The Night that Changed Everything (19 page)

Edie looked at it, her lips parted in amazement. The outside walls had all been finished with lime plaster. All the
vigas
and corbels had been repaired or replaced and the roof was whole again. Lights shone from within through the deep-set windows.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “It’s far more beautiful than I remembered.” Now she grabbed his hand and, instead of going up the steps to the porch, she dragged him around the back to beam at the porch now painted and finished. She hugged him hard, her eyes shining. “It’s perfect.” Then she went up on the porch and peered through the windows.

“Furniture?” She turned back to look at him.

“Some. You didn’t think we were going to sleep on the floor, did you?”

“I didn’t think we were going to spend our honeymoon here!”

“Are you sorry?” He’d thought it would be perfect, but now he wondered if perhaps he’d been mistaken.

But Edie was smiling. “Not at all. It’s the best place.” She ran her hand down one of the support beams. “It’s how I knew you loved me.”

He stared at her. “What?”

“You would never have suggested renovating a third-rate run-down old building if you didn’t,” she told him cheerfully. “Would you?”

He thought about it, logically, analytically, sensibly—and knew that she was right. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

Now it was his turn to take her by the hand and lead her around to the front of the house, to take her up the steps onto the wide front porch. There he stopped and took down the envelope that had been tacked to the door. He handed it to Edie. “It’s for you.”

Edie’s fingers trembled as she took it. Slowly she fumbled it open. Then she bent her head and read it—at first silently, then aloud.

“My darling daughter,” she began, her voice wavering. “There was always love in this house when your dad and I lived here. I wish you and Nick a lifetime of the same sort of love. The house is yours. I know you and Nick will make it a wonderful home. I hope the memories you already have and the memories you make are as wonderful as you are. I love you, Mom.”

Tears slid down her cheeks. Sniffling, Edie tried to wipe them away.

“Here,” Nick said gently, and he bent his head and kissed them away one by one.

“Mom,” Edie said, with a quiet laugh. “Mom.” She hadn’t called her mother that in years. But it was right. Everything was right.

“Not Mona,” Nick agreed.

“Just wait until there’s someone to call her Grandma,” Edie said with sudden glee.

Nick laughed, too. “I can’t wait. I love you.” And he swept her up into his arms, kicked open the door and carried her over the threshold into the home of her past and of their future. “In fact, Mrs. Savas, I think we should get started on that someone right now.”

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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First published in Great Britain 2011
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© Anne McAllister 2011

ISBN: 978-1-408-92613-0