“Almost. We’ve not closed yet.”
“I hear you’re fixing her up for a wedding.”
“Yes, the one Annalise is planning.” Ben walked with Brant toward the house. Without the shutters, the windows looked naked and alone.
Brant made his way into the inn. “I’d like to look around.”
Ben pressed his fist against his chest. Somehow Brant’s appearance made the sale of the inn a stark reality.
This place would no longer be his. His home base. No more Granddaddy and Granny or holiday dinners. No more cozy winter nights by the fireplace or summer barbecues. No more Hearts Bend.
Ben eased through the inn’s screen door. The front desk and dog bed were empty. Myrtle May hadn’t been kidding around. Brant paused in the center of the lobby, but he seemed lost in another world. After a moment he stepped around the reception desk and stood under his wife’s painting.
He started to raise his hand to the canvas but hesitated, cleared his throat, and stepped back.
“Granny always said it was yours,” Ben said, propping himself against the wall down to the hall, arms folded. “Macie painted it for you.”
“I don’t mean to contradict your granny,” Brant said, “but Macie painted this for you. Well, you and Cami. It’s hanging here because she wanted it to hang here.” He reached for the painting and brushed his hand over the couple on the bench. “That ole bench. Do you still have it?”
“Not sure. Maybe buried in the barn.”
“We spent a lot of time on that bench, talking and dreaming. Planning.” Brant’s voice faded. “Then the business took off, and I lost track of what was important. Lost the little dreams and the quiet moments with my wife and girls. No, she painted that picture after she’d had a dream.”
The man fell quiet, studying the painting, lost in his memories. Ben moved back quietly. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the man. His success aside, he didn’t appear to be very fatherly to his daughter. Cami seemed to carry some sort of burden related to him.
Ben started toward his office but stopped when Brant spoke again. “In the dream, she and I were old, empty nesters. We came back to the inn to visit Cami and you. She felt God was saying you’d be married one day.” His laugh was full of sentiment. “But she never wanted to say anything to influence either of you. She said God could handle matchmaking. She painted the two of you on the bench as a promise to her own heart. When and if you married, she’d reveal the truth.”
“So why are you telling me now?” Ben moved closer to the painting. He was the man on the bench with Cami? Yes, please. Something was happening to him. Something he could not control, but it felt so freeing.
“I don’t know. I guess I thought you needed to know. You’re headed to Australia, and she’s going to Indianapolis.”
“Do we need the bench for this dream to come true? ’Cause I’m not sure we can find it.”
“I don’t think the bench matters so much as the people on it.” Brant glanced around the inn. “Does Macie have other paintings here?”
“No, but Cami has a few.”
“Show me.”
“They’re in Cottage Three, sir.”
Brant nodded once. “Then perhaps I’ll leave it for now.”
“I have one of Cami’s paintings in my office here. It was my favorite.”
The red camellia leaned against the wall behind the desk. He wanted to ship it to Sydney, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
As Brant approached the picture, Ben knew he wouldn’t be the one to keep the painting.
“I have no right to ask, but can I—” Brant knelt in front of the canvas.
“It’s yours,” Ben said.
“Thank you.”
The sage businessman didn’t stick around much longer. As Ben watched him drive away, he had an overwhelming desire to pray for him.
And for the first time in years, that inner peace that Granny had always talked about, that Dad mentioned so often, flooded over Ben. The peace that only a heavenly Father could give.
