tightened and she wondered if he had lost someone he loved. He was silent for a moment. Then, with a nod, he indicated Brutus. “Yes,” he said, “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
She sniffed back the last of her tears. “Remember the vet said once he met a new alpha—?”
He cut her off. “I remember.”
She took a deep, steadying breath. “It went well. The funeral service I mean. But don’t you think it’s weird that out of all those people, no one knew Walter was a millionaire?”
Tom nodded. “It’s not uncommon for eccentric people to hide their wealth. But usually they’re more reclusive than Walter appeared to be.Yeah. As his lawyer I shouldn’t really say it, but I think it’s weird.”
“I wonder what they’ll think when they find out.” Surely they would react with the same disbelief she had.
“Well, the will is not public knowledge yet. And it still has to go through probate. Other than you and Father Andrew, no one outside my office knows who Walter’s beneficiaries are.”
Uh. And Jerome. He was Walter’s family. She’d answered his questions about the inheritance quite happily.
“It was a good send-off. For Walter.” She looked around the now-empty church and focused on a stained-glass image of a dove of peace in the large window above the altar. She found it comforting. “Eighty-two was a good age.”
“It was.”
She patted Brutus again and stood up. It was time to be joining the cortege to the cemetery. Tom stood up, too, holding Brutus in his arms. He seemed a bit stunned by what had happened.
“Well,” she said slowly, “Walter’s gone, but we’re still here and I’ve got Brutus. I guess . . . I guess it’s all part of the great circle of life.”
“As Mufasa said to Simba.”
Shocked, Maddy looked up at Tom. “Like . . .like in The Lion King , you mean?”
He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other as if regretting what he’d said. “Yeah.”
She looked at him, frowning. “You like animated movies?”
He shrugged. Brutus licked his chin.Tom wiped it on his suit collar. “I . . . uh . . . watch them with my young nieces sometimes.”
“Really?” Maddy said, unable to mask her surprise.
“ The Lion King is one of their favorites.”
“Mine, too,” she said. “ Shrek ?”
He shrugged again. “The kids like him.”
“What about Aladdin ? I love Aladdin .”
“Only the ones when Robin Williams voices the genie.” He paused. “I, uh, mean the kids prefer those.”
“Me, too.”
She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. Not with stuffy Tom O’Brien. She found herself unable to resist teasing him.
“What about The Little Mermaid ?”
His laugh echoed around the empty church. “That’s pushing it. Even for the fondest of uncles.”
Maddy couldn’t help smiling a secret smile. So. She’d suspected there was a sense of humor lurking somewhere under all that stuffiness. But she couldn’t believe Tom O’Brien admitted he watched animated movies. Even if it was just to keep his nieces company. Her passion for the genre certainly wasn’t something she as a twenty-six-year-old admitted to everyone.
She found herself looking at him with new eyes. She noticed his silk tie. Like the first time she’d seen him, it was impeccably tied, though it was now sprinkled with dark hairs from Brutus’s shedding winter coat.
She wondered if Tom ironed his underpants.
The final straw with her former fiancé, Russell, had been when he’d demanded she iron his boxers. With a crease down the center just so. She had decided then and there that she hadn’t been put in this world to iron a man’s underpants.
But Maddy didn’t want to think about Tom O’Brien’s underpants. Because that might lead her to thinking about what might be inside his underpants. And how she . . .
She didn’t want to go there. Really she didn’t.
She looked away, terrified he might somehow be able to read what was going on in her mind.
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