Better Off Wed (Marswood Harbor #1)

Prologue

ETTA: AN OLD WOMAN WITH A PLAN

I listened to the chatter around the dining room table, gathering myself to drop a bomb on the table right between the roast beef and the mashed potatoes.

The smell of pepper and wine tickled my nose as cutlery clinked and voices mingled.

I set down my knife and fork, and a ripple of silence spread over the table.

“Mom?” Angela asked as the silence became thicker. She’d always been the brashest of my six children. The one most likely to take the lead, especially after Mark died almost twenty years ago. I’d blinked, and time had jumped.

“Next year, I’ll be ninety,” I started, looking over the expectant faces surrounding the table.

Only eleven of my eighteen grandchildren were at Sunday lunch this week, but it would have to be enough.

Getting the entire family together usually took a wedding or a funeral; I didn’t have time to wait for the next wedding, and the next funeral might very well be my own. “I don’t have long left in the world.”

“Mom,” Angela repeated, reproachful. “You’re healthier than ever. You could have another couple of decades with us.”

I lifted a hand, and Angela stopped. “Marswood Harbor has been my home since I was born,” I continued. “And it, like me, will die soon.”

An uncomfortable tension pulled at everyone around the table.

My grandsons Gideon and Jack exchanged a long look, then glanced at their two other brothers and then at their cousins.

Darby, my only great-grandchild, leaned into Jack’s side and whispered a question to her father.

Jack comforted her with a few murmured words.

Gideon glanced at his niece, then met my gaze, suspicious.

I saw so much of Mark in Gideon, and it was a gift to have pieces of my late son at this table all these years after Mark’s passing. My family meant everything to me.

My eldest son, Walter, narrowed his eyes at me. He’d always been perceptive; maybe that’s why he kept to himself most of the time.

I had their attention.

“The population of our town is in decline. Businesses are closing down as people retire or die, and no one is stepping in to run them.” I leaned back and spread my palms. “There’s no one left here who can.

Just last week, Ivan Popov told me that his daughter won’t move back here to take over the antiques shop.

That’s another decades-long business that will close down when he goes. ”

“Grandma,” Jack said, leaning forward. “We’re all here. We’ll keep the town going when you’re gone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“What I’m worried about,” I said, “is that you’ll do your best, and your best won’t be good enough.”

Jack opened his mouth and clamped it shut again.

I gestured to the door, and a slight man in wire-framed glasses walked in. He carried a laptop under his arm and ducked his head as the stares of more than a dozen people landed on his face and back. “This is Alex,” I said. “He’s been helping me with a little project these past months.”

“A project?” Angela prodded, then looked at Jennifer, my youngest. Jennifer’s kids shifted in their seats, impatient; they were only teenagers, so it couldn’t be helped. They wouldn’t be affected by my plans for a while yet. Not directly, at least.

“The project is a proprietary algorithm Alex has worked hard to design to my exact specifications,” I explained, watching frowns grace the faces around the dining room table. My beloved family was so very suspicious of me. As well they should be.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Angela’s frown was the most pronounced. She could feel that something big was coming.

“I have eighteen grandchildren, and only one of them is married,” I finally proclaimed.

I nodded at Ben and his wife Wendy, whose belly had started to swell as they awaited their first child.

The first child to be born in the Mars family for over a decade.

The second child born in Marswood Harbor in over two years.

It wasn’t enough. The town would die, and my family would scatter.

My legacy would be lost. All the decades of my life, the sweat and tears and blood I’d poured into this town, this family, would be for naught.

But I wasn’t dead yet. I still had my wits—and more importantly, my money.

“I’ve decided to bequeath my fortune to the national parks,” I announced, and paused as outrage exploded all around the table. I lifted my hand, and a tense, angry silence followed. My lips curled into a humorless smile. “Unless.”

A dozen and a half sets of eyes stared. Waited.

“Unless what?” asked my great-granddaughter Darby. She was only twelve, and she was the bravest of them all.

I could feel Gideon’s glare from across the table. Brave Gideon, who hadn’t been the same since the fire. He deserved happiness, and the poor dear would never go out and find it on his own. I would have to meddle.

I decided now was the time to detonate that bomb. My smile widened, my gaze meeting my eldest grandson’s. “Unless you all start getting married and having babies, of course.”

While the rest of the family exploded, Gideon leaned back in his chair, his shoulders relaxing. I could see his decision in the lines of his body. He would give up his inheritance in a blink. He wouldn’t be manipulated by the pot of gold that would come with my passing.

No, Gideon would need extra encouragement. I knew just the thing that would persuade him to play along.