He tried to remind himself that she had the money from the sale of the farm, and it wasn’t like she was destitute. She would land on her feet and do something else, just as he had when his wife died. Sometimes a person just had to carry on, even though they didn’t want to.
He drove home, trying to think about the excitement of moving into a new home and not about the status of the prior owner. Somehow, when he had sold the house that he and Desire had lived in together, it hadn’t been nearly this hard.
He walked in. All the kids sat at the table with his mother, schoolbooks open, or in Robert’s case, he sat with a reading book in his hand.
“How do you guys feel about going to see our new house?”
“Yay!” Larissa said, jumping up. “Maybe she left the horses there after all!” She grinned. “Maybe Miss Summer will be hiding upstairs in the loft.”
That reminded Gilbert that there was a loft apartment above the stables. He’d never gone out to see it.
He had already been sold on the place and hadn’t needed to. Maybe he’d go up and check it out, although he highly doubted that Summer would be hiding in it.
“All right, let’s go. Mom, if you want to come along and check it out, you can.”
“How about I drive separately, because I might not want to stay as long as you guys do.”
“That’s just fine. Come anytime. You’re welcome to our new home. I have to get a duplicate key made.” He held up the key that dangled from his hand. He hadn’t noticed when Jane had handed it to him, but it was on a keychain with a horse attached to it as a little charm.
It was cute and suited someone who had done horse therapy for a living.
It didn’t take long to get the kids in the car and drive to their new farm.
Somehow it wasn’t quite as victorious a feeling as he had thought it would be to pull into the drive. Their own farm, but the kids were strangely silent as they pulled into the house.
“I came in here once to go to the bathroom,” Larissa said softly.
“I thought there was a bathroom in the barn?”
“We went in and got a drink too. We didn’t stay in long, but her kitchen was really nice. She had plants in it, and Grandma would like it.”
“I thought so too when I saw it,” he said, trying to force some happiness into his voice.
As they walked around the house, his mom really did ooh and aah over the kitchen, but the plants were gone. The library still held some books, but most of those were gone as well. All of the little touches that he had noticed when he had gone through had disappeared, even the beds were stripped of the bedding, although the beds themselves were still there. He wondered if she hadn’t been able to afford to hire movers to move the beds, but more likely, she didn’t have any place to put them, unless she wanted to rent a storage unit, which he would bet that she didn’t want to pay the expense. Plus, what would a single woman with no children need with six beds?
She hadn’t mentioned that she was going to leave them, but he should thank her, because now he didn’t have to buy them.
He just needed to procure bedding.
“Are you okay?” His mom had come up to him, and he hadn’t even heard her. He tried not to startle too badly.
“Yeah. Why?” Vaguely he was aware that his children ran around trying to figure out which bedrooms they wanted, although Lucas seemed almost as disinterested as he did.
Lucas was the one who struggled most with the loss of his horse, which was somewhat surprising considering how much Larissa had loved hers.
“I know. You just seem…sad. Are you thinking about Desire?”
“No. Not at all.” It had been a while since he had thought about her with anything other than a passing question in his mind as to whether or not he would have been divorced at this time if she were still alive and hadn’t had cancer. He didn’t really miss her. They had not exactly reconciled but had managed to find a truce, but then she’d been diagnosed, and he wasn’t sure whether she would keep her word. After all, she’d broken it once already.
“All right. I just think this would be a happier time, and you almost seem… I don’t know, like you’re not really happy that you guys finally have a house together. You know you don’t have to move out if you don’t want to,” she said, and he wanted to reassure her that it was perfectly fine, although maybe if she had said that a month ago, he might have decided to stay.
No, a month ago he was determined to buy this farm, but now, he almost wondered if it might have been wiser for him to somehow help Summer keep it, rather than thinking he was helping her by buying it.
It was too late.
“No. I’m excited. I’m happy there’s beds here because we can sleep here tonight if we want to.”
“You know you’re still welcome for Sunday lunch,” his mom said with a smile.
