I couldn’t close my eyes anymore.

I didn’t realize that Ivy had stopped brushing until she lowered herself to the floor and sat beside me. I remembered leaning into Adam and crying into his chest. I didn’t have any tears left for Ivy.

I pulled my legs to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. It took me a few seconds to realize that beside me, Ivy had done the exact same thing.

“Did Adam give you my message?” I asked her.

I’d asked Adam to tell Ivy that I forgave her, to tell her that I was sorry for what I’d had to do. I’d asked him to tell her that I was my mother’s daughter.

“He did,” Ivy said, the volume and tone in her voice an exact match for mine: soft and hoarse and hesitant.

Ivy and I had lost so many years together that sometimes it felt like neither one of us knew how to just be in the other’s presence.

“I meant it,” I told Ivy. “I’m tired of being angry with you. I’m tired of holding on to old hurts.”

“I know I hurt you—again and again. But, Tessie, hurting you is the last thing I ever wanted to do. I never meant—”

“It’s okay,” I said.

She shook her head. “No. It’s not.”

“What you did—when I was born, when Mom and Dad died, when you left me in Montana—it’s okay.”

Twenty-four hours ago, those words would have been unfathomable to me. But I’d walked back into Hardwicke not knowing if I would walk out. I’d chosen to do so, and if I could choose to do that, I could choose to change things with Ivy.

I could choose to stop expecting her to hurt me again.

“I lied to you your whole life, Tessie. I don’t expect you to forgive that.”

I straightened my legs and leaned my head onto her shoulder. I closed my eyes. “We’re all liars sometimes,” I said.

I heard her suck in a ragged breath.

“Do you forgive me?” I asked, murmuring the words into her shoulder. “For going back in there? For lying to you? For not being the kind of daughter you want?”

Ivy took me gently by the shoulders. “You are exactly the kind of daughter I want.” A lump rose in my throat as she continued, “You always have been.”

CHAPTER 68

The next morning, I woke up in Ivy’s bed. I watched her sleep, remembering the last time the two of us had shared a bed. You’d just been held hostage, I told Ivy silently. I’d bargained for your release. The symmetry between that situation and the one we’d found ourselves in the day before did not escape me.

Every family had their traditions.

I woke up in the middle of the night, I continued, watching the rise and fall of Ivy’s chest. And you were gone. That time, Ivy had been the one who couldn’t sleep. I wondered if she’d watched me, the way I was watching her now. I went looking for you. I found you in the conference room. You couldn’t stop going back over what had happened. You couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that the Secret Service agent who’d held you captive had been in the middle of surrendering when he was shot and killed.

Ivy had been convinced that wasn’t an accident. It was too neat, too clean, too convenient.

Unfortunately, the shooter resisted. The words the president had spoken to me the day before echoed in my head.

Too neat. Too clean. Too convenient.

“Morning, Tessie.” Ivy turned over onto her side. “How did you sleep?”

I woke up thinking. I can’t stop thinking.

“Yeah,” Ivy said softly, taking in the expression on my face and the dark circles under my eyes. “Me too.” She pushed a strand of hair out of my face. “How about I attempt to channel Bodie and make us some pancakes?”

Ivy was many things, but a good cook wasn’t one of them.

“Don’t give me that look,” Ivy said. “I’m a professional. I fix problems for a living. I’m fairly certain I can handle some pancakes without causing our kitchen to explode.”

The kitchen didn’t explode, but the pancakes did. Ivy called Bodie to undo the damage. When he walked through the front door, he wasn’t alone.

“Look who I found lurking on the porch,” he said.

Vivvie hovered in the doorway for four or five seconds, her big brown eyes fixed on mine. Her lips trembled, and I thought of the way we’d left things in the hallway.

You’re supposed to be my friend. My best friend—

Before I could finish the thought, Vivvie launched herself at me, jackrabbiting across the room and flinging her arms around me. She pressed her face into my shoulder and hugged me hard. My arms curved slowly around her.