“I—” Her questions ricocheted around my mind. With each one, my pulse pounded harder in my chest. Bloody hell! I didn’t know these answers.Whydidn’t I know them?
It suddenly felt like I’d barely known my Grandad at all.
“And of course, the most important question is the timing. We have availability to do the service in three days if that timing is to your liking?”
Three fucking days, and I didn’t know the necessary information to put him in the ground!
“Mr. Kincaid?”
“Hmm?”
“Any specific music requests? A hymn, perhaps.”
I opened my mouth, waiting for the answers to tumble out, but they never did. My stomach stirred unpleasantly, and I found myself chasing my next breath.
“Actually,” Lena said all of a sudden. She walked up, pulling a file from her purse. “I found some notes when I was going through Pete’s office. He left directions for his preferences.”
Elspeth held her hand out, her expression softening into a sad smile. “Yes, that sounds like Pete. Well, that makes everything easier.”
I released a heavy breath, glancing over at Lena, and I wondered suddenly what I would have done without her here. For seven years, she’d been indispensable to me in more ways than I could count. But here, dealing with this…I honestly didn’t know how I would have gotten through it without her. And I certainly couldn’t imagine having anyone else here at my side as my wife. She thought I’d chosen her out of convenience, but that wasn’t true. I’d chosen her because I trusted her. Lena was someone I could truly rely on, and I knew how rare that was.
How valuable.
I could count on one hand the people I truly trusted to have my back—and with Grandad gone, that number had dropped from four to three.
“Weston?” Lena said, getting my attention. She stood directly in front of me now, brow furrowed in concern. “She’s going to review Pete’s notes and write up a funeral plan. She’s asked us to come back in an hour to finalize everything.”
“Fine,” I said, snapping back to myself.
“You okay?”
I checked my watch. “An hour gives us time to drop the wedding certificate at the solicitor’s. Let’s go.”
“Can you slow down?” Lena complained as we exited the solicitor’s office. “Don’t forget I’m nearly a foot shorter than you, and you walk like your shoes are on fire.”
“I want to get to the newspaper office before it closes,” I said, but I slowed anyway, matching her pace. She never had any trouble keeping up with me in Houston, but she wasn’t used to walking on cobblestones, and it was slowing her down.
“The meeting with the lawyer went better than I expected,” she commented.
“How’d you think it was going to go?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know; I expected more questions.”
A laugh caught me off guard. “They weren’t going to make you swear an oath that you married me of your own free will and without coercion.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “I know that. I just assumed?—”
“What? That the man would stare into your soul and ask you to profess your undying love?”
Her lips twitched. “Maybe.”
I snorted. “He’s ticking boxes, just like us. And for now, the will is sorted.” I turned into a nondescript building, coming up to a desk manned by a girl who looked like she was barely out of school. She snapped her gum, eyes glued to her phone as we explained what we’d come to do.
“Fill out the form and sign the bottom,” she said, stabbing her finger into a stack of papers.
I filled out the date and time of Grandad’s funeral, then passed it across the desk with his photo. That, at least, finally dragged her attention away from her phone.
“Aww, he’s well cute,” the girl said.
