Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
“You should be home relaxing today,” Jeremy said.
“When all the good food is here?” Dallas asked. “Give me fifteen more minutes and I can start packing everything up for you.”
“You sure you don’t need a hand?”
Dallas’s smile didn’t even waver. “Get out of my kitchen, Jeremy.”
Cat laughed and hooked an arm through Laila’s. “Come on, Jean’s in the dining room. The normal one.”
She hauled Laila out of the room, and Jeremy had no choice but to follow. The door they were looking for was just two down, past the rear closet where the cleaning supplies were kept and the stairs down to the wine cellar. All six seats at the table were empty. Cat didn’t look nearly as concerned as she ought to find Jean missing and instead went to pour herself lemonade from the jug sitting in the center of the table.
“That’s weird,” she said when Jeremy turned on her.
“You sent him on a tour,” Jeremy guessed.
Cat clasped a hand to her chest. “Would I have been so bold?”
Laila pulled out a chair, silently ceding the search to Jeremy, so Jeremy left them to each other’s company. Warren’s office door was firmly closed, as was William’s bedroom door. The laundry room was of course empty. Jean wasn’t in the formal dining room or the day room either.
Jeremy was starting to think he’d gone upstairs or ducked into the first-floor bathroom when he found Jean in front of the sitting room fireplace. Most of the mantel was covered in tasteful knickknacks Mathilda’s late mother brought home from her various sets, but the centerpiece was a family portrait from eight years ago. Jean was still as stone as he studied it.
“Pretty cool stuff, right?” Jeremy asked as he approached. He lifted a delicate pipe and showed it off. “This is from Eternally Yours. Nan’s costar planned on taking it home, but he gave it to her as a parting gift when he heard it was her last film.” He set the pipe back and smiled over at Jean, but Jean didn’t even glance his way. Jeremy tried again to distract him: “I don’t know if I ever told you she was an actress? You hate movies so much I didn’t think you would care. Angelica Laslo,” he said, knowing it would garner no recognition from Jean.
Jean didn’t even acknowledge that but said, “There are four.” He couldn’t mean people when there were seven faces in the portrait, except he did: “Cat said you only had three.”
Siblings, Jeremy realized too late.
Jean lifted the portrait from its spot and tilted it toward Jeremy. Jeremy waited for him to ask, but Jean’s finger settled unerringly on Noah’s face. He’d seen the rest of the family portraits on his self-guided tour, then. This was the only one still on display that Noah was in. Mathilda packed the rest away years ago, claiming she couldn’t bear to see his face staring back at her in every room.
Jeremy took the portrait from Jean’s unresisting hands and put it back in its spot. “He’s gone, four years this August.” The hoarse edge in his words earned him a pensive look from Jean, but Jeremy feigned not to notice. He cleared his throat as he turned away. “Let’s see how the burgers are coming along, yeah?”
He made it halfway to the door when Jean asked, “Does it get easier?”
He wished he could pretend he hadn’t heard, but his feet betrayed him and went still. When Jeremy turned back, Jean was again studying the portrait like it somehow held all the answers. Why it was so important to him, Jeremy wasn’t sure, but Jeremy had asked too much of him this summer to not at least attempt some honesty.
“No,” Jeremy admitted, and Jean turned his distant stare on Jeremy. “Sometimes I get so caught up in everything else that I just—forget,” he said, though it was such an awful thing to admit. “Then I remember and it’s like it happened yesterday. But Dr. Spader said grief isn’t supposed to get easier: you just become someone strong enough to weather it. You let the good things and the good days shore you up so the bad days can’t tear you down.”
Jean considered that, then slowly tapped his fingers to his thumb in turn: one, two, three, four. “I think I understand,” he said, and started toward Jeremy at last.
They found the girls right where they’d left them. Cat looked between them, furrowed brows at odds with the teasing tone she affected. “Most people come back from Jeremy’s house looking impressed, not like they stepped on some tacks. I thought you said Bryson was out of town this week?”
“Up in Edmonton,” Jeremy agreed. “Ready to go?”
“Yes,” Jean said, and Cat frowned but let it slide.
They returned to the kitchen to see Dallas packing a half-dozen Tupperware into a cooler. He glanced up at their approach and rattled off what he’d prepped, everything from avocado to two different kinds of onions and five condiments. There were four types of cheese beneath two kinds of lettuce, and fruit salad if they wanted a refreshing dessert. He needed a few seconds to layer more ice on top, then snapped the lid closed and set it near the end of the island. The burgers were packed separately to keep them warm, and he had three packages of buns in with an obscene amount of chips.