Page 118 of The Lost Book of First Loves

“Okay.”

“Thanks again for going with me.”

Normally, she would have hugged him goodbye. Would that make things more or less awkward than they already were?

She didn’t care, she decided. She stepped forward and hugged him, anyway, closing her eyes as she savored his heatand his strength and the mingled smells of leather and campfire.

He hugged her back, then stepped away.

“I’ll see you later, Al,” he said, then turned quickly away to pick up his gear.

On that clear note of dismissal, she returned to the pickup truck and drove the rest of the way back to The Painted Sky, wishing she could go back in time to that instant before they had kissed.

Chapter 40

Juniper

“I don’t think it’s here. We’ve gone through every single box twice. I’m sorry, June.”

She sighed, looking from Beck to the box of documents she had finished going through. They had been at it for three hours and had combed through every single remaining box in the storage room of the cabin.

In none of those boxes had they found anything resembling a lost manuscript.

“Where could it be?” she asked, knowing he couldn’t know the answer to that any more than she did.

“I hate to bring this up again, but I keep thinking maybe he burned it. If he hated the final version so much that it was never published, I can easily see him doing that.”

She was beginning to suspect he might be right.

“What a terrible waste that would be,” she said. “As if Da Vinci decided to torch one of his few masterpieces.”

“Like many creators, I think, Carson could be his own worst critic.”

The man was certainly complicated. Arrogant one moment, filled with self-doubt the next. She knew that from reading his journals.

“Thank you for helping me look.”

“If I think of anywhere else he might have stored it, I’ll let you know.”

She nodded and returned the lid to the box.

“How are you doing with everything?” Beck asked as they carried the boxes back to the closet where they had been stored.

“I’m thinking I might go back to Seattle this week.”

It was a decision she had made in the middle of another sleepless night. This interval at The Painted Sky had been a reprieve from her real life, but it was time she returned to some measure of normalcy.

She also knew if she stayed in Bridger Peak much longer, she was in grave danger of falling for Beckett Hunter.

“What’s the rush?” he asked in surprise. “I thought you were planning to stay for another few weeks.”

“For some reason, I was more comfortable staying in the cabin before I knew there was any possibility I might be Carson’s... Carson’s daughter. I know it doesn’t make sense, but now I feel like I don’t belong here.”

“You do,” he assured her. “You completely do. And as a retired attorney, I feel I should advise you to seek legal counsel. You legitimately might have some claim on his estate.”

She stared, horrified. “I don’t want any part of his estate! I don’t need it and I don’t want it.”

She didn’t want to point out that thanks to her substantial stock in Move Inc, she could probably buy and sell Carson’s entire estate several times over.

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