Page 92 of My Heart Will Find You

She found Henry in the library, his notebook open on his lap. “How far along are you?” She and Henry rarely indulged in small talk.

He grinned. “Wyatt Earp was just rescued. Tell me again how handsome he was.”

“Not nearly as good-looking as Max. Shorter, shoulders more narrow, neck kind of scrawny, eyes that were—” She broke off. Henry’s eyes were twinkling. “Brat. You have anything for me to type?”

“Some, not much.”

She looked toward the open door. “Did you send them away? I don’t hear anything.”

“Last I saw, they were outside, staring at each other over tall drinks. Their eyes were full of stars. Seems that Henrietta has yet again shot the love arrow.”

She laughed. “Cynic. I assume you know that he’s Rufus, and she’s the local...” Etta waved her hand.

“Max’s go-to girl?”

“That’s something we don’t speak of. Have you been fed and watered?”

“Actually, no. Those two looked at each other and I no longer existed.” He gave a melodramatic sigh.

“You poor thing.” She stood up. “Anything new from Ben and Caroline? How’s the baby?”

“I’ll bring up my email. You’ll have breakfast done by the time the internet engages.”

She started out of the room. “Very funny. I can’t wait to hear the connection shaking hands through your thirty-year-old router.” Smiling, she went to the kitchen to make breakfast. She could see Zack and Freddy sitting outside. They did indeed seem fascinated with each other.

Etta made good ole Southern biscuits, then took some with butter and jam out to them. She didn’t say a word as she set the plate on the table. But then, they didn’t notice her.

She took eggs, bacon, and biscuits to the library to share with Henry.

“Thank you,” he said.

They settled down to what had become normal—spending the day together in the library. After the road trip, her restlessness was gone. She was going through Zack’s photos, and Henry was writing and editing. He was content.

When Zack and Freddy came to say they were leaving to go see her garden, Henry cleared his throat in a way that made Etta cut a look at him.

“Have fun,” Etta told them. When they left, she looked at Henry. “You are a dirty old man.”

“Hearing about you and Max is leading me astray. Breechcloths hold all new meaning for me.”

She shook her head in despair of him, but she was laughing.

By afternoon they’d received baby photos and Caroline wrote that she thought Henry’s new story was the best thing he’d ever written.

Your heroine and her knife are magnificent. You should have carvedheron the old desk.

Etta grinned in pride, while Henry looked at her in that way that said he was thinking hard.

“No, you can’t tear out the back of the desk and redo it. It’s beautiful as it is,” Etta said. The truth was, she didn’t think he was steady enough to safely handle chisels. She worried that he seemed to be getting weaker and less active each day.

At four, when she brought in tea with cold biscuits and jam, to her horror Henry was using a little screwdriver on the portrait of her and Max. She nearly screamed. “What are you doing?”

“I want to see something. Don’t worry. I know how to do this. Aha! I was right.” He held out the flat painting to her, with no surrounding frame. “See it?”

She was glad he hadn’t damaged it with his tool.

“Bottom right. The signature.”

There was a symbol at the bottom, an H.F. “Those are the artist’s initials.”

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