The High Price of Secrets(86)

                “A proposition?”

                It certainly wasn’t what he’d expected to hear from her lips. He sat up a little straighter. She was a far cry from the desperately unhappy and wounded woman who’d driven away from him two days ago. Something had happened to change her, but what? Whatever it was, he was grateful it had brought her back here, to him, even if only for a short time. Grateful enough to give his full attention to whatever proposition she wanted to make, no matter how badly his head hurt.

                “A business proposition, actually. I don’t know if Lorenzo told you—”

                “I haven’t spoken to him since the funeral on Monday,” he interrupted.

                Tamsyn nodded. “Okay, well, it seems that my brother and I are the proud owners of this.”

                She pushed a copy of a title plan toward him, and her finger pointed at the acreage adjoining his own. The very acreage he needed a slice of to complete his dream for the respite center. His headache grew to new proportions. How on earth had she and Ethan gotten possession of the land? And why was she telling him this? Was it so she could have the satisfaction of rubbing his face in it, in telling him that for what he’d done to her he could wait until hell froze over before he could have that easement?

                “I don’t understand. I’ve been approaching the trustees for months with no satisfaction. How did you get hold of it?”

                “Ellen gave it to us.”

                She lifted her eyes and stared at him, gauging his reaction, no doubt, and he didn’t disappoint. The shock that hit him now was second only to the shock that had shaken him when he’d opened his front door to her just a few minutes ago.

                “Ellen?”

                She nodded. “It seems she bought it many years ago with money she’d saved from what my father had sent her. He paid her a lot to stay away and Lorenzo wouldn’t let her use it for their new life together. I think that’s why my father’s solicitors had your address for mailing—did she maybe have her mail redirected to your address?”

                Realization dawned. Lorenzo and his parents had shared a letter box on the road and when Finn had built up here on the hill he hadn’t seen any point in changing what had worked for a couple of decades or more. He quickly explained it to Tamsyn.

                “So that’s why my mother’s checks were coming here, except you wouldn’t have known that, would you?”

                He shook his head. “We just leave each other’s mail in the box for whoever it was addressed to, to pick up. It’s always been as simple as that.”

                “Ellen was determined to leave something for Ethan and me, something that had meaning to her and that she hoped would have meaning to us, as well. Ethan and I have only talked about this briefly, but we’re one hundred percent on the same page about it. We both feel it’s very important to honor her memory and in that vein, we want to gift the land to the respite center.”

                “Are you sure? I mean, you know what getting that easement is going to mean to the overall development, but—”

                “Finn, you misunderstand me. We’re not offering you the easement.”

                Confusion muddled his already aching head. He supposed he deserved it if she wanted to deny him the easement, but then what had she been talking about?

                “What do you mean, exactly?”

                “We’re offering you everything, the entire acreage.”