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I’ve made a lot of enemies in this town, and if you haven’t discovered them yet, they’re soon to reveal themselves. Stay sharp, Rowan, trust few, and keep your wits about you. Though, being a CEO of a major company like yours, you probably understand this exactly.
Which is just one reason why I chose you to be the estate owner. The other reason brings me back to Amelia.
I tried to negotiate a multi-million-dollar merger with a paper factory in Georgia by proposing that my daughter marry the owner’s oldest son, but shortly after agreements were made, Amelia confessed that she was pregnant. She was seventeen at the time, and regardless of her obligations to me and our lineage, she made the decision to leave with him.
I understand how difficult it must be to have sympathy for a man who would turn his pregnant daughter out and cut her off from a fortune she was meant to inherit, but I was angry. Dear god, was I angry.
Amelia’s mother abandoned us not long after she was born, and when my daughter left me, it was as if I were reliving that agony all over again. I handled the situation from a place of hurt and betrayal, instead of being there for the one person who was most precious to me, and I paid the ultimate price.
But I digress.
You’ll have to forgive this old brain. It’s not quite as sharp as it once was.
The purpose of giving you the estate is because, in a letter your mother wrote to me once, she said she believed you to be just like her, and that was all the convincing I needed to make this decision.
You might think I’m a selfish bastard for asking these things of you and your brothers, and you’re probably right. Old habits die hard, as they say, but I want you to marry a nice woman, Rowan. I want you to help Magnolia Creek prosper by taking over the family business and allow the Radley/Kendrick line to continue for many, many more generations.
My greatest regret in life was waiting until it was too late to make amends with my daughter. Her death ruined me, but I was stubborn, stuck in my ways, and I bet you’re much the same if you’re anything like us.
If I could go back and change one thing, I would have never quit on her, but that’s the problem with waiting until you’re dying to figure these things out.
Rowan, my grandson, this is my opportunity to make amends, and while there’s much to be unveiled, I believe you can be a catalyst for change.
Please, if you’re lucky enough to find a woman as unbelievably inspiring and wonderful as your mother, don’t you dare let her go.
Sincerely,
Thomas
P.S. Patricia Hawkins may be a tough woman, but don’t let her fool you. She’s a hopeless romantic at heart.
I drop the letter on my lap and stare into the fire.
He didn’t give me all the answers I wanted, but he gave me enough to know that Sam was wrong about him. Enough to see that Sam’s following in his grandfather’s footsteps.
I don’t know that I can forgive Thomas for the way he treated my mother, but I do understand his regret and even the frustration he would have felt to have the only heir to his family’s fortune not follow the path he’d carefully laid out for her.
“Fuck.” I scrub a hand down my face.
Her disappearance… It makes sense now. She’d been pregnant with Archer, and she and Dad left because of her fall out with Thomas. If it’s as bad as it sounds on paper, it’s possible they wanted to keep him and Magnolia Creek a secret because the memories were painful, and she’d done her best to move on.
I reread the last sentence twice more before the answer to our problem hits me.
Kendricks never quit, and that means I’m not giving up. Not on my brothers, not on Molly, and not on myself.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Molly
One Week Later
Dad walks through what remains of Mom’s greenhouse with a heart-achingly grave expression. One that has tears pricking the back of my throat, where a knot the size of an apple has lodged itself.
“Molly…” he says hesitantly, and his sorrow at seeing the gift we built her all those years ago damn near kills me.
“I know,” I murmur. There’s a layer of dust clinging to old pots and shelving, and frowning, he runs his fingers across them. “I didn’t know how to tell you, so I… I just didn’t.”
Dad stops at the back of the building and stares out a dirty window at the empty plots of land where so many lively blooms once flourished.
