Page 95 of Forgotten Romance

What the ever-loving hell is Mack up to?

Griff and Heath meet me in their front office, and the clue sends me to where Griff and I had our first date. Killer Brew, of course, and where I’m expecting to find Art and the kids, my mom and dad are waiting.

“There goes my hopes of Kiera and Van being with you two.”

“They’re well looked after,” Mom says, wearing that same weird expression everyone else has been today. She pulls me in for a quick hug. “I love you very much.”

I frown, because, duh. “Are you dying?”

“Of course not, you little shit. I just don’t say it enough.”

“Okay. Well, I love you both as well. Obviously.”

“We know,” Dad says, handing over their clue.

This one takes me to Barney and Leif’s souvenir shop near Kil Pen, and then theirs takes me to Killer Adventures.

I thank Beau again, wishing this scavenger hunt was over already, and as I walk to my car, I swear I catch a glimpse of Art’s. I try not to be too obvious about looking, but I’m pretty sure Van and Kiera are in the back, and now I think back to it, I’m sure Art’s car had been in the parking lot at Killer Brew as well.

Are they … following me? While I look for them?

I hold my laugh in as I climb into my car, determined to play this game out to the end. I promised I wouldn’t ask questions, but every location has me more and more curious. And as I drive all over town, encountering our friends and family at every stop, it makes me fall even more in love with Kilborough than ever.

Keller is waiting at the rotunda by the boardwalk, in the same place where I proposed to Mack all those years ago. His wavy, black hair is pulled back, stubble thicker than usual but trimmed neatly, and he’s wearing a long black coat. The man always manages to look like some kind of Norse god without trying.

“I’m freezing my balls off” are the first words out of his mouth.

I pull him into a hug anyway. “Thank you though. I still don’t know what’s going on, but I’m curious as hell.”

“What’s going on is … well, Mack’s putting things right again.”

“I proposed to him here, you know.”

“I know. He said.”

“Kinda wish I could go back there, do things differently.”

“Why?”

“Because maybe then we never would have ended up divorced.”

Keller hands over a note. “Yeah, but … I think you needed it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Maybe not the divorce, exactly, but the break. The time. I was talking to Mack, and it’s been good for him.”

I huff. “Well, that’s what I want to hear. That my husband is better off without me.”

“Did I say that?” He claps my shoulder. “From where I’m standing, the divorce was less of an ending and more of a … reset.”

“Really?”

“I think you’ll both be a lot happier for it. Whatever comes.”

“No.”

Keller lifts his eyebrows and doesn’t say anything.

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