Chapter 9 #3
She looked at him and shook her head. “No, only Grandma.”
“And you know that she’s never had anything to do with the horses, right?” he asked. “She doesn’t ride, won’t even go near them, and has always made it clear that she hates them.”
“I know, and I guess that’s why I thought she was okay with my having them, since she really doesn’t like them.” When he didn’t say anything, she snorted. “Christ, I’ve been such a fool.”
“No,” he said. “You believed in someone you love and thought loved you.”
“And did I—I don’t even know what to say at the moment.
It’s a little more of a shock than I can bear.
I don’t even know what to feel right now.
” She stared blindly, not even seeing the gorgeous scenery as the horses kept walking.
“I had an entire future planned out, and I’ve been working toward getting a place big enough where I could take the horses with me.
” She gave a bitter laugh. “I guess I don’t need to be worried about that. ”
He sighed and suggested, “How about no hasty decisions until I get to the bottom of this?”
“No decision to be made apparently,” she muttered, feeling numb right through her heart. She glanced down at the horse she rode. Bessie had been with her for a decade. She reached down and scratched the mare’s neck as she tossed her head in response. “She’s been with me a long time.”
“And I’m willing to look at that,” he repeated. “I’m just saying—”
“I know. I know what you’re saying,” she snapped. “I’m so sorry, Ashton. I didn’t even stop to consider that they weren’t even hers.”
“Of course not. Why would you?” he said. “I mean, she’s got everybody thinking that it’s all hers, but that’s just wrong.”
“And if the land and houses and horses were anybody’s, it would be Grandpa’s, right?”
“Part of it, at one time at least. You may not remember, but my parents owned all this. They are the original Nelson owners. When they passed—this would be Grandma and Grandpa’s son and his wife, my parents—their wills set up a trust with Grandpa in charge of my inheritance until I became of age.
So he and I inherited the Nelson farm. Once I turned eighteen, Grandpa had my part legally transferred into my name only hoping to bypass issues with his wife. Little did he know, right?”
He shook his head. “So, while it may look like Grandpa and Grandma owned all this, it was legally owned by me and Grandpa—until Grandma stole everybody’s money, and I had to pay back those stolen monies.
Then Grandpa transferred his share of the Nelson holdings in repayment to me.
… I’ve been the sole owner of Nelson farm for more than a decade now. ”
“But nobody knows that, right?” she asked.
“Just me, Jenny, Grandpa, the attorney—and now you.”
Crystal frowned. “But, like me, then Grandma and the boys would think, of course, when it comes to a marriage,” she suggested, “possession of property is a thing, but, … oh shit, … only if he’s gone.” She froze and stared at Ashton, her eyes widening.
He gave her that look.
“Please not that, please, please not,” she cried out softly.
“I don’t know,” he shared, “but it has to be considered.”
“Dear God,” she muttered. “You have to be wrong. I cannot let myself even begin to think that is happening here.”
“And I don’t have a clue,” he told her. “I’m just trying to find Grandpa, and then we can go from there.”
She nodded, but, for her, it was not so much going from there as it was trying to distance herself from the shock and horror of the possibilities. It was just too unbelievable to be true.
He asked her, “Did you finish school? Your vet school?”
“Yes,” she muttered, hanging her head. “I’m about six months away from my license and was trying to get to that point. I wanted to set up my own center, my own clinic, but I’m, … I’m pretty well run dry money-wise, just with the school fees and all.”
“Of course,” he noted. “Was Grandpa helping you at all?”
She wasn’t sure if he was asking for his own interests or for another reason, but he did ask, so he deserved an answer.
“He did initially, and then told me how he couldn’t afford to help anymore.
I believed him and could tell he felt bad about it.
Now it makes more sense, and I realize it was because of Grandma and her gambling. ”
He just nodded and didn’t say anything.
“It’s really hard for me to understand how all of this could go so bad so quickly.”
“Yeah, I hear you. I’ve been dealing with this for a while and not only is that hard to understand, it’s also hard to understand how Grandpa couldn’t stand up to her.
And that’s a huge part of the problem. I made the mistake of trusting him to do it, then I ended up sidelined when I got injured, which led to a long series of surgeries and rehab.
It was a bad scenario that I just had to face and deal with.
Meanwhile, things at the family homestead just got worse. ”
“And you really think Grandma’s been withdrawing money from the client accounts still?” she asked.
“She was under an agreement to deposit repayments for the money she stole, and she wasn’t to have access to any of the accounts.
But recently, according to what the lawyer found and what the banker told me as well, she did get back into one of the accounts, using Grandpa’s login, and has removed a substantial amount of money. ”
“And when you say a substantial amount, how much is that?”
“Over one-quarter million dollars,” he stated in a clipped voice.
She stared at him in shock. “Oh my God, that—”
“Yeah. And that is separate from the additional almost half-a-million dollars that she socked away into this new personal checking account that I need the account number for. I have no idea where she got that money from.” He shook his head.
“If we can’t freeze both accounts and access that money before Grandma takes off with both, that will cripple us, even with Grandpa’s emergency fund that the attorney just told me about.
I know you don’t want to believe it, but the numbers don’t lie.
So hear me on this. … Don’t misunderstand me.
The houses and the land and the horses will all have to go. ”
Her heart sank even more.
Ashton continued. “Maybe I can mortgage it, but it’s not as if I’m a solid bet right now. I do have money, and I’ve been paying for everything to keep the status quo, but that doesn’t mean anybody will give me a loan, unless I have the wherewithal to pay it back.”
She couldn’t imagine what he must be feeling, as her own heart slammed against her chest with the shock.
She thought about the little old lady who, for the most part, had treated her well but had recently shown a completely different side of herself.
“Grandma has been very different lately,” she stated, “and I don’t, …
I don’t even know quite how to describe it. ”
“Right, but I have a pretty good idea what you mean.”
She winced. “I would like to think that she is doing everything to help Grandpa and the property that she says she loves.”
“She loves it, no doubt about that, because it’s been a source of money for her,” he stated bluntly.
She winced. “I really, really hate that I see her in a completely different light now.”
He smiled and then sighed. “You don’t have to. I mean, everybody else has turned a blind eye to it, so you could just join the pack.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do that now, can I?”
“Everybody else has, including your stepbrothers.”
She just stared at him and asked, “Do you think they know? About this part?”
“I not only think they know but I think they’re probably finagling how to get it out from under us or how to come out on top of all this somehow. I just don’t know what that looks like.”
“You don’t have a whole lot of love for them, do you?”
“Not once I realized they were enabling her, no,” he admitted, with a dry laugh. “Sorry, but fairy tales were never a thing in my world. Maybe for other people, but I never had the ability to just let everything go and be something other than what I am.”
She knew what he meant. After she had been adopted by his uncle, her life had been thrown completely out the window too. “I understand that much,” she replied. “It’s hard when everything in your life blows up and when the people who should be there just aren’t anymore.”
He nodded. “Did you ever look into other family members, your birth parents and such?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “No. It occurred to me every once in a while, and I wondered and thought I might like to know, but then I chickened out, realizing maybe I didn’t want to know after all.”
He nodded. “Information like that, once you know it, changes everything,” he noted. “But still, if it’s something that you’re interested in, maybe you should.”
“Grandma made it clear that she wouldn’t appreciate if I took that route.”
Surprised, he looked at her and asked, “Why is that?”
“I don’t know, but now I really don’t want to know,” she muttered, followed by a hysterical laugh that sounded odd, even to her. “It seems like everything has been tossed on its head, and I don’t really understand anything that’s going on. So, I can’t really answer that.”
They rode at a decent clip as their gazes searching the fields and woods.
Then, without warning, the words popped out of her mouth. “Do you know anything about my adoption?”
“No, only that it happened.”
“And then within about, what, four years, six maybe, my aunt and uncle were killed.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I remember.”
“So, I lost my birth family, then got adopted and gained two stepbrothers, who absolutely love to bug me, and then we lost their parents as well,” she noted.