Divided Interests (Southern Bride 3)

“I don’t know.” Lucas started to read the letter.

My Dearest William,

I have received your letter. Words cannot even begin to describe the pain in my heart. I realize how selfish I have been with my travels, and I am to return home at once. I understand if I am too late.

Love you always and forever,

May

I turned the letter over.

“What did his letter say?” I asked.

“I don’t think my father knows any of this.”

“William or May never mentioned it to me, in all of our talks. Even when May passed, he always made it sound like they were so happy. He said she was always a carefree soul. Wait. He told me once she loved to travel. I just assumed he meant with him.”

I reached into the box and pulled the very last letter out. “This one is dated only a month later.”

“What does it say?” Lucas asked.

My Dearest William,

I am sorry I was unable to attend your wedding. I simply could not bring myself to watch you marry. I wish you all the happiness in the world. I won’t pretend my heart is not broken, but I do not blame you. I left you no choice. We, my love, have not been given a second chance, and that is a permanent ache in my heart that I will live with until the day I die.

I love you…for always and forever.

Yours,

May

Lucas grabbed the letter from my hand and stared at it.

“What?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m so confused. Granddad was married before he married Grams?”

I didn’t want to admit to Lucas that I was even more confused. William had said all the answers as to why he gave us shared ownership of this house could be found in this chest. But all that was in this chest was more confusion and heartache.

Standing, I attempted to figure it all out in my head. “Now the other letter makes sense. The one he wrote to ‘M’. That date is only two days before this one, from May. So, was ‘M’ not May, but someone else?”

Lucas looked dumbfounded. He glanced back into the box. “Wait, there’s one more letter.”

I turned and watched him open it and read the first few lines. His eyes widened in disbelief.

“What! What is it? What does it say?”

He swallowed hard. “I think it’s the answer we’ve been looking for.”

Lucas

THE PIECE OF paper was the reason my granddad had given both Paige and me ownership in this house. I just couldn’t believe it. Everything I had always thought I knew about my grandfather and Grams was gone in an instant. It explained Paige’s love of the house and why Granddad had given her a share in it. It was literally in her blood.

“Lucas, what does the letter say?”

“It’s not a letter, it’s a marriage certificate.”

I handed it to Paige. She stared down at it in utter disbelief.

“Holy shit.” Her eyes bounced back up to mine.

“This house is as much yours, as it is mine,” I said.

Paige looked back down at the certificate, then up at me before she focused on the paper and read it. “I hereby declare the marriage of Lucas William Foster to Millie Rose Miller.” She covered her mouth and stared at the paper.

Millie Rose Miller was Paige’s grandmother. If my head was spinning, I knew for a fact, so was Paige’s.

“William was married to my grandmother? Why would he never mention it?”

“If I remember right, you never met your grandmother.”

“No,” Paige said, looking utterly confused. “She died while giving birth to my … father.”

Paige’s face turned white as a ghost. “Oh my God, are we…?”

“No. There’s no way. There is no way Granddad would have ever have allowed that to happen. You and I were friends. I told him I had a crush on you; he wouldn’t have allowed it. Not even to hide a secret.”

“Wait, I need to sit down. None of this makes any sense. My father was raised by his dad, but was he his dad or was it William?” She looked up at me. “What is William trying to tell us, Lucas?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, wishing like hell we had just let all this bullshit go. But even I was starting to doubt everything. Was William Paige’s grandfather also?

“The other letters we skipped over. We have to read all the letters!” Paige cried out.

Paige and I sat back down and started reading through the letters my granddad had kept.

“We must have skipped something,” she said. “We have to keep looking.”

I nodded, taking out the stack. “Let’s look at the dates on the envelopes when they were mailed.”

We opened each letter from Grams. We couldn’t find anything else. Paige stood and wrapped her arms around her body.

“He wouldn’t have let us date if we were related. He wouldn’t have,” she mumbled.