Chapter 9
The call comes on a Thursday afternoon while I’m in my office still trying to make sense of the way Mavis filed things. I don’t know that I can ever accomplish that task, but I’m going to give it my best shot.
I’ve been at this for about three hours, sorting the receipts into piles that I think make logical sense, creating spreadsheets to replace the chaos of sticky notes, and making very little progress.
It’s tedious work, but it’s comforting. A task I understand.
A problem I hopefully know how to solve.
And that’s when my phone buzzes with a familiar Atlanta code, area code, so I answer without thinking.
“Hello? Eleanor Whitfield.”
“Ellie.” The voice is smooth, polished, and instantly recognizable. It’s Archie.
My stomach does some sort of complicated flip. I feel dread. I feel nostalgia. I feel something I can’t quite name.
“Archie, this is unexpected.”
“I know, I know. I should have called you sooner.” He sounds the same - confident, charming, utterly certain of himself. “I heard about your inheritance. Cynthia mentioned it at the Hendersons’ cocktail party last week. A bar in the mountains? I have to admit, I chuckled.”
“It’s a honky tonk, actually.”
“A honky tonk,” he repeats, laughing. It’s a cultured chuckle I used to find sophisticated, and now I find it slightly grating. “Eleanor Whitfield, owner of a honky tonk. Your mother would have had a stroke.”
“That’s what Cynthia said.”
“Great minds.” I can picture him sitting in his corner office, his feet propped up on his mahogany desk, looking out over the Atlanta skyline like he owns the place. “Listen, I’ve been thinking about your situation, and I want to help.”
“My situation?”
“The inheritance, the bar, whatever it is that you’re dealing with up there in, um…” I hear papers rustling. “Copper Creek? Dear Lord, is that really the name of the town?”
“Yes, it is really the name of the town.”
“Oh, charming. Very, um, rustic.” The way he says rustic makes it sound like a communicable disease.
“Anyway, I’ve done some research, and property values in that area are actually pretty promising, especially with the development interest in the Blue Ridge region.
So if you play your cards right, you could walk away with a significant return. ”
I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
“Archie, I haven’t even decided what I’m doing with the place yet.”
“What’s to decide? You’re not actually planning to stay there, are you?” He laughs again, as if the very idea is absurd. “Ellie, come on. You’re not a bar owner. You’re not even a small-town person. You belong in the city, in civilization, doing what you do best.”
“And what exactly is that?”
“Being Eleanor Whitfield.” He says it like it’s obvious. “Elegant, sophisticated, refined. Not serving beer to hillbillies in the middle of nowhere.”
The word hillbillies lands like a slap to my face.
I think about Dolly, with her big hair and bigger heart.
About Boone, who reads poetry and builds furniture and carries peppermints for nervous children.
And Presley, with her dreams of music and her fierce loyalty.
And about Wyatt, who stayed in the middle of nowhere because love mattered more than ambition.
“They are not hillbillies,” I say quietly.
“What?”
“The people here, they’re not hillbillies. They’re just people. Good people.”
Archie is silent for a moment, and when he speaks again, his voice has shifted to what I recognize as being his “handling a difficult client” tone.
“Of course, I didn’t mean to offend. I’m just saying this isn’t your world, Ellie. You don’t belong there.”
“Well, maybe I don’t know where I belong anymore.”
“That’s exactly my point,” his voice warns. “You’ve been through a lot these past couple of years: your mother’s death, our breakup, the business struggles, and it’s natural that you’d feel lost and grasp at anything that feels different. But running away to the mountains isn’t the answer.”
“I’m not running away. I inherited a bar. There are conditions.”
“Conditions can be negotiated. Laws can be interpreted. I know some great attorneys who specialize in estate disputes. We could probably find a way to break a will or at least modify the terms so you’re not trapped up there for six months.”
For a moment, just a flicker of a moment, I’m tempted.
The familiar pull of Atlanta. Of my old life. Of the world I understand.
His voice is like a siren song calling me back to everything I used to be.
The etiquette studio. The social circles. The endless performance of being Eleanor Whitfield, acceptable, appropriate, and utterly hollow.
“I don’t know if I want to break the will,” I hear myself saying slowly.
“Oh my gosh, of course you do. Think about it logically. What does a honky tonk in Copper Creek offer you? I mean, six months of your life wasted in a town with no culture, no future, no opportunity. You can come back to Atlanta use that money to revitalize the studio. I can help you. We could…” He pauses for a moment. “We could talk about things. About us.”
“There is no us, Archie. We broke up.”
“We took a break. There’s a difference.” His voice drops. “I’ve missed you, Ellie. These past six months, I’ve realized what I let go. I was too focused on my lifestyle, on appearances. I should have seen what really mattered.”
I want to believe him. Part of me, the part that’s spent over two years planning a future with this man, wants to desperately believe that he’s changed, that he sees me now, and that going back to Atlanta would mean going back to something real.
But another part of me, a new part that’s been growing since I arrived in Copper Creek, knows better.
“What really mattered?” I ask. “What do you think really mattered?”
“You. Us. The life we were building.”
“Archie, the life we were building was exhausting. The constant networking, the social climbing, the pressure to be perfect all the time. I literally felt like I couldn’t breathe.”
“But that’s just how things are in our world. You have to play the game.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to play the game anymore.”
Silence.
He finally speaks. “You’re obviously not thinking clearly. That place is affecting your judgment. Let me come up there and talk to you in person. I can help you see.”
“I don’t need you to help me see anything.” The words come out sharper than I intended, but I don’t take them back. “I appreciate the call, Archie. I do. But I need to figure this out on my own.”
“Ellie—”
“I’ll call you if I need legal advice. Goodbye, Archie.”
I hang up before he can respond, with my heart pounding in my chest and my hands shaking slightly.
And that’s when I notice Wyatt has been standing in the doorway.
* * *
I don’t know how long Wyatt has been standing there. Long enough to hear Archie call the people of Copper Creek hillbillies? Long enough to hear me defend them, or maybe I didn’t defend them forcefully enough? Long enough to know that someone in Atlanta is trying to convince me to leave?
His expression, of course, gives nothing away. That’s what I’m learning about Wyatt Rivers. He’s all easy smiles and gentle jokes until he’s not, and then his face becomes an unreadable mask that reminds me of what he’s survived, things I probably can’t imagine.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he says. “Dolly sent me back to let you know the beer distributor is here for our weekly order.”
“Right, of course.” I stand up quickly, and my chair scrapes loudly against the floor.
“I’ll be right there.” He nods and turns to leave.
“Wyatt, wait.” He pauses in the doorway but doesn’t turn around.
I can tell his shoulders are tense. “That was my ex-fiancé, Archie. He heard about the inheritance, and he was just, well, I suppose he was offering me unsolicited advice about what I should do with the bar.”
“Seems like he had strong opinions about it.”
Wyatt’s voice is still neutral, but there’s definitely an edge underneath it.
“He has strong opinions on everything. It’s one of the reasons we’re not together anymore.”
Wyatt finally turns around. “Are you planning to sell?”
The question is direct. No judgment. Just a man asking for information that affects his livelihood and his life.
“I don’t know what I’m planning,” I say. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”
He nods slowly. “Fair enough. I mean, of course you don’t owe me or anyone else an explanation about what to do with your own property.”
The way he says it lets me know that even though I don’t owe him an explanation, the choice will have consequences for him, for Dolly, for Presley, for everyone who depends on this place.
“The distributor,” I prompt, trying to move us past the awkward moment.
“Right. I’ll tell him you’ll be out in a minute.”
He disappears down the hallway, and I’m left standing in Mavis’s office—my office now, I guess—with my heart beating too fast and my hands shaking slightly from the adrenaline of back-to-back difficult conversations.
I take a moment to breathe and smooth my hair, even though it’s already falling out of its twist, and then I head out to deal with the beer distributor.
* * *
The next few hours pass in a blur of inventory checks and signature scrawls, with Dolly teaching me the difference between various craft IPAs like it’s vital information for my survival.
Wyatt is there helping unload cases, but he’s not his usual self.
He’s not cold, exactly, but he’s distant and professional, as if I’m his boss rather than someone he’s been teaching how to make decent coffee and teasing about my complete lack of knowledge of country music, and definitely not someone he taught to two-step not long ago.
It shouldn’t bother me this much. I mean, I’ve known this man for a very short amount of time, but it does bother me more than I want to admit.