Chapter 7
Samuel rose and checked the front window.
Not dramatically.
Just enough for Nancy to notice.
“Is someone outside?” she asked.
“Not that I can see.”
“Samuel.”
He turned back to her.
“Thomas believed certain people would become interested once the funeral ended.”
Nancy’s mouth went dry.
“Interested in me?”
“In what he gave you by marrying you.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“I know.”
Samuel returned to the table and slid the brass key closer, though it was already beside her hand.
“Thomas did not want me to reveal the contents. Not before you opened it.”
“Why?”
“Because he said the first person who sees it must be you.”
Nancy let out a shaken breath.
The box seemed too small to carry fifty-six years.
Too ordinary to change anything.
Dark wood.
Old hinge.
Faded carving.
The little star Thomas had made crooked because he laughed too hard while cutting it.
She remembered his hands.
Young then.
Strong.
Grease under the nails.
Warm around hers.
Her throat tightened.
“What if what’s inside makes me hate him?”
Samuel’s eyes lowered.
“He said that was possible.”
Nancy looked toward the hospital wedding photograph.
Thomas smiled from behind the glass.
May you like
Honest and guilty all at once.
Read the full story 👉 Samuel could warn Nancy, but Thomas had forbidden him from revealing the secret before her own hand opened the box.
