“I always mind my manners,” the boy, Paul, answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “It’s Phoebe who forgets.”
“I do not! Well...” Phoebe stuck one finger between her pink lips and hesitated. “Sometimes I forget.” In spite of the knot of nerves in his belly, Abel found himself smiling.
Emily’s twins were cute little things with bright expressions and golden hair exactly the color of wildflower honey, just like their mama’s. The boy had Trey Gordon’s brown eyes, though, and the girl had something of Trey in the set of her chin.
The memory of Trey Gordon made the smile fade from Abel’s face. The summer that Emily Elliott had fallen for Trey had been her last in Pine Valley, and the recollection of it still rankled more than he liked to admit. Still, the man was dead and gone. If Abel couldn’t bring himself to be overly sorry about that, at least with the good Lord’s help he could toss a little mercy at Trey’s memory.
Miss Sadie had taught him that much.
“The kids will be fine.” Jim Monroe sounded impatient. “Marianne loves kids, don’t you, Marianne? Take ’em down the hall to the library, and let them watch cartoons on the television in there.” Monroe dismissed his secretary with a wave and began rummaging through the files stacked on his desk. “Have a seat, Miss Elliott, and we’ll get started.”
Emily had her head stuck out into the hallway, watching her children. She glanced at the lawyer, but she lingered where she was, apparently reluctant to let her children out of her sight.
She’s a good mother, Abel realized, which was pretty remarkable considering that her own mother hadn’t exactly been cut out for parenthood. He’d only met Marlene Elliott a few times, but he remembered her as a flighty woman who always seemed to be in the middle of some kind of man-related crisis. Maybe Emily had inherited her common sense from Tom Elliott, Miss Sadie’s son. He’d passed on before Abel came into the picture, but Tom was remembered in Pine Valley as a solid, upstanding man.
“Close the door if you would, Miss Elliott.” The lawyer darted an uneasy look at Abel. “In these situations privacy is important.”
Emily hesitated another second, then eased the heavy door shut. She came over to take her place in the second chair angled across from the lawyer’s desk.
“Now, Mr. Whitlock, Miss Elliott, you’re here because you are both beneficiaries of Mrs. Sadie Elliott’s last will and testament.”
Abel’s heart sank, and he glanced over at Emily wondering how she’d take this first blow. Emily turned to him, her face lighting up like a spring sunrise.
“Oh, Abel. I’m so glad! You’ve been such a help to Grandma all these years. She’d never have been able to stay on Goosefeather Farm without you, and we both know she’d have been miserable anywhere else. I’m so happy she remembered you in her will!”
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 Farm, I’d have asked Miss Sadie to sell it to me and given her a fair price for it. I’d have asked her straight out, too, like a decent man does when he wants something. I would never have gone behind your back and wheedled her into giving it to me and shortchanging yo—” He stopped short when he saw Emily’s bottom lip trembling. He was about to make her cry, which was just about the only thing that would make this situation even worse than it already was.
“Emily,” he began helplessly but then floundered. He had no idea what to say. Words never came easily to him, and this was way beyond his skill level.
She got up, pushing her chair back so abruptly it almost tilted over. “I can’t talk about this right now. I’ve got to find somewhere to think...and to read this letter. I’ve got to make sense of this somehow.”
Abel reached deep in his jeans pocket, pulling out an old-fashioned key. “Here. Why don’t you go out to the farm? I’ve been locking up since...for the last couple of weeks and taking care of things.”
Emily’s eyes flashed angrily, and her chin went up a notch. “I already have a key, thanks. It was my grandmother’s house after all.”
Abel winced. He was trying to help, but he’d managed to put his foot in it instead. He felt like he was trying to plow a field blindfolded.
“Emily,” he tried again, but she cut him off firmly.
“Don’t try to talk to me right now, Abel, please. Just don’t. I’m tired, and I’ve got a lot to think about. You and I’ve known each other for a long time, and you were always nice to me when I came out for the summers. You looked out for me, and I haven’t forgotten that. You even used to sneak around and do my chores sometimes when Grandma wasn’t looking.” A smile flickered briefly on her lips. “You’re probably the only friend I have left around here. I really—” Her voice broke again, and she coughed and restarted. “I really don’t want to say something to you right now that I’ll regret later.” Her voice sounded thick, but whether it was clogged with tears or anger, he couldn’t tell.
He sat like a stone, listening as she went down the carpeted hallway and gathered up her twins, who protested at leaving in the middle of their cartoon. He waited until he heard the outer office door shut solidly behind her. Then he sighed and rubbed wearily at his eyes.
He had no idea what Miss Sadie had been thinking, but surely this wasn’t what she’d been hoping for. Emily was hurt and angry, and Abel felt like he’d just murdered a puppy. And he had a hunch things were going to get a whole lot trickier before they got any better. If they ever did.
He got to his feet, folding up his copy of the will into a square that would fit in his shirt pocket. He was anxious to escape this stuffy office and get back outside, where he could breathe. Emily wasn’t the only one who needed to think. Maybe a walk in the woods and some time in his workshop would clear his head. He’d spend some more time praying, too. He always felt closer to God out alone under the pines or with his chisel in his hand than he did indoors crowded up next to other folks. It was something he’d had a hard time explaining to the new minister when he’d pestered Abel gently about his spotty church attendance.
Yes, he’d have another long talk with God. Maybe this time the good Lord would give him some clear instructions about how to handle all this. He sure hoped so, because Abel was going to need all the help he could get.
Chapter Two
Phoebe fell asleep on the ten-minute ride out to Goosefeather Farm and had to be wakened when they pulled up in front of the white farmhouse. Even Paul’s eyelids looked a bit heavy, and he leaned against the clapboards on the shady porch as Emily twisted the metal key in the ancient lock. She was a little surprised when she heard the tumblers click grudgingly back into place. Although her grandmother had given her the key several years ago, Emily had never actually used it. The truth was she’d never known this welcoming red door to be locked, and she was amazed that the key even worked.
She gave the children a snack of apple wedges and cheese at her grandmother’s big kitchen table and then took them upstairs and settled them in the spare bedroom for a nap. It was proof of their exhaustion that they accepted this arrangement without a fuss. Phoebe flopped on top of the blue-and-yellow quilt covering the bed nearest the window, cuddled her tattered stuffed rabbit close to her, sighed once and promptly fell back asleep. Paul arranged himself more carefully in the other twin bed, tracing the pointed stars of his matching quilt with a thoughtful finger.
“Are you going to take a nap, too, Mama?” he asked.
She wished. “No. I’ve got some thinking to do.”
“Oh.” He nodded sagely. “But thinking’s hard work, and you’re tired. You might better rest awhile first.” After that pronouncement he closed his eyes and stuck his thumb in his mouth.
Emily kissed him gently, smiling at her son’s unique mixture of innocence and maturity. His preschool teachers had already labeled Paul gifted. That might explain why he often seemed so much older than his years. Emily still worried that being the son of a single mom was making her little boy grow up too fast. His manly little efforts to take care of his mother and sister made her both proud and sad.
She left the door to the twins’ room ajar and crossed the hall to the bedroom that had been hers. Like the rest of the old-fashioned farmhouse, it hadn’t changed much in the last six years. Its generous windows faced west, and the
early-afternoon sun slanted warmly across the wide oak floorboards. The violet-sprigged curtains were the ones her grandmother had let her choose from a catalogue years ago. Now they were looped back with faded lavender ribbons to show off a view of the farm’s rolling fields and trim little barns. Emily’s books were still lined up on the white shelf underneath the window, and her teacup collection was arranged along the wide windowsill. Outside this room, Emily’s life had rushed forward like a runaway train, but in here time had held its breath.
She doubted her grandmother had left things this way because of sentimentality. Grandma had just been allergic to change, and she’d never paid much attention to the inside of the house anyway. Sadie Elliott had always preferred to be outside spoiling one of her beloved animals or puttering around in her garden. She’d never known quite what to do with her indoorsy granddaughter, but Sadie had still insisted on the annual visits, rightly guessing that Emily’s mother was far too busy chasing men to supervise her daughter during her school vacation. And while Emily had never particularly enjoyed spending her summers on the farm, she’d grown to love her outspoken grandmother fiercely.
She could remember exactly where she’d been standing in the coffee shop when Mr. Alvarez relayed the message that her grandmother had died. Emily had dropped the metal tray she’d been sliding into the glass showcase, and muffins had rolled in every direction. Caramel pecan, the Tuesday special. When she got her next paycheck, she’d discovered that Mr. Alvarez had docked her pay to cover the cost of the dropped muffins. Compassion wasn’t her boss’s strongest trait. If she stayed on the farm for the summer, she’d almost certainly lose her job.
If she stayed. She couldn’t believe she was even considering it. She rummaged in her purse and brought out her cell phone. Forcing herself not to think about the minutes she was squandering, she sank down on the white chenille bedspread and dialed her friend Clary Wright’s number.
A Family for the Farmer Page 2