Beaufort, South Carolina
March 29
Twitch set the shopping bags on the comforter and pulled open the now empty top drawer of her bureau. Emily sat on the bed nursing baby Charlotte as Twitch carefully folded socks and took the tags off the new underwear. She had thrown everything in the dresser away. She took languid steps to the closet and stood pondering nothing.
“Twitch, sweetie, are you sure you’re okay?” Emily adjusted the baby and wiped her tiny chin with a cloth.
“I think so,” Twitch muttered. “It’s not the break-in, Em. I’m surprisingly okay about that.”
Her expression conveyed her true torment.
Emily spoke gently; whether to soothe Twitch or the baby was unclear. “You know, we all saw the change in him.”
“You did?”
“Yes. Not so much in anything he did, but in his—not to get all woo-woo on you—but it was like his aura had changed. Honestly, Finn used to scare me. I know Nathan and the guys all love him, but I didn’t want the kids around him, you know? Not because I thought he would hurt them, but I just didn’t want them exposed to that negative energy.”
Twitch sat beside her friend. “Negative energy. Yes.”
“But this time, it was like a cloud had lifted. He came by the house before he left, and Charlie, who you know is wary of strangers, walked right up to him and handed him a toy truck.” Emily patted the baby’s back.
“Wow,” Twitch said.
Emily passed the baby to Twitch. “Burp her. You need the practice.”
“Your arms are just tired.”
Emily grinned. “That too.”
Positioning the baby on Twitch’s shoulder, Emily tugged on her friend’s auburn braid. “I know you still love him. I also know you always will. I loved Nathan before I knew what love was, and I loved him even when I thought he was this awful, womanizing louse. With you and Finn, I never understood it. I never understood why the guys stayed friends with him, so I certainly never saw how you could love him. I know what he went through, but the people in your life can only take so much. I didn’t think he’d ever crawl out of that pit.”
“And now?”
“The man I saw walk into your house and fall on his knees at your feet? That was a different man. That is a man I can get on board with. Sorry to shift gears on you, sweetie, but I think I might be Team Finn.”
Twitch stood and circled the room, patting baby Charlotte’s back. At the dresser, she shifted the infant, fished her charm bracelet from the small jewelry box, and dangled it like a hypnotist’s watch.
“It’s going to take more than one kind gesture to make up for what he did.” Twitch turned to face her friend. “When I was a baby, my dad did something pretty unforgivable. He spent five years trying to make it up to my mom.”
“And they’re happy?” Emily asked.
“Ridiculously. They really nailed marriage.” Twitch dropped the bracelet lower, and baby Charlotte reached out.
“I hope you don’t mind slobber because that shiny bauble will be in her mouth in about ten seconds,” Emily cautioned.
The words were still in the air when a tiny hand grasped the bracelet and tugged. Twitch pried it from the baby’s remarkably firm grasp and replaced it before it was swallowed.
“What’s this?” An object in the corner of the box caught Twitch’s eye.
“What’s what?” Emily moved to her friend’s side.
Twitch handed off the baby and withdrew the item. “It’s a cufflink.”
Emily stared in shock. “Oh my God, that’s not any cufflink. My dad has those; they were a gift from his board of directors—the Cartier onyx and diamond panther cufflinks. They cost a fortune.”
“How did it get here?” Twitch asked.
“Is it your dad’s? Maybe it got mixed up with your stuff?” Emily offered.