Page 38 of Painted

When he returned home, he’d found out that his dad had given Early the keys to Rafe’s flat, since Rafe wasn’t due back from the States for another few weeks. Rhys had spent all Sunday sulking about how badly he’d screwed up what he was starting to see was one of the best things that had ever happened to him.

“Who is this Early person Uncle Robert says you’ve been sulking about all weekend?” his cousin Blaine asked early on Monday morning, as the two of them, Nick, and Blaine’s twin brother, Baxter, stood in what had once been the dining hallwhen Hawthorne House had been a school, and which had been part of the immense ballroom when it was a grand Victorian estate.

“They’re the cute person that works in the office with Rebecca,” Baxter answered him. “You know, the one who said they liked your ridiculous shoes last time we were here?”

“Those shoes are not ridiculous,” Blaine said, standing taller with mock offense. “They are Gucci.”

“You and your Gucci,” Baxter laughed and shook his head.

Rhys glanced sideways at them. He wasn’t sure having his cousins on board to plan and execute the fundraiser was the best idea. Blaine was an interior designer of increasing renown, but also one of the more flamboyant of the extended Hawthorne family, which was saying something. Baxter was his identical twin, but that’s where the similarities ended. Bax was an accountant and financial planner, which made him the black sheep of their bohemian family.

The two of them together were sometimes more than Rhys could handle, since Blaine was over the top and Bax loved to egg him on. They were good people, though, and Rhys understood why his dad had brought them in to plan the fundraiser.

“This is the only space in the house big enough for the type of event we want to have,” Nick stepped in before the twins’ conversation could get out of hand. “If the weather were better, I would say we should have it outside, by the Renaissance faire stage.”

“Of course you would say that,” Blaine teased Nick with a sly grin.

Nick sighed and pushed a hand through his hair, like he wasn’t in the mood. Blaine had a point, though. Nick had been hired years ago to run the forge on the grounds of Hawthorn House. He was a master metalsmith, and even Rhys had to admit he was most in his element when he was outdoors,stripped to the waist, wearing his leather apron as he pounded away on some sort of intricate metalwork that he’d just taken from the blast furnace.

The forge was almost as old as Hawthorne House itself. It was a miracle it still existed and had been in almost constant use since the days when such a thing was necessary. It had come close to falling into disrepair and being demolished in the seventies, when Hawthorne House had been a boys’ school, but it had hung on until Nick was hired several years ago to bring it back to life.

That was when Nick had met Raina, a different sort of sparks flew, and the two of them got married and had Jordan and Macy. Almost the entirety of Nick and Raina’s courtship had happened outside, so it was no surprise to Rhys at all that Nick would want the tribute to her to happen out of doors as well.

“We’ll have to make do with this place,” Rhys said, not really happy with it either.

“There’s a lot to make do with,” Blaine said, glancing around the spacious room. “There’s plenty of space for tables, both for dining and to display the various items for sale in the silent auction. We can set up a multimedia display with a slideshow honoring Raina and Mariel Flint over there.”

Rhys sighed loudly, which was actually an effort to keep his feelings on the subject or Mariel Flint under control.

“What?” Nick snapped at him, proving he’d done a piss poor job of hiding his emotions once again.

The last thing Rhys wanted after a long and painful weekend was a confrontation with his brother-in-law. “You know how I feel about this whole thing,” he said in a low grumble.

“Yes, I know,” Nick kept at him, angrier than ever. “You don’t want it to happen.”

“I don’t,” Rhys admitted, his brow going up at the force of Nick’s irritation.

“You don’t want to have a tribute to your own sister, someone who all of us loved dearly, so that we can celebrate her memory and everything good she brought to this world,” Nick charged on.

Blaine and Bax stepped back slightly as Rhys rounded on Nick, his arms crossed tightly.

“I’m fine with celebrating Raina.” He raised his voice to match Nick’s level of frustration, even though a sensible voice in the back of his head told him he was losing control all over again. “It’s that other one, the murderer, that I don’t want to celebrate. Even her sister doesn’t want to do this.”

“So you’re going to try to sabotage everything that everyone does, things that will be beautiful and help the entire family find closure, because of one bad decision someone you don’t even know made on one night?” Nick demanded.

“That bad decision killed my sister and your wife,” Rhys argued.

“Like you’ve never made a bad decision before?” Nick kept at him.

Hot prickles broke out all over Rhys’s skin and his face heated. He’d made so many bad decisions. He’d spent the entire weekend gutting himself over one in particular. He knew full well that he was making an arse of himself and behaving like a child. But he loved Raina. He loved her so much, and he could have used her advice and guidance just then, but she was gone.

“Why don’t we take a walk around the room to see how we can use the space,” Blaine stepped in cautiously.

“Sure,” Nick said, still boiling, but doing a better job of keeping himself contained than Rhys was doing.

Grief was hard. That was the best excuse he could come up with for his terrible behavior and out-of-control emotions as he followed his cousins and Nick around the room. Blaine did mostof the talking as they surveyed the space, and Rhys only partially listened.

Grief was hard, but love was harder. Instead of stewing about Raina as Blaine and Bax debated the number of tables that would be needed and the budget that Hawthorne House could afford, Rhys fell back into worrying about Early and the fact that he hadn’t seen them since Thursday morning. Of course, it helped nothing at all that his thoughts kept sliding back into thinking that he was to blame. He hurt everyone who liked him or cared about him.

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