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I take my thumb and draw a line across my neck while Dad isn’t looking, signaling to my brother that he’s dead meat.
“So we convince her to sell the house.” Dad’s stern expression is determined.
“Exactly.” Liam nods. “We’ll give her a price she can’t refuse.”
“Not that she needs the money. Funny, a descendant of Butch’s actually went out there and made something of themselves.”
“Never seen any of her movies.” Liam shrugs, giving us that tidbit.
“Didn’t know you even owned a TV with more than four basic cable channels,” I quip.
He glowers. “I don’t. Shit is a distraction.”
“Says the guy who sneaks into mom’s living room to watch reality tv with her.” I pull out that taunting card, knowing it’ll piss him off.
Right on cue, my brother flips me a middle finger and glowers. That’s really Liam’s natural state, even if his guilty pleasure is bickering housewives on the screen.
“What’s a distraction is little miss Hollywood living on the land that should be ours simply for having to put up with her father for so long. I should shove that in her face.”
Something sours in my stomach at the dismissive tone Dad holds for the offspring of his enemy. We all know Butch was an ass, and I’m not innocent in putting that blame on Cassandra as well, but something about my father’s words doesn’t sit right.
“Dad, we haven’t seen the woman in ten years,” I point out. “We can’t bully her into giving us the property.”
Dad leans against my desk and rubs his jaw. “Then we won’t. You’ll charm her. Always been good at that, especially when it comes to the ladies.”
As if my failed engagements were a glowing recommendation as to how I wooed women.
“He’s right, Patty. You have to convince her to sell us that land. It’ll finally mean all that property is ours, no one snooping. I could put up more security, keep the natural pests out, along with the nefarious human kinds.”
More than once, someone has tried to sneak onto our farm and steal our crop to study it and replicate it. There’s a reason our sauce is so good, why our vegetable dishes are so fresh. Liam works diligently on setting our ingredients apart from every other restaurant, down to the basil he grows close to the patio of my parent’s colonial. Having more security means less of a risk that someone would steal our recipes, because they’ve tried.
“Quit it with the nickname.” It makes me feel like a twelve-year-old, and Liam has already pissed me off enough tonight. “I don’t know how you think I’ll get her to sell us the land. I’m sure Cassandra is a rational human being; once she lists, we make an offer. Simple as that. If it’s the best, which it will be, she’ll take it.”
Even I know that sounds stupid.
Dad snorts, the years of exhaustion worn all over his face. “Yeah right. She knows we hated her father with a passion. No way we’ll get past the bidding stage with our last name on the papers.”
And no one in my family knows I am a small part of why Cassandra only attended Hope Crest High School for three months before leaving for a school near her mother’s home in the city. That was another strike against us.
“You’ll convince her, Patrick. I have faith in you. You always know how to grease a wheel, find a way, smooth a surface. Your mother knew you were as steady as calm water the day you came into this world.”
Though when I look to Liam, he doesn’t look so sure about my father’s assessment.
I know why. Because while that might be the case professionally, I’m anything but steady in my personal life. I’m constantly rocking the boat, changing tides, and looking beneath the surface.
What my father is asking is for me to get close to Cassandra. Chum it up with her, rub elbows, maybe even use some pheromones to slip under her skin. He wants me to flirt her into selling us her father’s land.
Little does he know the danger he’s asking me to dive into. When it comes to Cassandra Mauer, restraint is all I’ve ever practiced. And now he’s telling me to let all the reins go.
4
CASSANDRA
One of the things I’ve always loved about Hope Crest, even if I wasn’t specifically included in them, are the town traditions.
I recall the Trout Fest every spring, “Float the River” day down the Delaware in mid-July, and the early fall boxcar race that were just a couple among the numerous small-town events that were put on. Everyone would come out for them, filling the cobblestone sidewalks to watch the races or the boats attempting to haul in the biggest fish. Boys and girls danced in the blocked-off streets, all the shops had outdoor seating, even in the winter with heaters, and sold special menu items or handed out little treats to the kids. Teenagers snuck off to make out where their parents couldn’t see them, and the older generations looked on with wise smiles.
It gave the town this idyllic sense, a dream place where anybody would want to grow up.
