The Things We Leave Unfinished Read online

  She had the rights to her great-grandmother’s book…not her mother, who was Scarlett’s granddaughter, which meant there were family dynamics here far beyond my understanding.

  Instead of sitting, I stood behind my assigned chair, gripping the sides lightly with my back to the fireplace as I studied Georgia like I would a cliff I was determined to climb, searching for the right route, the best path. “Here’s the thing,” I said directly to Georgia, ignoring everyone else in the room. “You don’t like my books.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, her head tilting slightly.

  “That’s okay, because I happen to love Scarlett Stanton’s books. All of them. Every single one. I’m not the romance hater you think I am. I’ve read them all twice, some of them more than that. She had a unique voice, incredible, visceral writing, and a way of evoking emotion that blows me out of the water when it comes to romance.” I shrugged.

  “In that, we agree,” Georgia said, but there was no bite in her tone.

  “There is no one who compares to your great-grandmother in this genre, but I wouldn’t trust anyone else with her book, and I know more than a few other writers. I am the one you need. I am the one who will do this book justice. Everyone else at the level this book demands will want to twist it their way, or put their own mark on it. I don’t,” I promised.

  “You don’t?” She shifted in her chair.

  “If you let me finish this book, it will be her book. I will work tirelessly to make sure it reads as if she wrote the last half herself. You won’t be able to tell where she stops writing and I start.”

  “Last third,” Ava corrected.

  “Whatever it needs.” My eyes didn’t stray from Georgia’s steadfast gaze. What the hell had Ellsworth been thinking? She was achingly, traffic-stopping beautiful, with curves for miles and a mind sharp enough to match her tongue. No man in his right mind would cheat on a woman like her. “I know you have doubts, but I’ll work until I win you over.”

  Keep your mind on the business.

  “Because you’re that good,” she said with a heavy note of sarcasm.

  I bit back a smile. “Because I’m just that damn good.”

  She studied me carefully as the grandfather clock ticked by the seconds beside us, then shook her head. “No.”

  “No?” My eyes flared and my jaw locked.

  “No. This book is incredibly personal to this family—”

  “It’s personal to me, too.” Shit. I might actually lose this one.

  I let go of the chair and rubbed the back of my neck. “Look, my mom was in a bad car accident when I was sixteen, and…I spent that summer by her bedside, reading your great-grandmother’s books to her.” I left out that it had been part of the penance my father had demanded. “Even the satisfying parts.” My lips quirked upward with her eyebrows. “It’s personal.”

  Her gaze shifted, softening for a moment before she lifted her chin. “Would you be willing to take your name off the book?”

  My stomach lurched. Damn, she went straight for the kill, didn’t she?

  Check your ego. Adrienne had always been the more rational of our duo, but heeding her advice in this instant was about as painless as raking my soul over a cheese grater.

  Was it the dream of a lifetime to have my name next to Scarlett Stanton’s? Sure. But it was about way more than that. It wasn’t a lie—the woman had been one of my idols and was, to this day, still my mother’s favorite author…and that included me.

  “If taking my name off this manuscript is what it takes to assure you I’m here for the book and not the credit, I’ll do it.” I answered slowly, making sure she knew I meant it.

  Her eyes flared with surprise, and her lips parted. “You sure about that?”

  “Yes.” My jaw flexed once. Twice. This was no different than not documenting a climb, right? I would know I’d done it, even if no one else did. At least I’d be the first one to get my hands on the manuscript, even before Adam or Chris. “But I would like permission to tell my family, since I already did.”

  A sparkle of laughter lit up her face, but she quickly schooled her features. “If, and that’s if, I agree to let you finish it, I would demand to have final approval over the manuscript.”

  My grip tightened, digging into the fabric of the chair.

  Adam sputtered.

  Chris mumbled a swear word.

  Ava’s attention swung from her daughter’s face to mine like we were a tennis match.

  Even with all that going on, it somehow felt like Georgia and I were the only people in the room. There was a charge between us—a connection. I’d felt it in the bookstore, and it was stronger now. Whether it was the challenge, the attraction, the possibility of the manuscript, or something else, I wasn’t sure, but it was there, as tangible as an electrical current.

  “We can definitely discuss editorial input, but Noah has had final manuscript approval in his contract for his last twenty books,” Adam countered softly, knowing it was one of my hard limits. Once I knew where a story was going, I let the characters take me there, come hell or editorial high water.

  But this wasn’t my story, was it? This was her great-grandmother’s legacy.

  “Fine. I’ll agree to being second-in-command of the ship.” It went against every bone in my body, but I’d do it.

  Both Chris and Adam gawked at me.

  “This once,” I added, glancing toward my publishing team. My agent would lose his shit if I set a precedent here.

  Slowly, very slowly, Georgia leaned back in her chair. “I have to read it first, then talk to Helen—Gran’s agent.”

  I mentally cursed but nodded. So much for being first. “I’m staying at the Roaring Creek Bed and Breakfast, and I’ll leave the address—”

  “I know where it is.”

  “Right. I’ll stay through the end of the week. If we work out a contract before then, I’ll take the manuscript and the letters back to New York with me and get started.” Good thing I liked rock climbing, because there was plenty of that to do around here while she decided. As much as I hated to admit it, this deal was now out of my hands.

  “Agreed.” She nodded. “And you can put your name on it.”

  My heart leaped. Guess I’d passed her test.

  Chris, Adam, and Ava let out a collective sigh.

  Georgia’s eyes flew wide, and her head snapped toward her mother. “Wait.”

  Every muscle in my body locked.

  “What letters?”

  Chapter Three

  July 1940

  Middle Wallop, England

  Well, this was a problem she should have foreseen. Scarlett’s gaze swept the platform, searching one last time just to be sure, her sister beside her doing the same. The train station was rather empty for a Sunday afternoon, making it obvious that Mary had forgotten to pick them up as promised. Disappointing, yet predictable.

  “Surely she’ll be along in a minute,” Constance suggested, flashing a forced smile. Her sister had always been the more optimistic of them.

  “Let’s check outside,” Scarlett suggested, looping her arm through Constance’s as they carried their small luggage cases off the platform. Their leave had only been for two days, but time always seemed to crawl for Scarlett when they were home.

  Leave was hard to come by—especially at their rank—in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, but as usual, their father had pulled strings that neither of them had appreciated. Strings he liked to pull often, as if she and Constance were his personal puppets.

  In a way, they still were.

  When Baron and Lady Wright requested their presence, their daughters were expected to attend them, uniform or not. But those same strings were the ones he’d pulled to assure his daughters would be stationed together, and for that, Scarlett was immeasurably thankful. Besides, a weekend of listening to her
mother attempt to plan her life out was well worth it when it meant Constance was able to see Edward. Her sister had fallen in love with the son of a family friend years ago. They’d all grown up together during their summers at Ashby, and she couldn’t have been happier for her sister. At least one of them would get to be happy.

  Her hat shielded her eyes from the sun as they left the station, but there wasn’t much to be done about the stifling late July heat, especially in uniform.

  “Honestly, I keep hoping she’ll be a bit more punctual,” Constance remarked quietly as people passed by on the pavement. Constance may have been noted as the more publicly reserved of the two of them, but she never withheld her opinion from Scarlett.

  Her mother, on the other hand, thought Constance simply didn’t have opinions.

  “There was a dance last night.” She gave Constance a knowing look and sighed. “We’d better get walking if we want to sign in on time.” There was nothing else to be done about it.

  “Right.”

  They grasped the handles of their luggage and began the long walk toward their station. Thankfully, they’d both packed light, because they hadn’t even made it to the corner, and Scarlett was already exhausted, weighed down by the news her mother had delivered.

  “I’m not going to marry him,” she announced with a jerk of her chin as they made their way down the pavement.

  “Feel better now?” Constance asked, lifting her dark eyebrows. “You’ve been holding that in all day. I think that might have been the quietest train ride we’ve ever had.”

  “I’m not going to marry him,” she repeated, snapping every word. Just the thought of it made her stomach churn.

  An older woman passing by shot her a reproachful stare.

  “Of course not,” Constance replied, but they both knew better. These were the only years either of them would belong to themselves, and only because they were in the middle of a war. Otherwise, she would have been married off to the highest bidder by now if her parents had their way.

  “He’s horrendous.” She shook her head. Of all the things her parents had asked of her in her twenty years, this was the worst.

  “He is,” Constance agreed. “I can’t believe he stayed all weekend. Did you see how much he ate? His father was even worse. There are rations for a reason.”

  His size wasn’t as much of a concern to Scarlett as what he did with it. Marrying Henry Wadsworth would be the death of her. Not because he was a widely known philanderer or the embarrassment would do her in—that was to be expected. But even her scandal-managing mother couldn’t hide Alice, their housekeeper’s daughter, away fast enough to miss seeing the bruises on the young woman’s body this morning.

  Not only had her father ignored the blatant abuse, but he then sat Scarlett right next to Henry at breakfast.

  No wonder she hadn’t eaten a thing.

  “I don’t care if the bloody title is sold out from under them, I’m not marrying him.” Her grip tightened on her luggage. They couldn’t make her—not legally. But they threw around the word “duty,” as if marrying that ogre would save the king himself from the grasp of the Nazis.

  Even then, her love of king and country was enough to risk her life for the greater good, but this wasn’t about king or country.

  It was about money.

  “All he wants is the title,” Scarlett fumed as they made their way out of the village and started down the road that led to RAF Middle Wallop. “He thinks he can buy his way in.”

  “He’s right.” Constance’s nose wrinkled. “But he hasn’t asked you yet, so perhaps he’ll find himself another title to buy while scrambling his pudgy arse up the social ladder.”

  Scarlett laughed at the thought of him scrambling up anything without hoisting his pants back up to his belly, but the sound died as quickly as it came. “None of it seems to matter right now, does it? Planning for a time that may never arrive.” They’d have to live through this period first.

  Constance shook her head, the sunlight glimmering off the shiny raven locks. “It doesn’t. But one day, it will matter very much.”

  “Or maybe…it won’t,” she mused. “Maybe it will all be different.” Scarlett glanced at the uniform she’d worn for the last year. In that time, nearly everything about her life had changed. As hot and uncomfortable as she was, she wouldn’t have traded the material for anything.

  “How?” Constance nudged her shoulder with a bright smile. “Come on. Entertain me with one of your stories.”

  “Now?” She rolled her eyes, already knowing she’d give in. There wasn’t anything she’d deny Constance.

  “What better time?” Constance gestured to the open, dusty road ahead of them. “We’ve got at least forty minutes on our hands.”

  “You could tell me a story,” Scarlett teased.

  “Yours are always so much better than mine.”

  “That’s not true!” Before she could relent, a car slowed as it approached, giving Scarlett enough time to glance at the insignia before it pulled alongside them: 11 Group Fighter Command.

  One of ours.

  “Can I give you ladies a lift?” the driver asked.

  American. Her head snapped toward the man, her brows arched high in surprise. She’d known there were a few Americans with the 609, but she’d never encountered one— Oh my God.

  She tripped slightly, Constance catching her elbow before she could make an utter fool of herself.

  Get a grip. You’d think you’d never seen a good-looking man. In her defense, he was a step beyond that description, and it wasn’t just his light brown hair or that single strand that fell across his forehead, begging to be brushed back. It wasn’t even that carved chin or the slight bump on his nose from what had to have been a previous break. What had her off-balance was the smile that curved his lips and the spark in his moss-green eyes as he tilted his head…as if he knew what his very appearance was doing to her pulse.

  She sucked in a breath, but it was as if she’d swallowed lightning, the electricity turning her mouth dry then somersaulting in her stomach as her heart thundered. “We’re all right, thank you,” she managed to answer, whipping her gaze forward.

  She wasn’t putting her sister into a car with a strange man, no matter what the insignia said…right? The last thing she needed was to lose her wits over something as fleeting as attraction. She’d seen it in just about every woman she served with—attraction, then affection, then grief. Even Mary had lost two sweethearts in the 609 over the past few months. No, thank you.

  Constance elbowed her slightly but remained quiet.

  “Come on, it’s another three miles to the station, and what…another half mile to the women’s barracks?” He leaned over the passenger seat, still keeping pace beside them. “You’re melting out there.”

  A bead of sweat raced down Constance’s cheek as if to make his point, and Scarlett wavered.

  “There’s two of you and only one of me. Hell, you can both sit in the back seat if that would make you more comfortable.” Even his voice was appealing, low and rough like the coarse sand at the beach.

  Constance elbowed her again.

  “Ow!” Scarlett scowled at her sister, then noted the circles beneath her eyes from her late night with Edward. She sighed, then offered what she hoped was a natural smile to the American. “Thank you. A ride to the women’s barracks would be lovely.”

  He grinned, and her stomach flipped again. Oh, no. She was in trouble…at least for the next three and a half miles. After that, he could put some other girl in trouble for all she cared.

  He pulled over properly, then stepped out of the car and came their way. He was tall, with broad shoulders that tapered nicely into the belted waist of an RAF uniform. God help her, those silver wings and rank said he was a pilot, and she knew more than enough about those boys to take a little heed. According to the
other girls, they were reckless, passionate, transient, and often short-lived.

  He lifted their luggage into the trunk. Scarlett blatantly ignored Constance’s sly smile as she glanced from the American back to Scarlett.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Scarlett whispered.

  “Why not? You are, and you should.” Constance smirked as the American shut the trunk.

  “Ladies,” he said, keeping his eyes on Scarlett as he opened the door.

  Constance slid into the back seat first.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Scarlett ducked her head and took the seat next to Constance.

  “Stanton,” he said, leaning in to extend his hand. “I figure you should know my name. Jameson Stanton.”

  Blinking, Scarlett offered her own. His grip was firm but gentle. “Assistant Section Officer Scarlett Wright, and my sister, Constance, who is also an Assistant Section Officer.”

  “Excellent,” he said with a smile. “Nice to meet you both.” His gaze lifted to Constance, and he gave her a nod and a smile before releasing Scarlett’s hand.

  She felt wildly off-center as he shut the door and took his place behind the wheel, his eyes meeting hers in the rearview mirror as he pulled out onto the road.

  …

  He wasn’t sure what to call that color of blue, but her eyes were stunning, and he was, well, stunned. They were the same shade as the water near some of the Florida beaches he’d seen on vacation. Bluer than the skies of his beloved Colorado. They were…going to get them into an accident if he didn’t watch the road. He cleared his throat and focused on driving.

  “You didn’t seem surprised to hear that we’re sisters,” Constance remarked.

  “Is anyone ever surprised to hear you’re sisters?” he joked. Constance was maybe an inch shorter than Scarlett and had the same piercing blue eyes, but hers lacked the fire that kept his gaze darting back in the rearview.

  “Our father, I suppose,” Constance answered.

  Jameson laughed.

  “Guess which of us is older,” Constance suggested.