"Go save yourself. I'll get a drink," I told her, and she flashed me an appreciative smile and headed for the staircase. It was a grand, elaborate set of stairs. The whole house was pretty fabulous. It had been Rush's before Blaire. His dad had bought it for him when he was a kid. His mother used to live there when she was in town, but he wasn't on speaking terms with her at the moment.
I walked through the house and stopped to look at the life-sized portrait of Nate above the fireplace in the drawing room. His hair was going to be as pale as his mother's, or at least it looked like it now. The longer it got, the blonder it was.
The kitchen was at the other end of a long hallway with really high ceilings. There were framed photos of the three of them covering the walls. They weren't professional pictures but casual family photos of them playing at the beach or opening gifts at Christmas. There was even one with Rush on a slide with Nate in his lap. He so didn't look like the kind of guy to go down a slide.
Once I got to the kitchen, I fixed myself a glass of tea. The pantry door stood open and I walked over and peeked inside. I had heard about the hidden room under the stairs that you got to through the pantry. It had been where Rush had stuck Blaire when she first came to Rosemary looking for her dad.
Smiling, I wondered if they ever went in that room . . . to remember.
The doorbell rang again and Blaire's footsteps echoed as she came down the stairs. I had wondered if Bethy would come. I hadn't seen her anywhere else so I wasn't sure she would show up, even though Blaire was her best friend.
Both women walked into the room and Bethy's sad, empty eyes met mine. I set my glass down and went over to hug her. She looked like she needed a hug.
"I've missed you," I told her.
She wrapped her arms weakly around me. "Thanks," she sniffled.
"No crying. We're going to eat the cookies I made and not think about calories, and we're going to talk," Blaire announced as she picked up a covered tray, walked over to the table, and set it down.
I wasn't sure if this was going to work, but Blaire looked pretty determined. I watched Bethy as she tried to gather herself and took a seat across from me.
"Okay, so maybe we need to cry first," Blaire said as she saw Bethy's face crumple. "Talk to us. We're here to listen."
Bethy lifted her eyes and shook her head. "No, I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of being sad. I just want to be able to smile again."
"We haven't lost the man we love but we both have lost people we love. I've lost my mother and my sister. Della lost her mother. We know it hurts and we want you to scream and yell, whatever you have to do to get it out. Then you need to eat cookies and think of funny stories that make you laugh. Think about things that Jace did to make you laugh. Remember him in the good ways. They will overcome the bad memory of that night. I promise you, they will."
Woods
Jimmy had called to tell me I needed to get Grant from the bar. He had drunk too much and was now calling my new golf pro a douchebag. Not a good thing. He'd regret that tomorrow.
I walked past Jimmy, who was shaking his head with an amused grin on his face. Grant was leaning on the bar, trying to convince the new bartender that he was a congressman and demanding another drink.
"I got this," I told the new guy, who looked very relieved.
Grant spun around and almost fell over a stool. "Hey, Woods! It's you. Get me another shot, buddy," he slurred. Grant only called people buddy when he was drinking.
"Not a chance in hell," I replied. "Come on, you're going home. You're done for the night."
Grant jerked his arm out of my grasp. "I don't wanna go home. I wanna stay here. I like it here. It's better here. If I go back to my place"---he lowered his voice, although he was still talking really loudly---"she will come."
"Who is she?" I asked, grabbing his arm and jerking him up. I started pushing him toward the door before he could protest this time.
"She is she," he said, whispering loudly again.
"She is she? Really? Man, how much have you had to drink?"
Once we were outside, Grant looked around and realized we had been walking. "Aww, damn. You tricked me. We left."
"Why don't you want to go to your place? You need to sleep this off."
Grant looked around us like he was looking for someone who might be hiding and waiting for him to tell a highly important secret.
"She's Nan. Always Nan. And she's pissed. When she gets pissed she gets possessive, then naughty, then she does things and I end up letting her, but now I don't want to let her 'cause I don't even like her. So I can't go home."
Nothing he had said made sense except that he didn't like Nan. Neither did the rest of the world. I was pretty damn sure there was a Twitter hashtag that said #NanHater.
"You want to crash in one of the rooms here?" I asked him as he stumbled and sat down on a bench.