Page 166 of Share with Me
“We’re calling it a day and going home, Dad. Hey Brinley, you need any help later today with the move or something?”
“Meg and the movers should be here, and she’ll tell them where I want everything to go. It’s going to be just the way I had it in my Atlanta house.”
Meg had started out in Atlanta before exhaustion caused her to move out of the busy metropolis to the more laid-back Georgia coast. Somehow Dad had found her, and she revived her interior design business. Doubling up as a property manager gave her the income she needed to feed her workaholism.
“Same design, huh? You don’t like changes, do you?” Tobias asked.
“I do too.” Brinley waved her arms at the sea blue wainscoting and the white frames of the transom windows. “I changed some colors.”
“But they’re essentially what you had before. In your old house.”
“Which does have a nautical theme.”
“In the city.” Tobias helped his dad to his feet.
“Nothing wrong with living in the city,” Brinley said.
“It’s landlocked.”
“What’s landlocked?” It was Meg’s voice coming from the door.
“You’re ready to go to work, aren’t you?” Brinley took in her sneakers, jeans, and pretty blouse. From the corner of her eye, she saw Tobias looking in the same direction she had been.
Meg ignored Tobias. “Movers are outside, Brinley.”
Brinley waved to Tobias and his dad as she went downstairs. She liked her open floor plan. The kitchen flowed to the dining room to one side and to the family room on the other side, connected by a salvaged wide-paneled oak floor, which Brinley had bought at a local antique auction years ago just waiting for a house to put them in. Dating all the way to the early nineteenth century, the old oak floor had come from an old church in Darien that had been razed down for development.
Beyond the oak floor in the currently empty living room, the new French doors beckoned Brinley to check out their shiny brass knobs and clean shatterproof panes. One never knew when a hurricane would strike.
Pretty soon my furniture will fill up this family room.
To those furniture pieces, she’d add small little finds here and there on her travels, unlike those expensive and large period pieces that Mom would buy.
She knew exactly where her piano was going to be. Right next to the piano she’d have a music stand. An antique music stand Mom had found in Vienna and was going to give to her. A music stand for—
Why am I thinking of him?
Brinley knew she had to let him go.
But how, Lord?
She was still ruminating on what to do when the movers backed their tractor-trailer onto her driveway. All her belongings from her house in Buckhead, except for her grand piano, had fitted into that semi. She might have to buy new furniture to cover the rest of the space in this new house.
Her iPhone chirped.
It was Yun McMillan. Brinley quickly answered it. “Is everything all right?”
“Oh yes, I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”
Brinley waited.
“Would you like to continue our Tea for Two?” Yun asked. Brinley thought her voice sounded tentative.
“Of course. You know Ivan doesn’t want me to go to your house, but you’re most welcome here at my new home if you don’t mind all the boxes and dust.”
“Congratulations, Brinley. I’m happy for you. No, I don’t mind dust at all. How about tomorrow?”
Nervous voice. So unlike Yun she had met in December.
What have you done to your grandmother, Ivan?
