Within minutes, he’d had the large stand mixer, ingredients, and utensils out of the boxes and lined up for her. In the back of his mind, he wondered if he should ask her. “So did you get to spoil them a lot when they were growing up? You have been with the family for years, right?” He knew she had.
She chuckled as she tugged on the apron over her head and turned to him. “Do me up, will ya?” He did, liking her friendly, down-to-earth personality. “I was hired the day Charlie was born.” She waved off that, saying, “But that’s a whole other story. Oh, the first Mrs. King, what a peach. Sweet, kind, loving. My Charlie sure did turn out a lot like her momma. Mind you, she’s got a lot of her daddy in her, too. Loves that store.”
When she pointed for the sack of flour, he fetched it and handed it over.
“But, once the first Mrs. K. got sick,” she choked up, “never the same again. Mr. K. tried, but he was trying to keep everything going while taking care of her. I did my best with Charlie. My little helper.” She brightened up, saying, “Mr. K. had his King’s family, too. They rallied around him, visiting, taking Charlie for an outing with their kids, sitting with Mrs. K. so he could work at the store. You know, everybody pitched in.”
“It sounds like quite a family,” Griff said softly, admiration for the Kings and their employees growing even more.
“Yes sirree, but the one who impressed me the most was his lawyer friend.” She stirred in some baking powder, and then a pinch of salt as she talked.
Griff’s middle clenched. “How so?”
“Day or night he’d come, sit with Mr. K. and listen. Sometimes I’d find them wiping away tears, others chuckling. But, that ain’t all. He paid for a lot of the bills. Mr. K. wasn’t there to pump up the store, bring in the sales, so things got slow. And he had to pull money from the store more than he should have for all those doctor bills.” She shrugged. “You do what you gotta do. So his friend steps in and takes over paying things at the house, sometimes at the store. I remember once he covered the whole week’s payroll when King’s was short.”
He swallowed hard; he’d never heard this before. “Good friend.”
“The best. Nearly went broke, but he didn’t care.”
“You knew him.” She must have at least seen him coming and going from the house. “Well?”
“Not so I would sit and have a chat, but, yeah, I knew him. Kinda shy and standoffish with everyone but Mr. K. What’s that word I’m looking for? Awkward, that’s it, awkward around people he didn’t know or if it was anything but business talk. Great lawyer. My, he was a big shot in this town, I’ll tell you. You were in trouble, all you had to do was call him and he’d come.”
“And then what happened?” His curiosity made him ask. If he had been so smart, so loyal, why had so many turned on him?
“First, Mrs. K. passed away. So sad. Mr. K. was devastated. Charlie clung to me, and we got through it together. Then what was it, months—not even a year? Mr. K. walks in with a new wife and two stepdaughters out of the blue. You could have knocked us over with a feather. The lawyer friend challenged him, got right up in his face. I saw it with my own eyes. Mr. K. broke down; said he brought the second Mrs. K. in to do the accounting, save the store. The only way she agreed was if he’d marry her. She’d help him dig his way out from the hole he’d gotten into. She did, too, and brought it roaring back. In exchange, he promised to adopt her girls and always take care of them. He knew he’d made a mistake right off the bat, but he couldn’t turn his back on the girls.”
So much made sense. “She pushed her weight around, I assume.” He’d heard stories of her temper. He handed Dolly the cocoa she indicated.
She flipped the mixer on and slowly added the dry ingredients to the twirling glass bowl with the butter and milk she’d already put in it.
“And how,” she said over the noise. “But he reeled her in, threatened to fire her. She calmed down…until poor Mr. K. got sick himself.” Shutting off the mixer, she continued, “One minute he’s tired, next minute he’s got terminal cancer. Happened fast. He called his lawyer friend right away. The second Mrs. K. didn’t like that one bit. They were holed up in Mr. K.’s study for hours.”
Griffin stopped watching her smooth, even movements as she readied the pans. He jerked his gaze to her profile.
“A will, I’m sure of it. What else could it have been, right? But lo and behold once he passed, there’s this one dated the day before he died. She’d already barred—hey, get it? Lawyer barred? Anyway, she barred the lawyer friend from seeing Mr. K. in the end. The date on the will isn’t the same day as the long visit.”