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“How could he have had that much money?”
“I thought he was broke.”
“I can’t believe this.”
Mark Arrington lifted a long hand. “Ladies. Zach. There are stipulations to the inheritance. You need to hear the rest.”
Vivienne rolled her thickly lashed blue eyes. “Stipulations. That figures.”
The clamor subsided, but Brooke’s heart clattered wildly in her chest until she could barely hear her grandfather’s voice. A quarter of a million dollars? She could…she could do anything she wanted to. If she knew what that was.
“Arabella.”
Her cousin jumped. How many times in the past months had kind-hearted Arabella jumped up to do their sick grandfather’s bidding?
“You’re the only one who’s stuck with your old Grandpa. That’s why I’m leaving you the house, too, as long as your cousins cooperate and stick out their year. With out you, I wouldn’t have made my peace with God. Leastways, Reverend West says the Lord forgives my sins, and though that doesn’t make up for the wrongs I’ve done, perhaps this legacy of good I’m leaving behind will make a difference.”
Arabella dabbed at her eyes. She’d worried a tissue into a ragged mess. Mei reached into her handbag and pulled out a handful of tissues, offering them to her cousin without a word.
“So there you are, children,” Grandpa George said. “An inheritance that can change your lives if you choose to accept it. But the will is ironclad. No exceptions. All of you have to spend a year in Clayton. And you have to come home by this Christmas. Hear that, Lucas?” He rapped twice on the desk. “No later than Christmas.
“This is my chance to leave a legacy—a good one—for the town that bears my name. I know what you’re thinking—too little, too late—but I ask that each of you look in your hearts and find one happy memory of me. It might take a while, and you might be reluctant, but you’ll find at least one. And maybe it’ll help.”
The television screen flickered and went dark. The conference room was so quiet Brooke could hear her finger throb.
Mark Arrington cleared his throat. “So there you have it. Spend one year in Clayton and inherit a fortune.”
Vivienne, elegant and classy in black and white, was already shaking her dark blond head. As a renowned New York chef, she had worked hard to shed her rural ways. She loved the city. She loved her life. “I can’t just walk away from my career. What am I supposed to do in Clayton? Flip burgers at The Cowboy Café?”
“We all have jobs, Viv,” Zach said quietly.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. But Brooke was too embarrassed to bring up her homeless, jobless state at a time like this. Both her siblings had great careers. Important jobs that mattered. Brooke had never wanted to come back to Clayton, but now… The others had lives. She didn’t. An inheritance of this caliber could change everything.
“If we do this, we all have to agree,” she said. “A quarter of a million dollars is a lot of money for any of us. Even you, Vivienne.”
Zach, who was up pacing again, spun around. “You’re forgetting something—or someone. Lucas. Does anyone even know where he is? Anyone talked to him lately?”
They all looked to Mei who sat apart, serene and alone. Long black hair swished across her slender shoulders as she shook her head. “Not in weeks.”
Vivienne blew out an exasperated breath. Like Brooke, she bore the Clayton looks—their father’s looks. Blond, blue-eyed, a single dimple in her left cheek. Unlike the others, she’d studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and had an air of sophistication totally out of place in Clayton, Colorado. “We could spend a year in Clayton for nothing.”
“I say we forget about it,” Mei said. “None of us wants to be here. The chance of actually inheriting anything but trouble is slim at best. I don’t want to waste a year of my life in this town for nothing.”
Nods of agreement circled the room. Mei had spoken for them all.
“If I may say something please.” The lawyer took a manila folder from the table in front of him. “No one has asked what will happen to the money should the six of you fail to inherit.”
