Page 86 of The Cottage on Blueberry Bay

But now…

“Thank you so much for coming,” Remy said, walking a middle-aged man into the living room.

Meredith stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Meredith.”

“Greg,” he said, holding out his hand to meet hers.

“Let me take you to his studio,” Remy said, and then walked Greg through the house.

Remy let Greg walk in first, and he walked deeper into the room before saying anything. “This is the collection?”

Meredith couldn’t read if he was disappointed or not. They had spent the night putting some of Jacob’s best pieces around the studio on easels and against the walls in order from oldest to most recent.

“This is just part of it,” Remy said, her fingers clasped together. Remy’s confidence was unshaken. “There’s more throughout the house and the barn. We organized it like you suggested.”

“And this is just some of the collection?” he asked again.

Meredith questioned his credentials for repeating basically the same question.

But Remy smiled at this. “Yup.”

Greg started laughing. “And no one else has seen this?”

Remy shook her head. “Not that we’re aware of.”

Greg’s mouth widened into a large grin. He looked like he had just found buried treasure. “Wow. Okay. I promise you, that if I run this auction, I can bring in the top buyers that will pay exorbitantly for his work.”

“Seriously?” Meredith saw the beauty in Jacob’s work, but a landscape was a landscape.

“I’ll need to go through all of it,” Greg said to Remy, who pulled out a small notebook. He laughed again. “But this…” Greg turned in a circle as he said, “This is an extraordinary collection.”

Remy took over from there, and Meredith was happy to let her sister do so. Remy knew more about art than she did.

“Love that piano.” Greg pointed at the upright as they passed through the dining room.

As Remy and Greg went to the living room, Meredith fell behind and stopped at the piano. She lifted the cover. Then with her index finger, she hit F sharp and listened to the sound until it faded to silence. And she hit it again, listening until it faded.

“Mer!” Remy called from upstairs. “You coming?”

They showed Greg around the whole house before taking him out to the barn, passing two of the Queen Bees that Meredith had recently met.

“This an incredible collection of your father’s life’s work,” Greg said, taking photos with his phone and typing something afterward. “I mean, I’ve never seen someone’s full collection like this.”

“So, you think they could sell?” Remy asked.

“I think you have something very, very special on your hands,” he said, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “We need to tell people about this collection. Call some museums around New England and New York,” he said. “Seriously, this might be museum-worthy. Maybe even set up a traveling art exhibit. Let me call a few friends. We can have an invite-only viewing with some of the most prestigious dealers and collectors on the East Coast. Have an auction either in the city or even have it here.”

“Wow, you think people will travel all the way up here to buy his pieces?” Meredith couldn’t believe this.

He nodded his head, walking into the barn. His mouth opened in awe. “I mean, when Remy showed me the chaos at first, I thought it would never be put together.”

Remy flashed a look at Meredith, and something happened between them right then. A mutual acknowledgement of what they had accomplished together. A renewed bond. A promise to take care of each other without even having to say a thing. The two sisters had gone through a lot as they’d unpacked Jacob’s art collection from a disorderly mess into an amazing collection.

“Like how much are we talking here?” Meredith asked, but she watched Remy’s face when Greg started calculating numbers out loud.

“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves” Remy said, holding out her hands. “You haven’t gone through the whole collection.”

Meredith realized she trusted no one more than her sister right then, and she felt confident Remy felt the same. She would do anything for her sister and her family. They had each other’s backs. Their sisterhood was stronger than marriages and friendships. It was Meredith’s strongest relationship.

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