Page 81 of Love You Truly

“Impressive.”

“No, you’re impressive. Happy birthday, Marshmallow. Or, should I say, happy birthday to the new owner of Autumn Lake?”

“I like Marshmallow.”

“I do too. In fact, I love her.”

My heart fills to where it feels like it’s spilling over.

He kisses me slowly. Deeply. It tells me everything about how he feels, and I want to kick myself for doubting that what I felt between us was real.

“Now, let’s go celebrate your birthday.” He walks us inside and up to my room, leaving the cake on a table in the entryway. The balloons stay outside for now.

As Dash wraps me in his arms and lays me down on the bed, I can’t help thinking I want my future to include him. I love him, and I want to tell him, but I can’t. I just can’t.

CHAPTER 30

Mallory

It turns out that some of Dash’s birthday plans for me are practical. Extremely practical, in fact.

By four in the afternoon, I’m dressed nicely, pumped up on coffee, and headed to see my family’s lawyer, who has the papers drawn up for me to sign. Dash knows me well enough to understand that I don’t want to wait a day longer than necessary to take ownership of Autumn Lake. It’s one more quality in him that makes my heart feel full.

My parents, being my parents, are working on a farm in Georgia for two weeks, learning how to farm cotton.

Not that we’ll ever do that here. In Napa Valley. Where people grow grapes.

In the days since Dash and I talked about what seems to motivate them, I don’t resent their peripatetic choices as much as I once did. They may not be the best at parenting, but they do seem to contribute to the world in other valuable ways.

Maybe they’re just meant to raise crops and sheep instead of people.

We can’t control how our strengths play out in the world. I’m just grateful they decided to try their hand at parenting a person so that I could be born. If nothing else, they gave me my own chance to figure out how to contribute to the world.

It feels good to let the anger and resentment slide away and think about the future. And standing here in my lawyer’s office looking at the deed to Autumn Lake, I feel like everything I’ve been working for is in reach.

“Here we go,” Harold Cotton, our family lawyer says, laying a fat file folder on the mahogany desk in his office. Harold has been a friend of my parents for as long as I can remember, but I haven’t seen him in a while.

His hair has thinned and turned whiter, and his cheeks sag beneath his chin. He wears a pair of wire-rimmed readers low on his nose and smiles at me like a parent. Looking at how he’s aged reminds me that my parents aren’t young either. Maybe it will be a relief to them when I take control of things. I hope so.

“This is the deed to the property and all of the stipulations for taking ownership of Autumn Lake.”

I don’t know why I’m nervous. Actually, I do. Until I sign the papers and see the deed in my own name, I’m going to be afraid Felix will pull a fast one. I pray my parents didn’t sign anything that obligates me to keep him around.

He opens the folder and holds up a document. “This one’s the important one.”

I nod. “Right. The one that says I need to be married in order to inherit.” I hold up my ring finger. “Done and done.”

He cocks his head and studies the page in front of him. When he looks up, the crease in his brow has deepened. “These are the terms of your inheritance, yes.”

It occurs to me that maybe Felix’s name is in the paperwork someplace, so I need to set him straight. “I used to be married to someone else. Felix Sutton. But his name shouldn’t be anywhere in these documents. He’s not my husband anymore.”

Holding the papers closer to his face, he reads them again. His finger slides across the lines of the page and his lips move, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. My pulse starts racing as I worry that something isn’t right. I have my marriage certificate in my purse just in case I need to provide it as proof, but I’m getting a sinking feeling in my gut.

Harold puts the papers down and takes his glasses off. “Okay, I just wanted to be sure.”

“Be sure of what?”

“The partnership clause.”

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