Since that day, Eden had seen Brad’s morose daughter smile a whole two times.
“Somebody’s gettin’ some,” Minnie had said, and poked Eden in the ribs.
Minnie had spent quite a bit of time begging Eden to forgive her. Eden was sure it was small of her, but she couldn’t forgive Minnie for what she’d done. Minnie had hurt people over her imagined involvement with Jared McBride.
Eden didn’t answer her, but she’d told Brad that he had to free Minnie from her obligation to him. “I don’t care if you do hate living alone, we all do, but you must give that girl her freedom.” He deeded the overseer’s house to Minnie, and now she was Eden’s neighbor.
Minnie liked to pretend that nothing had happened between her and Eden, but Eden couldn’t do it. She spoke to Minnie, but she wasn’t warm, wasn’t friendly.
And then there was Jared. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since he went off in a helicopter with Mr. Jolly and his men. That night he’d been angry at her. “I told you to stay put,” he said, his eyes blazing, “but you went up and down the stairs. You could have been killed!”
His tone said he was furious with her, but his eyes looked as though he wanted to pull her into his arms and cry in happiness that she wasn’t hurt. But he hadn’t touched her. By then they were surrounded by people, all of them wanting to ask a thousand questions.
Jared had raised his hand in farewell to her as the helicopter lifted off the ground. She didn’t know if she’d ever see him again.
The next day some art experts arrived and they wanted to take all the paintings away with them, but Eden wouldn’t let them. They’d already lost one of Tyrrell’s paintings in the shower. She wasn’t going to lose the rest of them. She wouldn’t release the paintings until a document, written by Brad, was signed by them saying that they’d make a complete photographic recording of Tyrrell’s family pictures before the underlying paintings were uncovered.
In the end, only four of the paintings turned out to be valuable. One minor, three major. But, historically, the paintings that Tyrrell had preserved were worth a fortune. She’d already been approached by two authors who wanted to write about what the paintings told about the time of the Impressionists.
As Melissa said, Eden was now very wealthy, or would be as soon as the paintings were restored and sold. The art world was excited about the find, and Christie’s auction house expected two of the paintings to go for millions.
“Eden?” Brad asked again. “You don’t look well. Is it the heat? Would you like to go inside to the air-conditioning?”
“No,” she said. “I like it out here.” She looked at him. “Have you ever wanted something so much that you thought you?
?d die without it, then when you got it, it wasn’t as good as you thought it was?”
“Of course. Anyone over the age of three has experienced that.” His face was serious. “What is it you wanted so much?”
“Mrs. Farrington’s life,” she said. “I thought that if I’d had what she was given, I wouldn’t have made a mess of it. She married the wrong man and had the wrong child. She conducted herself in some very unladylike ways. I didn’t realize it, but I was always criticizing her in my mind. I was thinking that if I had had loving parents and I had had a good school and birthday parties and—” She looked at him. “Did you know that I’ve never had a birthday party in my life? It’s been something that I’ve fantasized about all my life. Whenever I watch TV, see a movie, or read a book, and someone gives a birthday party for someone else, even a child, I get teary-eyed. Isn’t that silly?”
“I don’t think wanting affection and celebration is silly,” he said seriously. “Eden, you’re trying to tell me something, but I don’t know what it is.”
She set down her glass of tea. “I wanted Mrs. Farrington’s life, but now that I can have it, I find that I don’t want it. I don’t want to live in that old house alone—” She put up her hand when he started to speak. “I don’t want to live in it with a man and ‘drape it in silk,’ as my daughter says. That house deserves life. Young life.” She didn’t add that her daughter had the “wrong” name, so she’d be safe from all that Eden had grown to dislike about Arundel.
When she started to stand up, Brad caught her arm. His leg was still in bandages and it hurt him a lot. He grabbed his cane and tried to stand, but Eden gently pushed him down in the swing.
“No,” she said. “Don’t get up.” She walked to the edge of the porch. “You know something, Brad? I don’t know anything about myself. I lived as a prisoner when I was a child, and went from childhood to motherhood in one night.” She turned back to face him. “I’ve worked hard at giving my daughter all that I could. I gave up my life for her.”
“But she’s grown-up now,” Brad said.
“Yes, she’s grown now and about to be a mother herself. She went to dances as a teenager and she—” Eden waved her hand. “What I’m trying to say is that I want to find out about myself. I want to find out what I’m good at, what I can do, and what I like. I don’t want to be Mrs. Farrington. I want to be me. It’s just that I’ve experienced so little in my life that I don’t know who I am.”
Sitting on the swing, Brad looked at her. “You want to leave here, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’ll go with you. I’ll live on a sailboat, if it means that I can be near you.”
“No,” Eden answered. “You belong here. This is your town. And you know something? It’s my daughter’s town too. I’m going to give her and Stuart and my grandchild Farrington Manor. They belong there. Stuart can open an accounting firm here in Arundel. It’s a good place to raise a child.”
“It’s a good place to live,” Brad said, his voice pleading with her, his eyes near to tears.
“Brad, you’re a wonderful man, a little controlling for someone as independent as I am, but a good man. But I need to try out my wings. I need to…to see some of the world before I get to be too old to enjoy it.”
“Wherever you want to go, I’ll go with you,” Brad said, struggling to stand up.
She stepped down a step. “Give me a year,” she said. “One year.”
“A year,” he said in agreement. “Then I’m going after you wherever you are in the world.”
“A deal,” she said, then she turned and ran down the porch steps before she could change her mind.