Abel winced. He’d thought he couldn’t feel any worse about this whole thing than he already did.
He’d been wrong.
“I never expected her to.” Abel cut another look at Jim Monroe, who winced and pulled a tissue out of the box on his desk to dab at his perspiring forehead. “And, Emily, I want you to know before we go any further, that I had nothing to do with this.”
“We’ve been through all that, Mr. Whitlock,” Monroe sighed heavily and continued as if Abel had directed his comment toward him. “I’m well aware of your sentiments on the matter. But as I’ve already explained to you, Mrs. Elliott set out her wishes very clearly in her will, and like it or not, all three of us are going to have to abide by her terms or accept the consequences.”
Emily frowned. “Of course we’ll abide by the terms of Grandma’s will. Why wouldn’t we?” She looked from one man to the other, her expression puzzled. “What consequences are you talking about? What’s going on?”
Fifteen minutes later she knew.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Emily sounded bewildered, but she didn’t sound angry. Not yet. Abel had his elbows on the desk and his chin cradled in his hands.
So far this was going just about the way he’d figured it would. Not well.
“I’m afraid it’s no joke, Miss Elliott.” Jim Monroe slid his glasses down his nose and looked at Emily sympathetically. “As I said, Mrs. Elliott was very clear. Either you reside on Goosefeather Farm for three months and care for its livestock and crops to the satisfaction of the county extension agent, beginning now, or you forfeit the farm and the rest of your grandmother’s assets to Mr. Whitlock here. Lock, stock and barrel.”
Abel’s gut clenched. Emily was pale except for two spots of red burning high on each cheekbone. She looked like she’d just been slapped.
He couldn’t have loved Miss Sadie Elliott any more if she’d been his own flesh and blood, which was no wonder when you considered that she’d done a sight more for him than any of his own people ever had. When she’d died it had felt like somebody had cut a chunk right out of the middle of his heart. But she’d sure left him in a mess with this crazy notion of hers.
“I can’t live here!” Emily was protesting. “I have a job and an apartment in Atlanta. Phoebe and Paul will be starting kindergarten in August. I’ve already registered them.” She shook her head. “I just don’t get it. What was Grandma thinking?”
“As it happens, we may have an answer to that question.” Jim Monroe slipped an envelope out from under the papers neatly stacked in the manila folder in front of him. He slid it across the table toward Emily. “She left this for you.”
Emily accepted the letter, which bore her name in Miss Sadie’s spidery writing, but she kept her eyes fixed imploringly on the lawyer. “You don’t understand. I can’t stay in Pine Valley,” she repeated. “I just can’t!”
“If you’re unable to meet the conditions of the will, then I’m afraid Mr. Whitlock gets the farm and all your grandmother’s monetary assets, which while hardly extensive are not inconsequential. I’m very sorry, Miss Elliot. I can see this wasn’t what you were expecting, and I agree that it’s quite unusual. I also want you to know that I did encourage Mrs. Elliott to speak to you about it when we drew up the will a couple of years ago. Obviously she didn’t take my advice.”
“This is crazy.” Emily closed her eyes and rubbed her temples with trembling fingers. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” The confusion and hurt on her face reminded Abel of the time he’d happened across a tiny fawn tangled up in the rusty remains of a barbed-wire fence. Emily’s expression tore into his heart just the same way. Only this time he couldn’t ease the pain with a pair of wire cutters and some salve.
Monroe coughed. “Miss Elliott, this isn’t a decision to be made in haste. Read your grandmother’s letter and think things over. You can come by tomorrow and let me know what you decide. ”
“I was going back to Atlanta this afternoon. I have to work a double shift tomorrow. It’s the only way I could get today off.”
The lawyer made a sympathetic noise as he got up from the table. “Here’s your copy of the will, Miss Elliott. And yours, Mr. Whitlock. Should you have any questions, you can give me a call. But as I’ve already explained to Mr. Whitlock at some length, this will’s going to hold. I drew it up myself, and I know my business. You’re welcome to consult with another lawyer if you choose to fight it, but if he’s worth his salt he’ll tell you the same thing.”
And charge you a pretty penny to do so, Abel thought grimly. He’d already called another attorney, and he’d gotten nowhere.
Monroe shook both their hands. “Take your time if you want to discuss it. The children are fine with Marianne.” He nodded and then exited his office with an air of relief, pulling the door carefully shut behind him.
The silence in the room was leaden. Emily wouldn’t look in Abel’s direction.
“Did you know about all this?” she asked finally, keeping her gaze on the hands she held tightly in her lap.
“Not until it was too late to do anything about it. Monroe called me the day after Miss Sadie passed and told me the basics.” He’d been looking for loopholes ever since, but he hadn’t found any, so he saw no sense in mentioning that.
“Mr. Monroe didn’t tell me anything over the phone except that Grandma left some special condition in the will. I thought it had something to do with finding new homes for the livestock. You know how she was about her animals. I never imagined...” Emily massaged her temples again. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this. Mr. Monroe should have given me the same information he gave you so I could have been prepared.”
“He was probably afraid to,” Abel said honestly. “I’ve been giving him kind of a hard time about all this.” The truth was, he’d hounded the life out of the lawyer, desperate to avoid this very moment. The look on Emily’s face made him wish he’d tried a little harder, although he didn’t see how he could have.
“Really?” Emily’s voice chilled. “Why would you do that? As it stands, all you have to do is wait for me to fail, and you end up with Grandma’s farm. You’ve always been crazy about the place. It seems to me this is a pretty sweet deal for you.”
His heart dropped to the bottom of his gut. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of, what had kept him awake half of last night. He’d worried she’d think he’d finagled this somehow, that he was the kind of person who’d have conned an elderly lady into something like this.
She wouldn’t be alone in thinking it, either, and for good reason. He was the son of a man like that and the grandson of another one. He’d worked hard to build a different kind of reputation for himself in Pine Valley, but it had been uphill work. Easier, his younger brother, Danny, had said, just to move off and start fresh in a place where the Whitlock name wasn’t muddied up with generations of lies, bad debts and shady deals.
Abel had argued, but Danny had had his heart jammed up by some girl who’d looked down her nose at him and he’d been in no mood to listen. His brother had left, and Abel had set his jaw and started the long, slow work of forging trust with his wary neighbors. One day Danny would feel the call of home. Everybody did, sooner or later. And when that day came, he was going to find out that the Whitlocks had a different reputation in this town. Abel intended to make sure of that, and he’d come too far to see it all crumble into dust just because Miss Sadie had come up with one of her crazy ideas.
He met Emily’s eyes squarely. “I’ve already told you I had nothing to do with any of this. If I wanted Goosefeather