“It’s good to be home,” she told the man who was almost a complete stranger to her. These people remembered her. She had no memories of them at all.
The man standing behind Cal had to be Frank Whittier. He approached her slowly, looking at her with the oldest pair of eyes she’d ever seen. And the kindest smile.
“Daddy?” The word came out without thought. Without her even realizing she was going to speak.
The room grew deathly quiet. She could feel the silence as much as hear it. Everyone was staring.
She was Lucy Hayes, the one who always knew how to fix things, the one who took care of everything, and she had no idea what to do.
She stared at the older man in front of her. And he smiled. “You remember me, Claire Bear?”
Her mind flashed. Like a camera went off. She was a little girl. Looking really far up and she saw that smile. She saw those lips move and heard her special name. “Claire Bear.”
“That’s me,” she said aloud. “I had a teddy bear…”
“Yes, you did,” Frank said, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m so glad I lived to see this day.” He just stood there, with empty arms, this man that she somehow sensed used to carry her around wherever she wanted to go.
What she wanted to do right then was hug him. So she did.
B y the time they all got to the wedding, Lucy was exhausted. She also had something she wanted to talk to Ramsey about— several things, actually, but she started with one.
“Would you still think of me as you did when we were working together if I was called by a different name?” They were standing on the deck of the wedding boat, away from the last-minute preparations, to give her a much-needed breather.
“Now that’s a difficult question to answer,” he said, his brow raised as he assessed her. She couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.
So she played along. “Why?”
“Because I don’t think of you now as I thought of you when we were just working together, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with what you call yourself.”
“Oh.” Her face got hot again. She hated when it did that. And loved the familiarity of feeling like herself.
“Then let me rephrase that,” she said. “Would you still think of me as you do now if I changed my name?”
“You are who you are, Luce. It doesn’t matter to me what we call you. What matters to me is having you in my life.”
Turning at the rail, she looked up at him. “You mean that.”
“I do.”
“Then I have to tell you something.”
“What’s that?”
Life had shown her one thing for sure. There was no time for holding back. Things could change in an instant.
“Through all of this craziness, even with remembering Frank and starting to identify with Claire, you are my constant. I want to get to know my family. I desperately want to be a part of them. But everyone is saying home to me, wanting to bring me home, and the only time it rings true at all is when you tell me you’re taking me home.”
“And as crazy as this sounds, I’ve realized, through all of this, that you’re my home, too.”
“What do you think it all means?”
“I’m not sure yet. I mean, like Dr. Zimmerman said, we have to give you time to assimilate, acclimate.” He wrapped his arms around her hips, pulling her up close to him. “But what I think it means is that one of us is going to have to move. It’s hard to be home when there’re hundreds of miles between you and there.”
“My home is here, Ramsey. In Comfort Cove. It’s where I was born.”
“You might change your mind—”
“No.” She shook her head. “I already talked to Bill, this morning, when he called while you were in the shower. He asked Captain Winston if there’s any possibility of a detective’s position opening up in Comfort Cove.”