by Layne, Ivy
It still was, minus the patina of memory. This version of Sawyers Bend was thriving in the now. I drove slowly down Main Street, taking in the couples strolling hand in hand, the crowd waiting at the corner for the light to change.
I hadn’t expected so many tourists on a Thursday in early March. The first few months of the year aren’t the most hospitable around here. The mountains are always pretty, but it’s cold by the standards of the South, and the icy wind can be a bitch. Not to mention the way the temperature swings from freezing to pleasant and back to freezing. And the sudden snowstorms. They didn’t happen often, but they were all the worse for their unpredictability.
None of my memories of winter in the mountains matched up with the scarf-wearing, rosy-cheeked tourists strolling the streets of Sawyers Bend. The town itself was cheerful and welcoming despite the weather. Neatly painted shop windows lined Main Street, framed by striped awnings that were vaguely familiar.
I didn’t recognize most of the businesses. Restaurants, galleries, tourist shops. Two craft breweries. More restaurants. Sawyers Bend was taking advantage of the foodies and beer lovers who flocked to the area along with the nature lovers. Not a surprise. The Sawyers had always been good at profiting off trends in the market.
At the end of Main Street, just after the last of the shops and restaurants, a massive stone and timber building loomed over the street. The Inn at Sawyers Bend. I’d grown up running in those halls, had eaten more than one meal in the family booth in the elegant dining room.
I drove past, averting my eyes. I wasn’t here for a trip down memory lane. I was here so Harvey could read my father’s will. That was it.
I passed the Inn and turned away onto a road that curved behind Main Street. I parked in front of a perfectly maintained Victorian that hadn’t changed in twenty years, the sign out front swinging gently in the breeze. Harvey Benson, Attorney at Law.
Only two cars were parked in the gravel lot. One was a late model Mercedes sedan. Harvey’s, I guessed, probably paid for by the umpteen-million changes in my father’s will.
The other was a beige four-door sedan. Not old, not new, it was bland, with absolutely nothing to distinguish it from any other car on the highway. Hope’s car. I don’t know how I knew. I hadn’t seen her car in Atlanta. I just knew.
It was a burr under my skin, digging deep when I shouldn’t even care. What the hell was Hope doing driving a car like that? Hope belonged in a bright red Volkswagen bug or a Mini Cooper. Maybe a jeep. Hope did not belong in a beige sedan. What had happened to her?
Why do you care?
Hope was the past. Hope was a liar who’d screwed me over. Hope was the reason I’d been kicked out of my childhood home in the first place.
So what if she was a ghost of herself? So what if she’d changed? Hadn’t we all?
Just get this over with, I reminded myself. Listen to Harvey read the will and then get back to your life. You don’t belong here. Not anymore.
I shoved my car key in my pocket and strode up the front steps, not bothering to knock. The door was unlocked.
“Harvey?” I called out.
A round face with apple-red cheeks poked through a doorway, a jovial smile that didn’t fit the occasion lighting his eyes. Harvey Benson didn’t look a day older than he had the last time I’d seen him. Maybe a little more gray at the temples, maybe his belly was a little bigger, but otherwise, this was the Harvey I’d always known.
He strode forward and stuck out his hand. “Griffen, my boy. It’s good to see you. Sorry about the circumstances. Your father left us a big pile of shit, but now that you’re here we can get it sorted out. Come on in, come on in.”
I’d always liked Harvey’s upfront manner. My father spun webs of nuance and manipulation, but Harvey just laid it all out. I had a feeling that was going to come in handy.
He led me into his office and rounded his desk, sitting in his big leather chair and gesturing to one of the seats opposite. I almost didn’t notice Hope in the other chair by the desk. How did she disappear like that?
Today she wore a black suit, identical to the suit she’d worn the day before except in color. Ill-fitting but expensive. It should have been well-tailored considering the quality of the fabric. So why—
Focus, Griffen, I lectured myself. You’re here for the will. Not Hope. Hope can deal with her own problems. You’ve got enough of those yourself.
I rolled my stiff shoulder. Yeah, I had my own problems. Whatever was wrong with Hope had nothing to do with me.
“We need to head on out to the cemetery in a minute, but before the zoo starts, I wanted to have a word.”
“I thought I was only here for the will,” I said. “He hasn’t been buried yet?”
“Prentice was specific about how he wanted this handled,” Harvey explained. “Nothing at the church. Family only at the cemetery, then back here to read the will. We’ve been waiting for you.”
At least the whole town wouldn’t be there. Harvey cleared his throat and gave me an apologetic look. That couldn’t be good.
“I want you to know before this ball gets rolling, I was your father’s estate attorney, but he rarely took my advice. None of this was my idea. I’m going to remind you again after the service, but I’ll tell you now while we’re private—you don’t stand a chance in hell of fighting it.”
Harvey looked remorseful. I flicked a glance at Hope, surprised to see a hint of confusion in her eyes, hidden beneath her mask of composure. So, Hope didn’t know what he was talking about either.
“Are you that good, or was my father that crazy?”
With a rueful laugh, Harvey shook his head. “Both, son. Both.”
“Why is Hope here?” I asked. “Did my father leave her something?”
Harvey shuffled a few papers on his desk, avoiding my eyes before clearing his throat again. Hope answered for him. “Uncle Edgar wasn’t feeling well this morning. He asked me to attend in his place.”
That made sense. But then, why did Harvey look even more ill at ease? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
He checked his watch. “About time to head to the cemetery. The rest of your family will meet us there. I’ll drive.”
Bracing inwardly at the thought of seeing my siblings, I didn’t argue with Harvey. I didn’t care who drove, I just wanted to get this shit show over with.
I got into the passenger seat of Harvey’s Mercedes, barely noticing the tight turns as we made our way down the winding roads to the cemetery. The Sawyer family plot was packed with my ancestors, going back to Alexander Braxton Sawyer, the first Sawyer to make his home in North Carolina.
I hadn’t been to the family cemetery in years. Not since my grandfather died when I was a teenager, only months after my father had executed a takeover of the family company and put his own father out to pasture. I’d always thought that my father’s betrayal had killed my grandfather. Not that Prentice had cared. He had what he wanted. Control of Sawyer Enterprises.
I tromped across the perfectly-maintained grass behind Harvey, Hope silent beside me. She’d buttoned a heavy black overcoat up to her chin, her shoulders hunched against the biting wind. The breeze that had seemed almost springlike in town turned into an icy blade in the open of the cemetery. I hadn’t dressed for the weather. I was too used to Atlanta and hadn’t expected to be outside. I’d deal. Hopefully, the burial wouldn’t take long.
Harvey led us to the graveside, nodding in his friendly way at the pastor waiting for us, at my siblings standing in a loose jumble on the other side of the deep hole in the earth. The gray metal casket gleamed from the depths of the grave. Only Hope stood beside me, silent but there. I shouldn’t have been grateful for her support. It shouldn’t have mattered. I nodded at the group opposite but said nothing.
I hadn’t seen or heard from any of them in fifteen years. Only Ford was missing. The only sibling
who shared my mother, we’d been close as kids. He’d been my best friend right up until he’d stabbed me in the back. Now he was locked up for the murder of our father. Ford was an asshole, but he was no murderer.
The rest of them… Fuck, I barely recognized my youngest sisters. Sterling had been a child when I left, Quinn and Parker not much older. Avery, the oldest, had been learning to drive. I still remembered guiding her down the long driveway to Heartstone Manor, half afraid she was going to crash my beloved truck. Now she looked at me with hard, unforgiving eyes.
Royal, Tenn, and Finn stood in a semi-circle, all ignoring me. They’d been teenagers when I was exiled. Old enough to speak up, but not one of them had taken my side. They’d circled the wagons and let my father banish me from our home. They’d stood by and let Ford take everything from me.
Hope had set it all in motion, but these people, my brothers and sisters, had let it happen.
Braxton, the same age as Sterling and her bitter enemy, stood on the opposite end of the group, studiously ignoring me. I’d always found it ironic that despite their mutual hatred, Brax and Sterling could have been twins. Their gilded beauty was almost unreal. Golden hair, perpetually tanned skin, and our father’s electric-blue eyes.
Brax’s jaw was hard, his eyes averted from mine, but Sterling glared across our father’s empty grave, looking like a movie star in a perfectly-fitted black sheath, her chin set in the same angry thrust as Brax’s. Her eyes were red. Tears or something else? Seeing the way she wobbled, her arm wound through Quinn’s, I’d have bet alcohol, not tears.
Quinn, her dark hair and electric-blue eyes a mirror of our father’s, watched Sterling in concern. Beside her stood Parker, on the arm of a stranger in an expertly-tailored gray suit. She’d been only thirteen when I left and already showing a hint of the beauty she’d become.
Parker looked the most like her mother, Darcy, the only one of my father’s wives who was even the slightest bit maternal. Darcy had made up for the rest of them. If we had any memory of a mother’s love, it came from Darcy. I’ll never know how a woman that kind tolerated being married to my father.
Darcy bound us together. One of the only things the Sawyer children shared was a soul-deep ache at her loss. She’d been gone for seventeen years and I still missed her.
Looking at Parker was a stab to the heart. That pale, straight, blonde hair. Those gold and green hazel eyes. Her slight, fragile build. She was a perfect reflection of her mother and I grieved all over again.
We’d never stood here for Darcy. My father had buried her without ceremony, too distraught to think about what Darcy would have wanted. What the rest of us might have needed.
She lay beneath the dirt only a few feet away, as missed today as she had been the day she died. If Darcy had lived, none of this would have happened. She never would have let Prentice drive me from my home. Never would have let him set us against each other. Never—
Chapter Three
Griffen
I went still as narrow fingers closed around mine. Hope kept her eyes on the open wound in the earth holding my father’s coffin, but she held my hand in a firm grip.
She held my hand. That should have thrown me as much as the sight of my siblings.
Instead, it anchored me. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until my lungs eased and my racing heart slowed. Neither of us looked at each other, but I squeezed her fingers back, standing beside her in silence, waiting for the torture to end.
Finally, the pastor cleared his throat to get our attention. When we turned to face him, he opened the Bible in his hands and began to speak. I didn’t hear a single word. I stood there by my father’s grave, Hope’s hand in mine, just waiting for it to be over.
The pastor droned on, a pained expression on his face. Probably from the effort of finding nice things to say about the deceased. Every eye around the grave was dry as a bone. Across the way, a flash caught my eye as Sterling lifted a flask in her namesake metal and tipped it to her mouth.
She saw me watching and narrowed her eyes, her glare bleary. Classy. I wasn’t going to give her a hard time. Sterling had barely even had Darcy as a mother. She’d grown up under the loving care of our father. If she needed a drink to get herself through this circus, I wasn’t going to criticize.
The pastor closed the Bible and made to leave. Before we could flee, Harvey raised his voice. “I need to see all of you in my office. No exceptions.”
The drive back to town passed in a blur of leafless trees and bright blue winter sky. Cars filled the small lot in front of Harvey’s Victorian as we filed into his small conference room.
A long, shining table dominated the room, surrounded by leather chairs, the heavy drapes and wood paneling giving the space a cozy, intimate feel.
A cart holding a flatscreen TV and a laptop was arranged at the end of the table, Harvey waiting patiently beside it. I started to sit when Harvey pulled out the chair next to the screen. “Griffen, you sit here. Hope, take the seat beside him, please.”
Harvey’s jovial smile was nowhere in sight. Whatever was about to happen, he wasn’t looking forward to it. I glanced at the door, but it was too late to run.
Harvey rolled the screen closer to the end of the table and raised a slim remote. My father’s face filled the screen. He’d aged. Why did that surprise me? It had been fifteen years. Of course, he’d aged.
There were streaks of white at his temples. Was his hair a little thinner on top? Maybe it was a trick of the light. Those electric-blue eyes were just as vibrant. Just as cagey. Just as smug.
My stomach knotted. This was going to be bad. How bad, I couldn’t guess. I didn’t need anything from Prentice or the rest of the Sawyer family. I’d left home with nothing and created my own life. I had money in the bank. A job I loved. Friends who were like family.
Prentice Sawyer couldn’t take any of that from me.
I’d quickly learn how wrong I was.
Harvey interrupted my thoughts. “Your father preferred to deliver his final words to you himself. Prentice recorded this six weeks before his death. Changes were made to his will at that time. When he’s finished, I’ll go over the particulars.”
Harvey hit another button on the remote and my father’s laugh filled the room.
“If Harvey is playing this I must be dead. Are you all patting yourselves on the back at getting rid of me? I’m betting Ford did it, the cagey bastard.”
Another cackle of a laugh. What the fuck? What had been going on before he died?
“You’ve all been plotting against me for years. Don’t think I don’t know. And Ford was at the root of it. I knew what he was up to. Never expected the way he’d screw me over, though. He got me good. Now he’s out. As far as my estate is concerned, Ford is no longer my son.”
On the screen, his eyes shifted, landing precisely on me.
No, not on me. He was dead, and I hadn’t been sitting here when this video was filmed. Still, the effect was uncanny.
“Griffen. My oldest son. My heir. Your siblings are ungrateful little shits. Every one of them tried to walk out on me, but you’re the only one who did it. The only one who went out there and made something of himself without trading on the Sawyer name. The only one who hasn’t been a pain in my ass for the last fifteen years. Now, you have to pay for your freedom.”
Prentice shook his head, an almost rueful smile curving his lips. “Always thought I got one over on all the other Sawyers. Every ancestor going back to Alexander, and none of them could manage more than one or two offspring. It’s a miracle the Sawyer line lasted this long. I learned the hard way—you have to work at it. I went through a lot of wives, but I bred my own little army of Sawyers. Did what none of the rest could do.”
He laughed again, triumphant and smug. Prentice had always prided himself on his fecundity compared to all those only children that came be
fore. His laugh morphed from triumphant back to rueful.
“The ancestors had it right. Children are more trouble than they’re worth. Should have stopped after the first. The rest of you are liars. Deceivers. You thought you’d get the best of me. You’re wrong.”
I took a second to process my father implying that I wasn’t a liar. Ironic, since he’d booted me out of town for planning to betray him. He must have forgotten that under the avalanche of my siblings’ more recent offenses.
I hadn’t. I hadn’t forgotten anything.
Another maniacal cackle of laughter dragged my attention back to the screen. “You weren’t fast enough. Should have killed me yesterday. You forgot all of it is mine. You’re nothing but employees, and I decide what happens to my legacy. If you thought you could get rid of me, you’re about to discover how wrong you were.”
On that threat, Prentice straightened, arranging the papers in front of him. When he looked back at the camera, he was all business, the taunts and triumph wiped away.
“Here’s how it’s going to work. The bulk of my assets are in a trust. That trust is reserved for the care and maintenance of Heartstone Manor. It will pay for upkeep and management well into the next century. Heartstone Manor is the foundation of the Sawyers. None of you ungrateful cretins appreciated it. That’s going to change. Harvey’s got a list of do’s and don’ts, but basically, they amount to this—don’t fuck it up, don’t turn it into a tourist attraction, and take care of your legacy.”
His eyes moved around the table, resting on each of his children. I had to remind myself that this was only a video, recorded weeks before he’d died. My siblings shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. Sterling tipped her flask to her lips, drinking until it was empty. I couldn’t blame her.
“Before you have a collective stroke, I did set aside a little something for my beloved children. An amount of money has been put in trust for each of you. Except for Griffen.