She looked slightly uneasy as he approached. “Sorry about this, Trent. I know you try to take the weekends off, but he didn’t want to wait until Monday.”
“No problem, Darla.” But as the words left his lips, he realized that it actually was a problem. What if he’d been with Reese when the phone call had come? Would he have raced off to meet Chandler? Heck, he should be out there with her right now, keeping her company while she painted, enjoying watching her work on something she was so passionate about.
“Trent.” Chandler’s deep voice greeted him. “Have a seat.” Wearing a white shirt and striped tie, with his frail shoulders pulled up high beneath his ears, Chandler was dressed as he was every day of the week.
Trent wondered if there was ever a time of day when he let his guard down, and it made him sad to think that his grandfather was always this uptight, or miserable.
“Good afternoon, Grandfather.” He smiled at Didi as he sat down, wondering how she managed to stay sane, keeping up with Chandler’s gruff demeanor without ever looking tired or disgruntled, especially when her workweek wasn’t just Monday through Friday. Chandler was clearly more than a full-time proposition. Only someone as strong as Didi could put up with him.
“It’s nice to see you, Didi,” he said to her. But as Trent sat before his grandfather on Sunday afternoon, he wondered again what the hell he was doing there. Just because he’d agreed to take over running the resort with his brothers and father didn’t mean he’d agreed to give his grandfather his entire life.
“Is the paperwork for the deed transfer complete?” Chandler’s eyes never wavered from Trent’s. His tone was cold, businesslike.
Wouldn’t it be nice, just once, to hear his grandfather ask how he was doing or how he liked running the resort? But that wasn’t Chandler’s style. Chandler was all business all the time, and it made for tiresome conversations.
“I’m waiting on finalization of one document. I’ll make an appointment with the notary and bring it up for signature Tuesday morning before filing it with the county.”
Chandler nodded. “Very well,” he said in a dismissive tone.
“Is that all you needed?” Trent couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice at his grandfather’s gall, calling him in to the resort on a weekend for one question that could have easily been handled over the phone.
When Chandler nodded, Trent nearly opened his mouth to say that they could have accomplished that in a phone call or e-mail rather than a face-to-face meeting. But he’d always gone out of his way to be cool-headed and even-tempered with his grandfather, so instead of laying into him, he turned and headed for the door.
“Is it true that you and that Nicholson girl are seeing each other again?”
Chandler’s question stopped Trent in his tracks. He clenched his jaw and reminded himself that Chandler wasn’t specifically being rude to Reese. He was rude in general.
“Her name is Reese, and yes, we are seeing each other again.”
But Trent was no longer interested in fighting the urge to lay into his grandfather. Work was one thing, but he was way the hell off base if he was going to insult the woman Trent loved.
But before Trent could say another word, Chandler grumbled, “’Bout damn time,” leaving Trent too stunned to reply at all before Didi wheeled his grandfather away.
* * *
BY THE TIME the sun began its slow descent from the sky, casting a grayish hue over the resort, the right side of the mural was beginning to take shape. Deep brown mulch edged a grassy knoll surrounding billowing gardens, which gave way to the aged walls and peaked roof of a bay-side cottage. Reese stood on a ladder painting an umbrella of leaves in shades of green and yellow in the rear of the garden. A few more hours and the trees would be done. She’d been so consumed with the mural that every stroke of the brush felt like it was coming straight from her heart as she poured her love of the island, and in turn, her love for Trent, into her work.
She painted the yellow flowers at the base of the mural, remembering the afternoon of her wedding when Trent had picked the same flower for her. They’d dreamed of one day having a cottage of their own and a gaggle of children who would play in the yard and skip along the beach. She dipped her brush in the paint and moved to deeper shades of green, remembering how Trent had planned to teach their children to sail and play ball, and she had planned to carry on her mother’s Sunday-morning breakfast tradition. She’d wanted to teach their children to appreciate art while Trent instilled a joy of reading. But they hadn’t stayed together long enough to have a cottage or a family.