The rain had just begun to fall when Elena Carter unlocked the front door of her grandmother's cottage. The house smelled faintly of lavender and old books, a scent that made her chest tighten with nostalgia. She hadn't been back here since the funeral two weeks ago, and now it was her duty to sort through what remained.
The cottage was quiet except for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. Dust motes floated in the dim light as Elena wandered from room to room, fingertips brushing across faded photographs, porcelain figurines, and shelves filled with novels her grandmother loved.
In the bedroom, beneath the bed, she found a wooden chest bound with tarnished brass. She tugged it into the open, heart beating faster. Inside were neatly folded scarves, a stack of postcards from places her grandmother had never mentioned visiting, and, buried beneath them all, a leather-bound journal tied with a ribbon.
The cover was cracked with age, but the handwriting on the first page was elegant and alive:
"My dearest Rose,
I find myself thinking of you every hour, every minute, as though the world conspires to keep your image etched upon my mind…"
Elena frowned. Her grandmother's name was Rose Carter—but the journal wasn't written by her. It was addressed to her. And the signature at the bottom was not her grandfather's name.
Her heart skipped.
Who was this mysterious man who had written to her grandmother with such devotion?
And why had her grandmother kept these letters hidden all these years?
Elena ran her fingers over the ink as though the words might answer her. She didn't know it yet, but opening that journal was the first step into a love story that had survived timeitself—and one that was about to change her own life in ways she couldn't imagine.