“Will do,” Jonathan said, and waited for Cade to leave. A few moments later, the blond man was gone and Jonathan went through the apartment, turning off lights and picking up Violet’s shoes so she didn’t trip over them in the morning. He tossed them into a nearby chair and then headed to the bedroom, stripping off his jacket.
Violet was already fast asleep, her cheek tucked into one palm. That was fine; he’d be perfectly happy cuddling his woman as she slept. Just touching her was pleasure enough. Jonathan stripped out of his clothes, turned off the lights, and climbed into bed.
Automatically, Violet turned toward him and he pulled her against his chest. She yawned when he pressed a kiss to her forehead and settled back into sleep.
At least, he thought she was asleep. A sleepy voice rose from the darkness. “This weekend, I think I want to visit my father’s grave.”
“Whatever you want,” Jonathan told her, pulling her closer against him. He admitted to himself that he was curious about what was in the old man’s grave, and if his treasured stele and Dr. DeWitt’s journals were hidden there, great. But finding those had been less important than getting Violet back, and he was content to wait until she was ready to approach the task again.
Good things came to those who waited, and ten years of patience had won him the best prize of all. Kissing Violet’s forehead again, he closed his own eyes, utterly content.
EPILOGUE
That Saturday, the skies were blue and the sun was out, the weather lovely. It was the kind of day that was made for picnics and walks in the park, not visiting a grave. But now that everything else in Violet’s life had somehow lined up, this was the only question still unanswered, and Violet wanted closure.
Even if the prize at the end of this treasure hunt was just one of her father’s silly notes or a research journal, at least she’d be able to move on from this. Hopefully, Jonathan’s stele would be enclosed there, and he could move on, too. No more manipulation from Dr. DeWitt from beyond the grave. She liked the thought of that.
“You look lovely,” Jonathan told her as she pulled on a plain black sweater.
Violet stepped into her black flats and gave him an odd look. She’d skipped makeup that morning, just in case she got emotional at her father’s grave. On top of that, she was wearing all black. Her lips twitched with a nervous smile; God, why was she nervous? “Lovely, huh? Why is that?”
“Absolutely.” He moved to her side, dressed in a black jacket. Instead of his normal T-shirt and jeans, he wore a collared black shirt and slacks out of respect for her father’s grave. His hand tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and he gazed into her face. “It’s the look on your face this morning. I can’t take my eyes off of you. You’re strong, and resolute, and every time you look at me, I see love in your eyes. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
An emotional knot threatened Violet’s throat and she tilted her face back, silently asking for a kiss. For comfort.
He brushed his lips over hers. “Shall we get going?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
Hand in hand, they went out to the parking garage and Jonathan drove his roadster while Violet navigated with his tablet and a maps application. The graveyard was all the way across town, and they drove in relative silence, the only sounds Violet’s quiet driving directions.
When Jonathan finally turned into a parking lot, Violet’s heart gave a painful little clench. “We’re here,” Jonathan said quietly.
She nodded, frozen.
“Do you know where he’s buried?”
She stared at the rows of gravestones and flowers, and then gave Jonathan a mutely pleading look.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Wait here, love. I’ll go ask.”
She waited in the car, clutching the tablet PC to her chest. The day was a gorgeous one, and the cemetery quite pretty. In the distance, an elderly couple walked the rows. For some reason, it made Violet incredibly nervous. It wasn’t death itself; her mother had passed when Violet was twenty-one, a miserable drunk to her very last moment.
Violet was terrified of what they’d find at her father’s grave and at the end of the scavenger hunt.
She and Jonathan had lived in bliss for the past few weeks. There was some schedule juggling, of course—they both had jobs. There were the usual growing pains of two people moving into a new place together. But God, she was happy. So, so happy. And she was terrified that whatever they found at her father’s grave would somehow ruin this fragile happiness and destroy it forever.
She didn’t count on anything less from Dr. Phineas DeWitt.
Her throat was dry when Jonathan left the on-site funeral home, hands in his pockets, and he came to her car door and opened it. “Shall we go?”
“Sure.” She didn’t sound sure, though. She sounded terrified. But when she got out of the car, Jonathan’s fingers laced with her own and she felt a little better.
They walked through rows of gravestones, heading to the back of the cemetery. There, at the end of a row, close to a tree, was a long, narrow stone marker shaped like a famous obelisk—Cleopatra’s Needle. Seeing that, Violet started to laugh. “You’re kidding me.”
Jonathan smiled at her. “Count on your father to go out in style. Look,” he said, pointing at the top. “He’s even got his name in a cartouche.”
Sure enough, her father’s name was spelled out in English, then below it, a cartouche with Egyptian hieroglyphs. “Aren’t those only for royalty?” Violet asked, amused.
“Like that ever stopped your father?”
He had a point. If anyone thought he was entitled to everything the world had to offer, it was Dr. Phineas DeWitt. Smiling, Violet studied the front of the obelisk. It had his birth date and date of death, and instead of a family platitude, it read “The Garden of Love” poem again:
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And Thou shalt not, writ over the door;
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
“That must have had special meaning for him,” Violet said softly.