Thomas’s face softened. “I thought you might say that.”
My fingers touched the page. Arthur’s handwriting curved exactly as I remembered, elegant but slightly hurried, the way he wrote grocery lists and birthday cards and little notes tucked into my coat pocket.
Below his name was another line.
For Evelyn, when she finally finds the shore.
My throat closed.
“Where did you get this?”
Thomas glanced toward the parlor, then back at me. “From a box of books donated to my shop last spring. There was a letter inside too, but I didn’t understand who it was for until today.”
“A letter?”
He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a cream envelope, yellowed at the edges.
My name was written across the front.
Not Mrs. Vance.
Not Evelyn.
Evie.
Only Arthur had called me that.
The inn around me blurred: the sound of laughter downstairs, the crackle of the fire, Nora humming in the kitchen, the sea breathing beyond the windows. I took the envelope with both hands.
It was sealed.
Thomas lowered his voice. “There’s something else you should know before you open it.”
I looked at him.
He hesitated, as if choosing between kindness and truth.
“Arthur booked Room Seven every Christmas for ten years,” he said. “Starting the year before he died.”
I stared at him, unable to speak.
Thomas continued quietly. “And he left instructions that the reservation should remain open until you came.”
The envelope trembled in my hands.
Downstairs, the grandfather clock began to strike midnight.
Christmas Day had arrived.
And inside that sealed letter was a secret my husband had kept from me for more than six years.
END OF PART 2