She was uncharacteristically quiet as we walked a gravel path down a small hill. Set back from the other gravestones, in the space between two ancient oak trees, there was a small wrought-iron fence. Though the detail work was stunning, the fence was small, barely reaching my waist. The parcel of land inside was maybe twelve feet across and ten deep.

“Your grandfather picked this plot out himself. The man always thought he was immortal, so I can only assume he was planning on burying me here instead of the other way around.” My grandmother let her hand rest on the wrought iron, then pushed the gate inward.

I hesitated before following her to stand near the tombstone inside: a small cement cross on a simple base. My eyes took in the dates first, then the name.

EDWARD ALCOTT TAFT.

“If we’d had a son,” Lillian said softly, “he would have been named Edward. The Alcott was a matter of some debate between your grandfather and myself. Edward never wanted a junior, but there was something about the sound of his full name that I liked.”

This wasn’t what I’d been expecting when she’d whisked me away for a one-on-one.

“Your grandfather and I met on Memorial Day weekend. Did I ever tell you that?” In typical fashion, Lillian did not wait for a reply. “I’d snuck into a party where a girl of my provenance most certainly did not belong.”

Unwittingly, my mind went to another high-society soiree where one of the attendees had not belonged. His name was Nick. We’d shared one dance—him in a T-shirt and me in a ball gown. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, the ghost of that dance had lingered.

“If anyone else had found me out, there might have been trouble,” Lillian mused, continuing her own stroll down memory lane, “but your grandfather had a way about him. . . .”

The nostalgia in her voice allowed me to tuck the dance with Nick back into the corners of my mind and focus on the conversation at hand. Lillian almost never spoke about her early years. I’d gathered that she’d grown up dirt-poor and ambitious as hell, but that was about all I knew.

“You miss him,” I said, my eyes on the tombstone and a lump in my throat, because she’d loved him. Because I’d never know the man buried here well enough to love or miss him, too.

“He would have liked you, Sawyer.” Lillian Taft did not get misty-eyed. She was not one to allow her voice to quiver. “Oh, he would have pitched a fit when Ellie turned up pregnant, but the man would have gone to hell and back for his little girls. I’ve no doubt he would have done the same for you, once he came around.”