He stepped back and gently set the folder on the coffee table. His voice was soft and oddly wistful. “At least we agree on one thing. You’re not your grandmother.”
They glared at each other for a full minute, and she was the one who finally broke eye contact. When he spoke again his voice was cold as stone and the ever-present humorous glint in his eye had been replaced with something closer to anger. “I encourage you to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb, talk to a lawyer—talk to twelve lawyers, whatever you need to do to put your mind at ease. In fact I insist on it before we even think about drawing up new partnership papers.” He grabbed his briefcase and headed for the door. Being more than relieved to see him go, she trailed after him, but didn’t say a word to stop him from leaving. Things were far from settled, but Grammy’s death had thrown a Texas-sized cow patty into the middle of her orderly life, and she needed some alone time to process it all.
Donny Joe was out on the porch before he turned back to look at her through the screen door. “By the way, Miss Green, I don’t take kindly to having my integrity questioned, but out of respect for your grandmother I’ve tried to cut you some slack. Let’s be very clear. Everything in those plans came directly from her. So if you decide to pull the plug just remember it will be Miz Hazel’s dream that dies, not mine.” He loped off the porch, jumped into his silver truck and took off without looking back. His words rang in her ears long after the sound of his tires on the gravel drive died away.
Donny Joe sat on a barstool nursing a beer, trying to figure out where he’d put his usual good mood. When Irene Cornwell asked him to dance he could barely conjure up a smile to go along with his “Maybe later, sugar.” He could feel the regular patrons of Lu Lu’s cutting concerned eyeballs his way and giving him a wide berth. Now was as good a time as any to snap out of it.
Sure, he was sad about Miz Hazel’s passing, and it was going to take a good long while to accept that she was really gone. But the last thing she would want was for everyone to sit around like a bunch of goddamned sourpusses. He held up his beer in a silent toast to Miz Hazel and took a long pull in her honor.
Speaking of sourpusses, it was hard to believe Etta Green was related to Miz Hazel. That woman couldn’t be more different if she tried. She must have sprouted from a spliced-on branch of their family tree. One covered in barbed thorns and prickly sticks. That tart tongue of hers would send a sane man running in the opposite direction as fast as his feet could carry him. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t blame her for being upset about the B&B situation. It was unexpected and inconvenient and sad.
For everyone.
But her suspicious nature made it hard for him to feel any sympathy at all. She wasn’t the only person firmly wedged between a rock and a hard place because of Miz H’s death. There was no easy way out that he could see. And while plenty of people might question his maturity from time to time, he made darn sure no one ever had a reason to question his honesty.
That really stuck in his craw.
Sure, he was easygoing, and he liked to have a good time. He wasn’t going to apologize for that. But when it came to business, he took things very seriously these days. He might have grown up on the wrong side of Everson’s Old Town Creek, and the folks around these parts might have once written him off as lazy and no-account like the rest of what passed for his family.
But that only made him more determined to prove them all wrong.
Eventually his hard work had paid off, and he’d found unexpected pleasure and pride at the place he’d managed to carve out for himself in his hometown. As owner of The Backyard Oasis he’d gained the respect of the other business owners in Everson. For the last six years he’d had steady sales, especially with high-end hot tubs and outdoor furniture. Fire pits were another big seller, but recently with the downturn in the economy the number of customers wanting new pools was down, and that was where the big money was made. He’d be scrambling for work like everyone else if things didn’t pick up soon. That meant he’d need to see a return on the money he’d sunk into the B&B. There was no getting around it.
But in the meantime, there was no way he was going to let Ms. Etta Green fly into town on her broomstick and sweep all of his hard work away like it didn’t matter. Just because she was mad at the world didn’t mean she got to take it out on him.
What was wrong with those two sisters, anyway? Their grandmother just left them the family home, for Pete’s sake, and they acted like it was some kind of god-awful burden. Some people didn’t know how to appreciate what they had. Nobody was ever likely to leave him a family home, unless he counted the falling down shack across the creek. Now there was a mighty fine legacy he could be proud of.