More Than Words Can Say (38 page)

Pug stood and looked down at Brandon. “I gotta go,” he said. “I probably didn’t say things very good, but thanks for listenin’.”

Brandon nodded. “After Mallory died, I never thought I’d hear myself say this, Pug,” he answered, “but I’m glad that you came.”

A questioning look overcame Pug’s face. “So we’re good, then?” he asked.

“Yes,” Brandon answered. “We’re good.”

“And you’ll thank Chelsea for me, too?”

“Of course,” Brandon answered.

After shaking Brandon’s hand, Pug left the porch and got back into his truck. As Brandon heard its engine fade away in the distance, he shook his head and smiled.

Well, I’ll be damned . . .

Then he thought about how his ranger training had ironically helped to bring Pug around, and he smiled again.

Leave no man behind, indeed . . . ,
he thought.

Chapter 38

C
helsea pointed at a painting that hung in Brandon’s living room. “What about his one?” she asked. “Do you want to keep it, too?”

Brandon turned and smiled. “I’ll bow to your judgment,” he said. “After all, you’re the one who used to be an art teacher. I’m just a lowly graduate of Harvard Medical School.”

Chelsea snorted out a laugh. “Very funny, Dr. Yale. And since you’re leaving this one up to me, then yes—I do want to keep it.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Brandon answered. “So go ahead and add it to the pile.”

After taking the painting down from the wall, Chelsea carried it out onto Brandon’s porch. There she placed it among the other things from Brandon’s cottage that the two of them had selected. They would be moving into the house in Serendipity soon, and because Brandon’s cottage had been listed as furnished, they needed to remove those items they wished to keep. It was Monday, the only day of the week that the Blue Rooster was closed.

Although Chelsea knew that this sorting job must be done, she also realized that these were Brandon’s things, and she needed to be sensitive. Because of that, she was letting him make most of the decisions. And even though he hadn’t actually mentioned how much he appreciated it, she knew that he did.

After placing the painting on the cottage floor, Chelsea paused in her labors to look out at Lake Evergreen. Fall was here, and it had become a time for sweatshirts, woolen gloves, and hot apple cider. Smiling, she turned around and looked adoringly at Brandon while he continued to sort through the living room items. He meant everything to her now, and she loved being married. As she watched him, he carefully removed a blue and white vase from one of the bookcase shelves.

After regarding it for a few moments, he held it up and called out, “What do you think about this?”

Chelsea returned to the living room and gave the vase a discerning look. It was Chinese in style, with a white background and blue painted flowers covering its surface. She quite liked it, and she said so.

“I’m glad,” Brandon said. “You remember my telling you that I bought this cottage fully furnished from Greg Butler? Well, although I sold most of his stuff, I did keep a few things. This vase was one of them.”

Smiling again, Brandon set the vase down atop one of the sofa end tables. “Maybe we could put it on the mantel of the other cottage,” he suggested. “I think it would look nice next to Brooke’s unfinished portrait.”

Having again been reminded of everything that had happened this summer, Chelsea smiled and put one arm around Brandon’s waist. “I think you’re right,” she replied. “And I just know that it’s something Brooke would have liked, as well.”

Just then they heard Dolly and Jeeves scratching at the porch door, begging to be let inside. While pushing up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, Chelsea smiled.

“They must be cold,” she said. “I’ll go and do the honors.”

Brandon gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “While you’re doing that, I’ll be in the kitchen, pouring us a couple of bourbons.”

“That sounds great,” Chelsea said as she headed for the porch.

While Brandon poured the drinks he heard the porch door squeak open and closed and the dogs come bounding inside. Smiling, he opened the refrigerator door and produced a leftover hamburger patty, which he promptly broke in half.

“Hey, guys!” he shouted over one shoulder. “Who wants to eat?” But as the dogs came charging through the living room, Brandon heard a crashing sound.

“What was that?” he called out to Chelsea. “Did something just break?”

When Chelsea didn’t respond, he went to the kitchen door and looked across the living room. Chelsea stood near one of the sofa end tables, staring down at what used to be Brandon’s Chinese vase.

“Oh, hell,” Brandon said as he walked over. “What happened?”

“Jeeves’s tail struck it as he ran through the room,” Chelsea said. She again looked down to see that it had broken into several jagged pieces. “And by the looks of it,” she said, “it can’t be repaired.”

“My fault,” Brandon said. “I’ll fetch the broom and dustpan.”

Just then something caught Chelsea’s eye, causing her to bend over and more closely examine the little mess. “Brandon,” she said, “I think you should see this.”

Brandon walked back over and squatted down beside her. On the floor there lay what looked like an old envelope, partly hidden beneath two of the larger pieces. When Brandon picked it up, Chelsea saw a look of astonishment conquer his face.

“What is it?” she asked.

Rather at a loss for words, Brandon simply continued to stare at it. Severely yellowed and dog-eared, it was deeply curved lengthwise from having been hidden inside the vase. The envelope was addressed, “
To My Lost Love.
” What stunned him the most, however, was not to whom it was addressed but the nature of the handwriting. Brooke had penned this, he was sure of it. Not only was it in her highly recognizable style, it had also been written in black fountain ink.

He handed the envelope to Chelsea. “I think that Brooke wrote this,” he said. “And if I weren’t saying so myself, I’d never believe it.”

As Chelsea looked at the envelope, her eyes widened with surprise. After letting go a deep breath, she looked back at Brandon.

“I think I know what this is,” she said. “It’s the farewell letter that Brooke wrote to Greg the night she left Lake Evergreen.”

Brandon nodded. “Could be,” he answered. “The same letter she placed in the porch door frame just before she headed back to Syracuse.” Brandon rubbed his forehead, thinking. “After reading it, at some point Greg must have decided to hide it in that old vase. And rather than sell the vase, I kept it, and the letter has been inside it all this time.”

“But why would he leave it in the vase when he sold the cottage to you?” Chelsea asked. “It must have meant a great deal to him.”

“Good question,” Brandon answered. “But maybe not so odd, if you think about it. He had no heirs, and I’m sure that he couldn’t bring himself to destroy it. By leaving it hidden in the vase, the letter would not only go on ‘living,’ but it would probably never be found, as well. And had it not been for Jeeves, all of that would still be the case. Year after year, this letter would have rested on your cottage mantel, alongside Brooke’s unfinished portrait.”

Then Brandon smiled a little again as he shook his head.

“That would have been very fitting, wouldn’t it?” he asked. “Even though we wouldn’t have known what we’d done . . .”

Chelsea nodded. By now her hands were trembling a bit, and it was clear that she had been deeply affected by this unexpected discovery.

Brandon looked at the old letter again. “Only God knows how many times Greg reread this over the course of his remaining years,” he added. “Hundreds would be my guess. He loved her so much, and he so desperately hoped that she might one day return to him, that he never married.”

“Yes . . . ,” Chelsea said. “But what will we do with it?”

Thinking, Brandon took a deep breath. “Well, I’d like to read it,” he said. “After all, it’s the last piece of the puzzle, and finding it was an amazing stroke of luck.”

But as he looked back into Chelsea’s eyes, he saw some uncertainty there. On recognizing her reticence, he put one arm around her shoulders.

“If you don’t want to know what it says, I understand,” he said compassionately. “But with your permission, I do. As best we know, it’s the last form of communication between Brooke and Greg.”

Chelsea looked at the old envelope again, thinking. Suddenly, this letter seemed a good deal different to her than had the journal. Brandon was right—these were in all likelihood Brooke’s last words to Greg, but she wasn’t sure that she wanted to hear them.

For the most part, over the course of the last few weeks she had come to terms with all of this, and she didn’t want that sense of peace to become uprooted again. She was happy with her new life and nothing must disturb that—even including what appeared to be Brooke’s final message to Greg. And there was something else holding her back, she realized. Unlike the old journal that Brooke had requested she read, this letter had been privileged correspondence between Brooke and Greg and was never meant to be shared by anyone else. And so, she didn’t want to read it. But at the same time, something inside her didn’t mind if Brandon did. When she looked back into Brandon’s eyes, she shook her head.

“If you want to read it, that’s okay,” she said. Then she turned and again looked out across the porch and toward the ever-restless waves of Lake Evergreen. “But I can’t do it,” she added quietly. “At least not now. Maybe I never will.”

“I understand,” Brandon said.

After kissing her cheek, he left her and walked out onto the porch, where he sat down on one of his old rocking chairs. And then, after also looking out over the lake for a time, he opened the old letter and started reading . . .

A
SHORT TIME
later Brandon wiped his tearful eyes and then replaced the letter in its envelope. He then looked out over the lake again, thinking.

My God,
he thought.
Chelsea needs to read this . . . but will she ever have the strength to do so?

When Chelsea saw that he had finished, she finally picked up the two glasses of bourbon and went to join him. By now the wind had risen, the waves had darkened some more, and it had grown colder.

Or maybe now, after learning about the existence of that letter, the world just
seems
a little colder,
she thought. She had come to realize something else, too. Although she knew that Brandon would gladly tell her what the old letter said, she would not ask him.

Just then the wind rose again, winnowing its way among the evergreen trees. And when she reached over and took her husband’s hand into hers he squeezed it lightly, telling her that he understood. . .

Chapter 39

A
s the days progressed, the Adirondacks were enjoying a marvelous stretch of Indian summer, allowing those who owned places on the water to swim and boat just a bit longer before the inevitable arrived. Soon the last vestiges of warmth would fade for good, the few remaining leaves would all be gone, and winter would come calling.

Three weeks had passed since Chelsea and Brandon had married, and regarding Brooke’s story, it had been a bittersweet time for Chelsea. There was no more of Brooke’s journal to read, and in a way that had been comforting. But she missed it, too. Every time she and Brandon had delved further into Brooke’s life, Chelsea had acquired an ever-deepening bond with the wonderful grandmother she had so recently lost. On the other hand, her evenings with Brandon were now free of Brooke’s request that Chelsea learn what had happened here those many years ago. Now it was just the two of them, and Chelsea treasured each night with him.

Even so, she still had not read the letter that she and Brandon had so unexpectedly found in Brandon’s cottage. She was of course curious, but she also didn’t need or want anything to upset her perfect little world—no matter how much closer it might make her feel to her late grandmother.

And there was another reason why Chelsea hadn’t read the letter, she realized. Unlike the journal, which Brooke requested she read, that letter had been private between Brooke and Greg, and Chelsea still felt uncomfortable about violating that trust. Strangely, she hadn’t felt that way about Brandon’s reading it, and gentleman that he was, he had said nothing more about it since that fateful afternoon. Since then the old letter had resided inside Brooke’s tin box, along with all of her other things from the past.

It was late afternoon and Chelsea was standing on her porch, where she had stationed the easel and the other painting things she had purchased that day when Brandon had taken her into Serendipity to meet Emily Rousseau. She was working on a painting of Lake Evergreen as seen from her porch, and it was coming along well. Dolly and Jeeves lay nearby on the porch floor, sound asleep.

After a time, Chelsea put down her brush and relaxed in one of the porch rockers. It was a rather cloudy and windy day that caused the waves to cap and the trees around her little cottage to bow and sway more deeply than usual. But as happy as she was, Chelsea remained haunted by some worries.

After three weeks of wondering, she was still at odds with herself about whether to tell Brooke’s story to Lucy—to say nothing of letting Lucy actually see the old photographs or read the journal for herself. Chelsea knew full well that Brooke had left the decision in her hands, but she had given Chelsea no inkling of her opinion. Lucy had been stronger and happier when Chelsea and Brandon had visited her and Adam in Syracuse. But although Chelsea had talked to Lucy several times on the phone since then, she remained unsure whether those changes in her mother had persisted. Chelsea hoped so, but she also knew that a few phone calls weren’t enough to decide. One always needed to actually face Lucy, to talk to her, to listen to the tone of her voice, in order to take her full measure. And even then, Chelsea knew, one could easily get the wrong impression. That’s just how Lucy was.