He’d torn them all down in a frenzy an hour ago. He felt much better. The bourbon was helping with that, too.

The sound of an engine drifted to him on the chilly afternoon air, and he flicked his gaze to the drive to see Burl’s vehicle approaching. Perfect. Just perfect. His uncle pulled up in front of the porch a minute later and climbed out of the car, his eyebrows raised as he stepped around the tree to mount the stairs, then skirted Mount Christmas to get to the other Adirondack chair.

Picking up the mostly deflated giant Santa Claus slumped in the seat, he tossed it on top of the pile, where it promptly slid down and face-planted on the floorboards. “We have a tornado I don’t know about?”

Assuming the question was rhetorical, Grady didn’t bother to answer.

“What’s going on, son?”

Grady took a mouthful of his drink, staring straight ahead out over the field. “Nuthin’.”

“Sure is quiet out here without Suzanne flitting around.”

Gripping his tumbler, Grady said, “Just the way I like it.”

“Uh-huh.” Burl looked at the mess on the porch. “I can see that.” He stood. “Mind if I fix myself a drink?”

Grady shrugged. “Be my guest.”

Burl was gone for less than a minute. He returned with the bottle and a tumbler. And the portrait that had been propped against the kitchen bench after he’d removed it from her room, the note still attached. Grady groaned internally as Burl placed it against the balustrades and studied it for a while.

“That’s you?”

Grady didn’t look. “Uh-huh.”

“She paint it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s a little…too much information for me.”

“Me too,” Grady said. Having his uncle staring at his junk was not one of the more comfortable moments they’d shared.

“Note says it’s a gift.”

Grady knew exactly what the note said. He’d read it about a hundred times.

Dear Grady,

Please accept this as a gift.

It belongs here with you. I hope one day you see what I see when I look at it.

Suzy.

The fact that she’d left early and while he was gone hadn’t been terribly surprising. He’d welcomed it. The fact that she hadn’t taken the portrait had been shocking. He knew how much it meant to her—or at least he’d thought he’d known. Her first original artwork.

But she’d just…left it behind. So how much had it really meant?

A part of him had reconciled when he’d come home to the empty cabin that at least she’d have something of him with her in New York. And then he’d found the portrait in her room, and it had felt like a kick to the nuts.

“You want to talk about it?”