Page 146 of Letters to Molly (Maysen Jar 2)

I’d catch her, all right. I’d never stop chasing.

“Hey.” Cole saluted me with his bottle of beer. “About time you got here.”

“Sorry. We got delayed at home.”

We were late for the barbeque at Cole and Poppy’s place, but it had been worth the scolding from my sister. Molly and I had showered so long that we’d run the hot water heater down to cold.

“Beer?” he offered.

“Please.” I followed him through the house, away from the noise of the kids playing and the adults visiting in the kitchen. He kept his stash of beers in a mini fridge in the garage, as well as the car he was currently rebuilding in his spare time. “How’s the ’Cuda coming along?”

“Great. It’s going to take a year or so to finish, but it’s been fun to tinker on. My dad’s been helping too. I heard you’re unemployed.”

“News travels fast.” Though it came as no surprise that Molly had already told Poppy.

“What are you going to do?” Cole asked.

“Enjoy life.” I sighed. “Buy Molly a diamond ring. Drive the kids to school every morning. Mow the lawn in the summer. Shovel snow in the winter.”

“Good for you. I’m glad for you guys.”

“It was the right move.” I took a sip of my beer. “I owe you.”

“For?”

“The letters.”

Cole tried to hide his grin behind his beer bottle. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We went for a hike today and Kali almost slipped up. She caught herself, but it was enough to get me thinking.”

There was no way my daughter could have done it alone. There were no dates to put them in order without more context to our relationship. There was no way she could have timed their delivery to the mailbox just right. But if she’d had help, if she’d been the mailbox delivery person, that I could believe.

There were few people in the world Kali trusted. Her uncle Cole was one. My guess was that he’d found the letters, and Kali had become his little mouse, helping him sneak them into the mailbox.

“When did you get them?”

“Remember that year we played city-league softball?” he as

ked and I nodded. “You forgot your cleats. You were working and didn’t have time to run home, so I stopped to get them.”

“That was . . .” I mentally tallied the years. “Four years ago. You’ve had them all this time?”

He nodded. “I was just waiting for the right time. When you broke up with Brenna, I decided it was now or never. You’d been so hell-bent on dating someone for so long. Every relationship was a disaster. Poppy was pushing Molly to date her neighbor, and I thought I’d give it a shot. I asked Kali to keep a secret. She was more than happy to be my minion.”

“Did she know what was in them?” Say no.

“No,” Cole promised. “She never knew. I just asked her to deliver some letters that would be good for her mom to read. She never knew they were from you, just that I hoped they’d make Molly happy.”

They hadn’t at first. But in the end, they’d been the catalyst to heal our hearts. To mend them together.

“Why?” I asked him.

“I’ll do anything to make my wife happy.”

My jaw fell open. “You did this for Poppy?”

“And for you.” He shrugged. “When Poppy and I first got together, it was right after you and Molly divorced. You’d just found kind of a truce and you’d decided to start dating again. Poppy told me it was because you wanted to find happiness again and love, like she had with me.”