Touching the Billionaire - Holly Jaymes Page 0,48

to think you were going to miss my very special pancakes for breakfast and have to skip right to lunch,” my grandfather said, entering the kitchen from the family room.

I went to him and gave him a hug as well. “I would never miss your pancakes, pop.”

For them, everything was a partnership. She made the batter, he cooked it into pancakes. She shopped for groceries, together they emptied the car and he put them away.

“The coffee is brewed, if you want to grab a cup and go sit with your sister out in the sunroom while your grandfather and I finish breakfast,” my grandmother said.

“Are you sure there isn’t anything you want me to help you with?”

Both my grandparents shook their heads. “No. You’re home for rest, so you go enjoy the beautiful morning,” my grandmother said

I grabbed a cup of coffee and then I walked out to the sun porch where Nadine was also still in her jammies, tucked away into one of the chairs with coffee and looking out to the woods behind my grandparents’ home.

She looked up and smiled. “We really are spoiled here, aren’t we?”

I nodded and laughed as I sat in one of the other chairs and tucked my feet up underneath me. “We definitely are.”

“Do you think a part of their success is that they’re out here, away from all the craziness of the city? I mean, here, they can be themselves.”

I thought about what Nadine was saying. “I don’t know. Maybe.” It was an interesting thought. In New York, the city moved so quickly. And particularly in my line of work, nothing was real. After all, it was called acting. But even out in the real world, I had to maintain a certain type of look and attitude, which meant even when I wasn’t working, I was still acting. Still not truly myself.

“So, what do you think we should do today?” Nadine asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

“I was thinking maybe we could go for a walk in the woods.”

“It’s going to be hot and humid here. If we’re going to do it, we should probably go soon before it’s too sticky hot.”

“Maybe we can take a walk to the pond and go swimming,” I suggested. That idea brought a flood of warmth inside me. It was another one of the things I loved about my childhood. It made me think that Nadine really was onto something about being able to be oneself up here at our grandparents’ house. When I was living here, I was just a kid living free and having fun. There were swims in the pond and even fishing. Sometimes Nadine and I would try to catch lightning bugs and keep them in a jar.

As I got older and closer to graduating from high school, I felt a little stifled and bored by the area, but now, after having been gone for a while, I was beginning to see the charm and the way this place could soothe a weary soul.

We had my grandfather's super-duper pancakes. After breakfast, Nadine and I helped my grandmother in the garden harvesting some of her vegetables that she planned to take to the farmers’ market the next morning. Then we played rummy with my grandfather who always beat us.

After lunch, we took a nap, which felt especially luxurious and was something I realized I really missed. I wondered if I could talk Corrine into letting us have a siesta after lunch when we were filming.

After our nap, Nadine and I decided that even though it was still hot and humid, we would take a walk to the pond and go for a swim. I put on an old bathing suit that I still had there. I was a little bit rounder now than I had been when I was last wearing it, but it fit well enough for what we were going to do. It was a pond in the middle of nowhere. Who’d see me?

I pulled on a pair of old jeans shorts and a t-shirt over my suit. I took my ponytail and knotted it up on the top of my head. I definitely looked like some sort of female version of Huck Finn. We grabbed a couple of towels and then headed out of the house toward the pond.

“I remember living here and thinking how dumb and boring all this was, but now I’m thinking how lovely it is,” Nadine said as we started to weave through the trees.

“I