Page 10 of Share with Me
Chapter Four
Kobe steak flownin fresh from Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, notwithstanding, Brinley couldn’t eat a bite of it. She nibbled on a piece of roasted asparagus. Drank water with lime from a cobalt blue goblet. Stared into space, oblivious to the chatter around her. Her eyes were on Zoe and Quincy on the other side of the table, loving and cozy and rubbing foreheads together.
Was that what being in love looked like?
Brinley had nothing of that sort with Phinn. Or any of the guys before him.
This is all my fault.
When Brinley had been a teenager, she was fascinated by Grandpa Brooks’s vast collection of fifteenth- through nineteenth-century musical instruments. On her sixteenth birthday, Grandpa had made her an offer she almost refused. He would bequeath to her his entire music collection valued at millions of dollars at auction, including all the Stradivarius violins he had already owned and had continued to buy, if his favorite granddaughter would do one thing: take a vow of purity until her wedding night.
With an eye on the private collection and what a teenager could do with all that money, she’d said yes. And then spent the next ten years regretting it. Grandpa Brooks had suffered a brain aneurism and died suddenly. In memory of him, she couldn’t possibly break her vow. After all, she bought his religiosity—sort of.
And Brinley always kept the promises she made.
Because of that vow, she’d lost Phinn, Crispin, Xander, and that cute cross-country skier from college who’d all wanted more than what she could give them.
Didn’t they all understand that she was saving herself for her future husband? But Grandpa Brooks wasn’t here to give her support on her cause. What had she done, really, but only exchanged herself for a collection of violins and pianos and things?
Then again, Grandpa Brooks had said that personal purity and good works earned points with God. Even after he’d been gone a decade, Brinley still wanted him to be proud of her, to call her worthy of her special inheritance. Good works, she could do all day long. But what about personal purity? It had begun with that vow, didn’t it? It went from there to all the things that Grandpa Brooks had said would get her God’s approval for her life. Then she’d be fulfilled and would have peace in her heart. No one else had told her otherwise, so what Grandpa had said must be true.
For now, she knew she had done the right thing to let Phinn go.Finally.
“—the rest of that?”
Brinley turned toward Aunt Ella’s voice. She was spooning mashed potatoes from her dinner plate into a ziplock bag that she then carefully arranged into her oversized purse.
“What are you doing, Aunt Ella?” Sotto voce. And where did she get the ziplock bag?
Aunt Ella pointed to Brinley’s plate. “I like asparagus.”
Seriously?“They’ll bring you seconds if you like.”
“Hate to letthatgo to waste.” Aunt Ella’s knobby fingers were on the edge of Brinley’s dinner plate. All Brinley could think of were her fingerprints everywhere.
“Willard always said to eat up,” Aunt Ella said.
Willard.Grandpa Brooks.
Brinley remembered those holidays with Grandpa, how he had grilled the snapper and bass he had caught at sea. How he had always told his grandkids to “eat up” and “don’t let it go to waste.”
Across the table Quincy remarked to Mom something about Kobe. Next to him, Zoe’s seat was empty. Brinley didn’t wonder where Zoe had disappeared to because she could never sit still. Always up and about, doing something. As for Brinley, she could sit in the same spot for hours reading a book.
“Well, it would’ve cost us more if we’d flowneveryoneto Paris and put upeveryoneat the castle.” Mom’s voice carried across the table. She patted Dad’s arm. “This dinner party is cheaper than our new Burgatti Veyron.”
“Frugal is good.” Dad gave Mom a peck on her cheek.
Her parents sure had a different definition of frugal, Brinley thought. She had spent her twenty-sixth birthday at work in Zurich this summer. Dad knew she had been homesick. He had his then personal chef bake a homemade apple pie which he personally flew to Zurich. It was the most expensive pie Brinley had ever eaten. But it was her comfort food, and Dad knew it. Too bad Mom had fired the personal chef. Now they had Cara, their housekeeper for many years, cook for them, burning half the meals.
Brinley nudged her plate away from Aunt Ella’s prying fingers. She picked up her fork and knife, and dug into the steak. The steak was delicious. Lukewarm now, but still, the flavor was there. Whoever the caterers were, they did a great job.
Truly, she had always had good food here on coastal Georgia. She loved going out to eat by the ocean, walking about the shops, reading a book on the beach. She made a mental note to call up her sister-in-law for lunch before she had to go back to Atlanta again the first week in January.
Riley had turned into a hermit since her husband, Brinley’s oldest brother, Parker, had passed away suddenly some five years before. Brinley had made it a point to have lunch with Riley at least once whenever she was in town. Not that Riley had always shown up, but Brinley tried.
Oh, Brinley wished she didn’t have to go back to a big city with its traffic and smog. If she could have her way, she’d move to Sea Island or St. Simon’s Island and never leave.
With her own trust fund available to her since she had turned twenty-six, Brinley didn’t have to earn a salary a single day the rest of her life. She could do pet projects, like those historical preservation projects Dad had been neglecting since his stroke. She’d been helping him out in Brooks Renovations on and off the last several years. Maybe she could do more.
