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“Aw, come here.” She gathered me in her arms and hugged me just as my phone started ringing. I pulled back and took my phone out, frowning when I saw an unknown local number. “Hello?” I said, putting it on speaker so Faith could hear.
“Hi, Rory? It’s Bree Hale.”
I blinked. Bree and Haven and I had texted each other our numbers before I left the Fourth of July gathering, but I hadn’t yet programmed in her name. “Hi, Bree. How are you?”
“I’m…good. Um, are you available to come over?”
I met Faith’s curious gaze, giving her a small shrug. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no. I just, well, I have some information on that drawing you showed me, but I’d like to tell you in person if that’s okay. Haven is here too.”
My stomach rose in my throat. I was tempted to tell them to forget it, I wasn’t interested in taking this any further, but my curiosity got the best of me. “I…yes, of course. I can be there in half an hour. Where do you live?”
After writing down Bree’s address across the lake in Pelion and saying goodbye, I looked at Faith. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Absolutely. Let’s go.”
The wooden gate was open when we pulled up to the address where the GPS had led us down a winding, picturesque road flanked by pine trees that showed glimpses of the glistening lake beyond.
I leaned inside, Faith on my heels and drew in a breath before I pushed the gate open wider. “Oh, wow,” I said, my nerves calming as I took in the gorgeous, peaceful property.
Muted light seeped through the feathery branches, the blue sparkle of the water shifting between the gaps in the green. I could hear the soft waves of the lake meeting the shore and smell the sharp scent of the trees. An emerald lawn rolled out in front of us, a cobblestone path just to the side that led to a cottage with a wide front porch flanked by pots of bright red flowers.
A sanctuary.
And there was something about it that felt familiar in an abstract, misty way—not as if I’d been there before, but as though I’d dreamed about it long ago and forgotten most of the details even as the feeling remained.
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.
