Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
The front door opened, and Bree came out, raising her hand and waving us forward. “Sorry,” she said as we approached. “I didn’t hear your car, or I’d have met you at the gate.”
“Oh, that’s okay. Your property is beautiful,” I said. “It feels so peaceful here. Almost like a different world.”
She smiled. “Thank you. It’s what I thought too, the first time I walked through that gate. Hi, Faith. Please come inside.”
We both entered the house and I noted a stone fireplace flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in my peripheral vision, but my gaze landed on Archer and Travis who were standing awkwardly near an arched opening that I could see led to the kitchen.
We all greeted each other, rather stiffly. My heart had picked up speed. I didn’t understand what was happening, but it was clearly serious to them.
“Please, come with me,” Bree said.
“This is making me nervous,” I told her.
“Please don’t be nervous. I’d like to think what I’m about to show you will be, well, good news, but…” She pulled her lip under her teeth for a moment. “Just please, come with me.” She reached out and took my hand in hers and her touch, the solidity of her grasp brought a measure of calm I desperately needed.
I followed her to a short hallway that had a bathroom on one side, a bedroom on the other, and then we turned into another short hall that appeared to have been added on. Haven and Faith trailed along behind us, keeping their distance. Where was Bree taking me? I stopped, sucking in a breath of shock. There were paintings mixed in with the family photographs hanging on the walls. Paintings of the lake and sky and trees. I stepped closer, my heart thundering in my ears. Each one of them had the initials M.S. in the corner. I brought my hand to my mouth and turned to Bree who was watching me closely. “How?” I asked. “Who?”
“Let’s go sit in the living room and I’ll explain.”
I walked on legs that felt like rubber, following her the short distance back to the living room that I’d only glanced into. I sat down on the couch and from that vantage point, I could see another large painting on the wall next to the front door, obviously done by the same artist, although that one didn’t seem to bear any initials at all.
The women sat down, Faith next to me and Bree and Haven on two chairs facing us. Travis and Archer wandered closer but continued to stand.
“Archer and Travis’s uncle, Nathan Hale, painted all of these,” she said, waving her hand toward the larger painting and then behind me to the hallway.
I glanced at each person in turn, my gaze moving from one concerned face to another. “Nathan Hale?” I breathed. “I…but no, he wasn’t a…a founding member of the Metropolitan Club.”
“He wasn’t,” Bree said. “But he worked as a dishwasher there at the same time your mother did. I took this morning to confirm that, but after you showed me the napkin with the sketch, I…I was almost positive it was Nathan’s work.”
I brought my hand to the base of my throat. I could feel my heart beating rapidly in my chest as I tried to understand what they were telling me. Had I incorrectly extrapolated that my father was one of the founding members and one of the men she served when she’d been talking about her long-ago job at that fancy club? She’d said his family was important in the town and her expression had always turned slightly dreamy and slightly pained when she spoke of it…when she spoke of them. And then I’d found the Metropolitan Club napkin with the sketch on the other side and both assumptions had been confirmed at once. He was an artist, not one of the five men she’d told me about.
Archer stepped forward and raised his hands and when he began signing, Bree interpreted for him. “After my uncle left the army, he did all sorts of different jobs around town. Something had happened to him overseas that he never spoke about, but he came home changed. He’d been a canine handler and from what little I do know, whatever occurred also killed his dog, Duke. He said his dog’s name in his sleep sometimes and woke up crying.” Oh, God. Archer took a few steps closer to the painting and turned his head to look at it for a moment before meeting my eyes again. “I was young, so I only remember a few of the jobs he did when he returned to Pelion. He worked at a gas station for a while, and later, he did landscaping work. He must have been doing well that spring if they hired him at the Metropolitan Club.”