You slipped into the crowd gathered on Main Street to welcome the soldiers home, and it was Martin who comforted me and told me what had happened.

The reason you weren’t yourself any longer.

He said you acted like someone I didn’t know because you weren’t that man anymore. War changes men, and that has never been truer than for you.

I’m not giving up, though.

In my soul, I know somewhere inside is the man I’ve loved. And somehow, I know you’ll come back to me.

Heartbreakingly,

Dove

Sarah closed the book and sighed.

These snippets were driving her to distraction. Each one revealed another layer to the story, but not enough for her to put the whole thing together. Her grandmother had loved him, he went away to war…but he’d come back and they’d never reunited because he’d ignored her?

That didn’t make sense. If they’d been in love, if Jack’s love for her grandmother was even a fraction as strong as Dove’s love for him, how could anything—even war—have come between that?

She really was starting to sound like Jessica. Real life probably got in the way, the same way it always did. Her own conflicted heart was evidence of that.

But she’d met the man, and he’d obviously kept in touch with her grandmother over the years. He’d done the landscaping, and he’d been on the beach the day they’d spread her ashes.

She was desperate to hear the full story, but she couldn’t exactly ask Jack—the only other person still alive who knew the truth.

Was he the only one?

She’d assumed she was the first one reading her grandmother’s journal, but maybe she wasn’t.

She closed the journal and picked up the landline on the bedside table to dial her mother’s long-distance number in Phoenix. Three rings later, she heard her mother’s voice on the other end.

“Hey, darling, you still on the coast? That looks like Dove’s Nest’s number on call display.”

“Yeah, Mom, I’m still here.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to do with the B&B? I assume you’ve met with an appraiser?”

That would probably have been the best course of action. “Um…no. Actually, I had an inspection done and…” She paused, shutting her eyes. “Just about finished renovating it.”

“Really? Is the market strong enough to make back what you spent on fixing it up?”

Her mother didn’t even entertain the thought that Sarah might be keeping the inn. And why would she? Sarah had never expressed any interest in owning or running it. The family assumed that Dove’s Nest would disappear along with her grandmother’s ashes and become just a memory. Sarah had thought that letting it go would be easy as well, until she’d spent time there.