Contents ( 66)
- Cover
- Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map of Florida
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- forty-nine
- fifty
- fifty-one
- Epilogue
- Keep Reading for a Preview of Valerie Luesse’s Next Book!
- Prologue
- one
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Ads
- Back Cover
twenty-nine
Kate dug through the clothes in her special drawer at Aunt Gert’s until her hand landed on a memory—the white dress shirt Marshall had worn to the courthouse the day they married. She had forgotten about it until now.
On the day they left for Key West and the beginning of their life together, he had taken off the dress shirt and put on something cooler. Kate tucked the discarded garment into a drawer. Over the years, Aunt Gert’s purchases of shorts and kerchiefs and sailor blouses buried it, but last night, Kate had dreamed of her wedding day—of two young people so in love they couldn’t see anything but each other—and she remembered the shirt.
Pulling it out, she held it to her face and took a deep breath, hoping that Marshall might somehow linger in the threads. Too many years had passed for the shirt to retain his scent, but Kate didn’t need any physical traces to conjure it. Marshall had always smelled clean, with just the slightest hint of sandalwood.
Kate took off her blouse and put on the shirt. She knew Aunt Gert would disapprove, calling such an indulgence “wallowing in sorrow.” But her aunt had ridden with Finn to Jacksonville to buy parts for his fishing boat and would be gone all day. That gave Kate something she had been longing for—uninterrupted time alone with Marshall.
She knew how crazy that sounded. And it wasn’t as though she believed her husband would actually appear. She just needed time alone with his memory. Something told her that, until she retraced the steps they took together, she wouldn’t be able to stand on her own.
Kate packed herself a lunch of cold chicken and biscuits and a cooler of Cokes, then loaded the food, her quilt, and the box that held Marshall’s postcards from Key West into the Madame Queen and set off for Anastasia Island.
Once she had docked and settled into her usual spot on the beach, she opened the box. All these years, she had kept the postcards in order, the ones from the beginning of his bike ride on top, all the way through to the ones from the end of his journey on the bottom.
She remembered how the appearance of each card in Aunt Gert’s mailbox had both thrilled and tormented her. As happy as she was to hear from Marshall and to know that he was thinking of her, she had no way to answer as he traveled from one coastal town to the next. Kate had been trapped in a one-way conversation that allowed her to receive from Marshall but give nothing back. Her only salvation was that he called her at least twice a week—but he mailed a card every single day.
The earliest ones were quirky and fun—from the Lovely Mermaid Sue to a kitschy Wild West show right by the ocean. But the farther he traveled, the more thoughtful he became about the sights along coastal Florida.