Page 37 of Where I Found You
His grandfather’s personal library was the only space in the Blue Pirogue that Noah couldn’t bear to update.
He strolled the perimeter of the room, his gaze roaming from title to title on the cherrywood shelves. Afternoon sunlight poured through the narrow windows lining the west wall, sending dust particles dancing across the beams. He’d come to test his theory on the spoon collection, but stepping foot in the room for the first time in weeks and looking—reallylooking—slowed down time. Like maybe Grandpa wasn’t gone. He was just at a Puzzler’s Club meeting or picking up those orange hard candies he liked from Magnolia Grocery, and would be back any minute. He’d laugh and his bushy eyebrows would creep up his head as he regaled Noah with some exaggerated tale.
But there were no footsteps heading into the library. The spoon collection sat in a display case near the window, but lethargy and nostalgia held Noah back from checking. Not yet.
Running one finger down the spine of a hardback copy ofJohnny Tremain, Noah took a deep breath, imagining he could still smell peppermint and cigars. Most likely, though, he smelled the smoke from the diner clinging to his own hair.
What a day. He’d put in several hours at the café with Elisa, setting the diner back to rights in hopes of giving Delia the smallest shock possible when she came home from the hospital.
He’d also spent a portion of that clean-up time trying not to notice how adorable Elisa looked sopping wet. Trying not to remember the time they’d overturned his boat, and she’d popped out of the waves, sputtering for breath with her hair plastered over her face like it’d been while standing under those fire sprinklers. He’d peppered her nose with relentless kisses that afternoon in the bay until she’d laughed and forgiven him.
Not that he’d wanted to attempt the same today. It was a memory—one out of a million from that summer.
His hand skimmed over several American history texts, then stopped at the empty spot on the shelf. Odd—Grandpa’s collector’s edition ofThe Count of Monte Cristowasn’t in its usual place. Maybe he’d read it more recently and left it elsewhere in the inn.
His fingers then landed on a dusty frame of Grandpa and Noah standing on the dock, taken when Noah was eleven. In typical pre-teen fashion, he’d refused to smile for the camera, but even now, he could see the joy he’d felt that day fishing—and it’d had nothing to do with the impressive bass dangling from the end of his line.
“I wish you were here.” The whispered words seemed to ricochet off the matching cherry desk with the antique lamp and the old-fashioned letter inbox. Grandpa never had adjusted to the concept of email, preferring to do things “as our capable forefathers did” when it came to communication. Of course, he did eventually learn to play Solitaire on the boxy desktop computer he’d finally been persuaded to buy.
If he could ask his grandfather for advice now, he would. He’d already spoken with two mold mitigation people, and one wanted a large deposit up front—a payment that would take the remaining money in the inn’s account plus a chunk of Noah’s personal savings, which he was currently living off while on hiatus from his landman work running title. He could ask his project manager for a new project and start working half-days from his laptop, but that would delay progress on the final restoration, which would then delay his return to Shreveport.
And he needed to get back to Shreveport.
“I guess if you were here, I wouldn’t have to figure all this out, would I?” Noah released a humorless laugh. The second mitigation company was booked up for months—not surprising in the wake of Hurricane Anastasia. But they didn’t require nearly as high of a deposit, having adjusted their fee schedule out of sympathy for their sudden influx of customers.
So Noah could pay more and get it done sooner, or save money and be forced to stay in Magnolia Bay longer—assuming the treasure hunt would deliver funds that would cover the remaining balance on either option.
“Everything feels like a catch twenty-two lately.” Noah set the framed photo on the shelf. Grandpa couldn’t hear him, but it still felt freeing to release the concern into the air. Maybe God would hear instead and send some sort of inspiration or solution.
Not that Noah deserved it.
He ambled to the desk, pulled the miniature key to the collector’s case from the drawer where Grandpa always kept it, and slid it into his pocket. There was another key next to it, bigger and half-buried under a pile of envelopes. What in the world did that go to?
Then his gaze caught Grandpa’s ancient letter opener, the one with the carved pelican—the Louisiana state bird—on the end, and Noah smirked. When he was a kid, he liked to play with the items on Grandpa’s desk, so Grandpa told him a spooky story about a cursed ghost pelican living in the bay so he’d be too scared to pick it up and risk cutting himself.
He’d believed that story until he was nearly thirteen.
Noah chuckled under his breath, picking up the time-dulled blade. “I think I believed almost everything you told me.” The stillness of the library absorbed his declaration, the statement disappearing into the numerous volumes of words surrounding him. “There are several stories now I sure wish I could hear again.”
Such as the time Grandpa pranked everyone in his first puzzler’s club meeting by pretending not to speak English. And when he took a cross-country road trip in his twenties with his brother—Noah’s Great Uncle William, now deceased—and ended up having dinner with two well-known celebrities but didn’t realize it until halfway through the meal.
Or why he divorced Grandma Edith when Noah was seven.
He drew a tight breath and set the letter opener back in its case. Hebert men were known to be quitters in all the ways that mattered, and Noah refused to let history repeat itself.
The story about the cursed ghost pelican might not be real, but that generational curse sure was.
Noah’s cell buzzed in his pocket, providing a welcome relief from his thoughts. He checked the display—unknown number. He silenced it and slid his phone back into his pocket, then crossed the floor toward the spoon case. Might as well get to work.
He unlatched the glass door and searched the rows of antique silver until he found the collectible Paul Revere spoon. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and the dust patterns in the case didn’t appear disturbed. Still, to be sure, he carefully lifted the velvet display tray and peered under it.
Nothing. He’d been wrong.
Which meant Elisa had been right.
His cell buzzed again, same number as before. He sighed and answered as he put the tray back into place. “Hello?” Probably a spam call.
“Noah, finally.”
