Amelia fiddled with her fork, which she had laid in the proper position for someone who had finished with their plate.

“She’s so different right now.”

“In what way?” he asked.

“She doesn’t leave the house.” Amelia laughed. “And she’s vacuuming. I mean, my mother is working a Dyson in the parlors. It’s so bizarre. She also took me to yoga last night and did it with me. She’s helping me get a summer job. We’re going shopping for bikinis later this week.” The girl looked away to the horizon. “She’s never wanted to spend any time with me before.”

“I’m really glad she’s making the effort.”

And he prayed the trend continued. With Gin? It was unlikely. Within days, she was likely to get over her maternal kick and return to her lifestyle. But at least he would be here to pick up the pieces.

Then again, Amelia had been hard-honed to take care of herself, so the girl would no doubt roll with the flow.

Which was so sad, he couldn’t stand it.

“So, she gave me this safety-deposit key, right?” Amelia glanced over. “Do not tell her I told you this, ’kay?”

He put up his palm. “I swear.”

“Before I left to go back to Hotchkiss . . . she gave me this safety-deposit key and told me I wasn’t supposed to use it unless she died. She wouldn’t tell me what was in the box.” Amelia went back to staring at the fat, low sun that was glowing like a banked fire at the lip of the landscape. “I got Lizzie to take me to the bank today. I had her wait in the car, and I took the key in. I brought my passport with me because I don’t have a driver’s license, you know. The manager came out of her office. She was so nice, and she helped me sign in and get the box out—but we could barely lift it. I was scared and I made the lady stay in the private little cubicle with me.”

“What was in it?” Samuel T. said tightly.

“Gold bars.” Amelia looked over. “Like, tons of gold bars.”

What the hell did Gin liquidate, Samuel T. wondered.

“There was a letter. I opened it.”

When Amelia got quiet, it was as if she regretted taking the story to that particular detail.

“And?” Samuel T. reached over and put what he hoped was a reassuring hand on the girl’s forearm. “I won’t tell her. I promise.”

“In it, she said that if she died, Richard Pford murdered her. And that this was to be my inheritance from her, free and clear.” Amelia shook her head again. “The bank manager looked really worried and asked if Mother was okay. I said, yes. That annulment you did for them hasn’t been in the paper or anything so the lady didn’t know that they’d broken up.”

“Did the bank manager tell you when Gin brought it all in?”

“It was newly taken, the box, that is. The only thing the lady said was that Mother had come in with some guy named Ryan Berkley?”

The jeweler, Samuel T. thought. Of course. Gin had sold one of her mother’s pieces and put the value in there for Amelia in case the family went totally under.

Not the dumbest thing in the world to do.

“I think your mother is really trying to take care of you,” Samuel T. offered. “And if you can, let her. I know there’s a lot of history between you, but sometimes people do change.”

Amelia nodded, but it was unclear which way she was leaning on that subject.

“So, I got the test results back today,” he said.

The girl looked over. “Really? That was fast.”

“I have friends in the lab.”

“What did they say?” Then Amelia went all Maury Povich: “Are you the father?”

He slid the envelope out of his breast pocket. “I haven’t opened it. I was waiting for you.”

Samuel T. put the thing between them, the fold in the middle straightening itself out as if reaching for a hand to do the flap duty.

They just stared at the sealed envelope.

“I don’t want it to say we aren’t related,” Amelia mumbled.

Funny, just like that, she was a child, her adult-self veneer vaporizing and revealing someone who was scared and lonely and tired of being brave while she was lost.

And what was truly amazing, in that moment?

As Samuel T. noted those downcast eyes and projected into the future the likelihood of Gin being a reliable, steady influence in the girl’s life?

He became a father.

Right then and there.

If one established the definition of a parent as an adult who assumed the responsibility for a minor, seeking to provide them with shelter, guidance, and love? Well, what the hell did blood matter, anyway. There had been loads of examples, many in Amelia’s own family, of people who didn’t step up even though the DNA was there. And then there were those who provided what was needed, always, even though there was no family tree linking them.

Like Miss Aurora with Lane and his brothers and sister.

Love was what made the difference. Not blood.

Samuel T. cleared his throat and put his hand over the envelope. “If you want me to open this, I will.”

“Do you want to open it?”

“The results don’t matter to me.”

Amelia looked up sharply. “How can you say that?”

“You need a father. I want a daughter.” God, it was so strange to say that and mean it. “At the end of the day, is it really more complicated than that?”

An old, worn-out look came into the girl’s eyes. “You don’t want to get saddled with some other guy’s kid for the rest of your life.”

“This is an opportunity, not an obligation.” He tapped the envelope. “And if we don’t open this, if we don’t know for sure . . . then you will never once wonder whether or not I want to be in your life. You will always know that I am choosing you. You will never for a single moment have to worry that you were a mistake that I feel guilty about, or a burden I’m carrying just because one night, sixteen years ago, your mother and I had sex and the birth control failed. I am picking you, Amelia Baldwine, right now—and if you pick me in return, we burn this on the grill over there and neither one of us ever looks back. Deal?”

As the girl sniffled, he eased to the side and took his handkerchief out of his back pocket. She accepted it and dried her eyes.

“Why would you do that for me?” she asked bleakly.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I, is the question.”

There was a long silence, and Samuel T. gave her all the space she needed.

“Okay,” she said eventually. “Let’s do it. Let’s burn it.”

They got out of their seats and went around the table at opposite ends, meeting on the other side and going over to the grill together. Picking up a pair of barbecue tongs, he removed a section of the grate and set it aside. Then he fired up the gas and hit the igniter.

Flames gathered and hissed along the burners, and he held out the envelope.

Amelia gripped it, too . . . and they put the corner into the heat.

The paper caught quick and burned fast, and they had to drop it in or risk getting hurt.

As he watched the results of the DNA test disappear, he had never been more at peace with anything in his life.

When it was done, Amelia turned to him. “What do I call you?”

“What do you want to call me?”

“Dad.”

“I’m good with that,” he said as he pulled her in close and held her tight. “I’m so good with that. . . .”

As Gin drove down the allée of trees to Samuel T.’s farm, her palms were sweating on the wheel of the Phantom and she had a headache.

The last couple of times she had dropped Amelia off here, or picked the girl up, she had felt the same. It was hard, so hard, to look at Samuel T. as if he were a polite stranger.

Oh, who was she kidding.

It was hard to have him look at her that way. But she couldn’t blame him. And it was also impossible not to see and appreciate the effect he had on Amelia. The girl was always happy when she was out here, her eyes sparkling, her smile quick to fire, her hands animated.

Gin hit the brakes and put the Rolls in park. When no one came around from the porch, she cut the engine and got out.