A Beautiful Funeral (The Maddox Brothers #5) - Jamie McGuire Page 0,13

decorated with interesting art or my drawings. We’d repainted and laid new carpet, but the house was older than we were. Even though at the time of purchase it was a steal, the fixer-upper had turned into a money pit. The central heat and air and much of the plumbing system were new. At one point, we had to peel back the new—but wet—carpet to jackhammer the foundation to get to the pipes and replace them. The last ten years had been a long haul, but now we lived in a like-new home, even if we did have to deplete our savings four times to do it. We were in a good place, finally, and neither of us knew what to do with it but move to the next step. Infertility wasn’t something we could fix, and that made Camille feel broken.

“Baby,” I said, tapping on the door with my knuckles. “Let me come in.”

“Just … just give me a second,” she said, sniffing.

I leaned my forehead against the door. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself. I think maybe it’s …”

“I’m not giving up!” she snapped.

“No. Maybe try a different avenue.”

“We can’t afford a different avenue,” she said. Her voice was even quieter than it had been. She didn’t want to make me feel worse than I already did.

“I’ll figure something out.”

After a few moments of silence, the door clicked, and Camille opened the door. Her red-rimmed eyes were glossed over, and red blotches dotted her face. She was never more beautiful, and all I wanted to do was hold her, but she wouldn’t let me. She would pretend her heart wasn’t broken to keep me from hurting as she always did—no matter how many times I’d told her it was okay to cry.

I touched her cheek, but she pulled away, her painted smile fading just long enough to kiss my palm. “I know you will. I just needed to grieve.”

“You can grieve out here, baby doll.”

She shook her head. “No, I can’t. I needed to take a moment for myself.”

“Because otherwise, you’re worried about me,” I scolded.

She shrugged, her feigned smile turning into a real one. “I’ve tried to change. I can’t.”

I brought her into my chest, holding her tight. “I wouldn’t want you to. I love my wife just the way she is.”

“Camille?” Olive said, holding one side of the of the doorjamb. Her waist-length, platinum blond hair cascaded in waves from her center part down each side of her face, making her sadness seem to weigh her down even more. Her round, green eyes glistened, feeling every disappointment, every setback as deeply as we did because she was family, too. By chance and by blood, whether she knew it or not.

As I watched her lean the delicate features of her oval face against the wooden trim, I remembered being blown away by the truth: Olive, my neighbor and little buddy since she could walk, was adopted, and somehow, her biological mother had fallen in love with my older brother Taylor almost a thousand miles away in Colorado Springs. By chance, I’d helped raise my niece—involved in her life even more than my brother or sister-in-law.

Camille looked at Olive and breathed out a small laugh, pulling away from me while simultaneously licking her thumbs and then wiping away the smudged mascara from beneath her eyes. Her hair was longer than it had been since she was a girl, grazing the middle of her back and the same hue as Olive’s, with a shaved patch just above her ear to keep it ‘edgy.’ I’d just redone the tat on her fingers—the first tattoo I’d ever done for her, and her first tattoo ever. It read Baby Doll, the nickname I’d given her early in our relationship, and it had somehow stuck. As hard as she tried not to fit in, Camille was a classic beauty. The name fit her then just as it did now.

“I’m okay,” Camille said, following with a cleansing sigh. “We’re okay.”

She walked over to the doorway to give Olive a quick hug and then tightened the folded navy blue handkerchief she was using as a headband. She sniffed, the pain visibly fading away and disappearing. My wife was a badass.

“Cami,” I began.

“I’m good. We’ll try again next month. How’s Dad?”

“He’s good. Talking my ear off. It’s getting harder to get him to come out with me. Tommy and Liis are bringing the new baby …” I trailed off, waiting for the inevitable hurt in