“Good morning!” Daniel called out as he and the rest of the family came into view, the now-familiar cart trundling up the road.
The Chandlers. His father, mostly likely. And his brother.
Beau waved back, aware that the simple act of being relaxed, that had come to him so naturally yesterday, took far more effort today.
“You’re going to be fine.” Madeline’s calm voice broke through his nerves. She’d just stepped out the back door, smoothing her apron as she approached. “This is supposed to feel awkward.”
“I feel like you’re a nurse, preparing me for something painful.”
“As Tilda would say, I think you’ll feel a little something. It won’t necessarily be comfortable, but it’s not really painful. And you’ll be much better afterwards.”
Her reassurance buoyed him, but not even the warmth in her smile could do much to alleviate the twists in his gut. Only yesterday, he’d known who he was. A da Silva. The wealthy son of a proud, thunderous, mighty titan of industry. He made money, and he was good at it.
As the wagon drew near, and he saw Daniel’s face with Hollis beside him, that certainty slipped away.
A moment later, the Chandlers disembarked and began unloading the tools. Beau couldn’t help but feel every glance in his direction. It would drive him crazy if he couldn’t get this out into the open. But he would do it privately first, with Hollis.
“Why don’t you take the horses to the barn?” Madeline asked him. “There’re sitting empty. Perhaps Mr. Chandler can help.”
Beau wanted to roll his eyes. She really wasn’t one for subtlety, was she?
“Perfect,” Daniel said, displaying no hint of awkwardness or even awareness of the tension running through Beau. “Dad, do you mind? Teddy and I can set up the sawhorses and we can get to work.”
Hollis shook his head and gave Beau a warm, if tentative glance. It occurred to Beau that it was entirely possible the note he found between Emily Redden and Hollis Chandler was nothing more than a youthful romance, and that every time Hollis looked at Beau, he saw her. But Beau had eyes, and every time he looked at Hollis, he saw a little bit of himself.
Or was he imagining that, too?
“I suppose you know the barn better than I do,” Beau said, as he hopped back into the cart while Hollis took the reins. He’d never been a man who found conversation hard to come by, even in the most tense of business negotiations. But this was something else, and he felt woefully unprepared.
Hollis gave the reins a gentle flick, and the horses started a leisurely walk to the barn.
“I spent a lot of time here, helping sweep out that barn,” he said, then pointed to a patch in the roof that looked darker than the shingles around it. “Damn near killed myself slipping off that roof trying to patch it. If it wasn’t for your mother, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”
The sudden and casual mention of his mother made Beau’s stomach lurch, even as the horses came to a stop. They hopped down and started unhitching the two Canadian horses from the cart.
“You knew my mother really well,” Beau asked.
Hollis’ eyes lit up with a gentle fire.
“Yes,” he said. “But I think you know that, don’t you?”
“I didn’t really know it until yesterday,” Beau replied, then pulled the letter from the old recipe book out of his pocket and held it up. “Though I think Annie knew from almost the moment she saw me.”
The older man’s eyes softened as he laid eyes on the note, and Beau held it out to him. Hollis’s hands, which were still strong, shook just a little as he reached for the folded paper.
“We found this in the cottage,” he said. “I assume you are H.C.”
A strained smile tightened Hollis’s jaw as he read over the yellowed page. He blew out a low breath, as if trying to steady his emotions, before folding it up and giving it back to him.
“I didn’t know she’d even kept that,” he said. “Of course, I suppose she didn’t, if you found it here.”
A fresh hurt seemed to cut across his face, and it occurred to Beau that whatever memories this man had of Beau’s mother, they were wrapped up in a fresh wave of emotion that wasn’t necessarily pleasant.
“Emily was a real firecracker,” Hollis said. “Smart. Hot headed. But I loved that about her. I thought she could run the world if she had the chance. You must have missed her, when she passed.”
“I was eight,” Beau replied, his mind going back to the horrible night the pneumonia took her. “I missed her very much. I remember her being a very vibrant woman.”
“That she was. This place was far too quiet for a girl like her. She wanted to outshine the sun if she could.”
