Page 175 of In the Pursuit of Haven
Of course, the one who’d won that role still remained unannounced.
He kept the weathered Bible that belonged rightfully to his family in a place of honor in his study. I wondered if he’d ever crack it open to figure out where it came from, but talking about where his Shepherd Relics could lead him only made him turn jittery and tell more jokes.
And Ruth… well, the moment Jessie saw her standing sourly with her father outside the cavern on Misery Island, he’d tossed the wooden Norseman head figurine at her.“If you can use it to find another treasure out there, more power to you,” he said. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”
He’d hugged me, making me smile from ear to ear.
Of course, we’d all had to explain to her and her father what we meant later. Ruth seemed more irritated than anything; her father had pulled her from work on that cold January day, alluding to an “emergency,” only for her to be briefed about the history of the Shepherds of the Relics before joining a strange group of militia on the island.
Her worst nightmare of admitting I wasn’t batty had come true, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in seeing Ruth use her historical expertise to go after the treasure of a lifetime. By the looks of the whittled figurine, I was guessing it had Norwegian origins.
I’d love to see all that pink hair take on the Vikings.
As for me, I had every intention of invading the lighthouse and raising a brood of kids with my Jessie. That was adventure enough for me.
Haven would approve.
I’d taken the letters my aunt had written back and forth with Matthew and donated them to the museum. Theirs was a love story that I wanted the world to experience. Sure, it hadn’t ended the way I would’ve written it, but their love reminded me to hold onto mine with everything I had.
I never forgot that when I hugged Jessie to me. My long line of ancestry had their foibles and shortcomings, but they also had their share of beauty in their struggles that would live on in us.
Abby waved her hand in front of me. “And get this: I’m meeting a prince my first day on the job!” She excitedly filled us in on the details of her new move and had just begun to admit that Davey was pretty cute when someone rapped on the door.
I recognized that steady fist and ran to open it. My grandfather stood on the other side. “Robert!” I fell into his arms. “You came!”
He smiled in that crooked, unsure way of his that I adored.
My mother had been shocked to hear about her parents, feeling both saddened by their loss and thrilled at their existence; in fact she’d been so overjoyed at findingoneof them that she decided to find the next one immediately.
Taking a break from their medical tour, she’d hired special investigators to find Felicity in Scotland. It hadn’t taken long to get to her. And now I had to break what we’d found to my grandfather.
I pulled back from our embrace and tried to direct my brightest smile at him… it felt tremulous at best. He snickered when he saw how nervous I was. “What is it? You look like you’ve swallowed a tiger and you’re trying to stuff the tail back into your teeth.”
An odd saying if I’d ever heard one. “Well, it’s my mother; she uh…”
“She found Felicity,” Robert guessed gravely.
“Yeah.”
His shoulders set like he was preparing for the worst. “Just tell me. Is she alive?”
“She’s widowed,” I said, “for about twenty-five years now, but she has a beautiful family she’s very proud of, and they uh… are very Scottish.”
Robert let out a wistful sigh. “She’s doing well, then?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s happy?”
“I think so…”as much as she could be without her one true love!
He nodded. “Felicity probably doesn’t want me poking my nose around there and stirring up a hornet’s nest, then.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You’ve got good reason to visit; we could go together even. You can introduce your grandchild to her… and your daughter. Mom really wants to go, but she wants you to be there with her.”
Robert’s eyes softened at the mention of my mother. The cruel years had separated us for too long. “We’ll make a holiday of it,” he decided gruffly. “If I like the look of those grandchildren of hers, I might be willing to give up the Corwin Cane to them.”
I chuckled helplessly—he might do it even if he didn’t like them. My grandfather had been as eager to take back his family’s cane as I would’ve been. We were through with intrigue and treasure hunts. Going to Scotland would be a perfect excuse to hand down the wretched Relic to the next generation… though it might be best to do it behind Felicity’s back, so she wouldn’t throw a fit and run away again.
