Chapter Sixteen
Jane had been half joking when she’d started the audiobook, figuring Caleb would put up with it for ten minutes before insisting on music. Then, after an hour had gone by, she’d assumed he was humoring her.
Until she realized he was actually caught up in the story.
Anne had always been special to her. The girl with the wild imagination, the girl who loved books, the girl who saw fairies in raindrops and thought amethysts were the souls of good violets. The orphan who didn’t belong, who was odd and plain and not quite like her peers, but who still managed to find a family and form friendships and even fall in love.
The part of herself that loved Anne was the part she’d been sure she could never share with Caleb. The part that, even if she did share it, she was sure he wouldn’t understand.
That was one of the things she’d told herself this past winter, when the thought of him halfway around the world had been like a knife in her heart. She’d reminded herself that they had nothing in common, that a relationship between them would be impossible—and not just because he’d never stick around long enough to actually have one.
She closed the car door and leaned back against it, waiting for Caleb to get out and open the trunk. Her hand still tingled whe