Chapter Thirty-Four
The satisfaction of dismissing Harlan didn’t last long. Not when I turned around and saw Celia and Gram standing there, waiting for me to rejoin them.
“What was that little side conversation about?”
The pissiness hadn’t left Gram’s voice. Harlan’s game playing had set her off. It would be hours before her grumbling and whispered swearing disappeared.
In her volatile mood, I didn’t want to challenge her. Not in any mood, actually, but especially now. I turned to my go-to move. Babbling.
“Nothing important. The usual.”
I shrugged because it fit with my futile attempt to pull off no-big-deal energy. “Not really . . . You know.”
Gram’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t. Explain.”
Pivot. Pivot. Pivot.
“To be fair, no one wants to talk with Harlan. Doing so makes us all a bit testy,”
Celia said as she moved around the table, picking up Harlan’s used cup and eliminating any evidence he once sat there.
Thank you, Celia.
She dumped the uneaten pie in the sink. “We deal with him, on as limited a basis as we can make it, because he doesn’t give us any choice.”
I waited, hoping Celia’s comments would shift Gram’s focus. And . . . they did.
“I should have known when he came by for tea that he had an ulterior motive.”
Gram sat down and poured herself a fresh cup of Earl Grey. “He doesn’t drink tea. He doesn’t even recognize a good dessert when it’s sitting in front of him. Did you see the pie? He didn’t touch it.” She snorted. “Outrageous.”
Never change, Gram. “Yes, the most annoying thing about Harlan is his lack of pie appreciation.”
Celia sighed at both of us before returning to her seat at the table. “Maybe you two can lower the sarcasm level for a few minutes.”
“And this sale nonsense? Where did that come from?”
Gram went ahead and answered her own question as she sat down. “From Harlan’s tiny head. That’s where.”
Well, actually . . .
“It’s a mistake, Mags. Bad information. Nothing more.”
Celia put her hand over Gram’s and held it there for a few seconds before moving on to scone distribution.
“He’s tried this before. Remember?”
Gram shook her head. “He never learns.”
“What?”
I sat down and listened because this was news to me. “When?”
“It’s no big deal.”
Celia kept pouring and setting out plates. “We said no, and he stopped lobbying us.”
Another snort from Gram. “He’s clearly not done trying.”
“Hold up.”
They’d lost me, likely on purpose. “What exactly did he do?”
“He presented us with a proposal about a year ago. Talked about how he’d usher the deal and spouted off his with me you’ll get the best deal nonsense.”
Gram mimicked Harlan’s voice in a way that would have been funny if the words weren’t so familiar. “His idea was to take the company national. Expand the customer base. Become a household name and bring more attention to North Carolina ingenuity.”
“And more attention to him. It was clear he wanted to leverage our business to increase his profile and convince those in power that he was irreplaceable,”
Celia said.
The play sounded familiar. NOI excelled at that type of maneuvering. Brock bragged more than once about finding a business’s weakness and leaning on it to “convince”
those in charge to sell.
Why the hell did I drag Mags’ Desserts into this vicious world?
“Harlan talked about us getting a paycheck with lots of zeros. He kept saying we’d never have to worry about money again.”
Gram blew by a snort and moved right to her famous pfft. “I don’t worry about money now, not regularly. We’re fine.”
Celia shot me an intense look. “We are.”
They didn’t need Harlan and his money. They didn’t need NOI or my interference.
A gnawing tension moved in and ticked up in intensity. Once these ladies knew the whole story about the business sale the usual calm of the room would shatter.
“I surely don’t need businessmen coming in here telling me how to make a damn pie,”
Gram started muttering under her breath.
I caught a few words. Some were profane. None of them were nice.
Celia ripped her scone into pieces. “Mags’s mood is a reflection of a provision in Harlan’s proposal that would have limited our ability to make desserts and sell them even to friends.”
“Prohibited it thanks to some noncompete nonsense.”
Gram’s voice grew louder with each word. “He acted so helpful. Even said he’d run the business until sale. Him.”
Gram like to refer to Harlan as a toad. She was right. The guy was a toad.
“A betrayal. That’s what that was.”
Gram sounded fighting mad. “What does he know about desserts? Nothing.”
True, but I’d be happier if they didn’t throw words like “betrayal”
around so freely.
“A sale.”
Gram worked in one more snort. “As if I’d forfeit control and put that man in charge.”
“Well then.”
Celia sent Gram a stern look that said that’s enough before turning to me. “I’m sorry you were here for his visit.”
Gram wasn’t ready to stop. “I’m sorry any of us were.”
“We don’t like to bother you with assorted business details.”
Celia finally dropped the scone remains. She had crumbs and pieces scattered all over her plate like pastry shrapnel.
Celia didn’t engage in nervous fidgeting. She tended to be the calm one. The one who didn’t grump and stomp around. Seeing Celia in a restless state started alarm bells ringing in my head.
“It’s not your job to worry about us,”
Celia said, as if she knew the direction of my thoughts.
Nice try at placating, but she was wrong about this. Dead wrong.
“That’s not actually how family works.”
I pointed at both of them. “You two taught me that.”
“Harlan’s wishes are irrelevant. We had no intention of selling back then and no intention now.”
Celia managed a partial and completely unnatural smile. “We’ve expanded fine without his help.”
Gram continued to fume, lost in her head and unable or unwilling to move on from Harlan’s bombshell. “Why would anyone be targeting our company? And to reach out to him of all people? Ridiculous.”
The room spun to a stop. The sudden jerking movement made me sit up straight and hold on. All the talking and mumbling from Gram and deflecting from Celia amounted to wasted energy. I knew the truth. The harsh, unflattering truth that thrashed and screamed, begging to escape.
I shoved my plate and scone to the side. My hand shook from the force of the adrenaline coursing through me. I swallowed. Cleared my throat. Nothing eased the clogging tension. “About that . . .”
The ladies kept talking. To each other. Over each other.
“I doubt anyone had been fishing around. I’m sure Harlan was taking liberties with the truth, as he does.”
Celia put a napkin over her scone carnage. “Bless his heart.”
I’d waited for one of them to use that deadly phrase during this conversation. It took longer than expected.
“Lying. He was lying.”
Gram ramped up again. “Some company calls him out of nowhere? That’s ridiculous gibberish. This time he thought he could weasel his way in during tea.”
Celia winced. “The timing was bizarre.”
Enough. I could stop this. I needed to stop this. Time to be brave and take the consequences and figure out how to weather the fallout. “Gram.”
“He’s gone too far this time.”
Gram’s voice crept up to a higher range. The one she used when she got really pissed.
This was partially my fault and I needed to own that. “Gram.”
Celia glared at Gram before plastering on the world’s fakest smile. This one was even less genuine than her last one. “You don’t need to worry about this, honey. We’ll take care of Harlan.”
“He refers to our business as a hobby,”
Gram added.
Celia waved off the comment. “He says a lot of asinine things.”
When she pushed the plate with the scone toward me again I had a choice. Snatch it up and eat every crumb. Keep mentally running and hope this would blow over . . . or be a grown-up.
For the first time in more than a week, I landed on the right decision. Terrifying as it was to disappoint them. “Okay. Look—”
“No.”
Celia’s hand covered mine. “We’re not letting him ruin our tea.”
It was a little late for that.
Celia eyed the plate in front of me. “The scones are the peach ones you liked.”
“There’s no reason to skimp. Take a muffin and a piece of pie.”
Gram’s voice sounded better. Not normal but out of the high-octane range. “You need to eat.”
I couldn’t do this.
“Both of you stop for a second.”
I shoved all the plates to the side. “It was me. I’m so sorry.”
Celia shook her head. “Harlan isn’t your responsibility.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
Celia didn’t but Gram did. Those intelligent eyes refocused. Thanks to years of practice, she heard my fumbling and reacted.
Gram sat back with her hands folded on her lap. “Explain.”
The clipped tone grabbed Celia’s attention. She sat in a pose identical to Gram’s. “Kasey?”
“I’m the one who proposed the sale of your business.”
It hurt to shove the words out. Hurt more to watch them as I confessed. “Me. Blame me.”
For a few seconds neither of them said a thing. They stared at me with identical, unreadable expressions.
Then Gram looked at Celia. “I told you.”