Louisa had come over to continue the daunting project of helping Maggie go through her possessions. She showed up with lobster rolls and potato salad from Bartlett’s Farm. They ate dinner, and Maggie asked her twice if she’d seen Cody.

Both times, Louisa’s mind drifted back to earlier in the day, when she let herself be held in a pond by the man who’d won her heart all over again. The care he’d taken with her, the patience he’d shown as she’d tried and failed and tried again to conquer her fear—it had astounded her. And she couldn’t lie—feeling his hand on the small of her back, brushing up against his skin . . . it had made her positively euphoric.

She’d responded to Maggie’s question with a perfectly benign reply, but Maggie was no fool. That was how Louisa had ended up knee-deep in bank records, certificates, receipts, tax returns, and whatever else the old lady hadn’t thrown away.

She’d run from that arched, bushy eyebrow—the one that made it clear that Maggie knew there were a lot of feelings attached to Louisa’s benign response.

Besides, what was she going to say? Yes, I have seen that beautiful man. He helped me overcome my fear of water this afternoon by holding my weightless body in the pond, and yes, I might’ve taken a little longer to get over said fear because I really didn’t want the moment to end, and yes, I did go home imagining what his lips taste like now that we are both adults, and I may have even wished that one day I would find out again for myself.

No. Those were things to keep to herself.

She shoved the thoughts aside and tried to focus on the papers in her hands. She had three piles: Keep. Pitch. Ask Maggie. So far her Ask Maggie pile was the largest. There was just so much here—so much she didn’t understand.

She started in on a box marked Mail and found piles of unopened letters. Her sigh could’ve been heard on the other side of the globe. But apparently not by someone sitting in a chair at the bottom of the stairs.

She opened the envelopes and removed the contents. Letters from Louisa’s father’s office. Statements going back years. A lot of years.

She knew Maggie had been a client of her father’s. Oftentimes, when they were all together, Cody’s and Louisa’s fathers would end up around a table talking money with Maggie. Maggie wasn’t overly wealthy, not like most people Warren dealt with, but Louisa knew Maggie trusted her dad to help her take what she did have and turn it into more. Judging by the number of envelopes in this box, they’d worked together for years. Did they still? Louisa didn’t know.