Winning Amelia Page 24

  “Finding me?”

  Does he know you still love him? She lifted her hand to his face. She couldn’t fight this anymore, either, and there was no reason to. “I can live without the money, but I don’t want to live without you. I love you, Hank.”

  He blinked. His eyes gleamed. It wasn’t from the rain. “You love me?”

  “Of course, I love you. I never stopped. I know it was only a few days ago that I told you I didn’t want to start a relationship, but I was trying to be sensible. I thought I had to fix my life first, but without you, my life will never be right. And I’m sorry if I’m rushing you again, and I realize I must look horrible and smell worse, and this is hardly the most romantic time and place for a confession, but love is too precious to risk and I don’t want to take the chance that—”

  The rest of her words were lost in his kiss. That was fine with her, because the kiss said it better.

  EPILOGUE

  AMELIA FLEXED HER fingers on the steering wheel of her new car so she could admire the glint of her diamond in the sunshine. Strictly speaking, the car wasn’t really new. It was a three-year-old, economical subcompact that had just come off a lease. The engagement ring wasn’t that new anymore, either. She’d been wearing it for more than two months. Unlike the car, though, the ring would only get better with age.

  “Hey!” Hank rapped his knuckles on the window. He held a rake in his other hand. “Are you going to sit there all day?”

  She shut off the ignition and got out of the car.

  Hank tossed the rake on a leaf pile and swept her into a hug and an enthusiastic hello kiss. His lips were cool but quickly warmed. So did hers. He smiled against her mouth. “Do you like the car?”

  It was a far cry from the Beemer she’d had to give up last year, but with winter approaching, it was better than a bicycle. “What’s not to like? It starts when I turn the key, and it’s got a roof and a radio.”

  “Dad better have given you a good deal.”

  “He did. He gave me the special family discount.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s new. I suspect he just made it up.” She picked a leaf off Hank’s sweater as they walked to his house. “I think he’s mellowing.”

  “You’re a good influence.”

  “I can relate to him, because there was a period when my life revolved around my business, too. By the way, he liked the investment plan I worked out for him. I told him I’d give him the family discount on my fee. He seemed to like that, as well. He’s coming here for dinner on Saturday.”

  “Wow. That’ll be the second time this month. How’d you manage that?”

  “I said we’re counting on his help to organize our wedding. I’ll get some takeout from Mae B’s since I took the liberty of inviting myself over for dinner, too.”

  “Since when do you need an invitation? In another two months, you’ll be living here.”

  “But I’ll still need to pick up dinner, unless you want to live on popcorn and herbal tea.”

  He laughed as he led her to the porch swing. “Whatever, I’m glad you’ll be here to act as mediator with Dad.”

  “Don’t give me that. You two are coming along fine on your own.”

  “Slowly.”

  “That’s to be expected, since he spent a lot of years behind his walls. The Jones men can be stubborn, you know.”

  “Nah. Not us.”

  “But I believe they’re worth the effort.” She settled on the swing beside Hank. Luckily, she happened to love his stubbornness. And his analytical nature. She loved the way he carried a clean hankie, and drove slowly, and stopped at amber lights. She loved the tenderness that tempered his strength, and the caring, generous heart that powered his choices. And she adored the little-boy lock of hair that always managed to fall across his forehead. She lifted her hand to smooth it back.

  The grown-up lines beside his mouth and at the corners of his eyes deepened. He turned his head to kiss her wrist, then pushed his boot against the floor to set the swing in motion. The chains creaked lazily overhead.

  This was one of her favorite spots in his house, although it wasn’t really inside the house. There wouldn’t be many weeks before the weather turned too cold to sit here for long. Right now, though, the sky was a perfect, crisp October blue, and the maples in the yard were a spectacular red.

  There were a lot of trees in Hank’s yard. The veranda where they sat wrapped around the front and two sides of his house. The large, homey kitchen faced south, and had a huge bay window to let in the sun. The second story held four bedrooms, far more than a bachelor would need. Hank had bought the place after she’d married Spencer. He’d used the money he’d earned in Alberta to make the down payment. He might have believed he’d given up on her, but with her first visit to this house, it was clear that he hadn’t. This was exactly like the home they’d envisioned when they’d talked about their future all those many years ago.

  Hank stretched his arm along the back of the swing and tucked her closer to his side. “I missed you today.”

  “You saw me at lunch.”

  “That was only for an hour.” He kissed her nose. “I think we should elope.”

  “If we do, Jenny will probably strangle me with her measuring tape. She’s been exercising like mad to fit into the dress she made for the wedding.”

  “I would have thought that running around after your nephews would give her all the exercise she needs.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. I meant to show you the pictures I took of Hope this morning.” She reached into her jacket to take out her new phone. Well, her month-old phone. She’d bought it to keep in touch with her expanding list of clients. Mae and Ronnie had been so impressed with her ideas for their restaurant that they’d kindly spread the word, and her business was growing more quickly than she could have dreamed. Besides gaining a steady income, getting back to work had turned out to be the best way to atone for her error in judgment. She didn’t need any lottery winnings in order to prove to everyone, especially herself, that she hadn’t been to blame for Spencer’s crimes.

  Just like her family didn’t need any lottery winnings to be happy. She thumbed the button to access the latest photos. “Here’s Eric pushing the baby carriage. Timmy put his rabbit in there to keep her company. Isn’t that sweet?”

  “Another Goodfellow woman, well on her way to wrapping men around her little freckled finger.”

  Amelia laughed as she scrolled through the pictures. Her nephew had let the baby “borrow” his rabbit because Hope had begun to get fussy whenever Will had left for work. Lancaster Cabinets had recalled their entire workforce and had needed to add an extra shift, thanks in large part to a new contract to supply custom kitchens for a luxury condominium project in Toronto. Will himself had been responsible for landing that deal. The condo developer kept his forty-foot cabin cruiser at the Port Hope Yacht Club for the summer, and they’d met when Will had been skimming algae there. They’d started talking about their work, as men do, and to hear Will tell it, the Toronto man had been thrilled to learn there was a company so close to the city that was capable of high-quality work at noncity prices.

  Fate certainly did work in strange ways.

  Hank kissed her ear. “You like kids.”

  “Of course, I like kids.”

  “That’s another reason to elope. December’s a long way off.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “I thought you wanted a real wedding.”

  “All I want is you, Amelia.” He nibbled her earlobe. “But I suppose it would be nice to throw a party and show off what I caught.”

  “You caught? What am I, a fish?”

  “I could never confuse you with a fish. You taste way better, and you were a lot harder to reel in.” He waited until she put her phone away, then took her left hand in his. He rubbed his thumb over the diamond. “Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

  “I feel the same way. Maybe we need to go through bad times to appreciate the
good.”

  “Like how good the sunshine feels after a storm.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder and turned her face toward the sky, thinking about how Jenny had once described love. If it truly was a living thing, then hers and Hank’s had come out of its dormancy to grow by leaps and bounds. It wasn’t only the big events that tested and strengthened their love. It was as much the little, ordinary moments of everyday life, like having dinner with their families, or talking about their days, or just sitting on his porch swing—soon to be their porch swing—and watching the world go by. Each day deepened the trust between them. She and Hank would always make a great team.

  “By the way. I have a present for you.”

  “Hank, I have everything I need. Really.”

  “It sort of matches this,” he said, tapping her ring. He straightened one leg and lifted up his sweater to reach his jeans. An oblong shape stretched the denim over his pocket. He withdrew it and handed it to her.

  She sat up, studying the box in her hand. It bore the imprint of a jeweler. Wasn’t that just like a man, to keep something expensive in his jeans while he was out in the yard raking leaves? “Seriously, Hank. You shouldn’t be buying me things. Our budget’s going to be badly stretched by the wedding.”

  “This was already yours. I’m just returning it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Open it.”

  Something in his tone told her he wasn’t as casual as he was trying to seem. This was important to him. She lifted the lid, then folded back the layers of tissue paper. When she saw what was inside, the air whooshed out of her lungs.

  It was a watch. A gold one. With a diamond at twelve o’clock. And a tiny scratch on the crystal where she’d caught it against a shelf once. And a strap that was worn at the edges from fifteen years of daily wear.

  “Hey, it was supposed to make you happy.”

  She shook her head, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. She lifted the watch from the box and slipped it on her wrist. It felt just as priceless as the day her parents had given it to her.

  “Sorry I took so long to track it down. I’ve been looking for it since you told me how you had to sell it to pay for Will’s furnace.” He took his handkerchief from another pocket and dabbed beneath her eyes. “It had changed hands five times. I found it in Oshawa.”

  She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Just when I think I couldn’t possibly love you any more than I do, you go ahead and do something like this.”

  He smiled. “Oh, yeah? Wait until you hear my news.”

  “What could possibly top this watch?”

  “The cops have arrested Rupert Whitcombe.”

  The sudden change of topic startled her. Hank had gone to the police the day after the ticket had burned up. He’d backed up his theories with the special auction program as well as the double packing crate he’d taken from Hennerfind’s garbage, but the authorities had been understandably skeptical. Once they knew where to look, though, they uncovered solid evidence of a conspiracy that proved every one of Hank’s assertions. He’d been one hundred percent correct. The scheme had been operating successfully for several years, but Whitcombe’s success with his annual auctions had made him greedy. Because of his arrogance, he’d expanded his operation past the point of discretion. As soon as the police turned their attention to the list of special bidders that Hank had provided, which was verified by the surveillance video from the Dalton Hotel’s security cameras, they found no shortage of witnesses who were eager to testify against the gallery owner in exchange for immunity. The witnesses included his accomplice Evangeline, aka Gillian Edwards.

  Still, the speed with which the case developed was unexpected. “That was fast,” Amelia said.

  “It seems Interpol’s been tracking the art theft ring for years. They’d already amassed reams of evidence. They just hadn’t been able to figure out the last link in the chain.”

  “I’m glad Whitcombe and the thieves are being brought to justice.”

  “The insurance companies are glad, too. A lot of those canvases were worth millions, just like the Jackson.”

  “It would be hard to recover them, wouldn’t it?”

  “You’d be surprised. Some of the people on Whitcombe’s special clients list were more worried about their reputations than holding on to their stolen art. I heard a few of them caved after nothing but a phone call.”

  “I hope that means we won’t need to testify.”

  “Chances are we won’t.”

  “That is good news. I’ve had my fill of courtrooms.”

  “Understandable, but that’s not the good news I meant.”

  She crossed her arms. “Okay, I can tell you’ve got something else you’re bursting to say, so you’d better spit it out before I need to get rough with you, because I wouldn’t want to risk damaging my new-old watch.”

  He grinned. “We don’t need to worry about our budget, Amelia. You can have the biggest, fanciest wedding you want.”

  “Why?”

  “The companies who insured those stolen paintings have been offering rewards to anyone contributing information that leads to their return.”

  “Which in this case is you?”

  “Yup. I got the official confirmation this afternoon. We’re going to be rich.”

  Talk about Fate working in strange ways. She glanced at the sky to check for thunderclouds.

  “Not lottery-ticket rich,” Hank said, “but once you put your financial genius to work on what we’re paid, you’ll be a millionaire again before you know it.”

  Amelia laughed. “Hank, I already am rich. What we feel for each other is worth more than a million lottery tickets.”

  “Then do you want me to turn down the money?”

  “Don’t you dare!” She grasped his cheeks and pulled his face close to hers. She spoke against his lips. “I’m not crazy, Hank, I’m just in love.”

  * * * * *

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  ISBN: 9781460314203

  Copyright © 2013 by Ingrid Caris

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