6. Six
Six
Juliet
I muttered a few choice words under my breath as I left the inn, grateful that I didn’t pass Gerard or Mrs. Gregson on the way out. As I shoved my way through the heavy front door, I imagined it was Henry's broad chest.
Not that I’d noticed the firm muscles beneath his dress shirt when I shouldered past him in the dining room. Or noticed again how damn good he smelled.
This was definitely not how I'd imagined the morning going.
As I stalked through the gardens, I cursed Henry for obliterating every shred of peace the walk along the lake had instilled in me. Every doubt I'd about coming here bubbled rapidly back to the surface.
Maybe he’s right, I thought glumly. Why the hell did I ever think this was going to work?
I kicked a rock along the path to the cottage, wincing as my toe connected with it. To my surprise, it struck something with a metallic clang when it rolled into the grass. I bent down to see what it was, wondering if I’d find another painted rock.
There, in the lawn at the edge of a flower bed, lay a heavy brass circle about the size of my palm.
I brushed the blades of grass aside and saw that it was engraved with a dragonfly, my grandmother’s name, and the dates of Nan’s birth and death. I laid my hand over the plaque, closed my eyes, and took a few deep breaths.
This is why you’re here. Because of family, not business.
Inheritance or no, discovering I had this family history would have brought me to Spruce Hill to learn more.
Hopefully the lawyer would be able to find some loophole regarding the ownership of the inn so I wouldn’t have to interact with Henry Walker ever again, then I could focus on learning more about Nan, my own mother’s life here, and what had caused such a rift between them.
With a sigh, I stood and forced myself to shake off Henry’s negativity. This was my legacy, dammit, whether it was a complete surprise or not. I would not let some nasty accountant ruin it for me.
I straightened my shoulders, lifted my chin, and continued on to the cottage.
To my new home. A refuge, a reprieve from the constant barrage of memories in my mother’s house, a sanctuary against the overwhelming reality of owning an inn.
Now that my crisis of faith was over and my blood pressure had settled from the rollicking boil Henry inspired, my mind raced with the things I still needed to do. Most importantly, I had to go into town for groceries, make a list of questions for the lawyer, and sort through the boxes that were stored upstairs.
“And while doing all of these things,” I grumbled, scowling, “I will avoid Henry Walker at all cost.”
With a sigh, I forced him from my thoughts and wondered instead how many people around here remembered my mother from back before she left town and severed all ties with this place.
Would anyone be willing to talk about it? Would anyone know why she went away?
I grabbed my purse and used my phone to map directions to the nearest grocery store. Despite the secluded atmosphere around the inn and the cottage, it was only twelve minutes to the center of town.
As I traveled down the road to Spruce Hill, houses and storefronts popped up with increasing frequency. I made a mental note of some of the adorable little shops I wanted to check out, but within another few minutes, I reached the grocery store.
While I strolled the aisles, getting the lay of the land, I tried to think objectively about my encounter with Henry. His grandfather and Mrs. Gregson had been welcoming, but maybe they did all resent my presence here. I didn’t know what would've happened to the inn upon my grandmother’s death if I hadn’t been there to take ownership of it—would it have gone to one of them? Or all of them, even?
If so, I couldn’t blame them for being unhappy with the situation. Nan seemed like an unorthodox lady, so it was impossible to guess what her contingency plan might have been if the lawyer hadn’t found me.
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” said an older gentleman with a full beard, wrenching me from my thoughts in the cereal aisle.
“Yes,” I replied, adding a box to my cart, “it is a beautiful day.”
“Forgive me for asking, but do I know you?”
The man was studying me with pale blue eyes and an odd little smile on his face. My eyebrows shot up as a thread of unease twisted in my chest. I was used to the “Minnesota nice” stereotype, but there was an intensity in the man’s demeanor that made me uncomfortable.
“No, I don’t think so. I’m new in town.”
“You remind me of someone. It’ll come to me, I’m sure. Enjoy your day, miss.”
His face folded into a smile, though it was nearly lost under the beard, and he gave a small salute as he wandered off. I took a deep breath, forcing my muscles to relax. My reaction was probably just the aftereffect of my confrontation with Henry Walker—or my mother’s warning about trusting my instincts. Trying to reconcile this sweet little town with her ominous note was fraying my usually steady nerves.
Mrs. Gregson’s words about having Nan’s red hair echoed in my head. The spitting image of Nan, she’d said. Was that really enough to give random men pause in the supermarket over the similarities?
The cashier was a young woman who offered a polite smile and some small talk without any references to Nan, my appearance, or the inn. I accepted the reprieve gratefully, hoping it was a sign that my presence in town wouldn’t throw the entire population into a tizzy.
When I got back to the cottage, I grabbed a bag of pretzels and plopped down on the couch. In an anachronistic twist of fate, this sweet little fairy tale cottage was equipped with high speed wifi as well as a hundred cable channels, though the television was small and hidden inside an antique-looking armoire to the left of the fireplace.
I rifled through my art bag until I found a small notebook. Between pretzels, I jotted down questions to ask the lawyer.
First and foremost, I needed to know the logistics of this whole arrangement. Did I want to stay here forever? If I could get out of owning the inn eventually, without jeopardizing staying in the cottage, would I?
This location seemed like it would be wonderful for my art, but beyond that, I wasn’t sure if this was the kind of place where I could happily spend forever.
On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life in a Minnesota suburb, either, so maybe Spruce Hill had greater potential than I’d originally thought. Selling my mother’s house and leaving my job at the bookstore had cut the last true ties to my hometown, apart from Sarah.
Tired of so many questions and so few answers, I grabbed a sketchbook out of the bag and closed my eyes to conjure up some of the paintings from the inn. I made a basic sketch of as many as I could recall, figuring I could ask Gerard or Mrs. Gregson where to find each location—at a time when Henry wasn’t around, preferably.
The thought of him was enough to set my temper rising. Stupid, smirking, handsome son of a . . .
I sucked in a deep, calming breath. If he wanted to resent me for something beyond my control, fine. Whether I stayed here or not, the two of us didn’t have to be friends. I was fully capable of being civil—icy, maybe, but civil nonetheless. I wouldn’t let him influence my decisions about staying here.
With that resolution made, I closed my eyes, let inspiration saturate my mind, and trusted the pencil to lead the way.
T hough I avoided stepping foot into the inn itself over the next few days, I visited the gardens for hours at a time to lose myself in a sketchbook. I managed to catch Gerard out there one day as he fixed a loose piece of trellis and jumped on the opportunity to ask him about the inn’s artwork.
“Good morning, Juliet,” he greeted me.
“Good morning,” I called back as I strode toward him. “I wondered if I could ask you where to find the places in some of the paintings around the inn, especially from the dining room?”
His smile widened. “Absolutely. I’ll make you a list, would that suit?”
“That’d be great, thank you.”
“We’d love to hang some of your artwork in the inn, you know,” he said softly.
The words lodged hard in my chest. No matter what happened, I was part of the inn’s history now. That knowledge turned into a leaden ball in my stomach, but I managed to force a smile and a nod.
“Sure. I’m heading home, but have a good afternoon, Gerard.”
The older man smiled and lifted a hand in farewell. He didn’t say a single word about Henry, fortunately for us both.
On Friday morning, just a few hours before my appointment with the lawyer, Gerard appeared in the garden where I was playing with oil pastels, trying to capture the beautiful chaos of color that surrounded me. He passed me a handwritten list.
“Here you are,” he said with a friendly smile. “They’re all local landmarks. I jotted down some basic directions for each one, but ask anyone in town and they’ll help you if you need it.”
“Thank you so much, Gerard. This is perfect.”
I accepted the piece of paper with a rush of gratitude. A knowing look came across his face and I wondered if he was already aware of what had transpired the other day. It seemed unlikely that Henry would confess his sins so readily, but I wasn’t going to tattle to the man’s grandfather about his rude behavior.
“Of course, my dear. Don’t be a stranger at the inn, hmm?”
“Sure.”
The lie slipped easily enough from my tongue, though it filled me with guilt. I smiled as benignly as I could to cover it up.
Gerard went on his way and I studied the list. Hiking through the woods and painting for the next few months sounded infinitely better than studying accounting ledgers under the tutelage of the town jerk.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, I packed up my supplies and walked back to the cottage, breathing in the sweet perfume of the flowers. It wasn’t until I came through the front door that my stomach began tying itself in knots.
Though I didn’t think there was anything to be anxious about, I couldn’t quell the butterflies. I tucked the painted daisy rock in my purse for good luck, then headed out to the lawyer’s office to face my future.
The address wasn't far from the grocery store, so I spent the first portion of the drive imagining the area was all part of an enchanted wood.
What a beautiful place Spruce Hill would've been to grow up in.
The thought made me wonder if people like Henry Walker took it all for granted, but I scowled and forced the image of him out of my mind. I would not allow him to darken my mood.
I reached the office with several minutes to spare. With a deep, steadying breath, I unbuckled my seatbelt and went inside. A smiling secretary greeted me and told me to have a seat. I'd barely settled into the chair when a handsome middle-aged man in a pristine suit appeared in the doorway.
“Miss Morrison, I presume? I’m Daniel Escobar, your grandmother’s attorney,” he said with a smile.
His voice was like velvet, rich and soothing against my fraying nerves. I stood quickly and shook his hand.
“Yes, thank you for meeting with me.”
He gestured toward his office and we entered. I sat in an absurdly overstuffed chair in front of the huge desk as Mr. Escobar slid a red file folder toward me.
“I’m sure this is all very unsettling for you, Miss Morrison. Learning you had a family member you knew nothing about is surprising enough, but inheriting such an estate is doubly so.”
“That’s for sure,” I replied with a short laugh, “and please, call me Juliet.”
“Nanette Montgomery was like a grandmother to everyone around Spruce Hill. You’ve inherited a legacy that reaches far beyond the inn, as I’m sure you’ll learn.” He smiled warmly at me.
“Oh, I’m beginning to see that,” I said dryly, and the lawyer laughed. “What I don’t understand is why I’d never heard of her before a few weeks ago?”
His dark eyes filled with regret. “Nan never stopped searching for your mother. They parted on bad terms. Melissa succeeded admirably in cutting every tie to her mother and to Spruce Hill when she left town. Nan hired private investigators, one after another, and nothing much came of it. She'd all but given up years ago.”
“Why did my mother leave Spruce Hill? She told me my grandmother died before I was born. I don’t understand why she lied. The note she left me was . . . cryptic, to say the least.”
The lawyer shook his head. “That I don’t know, I’m afraid. I moved to the area long after your mother left and didn’t get to know Nan until several years later. Nan never went into detail, but I got the impression she didn’t know exactly why Melissa went away, only that she’d been acting strangely in the weeks before her departure, shortly after Nan found out Melissa was pregnant.”
I knew in that moment that I wouldn’t be leaving town anytime soon, Henry Walker be damned. The truth might take a lifetime to unravel, but I owed it to myself—and to my mother and Nan—to find it.
“If she gave up on finding my mother,” I said slowly, “then why did she leave the inn to me?”
“You can thank social media for that, actually.”
“Nan found me through social media?”
At my incredulity, his lips twitched. “Three months ago, you won an award for your artwork.”
“Yeah, it was just a little community art show, but my friend Sarah convinced me to enter, since she knew I was struggling after my mom died. Sarah is one of my biggest fans,” I said with a smile, despite the brief twinge of homesickness. “She announced it far and wide after I won.”
Mr. Escobar smiled back. “Well, Nan happened to scroll past a photo of you with your painting. According to Mrs. Gregson, Nan said, and I quote, ‘There is no chance in hell that is not my granddaughter.’ The resemblance is really quite startling.”
“But she didn’t contact me then,” I said slowly.
It would still have been too late for Nan to reconnect with her only child, but I could've been there for her in the end. A look of pain crossed the lawyer’s face, mirroring my own.
“She’d been ill for quite some time, Juliet. As delighted as she was to have found you, that was also when she learned of your mother’s death. Nan took a turn for the worse soon afterward.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I wish she’d contacted me right away. I would rather have had that time than any inheritance.”
“Her condition deteriorated too rapidly for her to reach out, I’m afraid. I didn’t even know she’d located you until after she passed, when the staff at the inn informed me. Nan never gave up hope, Juliet. Her will was written in such a way that the inn was to go to her direct family members, with a specific account designated to pay for further investigations if necessary.”
My heart clenched painfully when I thought about how close Nan had come to finding me, only to have her body betray her at the very end.
“After Mrs. Gregson mentioned the photo to me, I tried to track you down. We spent weeks scouring social media, trying to locate the picture. Henry managed to get into Nan’s phone and personal laptop, but there was no sign of it. All the staff remembered was your first name, which was mentioned in the post, and Nan’s excitement. We had no leads until you called the inn.”
“And I missed the funeral,” I said quietly. Another blow. I rubbed at my sternum.
Mr. Escobar smiled gently. “Knowing you were out there, the staff made some arrangements in the hopes that you’d be found. At the end of the summer, there will be a memorial celebration held in Nan’s honor at the gardens of the inn. They wanted you to get to know her by going through what she left behind, then to have a chance to say hello and goodbye in your own time.”
All of my questions about getting out of this surprise obligation evaporated into the realm of unimportance as more pressing concerns floated in to take their place.
“What about my grandfather? I saw pictures at the cottage from a wedding, some when my mom was a baby, but then he was gone. Is he still alive?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Mr. Escobar replied, looking for all the world as though this were a completely normal conversation. “Nan married her high school sweetheart not long after graduation. His name was Philip Montgomery, a banker from a very prominent family nearby. He died only a few years after your mother was born. I believe it was a boating accident out on the lake.”
Mr. Escobar ran through each condition of the will with me, answering every one of my questions before they were even asked.
The cottage belonged to me, free of stipulations. I could live in it, rent it out, or sell it at any time. As long as I maintained residency in Spruce Hill for twelve months, I could then choose to sell the inn and walk away with enough money to support me for years to come based on the estimated value of the property. During that time, I could learn the ropes at the inn if I wanted to, but there was no requirement that I take over Nan’s job.
The business was successful and despite my breakfast blowup with Henry, I had no interest in making any changes to what appeared to be a cornerstone of the community, so that was fine with me.
Basically, in exchange for a single year of my life spent in the town where my mother had grown up, I could move on to whatever I wanted with a level of financial security I’d never dreamed of before.
It didn’t make up for losing Nan before I even got the chance to meet her, didn’t make up for knowing my mother had lied for all those years, but it was quite a consolation prize.
The decision was made. Even without the inn and the money, the mystery surrounding my mother’s departure from Spruce Hill probably would've been enough to convince me to stay for a year. Everything else was icing on the cake.
After what seemed like another hour spent signing paperwork, I shook hands with Mr. Escobar and walked out into brilliant afternoon sunshine. Somehow, this meeting had forged a link to Nan in a way even taking up residence in her home had not been able to do.
This was where I belonged.
Nan wanted to find me, right up to the very end. All of my earlier anxiety flew right out the window. I was—relieved? Free?
Whatever it was, it was light and buoyant, fizzing up inside me. Instead of being bound to this place by obligation, I was now drawn to it, connected by something deeper than I'd ever anticipated. I rolled down the windows and drove back to the cottage, singing along with the radio at the top of my lungs.
This next year might very well be a beautiful new beginning.