men. They lived and loved hard.

“Do you have the book?” I asked, since it appeared one of us would have to broach the subject first. I held out my hand and waggled my fingers. “I’d like to see it. I don’t remember half the things I wrote in there, but I presume it’s all sentimental nonsense.”

He looked startled. “The copy ofWuthering Heights, you mean?”

“Yes, dear,” I said, trying not to show my exasperation. “As much as I love you, I didn’t fly all this way to catch up on the bugs you’ve been eating and the constellations you’ve renamed.”

His laugh was a little less distracted that time. So was his smile. If I had to pick one quality that all three of the most important men of my life had in common, it would be that—the devastating quirk of the lips, appearing as if out of nowhere and capable of stopping a heartbeat flat. If this Chloe girl was in any way molded like me, she’d have proven powerless against it.

“Come on, Grandma. I haven’t done that since I was a kid.”

“The constellations, maybe, but I’d bet every penny I have that you’ve eaten something from the insect family within the past week.”

“But I have to,” he protested. “That’s literally my job. You’d be surprised how healthy it can be. Mealworms have a really high protein count.”

The gag this comment elicited was in no way faked. Jasper always had a touching regard for the great outdoors, and Bates turned recreational camping into a lifestyle, but Zach was the only one who committed himself to it body and soul. I shuddered to think of what would happen if he had a child of his own someday. The poor thing would probably be handed over to the wolves and left to fend for itself.

“And don’t try to distract me by telling me all the other disgusting things you’ve done in the name of your career,” I said, lest he get it into his head to try me further. “I came here for the book, and the book I will have. It was never meant for any eyes but Jasper’s.”

He flushed guiltily, which I took to mean that he read the book and all its notations. I hadn’t been lying when I said I didn’t remember everything I’d written in those pages. At the time, I’d been five months pregnant and plotting a desperate exit strategy that not even one of the Brontë sisters, with all their love of Gothic drama, would have dared to put to paper. I’d spent every night sobbing into my pillow, wishing upon all the wishes in the world that things could have turned out differently.

Naturally, my literary commentary had gotten a little over the top. If you’d ever been roiling with pregnancy hormones and getting ready to break a man’s heart, you’d have been a touch melodramatic, too.

“I don’t have it,” he said, and with an earnestness that made me believe him.

“You sold it? That seems a touch mercenary.”

He ran a rueful hand along the back of his neck. “Of course I didn’t sell it. I gave it to Chloe. If there’s one person who cares more about how this story ends than either of us, it’s her.”

I nodded, not displeased with this remark. I didn’t know this Chloe person, but I knew her kind. Oh, how I knew it. A librarian who lovedbooks more than she should, a young woman who did what she had to even when it meant cutting out her own heart—you could say that girl still lived and breathed somewhere deep inside me.

That’s what I liked to think, anyway.

“Then take me to her,” I said as I grabbed my Birkin and headed for the door. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not getting much younger over here.”

I knew, the moment I met the mother, that I was in for a lot more trouble than I’d anticipated.

“Come in, come in,” she said as soon as she caught sight of me standing on the doorstep, my gaze turned as far away from the glorious garden to my right as possible. I didn’t know if Jasper was at home, and in my travel-weary state, I wasn’t sure I was ready to encounter him, but it didn’t matter. I could hardly see anything over the riot of fronds and flowers that erupted out of the yard, spilling out in an orgy of overeager growth.

Oh, Jasper.Channeling all that energy into plants instead of people, building a botanical fortress of literary references as obvious as they were ridiculous. Right away, I noticed a burst of purple wisteria straight from the pages ofA Farewell to Arms. I had no doubt that if I continued poking around, I’d find roses blooming out of a dung heap a laTropic of Cancerand oleander planted fromThe Haunting of Hill House.

“You must be exhausted,” the mother added as she placed a hand on my arm and gently led me inside. “Let me get you a nice cup of tea and a place to rest your bones.”

Our destination was a sagging beige lump of a couch that looked like something that had been dragged out of a garbage heap, but that didn’t stop her from ushering me into it. From the way she was acting, you’d have thought I was standing around with one foot already in the grave.

“Sorry about the mess,” she apologized as she lifted a stack of graphic novels from the couch and tossed them to the table. “We’ve got kind of a full house right now.”

“It’s amazing how much space four kids can take up,” added a short, nicely dressed man who immediately reminded me of a cross between Willy Wonka and one of his Oompa Loompas. He held out his hand to me in a gesture of friendliness. When I took it, he shook with all the robustness his lady was lacking. I liked him the better for it. “The name’s Todd. Todd Aarons. Ravenna here is my wife and the mother of all four, if you can believe it. And looking not a day over thirty herself.”

I liked him for that, too. My well-trained eye placed this Ravenna woman on the wrong end of her forties, but with her freckled face and flame of red hair, I could see how one might make the case for her being a decade younger. I could also see how, if the daughter looked anything like her, my grandson had fallen so hard.

“Technically, you only have two of the kids living here,” Zach said flatly. He had yet to move into the house, his arms crossed and his stance wide where he stood in the doorway. “Theo and Trixie are still staying at Jasper’s.”

“Yes, but all their belongings are here, and that’s practically the same thing, isn’t it?” Ravenna said with a brightness that bordered on the brittle. “I spent the past few years seeing a little something of the world, so I seem to have forgotten how much stuff they have. Clothes, toys, books…”

“Nightwave,” I said as I picked up one of the graphic novels. “Someone in this house has good taste. This is one of mine.”