Page 60 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

Theo giggled, but Chloe wasn’t ready to let the subject drop. “You do realize Noodle’s only twelve, right?” she asked. “He’s still very much a minor and still very much under my care.”

Jasper recognized the heat in her voice but refused to let it sway him. If anything, he found himself warming to it. “Good God, girl. Twelve is old enough to know his own business. Do you have any idea what I was doing at that age?”

“No,” she countered. “Tell me.”

He had no idea what compelled him to respond. His childhood was none of Chloe’s business, and even if it was, telling sob stories about thingsthat couldn’t be changed wasn’t his style. Better to keep things bottled up tight than splash them around to become someone else’s problem.

Still. He answered.

“I was working full-time. I was taking care of my family just like you. So don’t sit there and sigh like you’re the only person to ever experience hardship. To eversacrifice.”

Instead of pushing back, as Jasper expected, the hard line of her mouth softened. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

“Why would you?” he shot back—mostly because he was ready to move the conversation along, but also because he didn’t know what else to say. It was too early in the day for kindness and understanding. A man needed some time toadjustfirst.

He blamed that unsettled, upended feeling for what popped out of his mouth next. “Very well. If you’re that worried about the boy, I’ll see what I can find out.”

Chloe turned to him in what looked like slow motion, her mouth dropping open in a gentle O of surprise. “You will? How?Why?”

“Don’t ask me impertinent questions,” he grumbled. She didn’t have to lookthatsurprised. His offer of help wasn’t entirely altruistic. How the hell else was he supposed to get this family out of his house and off his lawn? “Do you or do you not want to help your brother?”

“I do,” she said.

“And do you or do you not trust me to elicit answers you’re too soft to get for yourself?”

A burgeoning smile touched her lips. “I do.”

“Then there you go.” He grabbed his cup of coffee again, pleased to find that his hands were steady. He nodded first at Chloe and then at Theo, who was watching the whole interaction as if it were a high-wire circus act. “Since I’m already doing nine-tenths of your work for you, I might as well add this to the list. It’s not as if I have anything else to fill my days.”

“What did you fill them with before?” Theo asked.

“Reading,” Jasper said, even though it was a bald-faced lie. Before Chloe’s discovery ofTropic of Cancer, he hadn’t picked up a book in years. Lately, however, he found he couldn’t get enough. All his old favorites—those sloppy, sentimental romances that were once the only thing that made him feel alive—were suddenly stacked up on his bedside table.

He’d forgotten how it felt. To hold a book in your hands and know that everything would turn out okay in the end, to lose yourself in someone else’s story… That was a joy he hadn’t allowed himself to indulge in for a very long time.

He wasn’t sure if he did a bad job of hiding his emotions, or if Chloe was always this pushy in the morning, but she cocked her head and asked the one question he’d been dreading: “Why are you doing all this for us? What’s changed?”

He didn’t say the answer that was in his heart, for the sole reason that to give it voice was to put it on the line. The words were much safer where they lay hidden, protected by the wall he’d constructed a long time ago.

I have, it said.It’s me. I changed.

Instead, he glowered and began shuffling away to the relative privacy of his bedroom.

“I can still kick the whole lot of you to the curb,” he said instead, his words carrying a warning that none of them bothered to heed. “Don’t push me too far.”

21

JASPER, PRESENT DAY

Ravenna Sampson—Ravenna Aarons—whatever her last name was now—was exactly the same as Jasper remembered.

“Mr. Holmes, I presume?” she asked as she answered his knock on the front door. She smiled sunnily up at him, though he could detect signs of wrinkles starting to develop around her eyes. In many ways, those wrinkles were the only things that differentiated her from her two daughters. The gene pool was strong in this family. “Just kidding. I remember you. Chloe said you might be swinging by today. Come on in.”

His only reply was a grunt. To say anything else was likely to open the floodgates of conversation, and neither of them wanted that. Jasper, because he wasn’t in the mood for a lengthy chat; Ravenna, because she wouldn’t enjoy hearing any of the things he had to say to her.

“I came to get Noodle for the day,” he said, trying to peer around her. Even though it hardly seemed possible, the house was in even more disarray than the last time he’d been here. Suitcases lay open, their contents seemingly scattered at random, a pile of untouched gift boxes on the coffee table. “Is he here?”

She frowned, the lines around her eyes deepening. “Didn’t Chloetell you? I’ve come to take care of Noodle until he’s recovered. You’re off the hook.”