Page 96 of Taken Away

She swallowed.

"My friends."

"My entire life."

“Every bit of it, lass,” Declan said. “She didn’t want surprises. She wanted to know if ye had the steel to run this mountain, or if ye were just another city girl hidin’ behind a title.”

He tipped his head toward Eleanor.

“Soon as I handed her the file—showin’ ye were brilliant, unattached, and no longer livin’ in Anne’s shadow—she rang Eleanor. Said she wanted the will changed that night.”

Eleanor opened the folder and slid a stack of documents across the table.

“Mabel’s original will had been in place for years—long before Bennett became her partner in the winery. Back then, Anne was the natural heir. But the winery had changed. Bennett became indispensable, and Anne made it clear she had no intention of returning to Blackwood. She knew the estate needed to reflect that reality.”

She flipped to the amendment.

“Two weeks ago, she rewrote it.”

Bennett leaned forward, his forearm coming down on the table.

“What did she change it to?”

“She restructured the estate around Aubrey and Bennett,” Eleanor said. “She left specific provisions and legacy bonuses for long-time staff like Walter Grady and Red Stephens, but the majority of the estate passed to Aubrey and Bennett.”

She tapped the page.

“All personal assets. The mansion. Sixty percent of the winery. The entire cattle operation—those all go to Aubrey, provided she stays and actively runs the place for a year. The remaining winery stake and joint operational control are split between Aubrey and Bennett.”

Bennett blinked. "She never said a word."

Aubrey’s pulse hammered. The yellow sticky note from Walter’s office flashed in her mind—the one she suddenly wasn’t sure how many people had seen.

“Mabel told me she had to repair the fracture before it was too late,” Eleanor said, looking at Aubrey. “She wanted to pull you out of the bitterness your mother built. She made me file the revised will with the county clerk that same afternoon. It was finalized and legally binding immediately.”

Burke frowned.

“Why is that timing critical?”

“Because Mabel thought she was keeping a secret, but she wasn’t as careful as she believed,” Eleanor said. “People talk in a valley like this. If someone in this valley found out she was restructuring the estate—if they thought they could stop her from changing the old arrangements and giving most of it to Aubrey by getting rid of her…”

Aubrey felt the pieces snap together.

“They were too late,” she whispered, looking from Eleanor to Bennett. “The will had already been filed. It was legally binding.”

“Exactly,” Eleanor said. “Whoever killed her did it to stop the future from changing. They didn’t know it was already done.”

Bennett’s hand snapped out, his fingers closing around Aubrey’s wrist, steadying the tremor there. He pulled her fractionally closer, eyes flashing as he looked at Burke.

“So if this was about the will,” Bennett said, his voice low and uncompromising, “they miscalculated. Aubrey was still named. The winery still shifted. Killing Mabel didn’t lock anything in place.”

Burke rose and turned to the dry-erase board.

“Maybe it was about the will,” he said, snapping the marker cap back into place. “Maybe it was about who ends up with control of the winery. Maybe it was old grudges. We don’t know yet.” He circled both AUBREY’s and BENNETT’s names beneath MABEL’S. “What we do know is that when the dust settled, the estate sat with you two.”

He looked from Bennett to Aubrey.

“Whoever did this thought Mabel’s death would freeze things the way they liked them,” Burke went on. “It didn’t. The future still changed. And you’re both standing in the middle of it.”