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Brooke wiggled her feet inside the confining heels. With a broken pinky, pinching heels and her wounded pride, she hurt everywhere. A few days ago, she was planning a wedding. Now, she had no plans at all beyond getting through today.
“I don’t think Lucas is going to make it,” she said.
“If Lucas was coming, he’d be here,” Zach added with coplike frankness.
“A few minutes longer.” The quiet steel of Mei Clayton’s voice drew every eye to her round, delicate face. Of all her kin, Brooke understood Mei the least. As she’d grown older Mei had pulled away from all of the Claytons except her adopted brother, Lucas.
“What makes you think he’ll show?” Zach asked.
Mei sat up straighter in the cushioned chair, quietly insistent. Her gleaming black hair swung softly around her Asian features. “If he’s needed, my brother will come.”
The lawyer cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, everyone. I have another appointment in thirty minutes.” With a gesture Brooke found overdramatic, the attorney pointed toward a flat screen. “If I may direct your attention to the TV. Mr. Clayton himself would like to address you first, and then I have the task of setting out the rules of the will.”
Brooke exchanged frowning glances with her brother. What in the world? Zach lifted an eyebrow but offered no response. Whatever his thoughts, he’d keep them to himself until all the evidence was on the table.
The screen flickered to life and the face of Grandpa George appeared, looking a little too hearty to have been buried a few hours ago. Dressed in his usual dark business suit, he was seated behind the desk at his law offices. An uncomfortable hush fell over the five assembled Claytons.
“If you’re watching this, I’m dead.” George chuckled at his own morbid joke. “You’re all wondering why I’ve dragged you back here. I haven’t been the best grandfather. I haven’t always done right by you, or by anyone, for that matter. But before the deaths of my two sons changed everything, we were a family. Not as close as we should have been, but we spent Christmas and Thanksgiving together.”
“Then because of issues I hope you never know about, I lost my daughter, too. Kat won’t even speak to me, and five of you grandkids have scattered across the country. Clayton, Colorado, might not be much, but it’s your home, your history. My daddy started this town. My wife started the church. Claytons belong here.” He pointed a bony finger toward the camera. “You belong here.”
The cousins exchanged uncomfortable glances. Brooke knew they were all thinking the same thing. Having a dead man point at you was weird.
“I want you to come home,” Grandpa said. “All six of you—for at least a year. Be a family again. Revive this dying town. Find your hearts and souls right here where you left them.”
Zach pushed up from his chair and paced to the window.
“Sit down, Zach. You always did pace like a tiger when upset.” Grandpa George chuckled. “If you didn’t get up, you wanted to.”
Zach returned his attention the video, arms folded, mouth quirked in wry amusement. Goose bumps shimmied up Brooke’s back. Zach’s philosophy might be “Never let ’em see you sweat,” but Brooke was all for sweating. Grandpa George’s video bordered on creepy.
“You may think Clayton is your past, son,” Grandpa George went on. “But I know a thing or two about your present. Miami holds nothing but bad memories for you. Clayton and this county need you. Even dead, your old grandpa can pull a few strings, and you’d do mighty fine as Clayton County sheriff. Think about it, Zach.”
Zach as county sheriff? Now there was an outrageously interesting and laughable idea. After what Zach had been through in Clayton? No way.
“As incentive, because I know none of you will willingly come home, I’ve left something for each of you.” Grandpa George paused. Brooke refused to even ponder an inheritance. The old miser had probably left them all a pile of debts just for orneriness. “Two hundred fifty thousand dollars each, plus five hundred acres of Colorado real estate right here in Clayton County.”
A clamor broke out in the room.
