“It looks like it.”
Together they put the groceries away in the restaurant-quality kitchen. The cupboards were quite bare, although the space was opulent.
“Why do you live in such a humongous house?” she asked.
“We didn’t always. We lived in a smaller house down on the edge of this property. You met Jesse. He used to live there. It’s sitting there empty now.”
“Oh.” She had to wonder why Paul wouldn’t move back there. It would seem lonely to live in this massive space by yourself, but it wasn’t her place to judge.
“Jesse cares for some of my businesses, and me when I need help. We grew up together. He’s a few years younger than I am. A brilliant home builder. We’ve known each other our whole lives. He did a lot of the work on this place. The real parts. This kitchen. My office. The bedroom and bathroom.”
“I still don’t understand why some of it is like a movie set.”
“This was my wife’s dream. When the doctors said there was nothing more they could do for her, I quit working. We thought we had a couple of years, and I wanted to make them the best they could possibly be.”
“You wanted to make all her dreams come true.”
“I did. Patrice had this whole folder full of pictures she’d pulled out of magazines. Beautiful rooms. I wanted her to have everything she dreamed of.”
“And this castle was in there?” She blinked away tears. “That is so sweet.”
He laughed. “Not exactly. The rooms, the interior design, all of that was all Patrice. The castle? It was a long-running joke between us. She used to say that I treated her better than a princess. I loved it when she said that, and I adored the love in her eyes that went along with those words.”
She swallowed back emotion, her heart hanging as heavy in her chest as it had at its most profound sorrow for her own lost love.
“So, I had this idea to do the castle when I realized our days would be fewer than we’d ever imagined. I wanted her to know.” He took a breath. “Beyond a shadow of a doubt.” He looked away. “Only, for all I tried, I couldn’t save her. She got sicker so fast.”
“I’m so sorry. It must’ve been torture to watch that.”
“Devastating.”
She pressed her hand to her heart, aching for his loss. It seemed like losing Jeremy in the blink of an eye was the worst possible scenario, but saying goodbye repeatedly and watching the decline? She couldn’t imagine how that must have torn this man apart.
“When she was running out of time, I called my buddy from college who worked in Hollywood and hired some guys he knew who built movie sets. They came out and roughed in all of this around the house Jesse had built. They did it in record time while Jesse worked on finishing the house that we’d planned.”
“I bet it was a flurry of activity.”
“You saw all those beehives when you came up?”
“I did. I’ve never seen so many.”
“That team worked as hard as a hive of bees. We were working around the clock.”
“She had no idea?”
“None. They are truly artists in their own right. They completed the project, and even I couldn’t believe it. We somehow pulled off the move. Getting her from the cottage up here took a lot of help. Hospice helped manage moving everything, and they knew it was a silly husband’s grasp at holding her heart forever, but I had to do it.”
She pressed her hands to her face, tears falling. “Yes. You did. It’s beautiful. And I know she was amazed.”
“Oh, yes.” A tear slipped down his cheek. “I will never forget her face when she saw this. Sure, it was all smoke and mirrors, and maybe she did know it. I’m not sure, but we re-created the most beautiful bedroom she had in that folder. Her eyes danced when she saw it. We cried in each other’s arms that night. The kitchen. My office. Her bedroom and bathroom were all she needed to see, and Jesse had re-created the magazine pictures she cherished masterfully. The rest… is just a fantasy.”
“Wow.” She couldn’t imagine a love so intense. “You are the most wonderful man I’ve ever known.”
“No. I most certainly am not. It was all for her, because of her. She made me a better man.”
“The truest and purest love.”
“When she died, I buried her up on that hill and hired Jesse to build that little church around it. I spent every day in that little sanctuary. I’ll never know why God had to take her from me.”
