Emily

I hadn’t told Ethan about Niko’s admission or my decision to leave the gallery, so there was no way for him to know why being here was so odd for me. Hopefully, he would assume it was because I was supposed to be off. I’d decided to fill him in on what happened after the holidays. I didn’t want anything to tarnish it for us.

Once we were inside, he took my hand and led me down the long hall toward the main room. Before we got to the end, he stopped us and came to stand in front of me, smiling as he held my gaze. “Since you refused to let me spoil you, even though that’s exactly what I want to do, I had to get creative. Luckily, I’m pretty good at that, so I found something I think is even better than spoiling you.”

I couldn’t help grinning at the expression on his face. It was the same expression I knew I’d have when I presented him with his gift later tonight. That smile was almost better than any gift he could have purchased. “You spoil me every day, with your time and your attention. With your heart.”

He nodded, dropping a kiss on the tip of my nose. “And I intend to continue doing that, but this is different. Emily, this is something more important than any trinket I could ever buy at any price. And I’m so damn lucky that I’m able to give this to you. I love you, Miss Emily.”

He gathered my hand in his and kissed the back of it. “You ready?”

For some reason, I felt like crying.

I could feel a hum of electricity coming off of Ethan, one that told me something huge awaited me in that gallery. He was that excited.

And suddenly, so was I.

“Ready.” I tipped my head and waited for him to guide me to whatever awaited.

* * *

I thought I was ready.

But nothing could have prepared me for what Ethan had done.

Arthur lingered somewhere in my peripheral vision, but I couldn’t focus on anything except the scene in front of me.

It was set up like an exhibition. Small pedestals were scattered around the room, each draped in black and lit from above so that the various sculptures were bathed in cool, clean light.

Sculptures in a style that I recognized immediately.

There had to be two dozen individual pieces showcased around the gallery.

I walked over to the closest one on wobbly legs and picked it up, though there was no need to check. I turned over the piece—an intricately carved pair of love birds—and gasped at the artist’s signature carved there in the clay.

Maxwell Westin.

My father.

I sobbed as I walked around the room, trailing my fingers over each and every piece. There were ships and animals and flowers, all different sizes and skill levels, each getting more stunning as I went. They were set up in a spiral pattern that kept you going deeper into the room as you went, with the final piece sitting in the center of the room.

When I reached it, I felt Ethan at my back, his hands falling on my hips as he whispered, “This is the one he was working on right before he…”

If it hadn’t been for Ethan’s grip on me, I might have fallen to the floor. I swayed on rubbery legs, and my sobs racked my body as I reached for it.

It was a soldier, shirtless, sitting cross-legged, holding his baby daughter against his chest while she reached for his dog tags.

The smile on his face…I knew it.

Because it was my smile.

That smile, it sent me to the floor.

And Ethan caught me, because he’d known it would.

We sat there in a heap on the floor of the gallery, and he held me to his chest as I cried.

“I remembered what you said about the sculptures and the storage unit, so I did some digging. I got your dad’s name off the rose sculpture on your dresser, and I didn’t stop looking until I found them. I was prepared to scour the globe until I found them all, but the funny thing is, one person had them this whole time.”

“Who?” I managed to croak between sniffles as I held the sculpture to my chest.

“One of your dad’s army buddies. He heard about your mom letting the storage unit go, and he said it just didn’t seem right to him. Max told him while they were deployed that he’d had to store his sculptures, so he knew full well what would be lost if someone else bought the unit.”

“And he kept them all these years?” I was starting to settle down now, Ethan’s low voice soothing me like a warm blanket.

“He said he tried to offer them to your mom, told her about buying the unit several months after she let it go, but she refused. Got angry. Said you didn’t need silly carvings. Pissed him off something fierce, so he packed them away in an old foot locker. When your mom moved you away, he hoped you’d come looking, but over the years he just sort of forgot about them there in the back of the closet. Until I tracked him down.”

He hugged me to his chest and rested his head on top of mine. “He said he’d love to meet you sometime. He has old pics of your dad, stories from their days serving together. He’s actually the one who rescued this sculpture from your dad’s stuff, because he was afraid it would get damaged being shipped back.”

“So, he had this one even before?”

“Yep. I guess he knew your mom wouldn’t value it like she should, and he knew how much it meant to your dad. He watched him work on it.”

I held the carving up to the light and marveled at how stunning it was. “I want to meet him.”

“I can give you his address and phone number; he’s expecting your call.”

“And I want you to go with me, okay?”

“Nowhere else I’d want to be, sweet Emily.” He lightly trailed his fingertips over the sculpture. “I’m so happy he got to finish it. Ryan…his last painting…it was only halfway done.”

“You finished it for him, didn’t you? It’s the one in the far corner of the studio, the one that’s so different—half hope, half despair?”

He nodded against my temple, his stubble tangling my hair as he continued to examine the figure in my hand, lost in his own thoughts for a moment.

“I can’t even begin to thank you for this,” I told him in a broken whisper. “You’ll never know how much what you’ve done means to me, not ever. I love you so much.”

“Sweetheart, I love you too.”