Page 118 of Play With Me

We don’t need that translated.

“James!” I exclaim.

JEQ is James.

I hook my hands in Jude’s collar, my eyes growing wet. “He was a real person.James.”

We knew he was real, but George never mentioned him. There were no records of him. Only his own diaries proved his existence. By all accounts, he’d been a ghost. But learning his name has somehow changed everything. “Jude,” I say, my voice tight. “Eleanor and James fought for their love against all odds. They were brave. They even had a child and had to do the hardest thing in giving her up because of their circumstances.”

Jude grins almost dopily. “I like it when you get like this.”

I tip my face up for a kiss, and Jude obliges, pressing his beautiful lips to mine.

They were certain about each other and their lives. Just like I am about Jude, I realize.

When I pull apart, my heart thumps in my chest. I can’t let him go, can I? Not to go back to how we were? This is too good. Too perfect.

Across from us, Sister Ilsa is giving us her beautiful, toothless smile. She says something in German, and at first, Sister Carolina doesn’t translate, just asks her a question as if she didn’t hear her right.

But Sister Ilsa nods.

“She says,” Carolina says tentatively, “that a man came by looking for information on Clea years ago.”

Both of us are stunned. “Who?” I ask.

But when they exchange words, Ilsa shakes her head.

“He only spoke to her aunt when she was alive. We don’t know who he was. But he asked after the baby.”

“When was this?” I ask, my heart in my throat.

She confers with the older sister.

“About thirty years ago.”

My shoulders drop. Not all that helpful. “He could have been a descendent of Eleanor’s baby, following up on the adoption,” I say, trying to sound hopeful.

“Or of George Cleary,” Carolina says. She’s as caught up on this as we are.

I shudder. “We never followed up on his lineage—maybe we should.”

Jude brushes hair from my cheek. “Don’t worry. There’s still lots of mystery to solve. With Griff’s help we jumped way ahead on our timelines.”

I nod, hope coming back. He’s right. We still have hopefully enough evidence to at least get the police to open up the case again.

Just then, Sister Ilsa puts a fist to her mouth as she yawns widely.

“Oh, we should let her get to bed,” I tell Carolina, who’s looking at Jude and me with an almost dreamy expression.

She clears her throat. “Yes.”

Out the window, the light’s falling as quickly as the snow.

Carolina speaks briefly to Sister Ilsa in German and then nods. “Right. If you’ll follow us, we’ll show you to your room.”

The woman who answered the door goes to the wall, where our coats are hung, and picks them up, struggling to bring them over to us.

“Oh, let me help,” Jude says. He crosses the room to take them from her and hugs them under his arm. When he grins at her, she flutters her eyelashes.

---