One tear escaped her as Bailey touched a trembling fingertip to Bran’s pictured face. Ian’s face, she corrected herself. Ian Cameron—who’d been dead for over seventy-five years.
“Have you found your answers, dear?” Mae asked from the doorway.
Bailey looked up slowly. “Some of them,” she whispered. “Not all.”
“Are you ready to talk to me?”
Bailey felt another tear fall, as more welled up in her eyes. “I—I have to speak to someone else first,” she said. “If I can.”
Would she ever see him again? And what would she say if she did?
Why hadn’t he told her the truth?
“Some people thought their spirits were freed when the truth about their, deaths was revealed,” Mae commented, nodding toward the photograph. “But true justice was denied them, you know. Their stepbrother murdered them and then went on to live a long time as a wealthy and prominent citizen of this town. He never had to pay for his crime—not in this life, anyway. I think that’s terribly unfair, don’t you?”
Bailey nodded, unable to speak.
“I’ve always believed in second chances,” Mae added. “I’ve wondered if the twins would have theirs. Maybe, I thought, if they could find someone to love them, they could be given another opportunity at life.”
If they could find someone to love them. The words seemed to echo in Bailey’s mind, as though there was something she should learn from them.
“Bailey?” Mae asked after another moment of silence. “Who is Bran?”
Bailey’s fingers tightened convulsively on the wooden frame. She’d almost overlooked Aunt Mae’s phenomenal memory; and her disconcerting ability to assemble the slimmest of clues into a startlingly accurate conclusion.
Bailey cleared her throat, but her voice was still rather hoarse. “Bran is…a man with too many secrets,” she manag
ed to say.
“I see.”
“I have to go out now, Aunt Mae,” Bailey said abruptly, clutching the photograph to her chest as she stood. “I’ll be back inside later to talk to you.”
Mae looked resigned. “Dean acted exactly this way when he was falling in love with Anna,” she murmured. “Always dashing off without explanation.”
“I’m sorry. I—”
“Never mind.” Mae waved a dismissing hand. “Do what you have to do, Bailey. I’ll lock up here.”
“Thank you.” Bailey paused to kiss her aunt’s cheek on the way out. “I love you, Aunt Mae.”
“I love you, too, dear. And I think you deserve a second chance, too. I hope you find it.”
Bailey swallowed hard, turned on one heel and made her escape, the old photograph still cradled in her arms.
IT WAS GETTING dark outside. The days were growing so much shorter as winter approached, Bailey mused. The nights so much longer.
It seemed she was destined to spend them alone.
She headed toward the gazebo. She could still recall that first moment when she’d opened her eyes and seen Bran standing there, gazing back at her. She remembered now that he had looked momentarily startled when she’d spoken to him. Apparently, he hadn’t expected her to see him.
Would he appear to her now if she waited for him there?
But the gazebo was occupied. A man and a woman snuggled on the bench beneath the festive little lights, oblivious to the world around them.
Honeymooners, Bailey thought with a deep sigh.
Did they have any idea how fortunate they were?