Page 78 of Cowboy of Convenience
Evelyn nodded, blinking hard as she tried to keep the tears burning her eyes at bay. She smoothed her hands up and down his back, trying to comfort him the only way she knew how. Nothing she could say would make this better. Nothing she could do would bring back the mother he once knew. There wasn’t a plan in the world that could fix this.
So she just held him quietly, waiting until Grady leaned back to meet her eyes. The pain she saw there was consuming. The kind they could both easily get lost in.
And he didn’t need her lost. He needed her to do what she’d been doing for the past year.
He needed her to figure it out. To be as brave as he thought she was.
Evelyn reached up to smooth out his sleep messed hair and offered up the first logical step to making it through this. “Let’s go see your mom.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
GRADY
"IT FEELS STRANGE to be here without her." Grady scrubbed one hand over his face, trying to rub away the exhaustion burning the edges of his eyes. They’d been going nonstop since leaving the hospital, trying to get everything organized and in line.
"I can imagine." Evelyn stuck close as he moved up the stairs of his parents’ house, looking at it through different eyes.
It was no longer their home. No longer the family haven it once was. It felt empty even though there was only one thing missing. Every other item was exactly where it had been a week ago, but the crush of emptiness was oppressive. Smothering.
"How long did you live here?" Evelyn's question was soft, like she wanted to give the space, and the grief inside it, the respect they deserved.
Grady led her into the first door on the right. "Right up until I moved into the A-frame on the mountain, so almost thirty years."
Evelyn gave him a little bit of a smile as she followed him in. "Kind of a late bloomer, weren't you?"
"I think I felt guilty." Grady moved to sit down in the chair behind the same desk his father used to work at. "I knew they were disappointed I didn't love the ranch as much as they did, so I thought maybe they’d feel better if I stayed until I had a reason to go." He leaned over to open the filing cabinet, sifting through the papers in search of the documents he needed. "Honestly, I figured I'd get married by the time I was twenty-five and have an excuse to leave. But that didn't happen." He pulled out a manila envelope stamped with the name of the funeral home that handled his dad’s final services and would now be caring for his mother. "But then my dad sat me down and told me I needed to live my life the way I wanted to, and if that didn't include the ranch, it would be okay." He opened the unsealed flap and sifted through the papers inside, making sure everything was there. "But then he died and my mom went downhill, and all I could do was try to keep all the balls in the air." He added the folder and papers to the pile he’d already collected.
“Is that everything?” Evelyn didn’t sound nearly as exhausted as he was.
She’d been a trooper. Not only had she gone with him to see his mother before the funeral home came to pick her up, but she’d been at his side while he made phone calls and ran errands, doing his best to get as much handled as possible. Which included collecting all the paperwork about the funeral his parents had the forethought to prearrange.
But he was still missing two sets of documents. "I'm surprised everything wasn’t in the same place."
His father had been a meticulous bookkeeper, and he'd done his best to keep up with it, but his own methods weren’t perfect. He had a habit of moving things. Deciding it made more sense to put it somewhere else.
Except he didn't remember touching the will or investment records at all.
"Is there someplace else you might have put them?" Evelyn looked around the office. "Maybe a safe or lock box of some sort."
Grady huffed out a little laugh. "What would I do without you?" He stood up, grabbing Evelyn and pulling her in for a quick kiss before going to the painting concealing the wall safe his father installed twenty years ago. "You're right. I think I put them in here right after my dad died." A faint recollection wiggled around the back of his brain, but that was all that remained of the long past moment. He quickly entered the combination and opened the door. Sure enough, everything from his parents’ attorney was stacked inside, safe and sound, along with the cash they kept on hand.
"Holy shit, Grady." Evelyn looked from the contents of the safe to him. "Please tell me that's not paper money in an ancient wall safe."
"I'm pretty sure this is fireproof." Grady looked around the edges for some sort of stamp that might prove his claim, but there was nothing. "Probably."
"Not to be bossy, but you might want to consider putting that stuff into a safety deposit box." She reached out to scrape her fingernail over the flaking finish of the safe. "At least until you invest in something a little more durable looking."
He took a closer look at the safe he’d never paid much attention to and laughed in spite of the day. "Have I ever told you my dad loved trying to build the weirdest shit?" He leaned close enough to notice the jagged welding and hammered edges. "I bet he built this himself." The realization stabbed a pain deep into his chest. "There’s probably things like this all through this house."
Evelyn reached out to gently inspect the door of the safe. "It's not terrible, but I don't think I would trust it to protect my most precious items in a natural disaster." Her lips quirked. “Or a sausage pan fire.”
Grady reached in to collect everything inside. "Agreed." He stacked the items on the desk before settling the picture back into place.
Evelyn looked over the framed piece of art, her fingers going to the initials at the bottom. "HEH." She lifted a brow. "That wouldn't happen to be your father, would it?"
Grady barked out a laugh. "Yup. Harold Edward Haynes." He shook his head. "He didn't just make the safe. He had to make the art to hide it too."
Evelyn’s eyes sparkled, her smile widening. “Sounds like your dad was just as cool as your mom.” She pressed her lips together. “What else do you think he made in this house?”
