Page 20 of Atonement Trail
"Engines follow rules. Pasta is chaos pretending to be food." But he was smiling, relaxed in a way she'd never seen him, wearing jeans and a henley that had seen better decades.
"Fair warning—this is just my crash pad. I've got a place on the ranch, by the lake. That's home. But when I'm working late or there's an early meeting, it's easier to stay in town than make the drive out and back."
"So this is..."
"A place to sleep and shower. Maybe eat if I remember." He gestured at the sparse space with the wooden spoon. "The furniture came with the house. Seemed pointless to do more when I'm barely here."
“Wine,” she said, offering the bottle. “To help or hinder, depending on your preference.”
“Both. Always both.”
He opened the wine with the efficiency of someone who’d learned that some skills were essential regardless of your interest in acquiring them. They drank while he finished cooking—a simple marinara that filled the kitchen with the scent of garlic and basil and home.
“The diaries are in the dining room,” he said, stirring sauce with more concentration than the task required. “Mom brought three boxes. Apparently, she’s been waiting for someone to show interest since approximately 1987.”
They ate at his kitchen table, the pasta surprisingly good, the wine making everything softer, easier, more possible. Dylan found herself relaxing into the evening, into the simple pleasure of sharing food with someone who made her laugh, who looked at her like she was interesting, who offered her dreams without demanding payment.
After dinner, they spread the family documents across the dining room table—diaries, photographs, letters, the detritus of lives lived fully. Margaret O’Hara’s diary was a treasure trove of daily life, observations of a world that no longer existed.
“Listen to this,” Dylan said, reading from an entry dated 1962. “‘Patrick took me to the old oak tree again today. He says it’s our place, where our story began, but I think our story began the moment he walked into my father’s store, hat in hand, trying to buy feed on credit. I knew then he was different. Knew then he was mine.’”
“The oak tree by the lake,” Aidan said. “Has to be.”
“But there’s more. ‘He carved our initials in the bark, high enough that we had to climb to see them. Said he wanted them to grow with the tree, to become part of something permanent.’”
They looked at each other across the table, understanding dawning. The next clue wasn’t just hidden near the tree—it was in it, part of it, grown into its very fiber over decades.
“Saturday?” Aidan asked.
“Saturday,” Dylan confirmed.
The evening had deepened into night without either of them noticing, too caught up in stories and secrets, in the mystery of how love persisted across decades, how some things endured despite everything time could throw at them.
“I should go,” Dylan said, though leaving felt like tearing something.
“I’ll walk you home.”
“It’s just right down the street.”
“It’s dark out. My mother raised me right, even if it didn’t always take.”
They walked down the street, quiet except for the small sounds of a town settling into sleep. At her door, they paused, the moment stretching like taffy, sweet and dangerous.
“Thank you,” Dylan said. “For dinner. For the partnership. For believing I can do this.”
“Thank you for staying,” Aidan replied, and the words carried more weight than their simplicity suggested.
She climbed the stairs to her apartment, feeling his eyes on her until the door closed between them. Inside, she stood in the dark, processing the evening, the easy domesticity of it, the way being in his space had felt like coming home to a place she’d never been.
Saturday they would search for carved initials grown into bark, for evidence of love that had lasted. But Dylan was beginning to suspect they were really searching for permission—to hope, to trust, to believe that some things were worth the risk of wanting them.
The restoration division would launch Monday. The treasure hunt would continue Saturday. And somewhere between business and mystery, between partnership and possibility, Dylan Flanagan was falling further in love with Aidan O’Hara.
The terrifying part wasn’t the falling.
It was how much she wanted to land.
Chapter Seven
