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)
“I purchased it,” Timothy clarified.
“Where?” Rory asked, wonder clear in her voice as she reached out and touched the framed watercolor hanging above the built-in dresser on the rear wall of the closet.
“At Silver Horse Antiques. What is this about, Ms. Castle?”
“How long ago?” she asked. “I’m sorry. I just…my father painted this and I’m trying to find out who he was.”
That seemed to take both men by surprise. Timothy approached, looking up at the painting. “I bought it a few months ago, actually. We had our closet redone and it seemed perfect. I was moved by the depth of emotion in a landscape. The combination of colors and the usage of hard and soft lines conveys so much, don’t you think?”
Rory nodded, her gaze still stuck to the painting for several moments before she turned toward Timothy. “May we look behind it?”
“Behind it?”
“Yes. We’ve found others that contain diary entries that are very important to me.” She put her hand on his arm. “I’d be grateful.”
He paused only briefly before stepping forward and removing the painting from the wall. He set it on the top of the dresser and turned it over. “Maynard, hand me something sharp, will you? I believe there’s a letter opener in the writing desk.”
Maynard stepped out of the small room and was back in a flash, handing Timothy a small silver letter blade. Timothy used it the same way I had to pry off the back, pulling it aside to reveal a folded piece of paper. Rory let out a small sound of tearful happiness.
“Whose diary entries are they, my dear?”
“They belonged to my mother.”
Timothy picked up the page and handed it to Rory. “Then this is yours. Take the painting too.”
“Oh, I couldn’t take the painting. You purchased it.”
But Timothy smiled. “It’s fate. I assume this is what you were sneaking around our home looking for.”
Rory looked down but nodded. “I thought you might be my father,” she said to Maynard Siggins. “I’m very sorry we were dishonest. This was my fault, not Gage’s.”
Maynard shot me a look but smiled kindly when he set his gaze back on Rory. “Having children wasn’t in the cards for me. For us. But you seem lovely. I have no doubt your father will claim you with open arms.”
Fifteen minutes later, our heads bent close together, the diary entry held under the interior light of my car, we began reading.
Lys has a secret that she won’t share. I can see it’s eating her up inside. When we’re together, her eyes drift off and I can tell that whatever she’s thinking about makes her both happy and sad. It reminds me of the way she acted before she ran away from that awful home for girls. Scared and jittery, but excited too, a look of barely-contained hope in her eyes. I was with her when she chose Pelion straight off a map of Maine. She told me it’s the name of a mountain in Greek mythology and she always loved those stories of gods and mortals. Lys always did read too much, if you ask me. So that’s how she ended up in the small lake town on the other side of Calliope. And I didn’t dare even visit until her father died, may he rest in hell. I wonder if it’s true that we’re all attracted to the familiar because that husband of hers has the same mean look in his eyes that her father always did, especially when he got up to drinking. It breaks my heart to know she ran from one devil only to end up with another.
But… her husband did give her that boy of hers and God but does she love him. She looks at him like he hung the moon and all the stars. I wonder though, because it’s the same way she looks at her husband’s brother. What a mess. A god-awful mess.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rory
Gage pulled up across the street from a white stone building with two massive pillars out front, a poster with a For Sale sign in the window. I stepped from the car, craning my neck to look up at what appeared to be an old bank, as he joined me and we crossed the street.
It had been almost a week since I’d seen Gage after we’d gotten caught snooping in Maynard and Timothy’s closet, and had found another piece of my father’s artwork which unfortunately spoke of someone else I didn’t know. I’d spent the time since finishing the last of the fake appraisals so I could return the artwork to the families that had loaned it to me and walking my temporary brood on the lakeshore. I’d sat on a rock at the edge of the lake just the day before, the dogs lounging next to me, and was struck by the feeling of pure contentment. I’d closed my eyes and soaked in the unfamiliar sense of deep calm that was unconnected to my current circumstances. I hadn’t found my father yet. I’d only managed to cross one possibility off the list and the time was drawing nearer that I would have to leave. But for a moment in time, none of that seemed to matter as I gazed out at that peaceful water, framed by trees and hills and cool, shaded shores. I felt anchored in a way I never had before. I felt…a connection that I couldn’t explain.