The Bloodline

Chapter 7, The Bloodline

Chapter 7

The grand entrance was the same but different. The floor was tiled the same black and white, and as he looked up, the detail in the trim was spectacular. The grand archway into the library was eye catching, and that had been his domain for years. The deep reds hadn't changed, and he dropped his bag and coat on the leather sofa, which was in the same place in front of the fireplace. An oil painting of horses hung above the mantel, but his desk was gone, and in its place were a couple of white leather easy chairs with a large ottoman between them. It seemed emptier, different, as he scanned the room, and he realized as he looked closer that his books, his trophies, his gold box, and the bar that had held crystal decanters of liquor were all gone. It seemed as if his very existence had been removed. Everything else in the room was different.

"Your mother decided to change some things after you left. Out with the old, she said," Todd said behind him. The man was following him, his father, whom he'd once been close with. He was a stranger now. Andy glanced back, and the person he started to see was an old man who had strayed, leaving a trail of broken hearts and messes for Andy to clean up. He was glad to be gone.

Rodney was behind him, watching him and his father. The older brother, the responsible one, the uncle he wished was his father. "How was your flight, Andy?" Rodney asked. Maybe it was his way of breaking the tension that was following him.

"Good, short. So fill me in on what's going on. I need to be back home in a few days. I can't leave Laura that long."

Rodney nodded and glanced away. His father stepped closer, setting his hand on the back of the sofa. There was a bracelet on his wrist, something that hadn't been there before, a medic alert. Dare he ask?

Andy took a breath. "So...the funeral? Someone fill me in."

"Your mother's lawyer will be here shortly. Funeral is set for tomorrow, but there are some things you need to know," Todd said, taking a step toward him and setting both hands on his hips.

"You said that before. I'm curious as to what that is," Andy said. He stepped around one of the chairs, keeping his distance. Rodney was watching him and then his father.

"Your mother's family is coming. Her two brothers are here." Rodney gestured to the stairs. "They arrived last night and are leaving after the funeral."

Of course, the Kentuckians, the bluebloods he barely knew, Noah and Craig. One was a banker, the other following in his father's footsteps, running for governor. He hadn't seen them in years, since his grandfather's funeral. What had it been, fifteen years? But then, like all his mother's family, they were merely acquaintances, a reserved lot, cold like Caroline.

When he didn't answer, his father took another step, closer, wiping his hand over his face. He seemed out of sorts, awkward, nervous, which was so unlike him. "Well, there are a few things you need to understand, and the lawyer will clarify."

Rodney was shaking his head, and Andy had a feeling he wasn't going to like what he heard.

"Maybe you could clear up the mystery now, as I'm not in the mood for twenty questions," he said. He didn't miss the way Todd glanced to his brother, and then he wondered why Rodney was even here, since he knew there wasn't much love lost between the two of them.

"Your father here found out that your mother left everything to you," Rodney said, gesturing to Todd from where he was in the archway. Before he could say anything else, there were voices in the hallway, coming from deep in the house. He looked up to see his uncles, both light haired like his mother, with the same aristocratic features, the slender noses, tall and lanky.

"Andy, my boy!" Noah was dressed in dark pants and an open-collared shirt, with cropped hair, walking in ahead of Craig, who was dressed similarly, in dark pants, a white shirt, and a sports coat. Nothing cheap about either of them.

Andy reached out and shook Noah's hand. Craig followed a little more slowly, glancing at Todd, the exchange frosty.

"Anderson, glad you could make it." Craig also shook his hand. "It's been ages. How's married life?"

It was the polite conversation he hated, knowing his mother's brothers really weren't interested in his little family. "Great. Yours?" he replied rather sharply.

"Fine. We'll be summering in Martha's Vineyard. You should join us."

What could he say to his uncles? "Yeah, sounds great." Like hell he'd drag his family across the country to summer with a side of his family and a social scene of wealthy politicians who spent their time looking down on people like them. Laura would hate it. So would he.

"Such a sad thing, your mother passing. We never expected Caroline to go first. She was in such great health Why, we'd just seen her last month at the family home."

Ah yes, his grandfather's estate in Frankfort. This house was a replica of his mother's family home, a home his uncles still lived in with their wives and two cousins he didn't know.

The doorbell chimed through the house, and he was about to leave and answer it when he heard footsteps and noticed a maid, someone he didn't recognize, pass by. "Right," he said out loud, remembering how well staffed this house was. That was a position his wife had once been in. What a pampered life he'd had.

"Your mother said you were ranching now in Idaho, with another grandchild, too," Noah said.

"Montana," Andy corrected him, unnerved at how his mother had known about Sarah.

"Pardon?" Craig asked.

"Andy has a ranch in Montana, not Idaho, Noah," Todd asserted as if he gave a shit about what Andy did. He wondered what this fatherly thing was.

"Ah, Montana, home to the open skies and vast grasslands, real salt-of-the-earth people."

Good God. Andy wondered how he'd have fit into this scene years ago. At one time, he could bullshit along with the best of them, but right at this moment he was more inclined to find a wall and stick his back to it just so he wouldn't find a knife shoved there. It was as if Caroline were still haunting this house.

The maid stepped into the library, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing that sacklike black and white dress uniform his mother insisted the staff wear. She was carrying an envelope and appeared nervous.

"What is it, Claudia?" Todd said rather brusquely.

"This just arrived for Andy Friessen." She glanced nervously over to him, and Todd reached for the envelope.

"Who's it from?" Andy stepped forward, taking the envelope from the nervous maid before his father could touch it.

"Sorry, sir, I don't know. The man at the door didn't say, just said this was for you."

Andy took in the printed lettering, his name and the estate address. Interesting. "Thank you," he said to the maid, who quickly left. He turned it over, taking in the sealed envelope, and then walked over and tucked it into the side of his bag.

"You're not going to open it?" his father asked. Of course Andy didn't miss his interest.

"Not right now." He gestured to Rodney. "You got a second?"

Andy took in his father lingering behind him and his other two uncles opening a cabinet he hadn't noticed by the wall. So that was where his mother had stashed the liquor. They were now fixing a drink, and his father walked over and joined them.

"Let's take a walk," Rodney said, looking around as if he didn't want to say too much there.

"Could use some fresh air," Andy said before looking back once at his father, whose expression was filled with something he'd never seen before: hurt. Odd, he thought.