Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
GRIFFIN
The next morning, I march out of the Winsome Town Hall like I’ve just claimed victory in a war.
This is my favorite kind of war because nobody’s going to get hurt, but one person—one arrogant, unfairly sexy, ridiculously broad-shouldered person who gives lumberjacks a bad name—is gonna get his pride trampled, while another innocent and generally delightful person—aka me—gets to savor the smug feeling of triumph.
I can’t lie, I had my doubts when I first located the records office.
The place smells like sad, stale coffee, and the ancient records clerk greeted me with a dead-eyed stare from behind a towering stack of papers, like I was her first human visitor in years.
I thought for sure Vermont was about to do me dirty again.
But I shouldn’t have doubted Sylvia—my new favorite sixty-something; don’t tell my moms—because once I explained why I was there, she spryly jumped up from her desk, popped a piece of bubblegum, stuck a pencil in her Reagan-era perm, hopped over to one of the many, many file cabinets, and produced the deed to the Grange property in about thirty seconds flat.
I clutch the rolled-up papers Sylvia copied for me as I skip down the stairs to join Milo, who’s sitting on the low wall in front of the building, basking in the late-September sunshine.
“I have good news,” I say, bouncing in front of him. “The best news. Guess!”
Milo glances up from his phone and taps his lip thoughtfully, pretending to consider. “Hmm… Erick Nelson admitted to sabotaging you, his dad offered your job back with a bonus, and we’re going home to forget all about treehouses with stained glass windows that look like big green dicks?”
“What?” I scowl. “No.”
“Oooh, I know! The hot mechanic who fixed your flat tire called you back and asked for my Instagram handle so he could send me some NSFW snapshots!”
“Milo.” I smack his arm with my rolled-up papers. “I feel like you don’t know how this game is played.”
“Sorry, sorry.” He snickers, then morphs his face into something angelically eager. “Why, I can’t imagine, Griffin! Please share your excellent news!”
“Much better.” I grin. “The deed is, in fact, in the name of the Griffin Mercer Trust!”
“Which… is pretty much exactly what you thought.” Milo sounds unimpressed.
“Yes, but! The hand-drawn property map the lawyer sent me is actually part of the official property record, and it shows the road—by which I mean my driveway— running right over my land. They also have a copy of the trust on file.”
He nods. “That makes sense, since the trust owns the land.”
“Right? It says…” I unroll the papers and read, “All property, both real and personal, tangible and intangible, including intellectual rights, of whatever nature and wherever situated, shall be distributed to Griffin Mercer.”
“What intellectual rights are we talking about?” Milo asks.
I shrug. “Not a clue. Maybe he wrote some mushroom poetry. But are you ready for the best part?”
Milo sits forward, takes a deep breath, cracks his neck side to side, and shakes out his hands, making a huge production of it. “Okay. Yeah. I’m ready. Lay it on me.”
I rock back and forth on the balls of my feet giddily. “There’s no easement on record! Nary a clause nor a footnote. So, there!” I add, speaking directly to the ghost of Beckett Axford that’s taken up residence in my head.
“Okay, yeah.” Milo nods. “That is good.”
“It’s excellent,” I correct. “Damn, I wish I could courier these copies directly to Beckett’s house encased in a glitter bomb.” I drop down on the wall beside Milo and tilt my face up to the sun. “And then be there hiding in the bushes to watch him open it!”
The idea of Beckett with glitter clinging to his messy dark hair, his beard, his broad chest, and his big, thick thighs makes my heart rate kick up excitedly.
Because of the glitter. Obviously.
“Griffycakes. My precious lamb.” Milo pushes up his designer sunglasses so they’re nestled in his curls, and his serious gaze meets mine. “Don’t you think you might be getting a little too invested in this?”
I laugh incredulously. “Uh, no. I’m exactly the right amount invested in this. You were there, Milo. You saw how rude Beckett was. How dismissive. How cranky. And he threw Jim’s lucky tennis racket into a tree!” Even a day later, the memory of it makes my hands clench into fists.
I spent a fucking hour last night trying to shake the tree—not my most logical endeavor, I grant you—and throwing rocks at the racket to dislodge it. All I had to show for it was a blister on my thumb.
“He did,” Milo agrees. “And I’m not defending him…”
“Really?” I demand hotly. “’Cause your tone sure suggests you are.”
“Griffin Alexander Mercer. I will ride with you to Beckett’s house and glitter bomb the hell out of him right now if you want.
I will toilet paper every tree in his forest. You know this!
But what I want to know is… why are you wasting your time and energy on Beckett the Lumberjack when you have so much other shit to worry about? ”
“Because…” For a second, I flail. “Because if I let the man bring his noisy trucks and his noisier crew down my driveway, they’re going to use chainsaws all day, Milo!
That’s the opposite of the peace and quiet I’m looking for.
Besides, you were the one who said allowing Beckett access would set a new precedent and might lower the value of the property when I sell it! ”
“Yes, but I mostly said that because Officer Smiley was getting under my skin, and someone needed to put him in his place.” He narrows his eyes like he’s thinking of Holden. “No one’s actually that friendly, mark my words.”
“Yeah, well… whyever you said it, you were right.”
“As I usually am,” Milo agrees. “But, boo, if you get ten percent less when you sell, it’s still a huge windfall, right?”
I huff. “Spoken like someone who hasn’t lost his income and his ability to make more in his chosen career anytime soon.”
Milo looks chastened. “I know. I’m not saying the money’s not important. I just… I feel like this is about more than money. You’re taking it personally.”
“Hell yes, it’s personal,” I answer without thinking about it. “And not just because Beckett’s an asshole,” I add.
He lifts one eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
“Yes.” I blow out a breath. “Look, when I got the letter from Jim’s lawyer about the trust, I didn’t have the… the mental bandwidth… to question it. You know that better than anyone.”
Milo nods. He was there for my lowest points this summer.
He saw how the relentless silence from potential employers and the colleagues I’d thought were my friends weighed on me even heavier than the avalanche of bill reminders.
He knows that what hit me hardest wasn’t just losing my career or my six-figure salary; it was the ego hit of thinking I’d built myself an unsinkable life—one where I wouldn’t be forever struggling at the whims of fate like my moms had been—only to have it all go full-on Titanic.
“When you’re drowning, you don’t ask why someone’s throwing you a rope, you just grab it,” Milo says softly.
I glance at him in surprise. This is the closest he’s come to acknowledging that he understands why I chose to relocate temporarily rather than simply sell off the property sight unseen, the way my moms expected me to, or mortgage it to pay for a wrongful termination suit against the Nelson Group, the way Milo wanted.
“Yeah.” I sit forward, bracing my elbows on my knees, and watch my fingers knit and unknit themselves.
“But now that I’m here, now that I’ve seen the treehouse, I can’t stop thinking why.
Like, why build a fairy-tale funhouse in the first place?
Why Winsome?” I wave a hand, indicating the tiny town with its cute clapboard shops, single stoplight, and overabundance of trees.
“And why me? People don’t just leave whole-ass properties to kids they haven’t seen in twenty-plus years. ”
“You forget that your moms have shown me your scrapbooks.” Milo nudges his arm into mine. “You were a very adorable child. And very precocious, with all those reading trophies and gold stars for writing stories.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m being serious.”
“I know.” Milo shrugs. “But there are a million possible reasons. Maybe Jim remembered you fondly. Maybe he didn’t have any family.” He lowers his voice and nudges me with his elbow. “Maybe the mushrooms told him to.”
I snort. “Maybe, yeah. But that’s what makes it so personal.”
Milo frowns and shakes his head. “Explain for the class, babe.”
“If I’m the closest thing Jim had to family, if he remembered me fondly as someone he wanted to leave his treehouse to, then…
then it’s on me to take care of it. You know?
To make sure it goes to someone who’ll appreciate it.
To keep it as intact as possible until then.
I wasn’t there for Jim when he died—hell, I still don’t even know how or where he died—”
“Because that lawyer still hasn’t called you back,” he grumbles.
“But the least I can do for the man is to protect this treehouse he entrusted to me until it’s time to sell it.”
Maybe then I’ll feel like I’ve done something to deserve it.
“But you will sell it,” Milo says with narrowed eyes.
It’s not a question, but I answer it anyway.
“Of course.” I nudge his arm back. “I’m immune to Jim’s mushroom magic.
I cannot imagine chucking my whole life out the window to become a…
” I frown. “Winsomer? Winsome-man? Winsomite? Whatever. But it’s like I told my mom when she texted this morning to give me the contact info of a real estate agent she knows: I’m not ready to think about selling until I know where I’m going next. ”
“And not until you solve the Mystery of Why Jim Left You A Treehouse, Encyclopedia Brown?”
I snort. “That too, I guess. And in the meantime, for all those reasons, I’m not letting Beckett get his grubby paws on my land.”