I grimaced. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Talbot.” I picked up the pills at the edge of his dresser, shaking two into my palm and handing them to him.
He spared me a quick glance before taking what I offered. There was actually an hour before it was time for his pills, and I didn’t like that he obviously wanted them early because it meant he was experiencing pain beyond leg cramps. Not that he’d ever admit to that. “No need to be sorry. And I’ve told you to call me Harry. If you’re going to be in my bedroom insulting my mother, we might as well be on a first-name basis.”
My lip quirked. “Okay, Harry.” He’d told me to call him Harry a hundred times. It was my strict upbringing—the dictates of respect that had been drummed into me—that had me constantly slipping back to the more formal address when it came to my boss.
He sighed. “Give me an update on operations.”
I pulled the desk chair closer to the bed and sat down, filling Mr. Talbot—Harry—in on Graystone Hill operations. The farm’s main business was the breeding and training of thoroughbred horses, but in recent years it had branched out into therapeutic equine programs, riding instruction, and other classes open to the public. I worked mostly at the house, assisting with the business end of things, and I liked it. But my passion was for the horses, and I stole down to the stables every chance I could get. A year before, I’d asked if I might help at the stables here and there, providing my secretarial duties were done, and Mr. Talbot had agreed. Here and there had become every afternoon, so now I supposed I had my hands in a little bit of everything at Graystone Hill. It brought me purpose, pride, peace, and it might just have saved my soul.
Once business had been discussed, I excused myself so he could shower and get dressed. I worried about when he wouldn’t be able to perform those personal rituals for himself. An independent man like Harry Talbot wasn’t going to handle that well, and it was going to hurt to watch it happen. Some part of me wondered if that was going to hurt even more than losing him.
Putting those depressing thoughts aside for now, I headed to the kitchen. May was humming as she mixed something together in a large metal bowl. “How’s the old codger?”
“Testy.”
May smiled fondly. “Good.” She put down her wooden spoon, poured me a cup of coffee, and set it and the creamer in front of me, along with a gooey cinnamon roll. I took a grateful sip of the coffee.
“Thank you, May.”
She smiled. “You eat every morsel of that. I’m going to fatten you up yet.”
I laughed, taking a bite of the delicious roll, cinnamon and sugar bursting across my tongue. I moaned. “Oh Lord, that’s good.”
May smiled, returning to her mixing as I sipped at my coffee, recalling the article that had been in Mr. Talbot’s room, the picture of the handsome man in the suit. “May?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Do you know who Brant Talbot is?”
May paused, standing straight from where she’d just checked on something in the oven and turning toward me.
“Yes, of course. Brant is Mr. Talbot’s boy.”
I furrowed my brow in surprise. “His boy? His son? But I . . . I’ve been here for three years and I’ve never heard a whisper about a son.” Not even during holidays. That’s why he’d looked so familiar though, I realized. He was a younger version of his still-handsome father.
Sadness crept into May’s eyes and she leaned against the counter, staring off somewhere behind me as if looking into the past. “They had a falling out . . . oh, I guess it’s been going on thirteen years now.” She shook her head. “Mr. Talbot doesn’t speak about Brant and doesn’t like his name mentioned. How’d
you hear about him?”
“An article in Mr. Talbot’s room.”
May looked at me curiously. “You don’t say. Well, I suppose staring down the end of your life makes a person reconsider some things.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Maybe he’s thinking about contacting him? Letting him . . . know.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment. “I’d be mighty surprised to see him go that far, the stubborn old goat. But . . . well, maybe he wants to know how his boy is doing before he leaves this earth.”
“Hmm.” I paused. “Do you know why they had a falling out, May?”
“I don’t know all the details. I wasn’t privy to their fights—though I heard they got real nasty—but it had to do with the death of Brant’s mother.” She shook her head. “Sad, sad time around here.”
Brant’s mother. Serena Talbot, the beautiful brunette in so many photographs around Graystone Hill. And yet, not one of their son? “Yes, it sounds like it,” I murmured. “What . . . I mean, how did she die? Mr. Talbot never talks about her.”
May paused, pressing her lips together, seeming to consider her words. “She took her own life.” She shook her head. “Cut her wrists in the bathtub upstairs.”
I gasped, putting my hand over my mouth. Oh my God. Poor Mr. Talbot. Poor Brant. And how sad that instead of coming together, they’d fought and drifted apart. “That’s awful,” I whispered.
May nodded, her expression filled with sadness.