There was a sudden coldness in James' face that sent a chill through Amanda. It was an aloofness that was meant to hurt, and she’d never seen it before.
"Because I heard his last words, Gable. I was there when he was gasping and dying. He said you took it."
Gable's hand had been flat on the table and he suddenly clenched it into a fist.
"James, it was the last words of a fevered, dying man! He was out of his head and slurring his speech. He gave it to me three months before he died."
"Did he?" James’ face was flushed with emotion, his voice hard, and Gable leaned forward. For a second, Amanda was worried the two brothers were going to square off and just start a fistfight right in the middle of Ivy's.
"He was the only grandfather we ever knew, Gable. He's the guy who taught us how to carve whistles and how to ride a horse, and let us drink beer out on the back porch of his cabin when we turned sixteen. I don't know how you can live with yourself, doing something like that to an old man."
Gable slowly stood up, his hands both flat on the table as he glared at his brother, and James followed suit, jumping to his feet.
His older brother’s voice was hard. "He wanted me to have it and sell it, so I could start my own business,” he said. “He told me the rest of you would be happy to stay around Ravenwood Cove, but he knew I wanted a completely different life." Gable cleared his throat, as if the memory was choking him. "He said I should sell it and start my life the way I wanted to, and go travel the world. His words, not mine."
Seeing how close the two men were to leaping at each other's throats, Amanda quickly interjected a simple question.
"What did your grandfather give you, Gable?" she asked.
Without turning his head, her furious brother-in-law answered. "A painting. A very beautiful, very old Italian painting he'd brought home from Europe when he was stationed there."
"Yeah, and it turns out that painting was worth more than the entire ranch," James added. "It's so valuable it's hanging in a museum in Seattle. That painting would've let our parents quit worrying about financial problems or their retirement." He glared at Gable, and Gable shook his head.
"I was just eighteen when he gave it to me, James. I didn't know selling it and using the money to try to start my business would hurt Mom and Dad. I had no idea. All I knew was that suddenly I got booted out of the family because they thought I had taken advantage of a weak old man to ask for things before he died."
"Did you?"
"Never." His voice was loud and strong, and a quick scan around showed Amanda they definitely had caught the attention of most of the people in Ivy's. "I loved that old man. I would never have hurt him, and I would never have stolen from him. Why can't you believe me?"
There was a moment of absolute stillness, as if the world was holding its breath, waiting to see what James would say. Finally, he let out a long sigh.
"I don't know what to believe anymore."
His answer was spoken plainly, but Gable gave a snort of disgust. "Well, I'm really sorry to hear that, brother. Out of the whole clan, I thought you'd be the one who'd want to know my side of the story." He turned to Amanda, his voice softening a bit. "It was nice to see you again, Amanda. I hope you two have a happy life together."
And with those words, he turned on his heel and left, a bunch of townspeople watching him go with undisguised curiosity.
James eased himself back into his chair, as if the bitter exchange of words had taken their toll on him. He reached blindly for Amanda's hand, just as Ruby walked up, two large platters in hand.
"Ready for your cheeseburgers?" she said brightly, as James pulled Amanda closer to him so he could hug her shoulders.
"Ready for anything," James said, almost to himself. "Maybe even something new."
Chapter 9
Sitting upright in bed, James hung up on the call he’d just gotten on his cell phone. Amanda had heard the whole thing, and her face reflected her displeasure.
“Honey, I'll only be gone for three days," James said, and Amanda leaned against his chest, hearing his strong heartbeat under her ear. The moment he had answered the early morning phone call and greeted the sheriff by name, she’d been awake enough to have a good idea what the conversation was all about. When his eyes met hers in silent apology, she knew it for sure. Three days out of town to handle an extradition issue. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to deal with him leaving on short notice, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
"But we’re so close to moving in." The moment she said it she wanted to yank the words back, as if she could erase them from having ever been spoken. It sounded petty and whining, and she knew it.
James hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be back before you know it, and I’ll finish up whatever packing hasn’t gotten done already,” he promised, and Amanda nodded. They’d already made good inroads on getting stuff into boxes and wrapping fragile items. A general invitation to friends and family for help moving had gotten a great response, and it sounded like there would be plenty of people to pack the truck and schlep items from place to place.
Amanda had been excited at the prospect of having a new home for them both, with them both making decisions about where the furniture went and how to organize the drawers. James had never complained about moving into the large master suite at the Inn, but it had been kind of awkward for him to get used to Amanda’s unspoken rules and traditions about where things went and how things should be done. A new start in a new home would be good for both of them.
“I’ll call you as often as I can. If you need anything, text me, and don’t be afraid to ask Jennifer or George if you need something done right away.” He flipped a black suitcase open and started rummaging through his sock drawer. “If I can get away early, I will,” he said, but Amanda knew the retrieval of an out-of-state prisoner was tricky and carefully timed, with enormous amounts of coordination and legal red tape.
“I’ll be fine,” she lied, and kissed him before she walked out to go downstairs. Benson and Oscar both followed her down the steps, sensing a possible trip outdoors. They bounded ahead of Amanda when she opened the back door and walked outside. Maybe some time among the riot of apple blossoms currently on the trees in her orchard would give her some much-needed perspective.
***
A couple of hours later, with her morning work done and James already driving to the airport, Amanda called Lisa to see if she wanted to meet up at Cuppa for some much-needed friend time. It was less than twenty minutes before the two women were sitting at a quiet table in the coffeehouse, accompanied by Meg, who was on a break. They chatted a bit, nursing their coffees and talking through their troubles.
When Amanda told Meg and Lisa about James leaving, and then about her encounter with Radcliffe, they were sympathetic and positive, as she knew they would be.
"So, what's the deal with this guy?” Amanda asked. “The people who know him all seem to universally hate him." She stirred the whipped cream into her mocha. “After meeting him, I don’t think he’s all that great either, but…” she paused, and Lisa was only too happy to fill her in.
"Oh, he’s hated, for sure. It’s a classic story," Lisa said. "You ever seen one of those Western movies where some bad guy comes in and swindles people out of their homestead, then winds up running the town somehow?"
Amanda looked at Meg for validation of Lisa’s statement, but her bubbly friend just shrugged, as if she didn't know anything about it.
"You mean that's how Sweet-n-Tastee got started? He stole the land from people around here?" Amanda asked, and Lisa nodded.
"That's what I heard, at least. Rumor has it he and Jackson Sandford were great buddies. When Radcliffe needed a favor he just rang up his drinking partner and they hatched a plan to condemn some farmland up by Likely."
"You mean Hortense's husband?" Amanda asked, slightly shocked and Lisa nodded.
"That's the guy. Jackson Sandford."
Amand
a immediately thought of her cousin. She knew Hortense had had a hard life but the thought of her having to deal with a husband who was a crook and willing to help someone like Radcliffe sounded awful. "I didn’t know you can condemn land," Amanda said, puzzled. "I thought you could only condemn houses."
Lisa shook her head. "You can condemn land for certain reasons. It's called eminent domain. From what I understand, one of the reasons is if the property is considered 'blighted'. That means it's bad for the area and should be improved. It turns out Sandford and Radcliffe went after several long-term farmers in the area, and got the city to take over fifty acres of prime agricultural land. They actually changed the borders of the city so the land was within the borders of Ravenwood Cove and then promptly condemned it. There was a bit of a legal battle, but the cost of lawyers for fighting the government is really high. It's my understanding Sandford had all his ducks in a row when it came to the evidence about why the land should be taken from its rightful owners."
Meg looked confused. "I don’t get it. If the city had it, why didn't they keep it? It’s way out of town, isn’t it?"
Lisa wrapped her hands around her coffee cup and sighed. "They changed the city limits of Ravenwood back to the original boundaries after two years, when they said they didn’t need the land and they were going to sell it."
"They sold those poor farmers' land?" Meg said, her voice rising in sympathy. "How could they do that?"
"Legal loopholes and backdoor deals," Lisa said. "It's the worst sort of politics. When the property went up for sale the rightful owners tried to buy it back, but Radcliffe outbid them. With no legal standing, they couldn't reclaim their land and it became the property of Sweet-n-Tastee. Borderline legal, but completely unethical."
Amanda had been listening to Lisa's explanation, and her heart almost hurt from hearing how her cousin's husband and Buster Radcliffe had abused the law to grab a piece of land for profit. She’d already heard a bit about Jackson Sandford and his lack of morals. How awful it must’ve been to be shackled to a man who was known to run around with other women, and who would do anything to make a buck, no matter how much it hurt people.
“I don’t know any more than that,” Lisa said, taking a sip of her latte, and Amanda sighed.
“Well, I guess if I want the rest of the story I need to go to the source,” she said. “And in Ravenwood Cove, the source is almost always Mrs. Granger.”
Chapter 10
When Amanda drove up to Mrs. Granger’s little cottage, she had to grin. Not only was the lady’s house charming, but its owner was sitting outside on the seat of her wheeled walker, trimming foliage from some nearby pots of red geraniums. The old lady wore an enormous blue hat, the same soft shade of Wedgewood blue that her friends had painted the outside of her house, and she turned with an expression of excited pleasure when she saw Amanda step out of her car.
“Well! Hello, sweetie! What brings you to my neck of the woods? You want to help me fill the hummingbird feeders? I’m too short,” she said, hefting herself up and gripping her walker as Amanda came over for a hug.
“Sure, I can fill them,” Amanda said. It wasn’t the first time she’d been instantly pressed into service when she showed up to her adoptive grandmother’s house, and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last. She hefted the gallon jug of red-tinted hummingbird food and expertly filled the large feeders, then tucked it away before she picked up a nearby rake and started aimlessly scooping together a pile of dead leaves that Mrs. Granger had apparently dug out from under her hydrangeas.
“Actually, Gram, I came to ask you a bit about Buster Radcliffe. Would it bother you to talk to me about why you’re so angry with him?”
“You sure you want to know?” the old lady asked, and Amanda nodded.
“He’s got some plans on how to… hurt my business,” she said. She didn’t want to tell Mrs. Granger the whole truth, about how he was planning on taking so much of the lodging business that he’d be able to bankrupt the Ravenwood Inn.
Mrs. Granger’s eyes were suddenly sharp and angry. “He’s trying to hurt you? He’s after your business?” At Amanda’s answering nod, the little lady erupted in a sputtering fit of frustration.
“That insect! That absolute insect. I should’ve known he was still gonna be pulling his old tricks.” She fixed her gaze on Amanda and took a deep breath. “I’ve got to calm down or my doctor’s gonna put me on more of those blood pressure pills, and I hate them. What do you want to know about Radcliffe?” she asked, swiveling her walker around so she could sit on the plastic seat again. “I’m calm now. Shoot.”
Amanda cleared her throat. “Why do you hate him so much?”
"Well, you know I don't like to gossip about people," Mrs. Granger said, her eyebrows raised in anticipation as she leaned forward, waiting for Amanda to ask for the rest of the story.
"Of course, you don't," Amanda said, trying to keep from laughing out loud. No one in town knew more about what was going on or what had gone on around Ravenwood Cove than the ever-observant Mrs. Granger.
"You know about Buster Radcliffe's dealing with Hortense's husband, right?" she said, and when Amanda nodded the old lady's face fell, obviously disappointed she couldn’t be the one to tell her.
Amanda ignored her reaction. "Yes, some of the local ladies seemed to want to make sure I knew how he got his land, and the role Mr. Sandford had played in that."
"Well," Mrs. Granger continued, "you did know he tried to date Mrs. Sandford’s daughter, right?"
Amanda set her rake down. "What daughter? From everything I heard, her baby died right after birth and she didn't have any other children."
"That's not exactly true," Mrs. Granger said, nearly clapping her hands with glee at the prospect of sharing some juicy history with one of her favorite people. "She had a foster daughter for a while. Her husband showed up one day with a twelve-year-old girl, saying she needed a place to stay, and she lived with Hortense and her husband for over five years."
"Really?" Amanda frowned. "I don't understand. Where would her husband find some girl who needed to live with them?"
Mrs. Granger rolled her eyes upward. "Well, I'm sure the talk about town wasn’t true at all," she said, in a singsong tone which obviously meant she believed exactly that, "but the word around town was he'd had an affair and the little girl was actually his. No one seems to know what happened to her real mother."
"What?" Amanda said. "How do you... why are you telling me this?" She instantly thought of her first impression of her cousin, so cold and distant, full of righteous arrogance. The thought of her having to take care of the child from her husband's extra-marital affair was painful, and it felt like one more reason Hortense had become so bitter and unhappy.
Mrs. Granger shifted in her walker. "Hortense hates Buster Radcliffe. He actually tried to date the girl living with the Sandfords, when she was just sixteen. It was bad." She took a deep breath. "Really bad. He was already married to Doris."
"What?” Amanda knew her adopted grandmother saved a lot of her contempt for anyone who hurt children or animals, but she also had a well-known anger toward cheating husbands.
“I remember Hortense and her husband found out the girl had been sneaking out of the house. I don't remember the girl’s name now, but when they found out she was running around behind their backs with the biggest scoundrel the town had ever seen, I thought Hortense was about to blow a gasket."
"Why are you telling me all this?" Amanda asked, watching the old lady's face carefully. There were many times when the best way to find out what Mrs. Granger was really thinking was to read between the lines of what she was saying, and what her expression revealed.
Mrs. Granger put on a look of absolute innocence. "You wanted to know Radcliffe’s history. Well, I'd say you should also know about what he did to Hortense. She sure didn't like what her husband had done, and their marriage was never a happy one, but she loved that girl, no doubt about it. Sure, she was a teenager and she ga
ve them a run for their money, but when she finally disappeared no one heard from her again. I think it broke Hortense’s heart. Closest thing she had to a child of her own.”
Later, as Amanda walked away, Mrs. Granger’s gift of a plastic bag of stale Oreos clutched in her hand, she thought back again to Hortense’s marriage and made a mental note to figure out when her cousin’s birthday was. Whatever her past may have been, Amanda was going to see if there was anything she could do to add some joy to the poor lady’s life.
Chapter 11
Amanda looked around the interior of her favorite coffeeshop, her mouth hanging open in surprise. When she could, she liked to drop by and get a morning mocha from Meg, sometimes chatting with the owner, Tory, too. Most of the time, there were a few other people enjoying Cuppa, but today there were hardly any empty seats left in the entire shop. It was packed with small groups of grown men, long legs stretched out in front of them while they sipped their drinks and quietly talked back and forth. From the looks of it, every decent contractor from about twenty miles around was hanging out in the comfy coffeeshop, as if they were waiting for something.
Amanda dropped her jacket onto the back of a nearby chair to save a space for herself. She walked up to the pastry case by the cash register, watching Meg frantically trying to make an espresso machine go faster.
"Busy day," Amanda said, realizing it was the complete opposite of a witty comment, and Meg turned her head just long enough to give her friend a frustrated glare.
"You have no idea," she said, between clenched teeth. "These guys all showed up at once and it's like a freaking contractor convention in here. Like locusts. I think they've eaten every muffin I have in the place, and they're halfway through the scones by now, too." She set the coffee cup carefully on the counter and looked at Amanda hopefully. "Want to give me a hand? I'm dyin' here," she asked in a wheedling tone, and Amanda had to laugh.
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