Page 26 of In the Pursuit of Haven
“Yeah?”
His mouth found mine. I was both startled and intrigued. The guy might be one of those players by how easy he’d gotten past my defenses, or maybe this felt so natural because it was just meant to be; either way, I never wanted him to stop kissing me. He pushed my hair back from my face and smiled at me. “You are my treasure. You know that? I don’t need anything else.”
I bit my lip, wanting to laugh and cry and sing all at once. “Actually Matthew… I love the wayyouthink more.”
The lighthouse erupted into a blaze outside my window, beaming through the clouds above the ocean so that they turned aquamarine. I jumped, realizing that the government workers had set the towers to turn on at dusk.
I hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. The dress that I’d worn all day was wrinkled beyond repair, and I’d been using the light from the closet to squint through these letters. I snapped on the lamp next to Haven’s bed, wishing she’d told me even a tiny slice of this herself, and even more so when I read the next letter:
“Hello, Mrs. Matthew Crabb!”
Say what? I sat up, jumping to my knees on the lumpy mattress as I read through this next correspondence. Haven married Matthew? Oh no, no, what? How could she not have told me!
My new husband kissed my ear, his fingers sliding down my arm. “I want to tell everyone,” he said.
“No.” I shook my head firmly. “Not just yet. My aunt, she’s… it’s all too new. She still doesn’t trust your family after everything that’s happened. We have to keep this secret between us for a little longer until we can prove that-that…”
“I love you,” he said. “Tell me what I need to do to prove to her how much you mean to me, darling. I’ll sacrifice everything for you; I’ll never leave you. Is that what she wants?”
“Sorta,” I squeaked.
Wait, wait, wait. I had to put a pause on this for a second. I was related to Jessie through marriage? Haven adopted my mother… we weren’t really hers.Not blood related.I collapsed back against the pillows. That had been too horrible to contemplate for even a second! Feeling like a junkie with these letters, I slid out another one from Matthew:
“Haven, my darling, you’ll never guess what I did this morning! After you told me about losing your family’s property to the bank, I bought it. Surprise! Your family never has to worry about losing your home again. The bad news is we don’t have any more money left in my savings. Ha! But who cares? It’s all paid off… every last inch of that land belongs to us. Can you believe it? It’s all ours now!”
My hand went to my mouth. Okay, okay, so this explained everything. The property hadn’t ended up in Crabb’s hands by nefarious means. So far, I was glad that I’d cracked open these letters, but also the sadness consumed me. Something so beautiful must’ve ended so tragically for Haven to hate anything to do with Matthew’s family.
I picked up another letter and hesitated. This one wasn’t from Matthew. I traced the unfamiliar handwriting with my fingertips and read the first line for any clue as to the author’s identity.
“Stay away from my son!”
Ugh, Silos Crabb. Never met him. Glad I hadn’t. He’d died long ago, from supposedly natural causes, and knowing how he’d cheated Haven’s cousins, he was infinitely worse than Jessie’s cranky father.
“I know exactly what kind of girl you are. Gold digger! Matthew won’t see a penny of his inheritance if he marries you! He’ll no longer be my son. If you love him, you’ll leave him alone, and if you don’t? I think we speak each other’s language. Either way, it’ll be a relief to get the sliver you’ve become out of our skin.”
It was almost laughable how uppity this family was considering how far they’d fallen. Old Pete was a drunk, who lived off Jessie’s widowed grandmother in a decaying shack on the wharf. The Crabb curse to be burned by the fire of their own betrayal was alive in them. They’d truly lost everything, but how?
The next letter was from Matthew.
“Darling Haven. I tried to get this letter to you before I left. Robert found me a job on his boat. It’s the only way to get out from under my father’s thumb. Don’t worry about me. This is our ticket out. My father doesn’t own me, no matter how much he wants to. He’s a grumpy old man, obsessed with chasing after treasure and riches.
“My dreams are different—just you and me living a simple life and building our family together. I have a plan that will make that happen. Robert and I are trying some deep-sea fishing, and Leon says he’s tagging along to get his kicks. You see? He doesn’t even need the money and he’s in. It’ll be great. Don’t listen to Felicity; none of this is as dangerous as she thinks. Don’t waste even one tear on me. I’m coming back to you.
“Always yours, Matthew”
My heart lurched. Jessie said his uncle had died going after treasure, but was he just trying to scratch out a living for himself the only way he knew how?
Poor Haven. My memories of her blurred with the hundreds of times we went to the top of that lighthouse across the way and looked out into the ocean, not even able to speak because of the beauty of the world under our fingertips. How many times before then had she placed her hands on the railing and stared out, wondering if Matthew was okay, if he was thinking about her, if they would ever be together again.
I grabbed the next letter from him:
“Don’t hate me, Haven. We need more money. The last two fishing expeditions were failures. We’re so deep in the hole from these botched jobs that we can never meet these loans if we don’t do something drastic, and I know, I know! Robert… he thinks going after my family’s treasureispretty crazy too, especially since we have nothing to go on, but guess what? Robert’s in… Leon talked him into it; he’s all about the adventure.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a desperate move on my part, but you have to understand that I’ll do anything for the both of us to be together.
“If my old man comes around asking about that locket, play dumb. I had to take it. I don’t know how yet, but it’ll help us find that treasure. Just think what we could do if we found it? All that money! We’d never have to worry again about anything. I’m still trying to figure out what that nine means. Nine. Nine what? You’re smart. Write me if you think of anything.”
Frustration poured through me at the risk he’d taken. After everything Matthew had promised—he’d still gone after that treasure! This was the problem with the past: as a helpless observer, I could do nothing to change history. Even knowing how it ended, I couldn’t warn anyone.
