Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
WILLA
I n the two days since the reading of my grandfather’s will, I’d sequestered myself up at Sutter House. I wasn’t staying here. Not yet, anyway. But I’d been taking the time to give the whole house a thorough clean from top to bottom. Help would’ve been available at only a word, but I needed the space to process the implications of the legacy I’d been gifted. Banishing dust and grime provided visible progress over something I actually felt in control of. Soon enough I’d have to start making a list of all the things that needed doing, but right now I was content to bask in the ocean breeze floating through all the open windows as it blended with the scents of lemon polish, rosemary, and the Vivaldi that played on the little Bluetooth speaker I’d been carting from room to room. Roy napped in a spot of sunshine in front of a window, paws twitching as he chased seagulls in his dreams.
It felt good to tend to the house. To feel I had the right to, though I hadn’t yet fully grasped that all this was mine. Mr. O’Shea had notified the ferry company staff, and I’d be meeting with them later to allay any fears that I intended to make any major changes. I’d need to meet with my grandparents’ accountant to go over the books, both private and business. All things that rather terrified me. I wanted to honor the gift I’d been given. Granddaddy wouldn’t have done this if he thought I wasn’t up to the task. So I’d get myself there. Somehow.
The sound of tires crunching on the crushed-shell drive pulled my attention out front. Roy rose from his nap, instantly on alert as he trotted toward the door.
It was Sawyer, probably. He was the one most likely to seek me out up here. I was trying not to think too hard about what that might mean because I hadn’t forgotten what Bree had said about him that first night he’d been back. I simply accepted that he’d been a fixture in my everyday, pitching in without my asking since he’d returned to Hatterwick. That was all I had the capacity for just now, so I’d let it ride.
But when I stepped out front, it was Roland O’Shea stepping out of his stately sedan. Even before he shoved up his sunglasses, I registered the tension in his frame and around his mouth.
My hands fisted around the microfiber cloth I’d been dusting with. “What is it?”
“Can we go inside and sit down?”
Talons of anxiety dug into my ribs. Roy leaned against my hip in comfort.
“Of course, please come in.” My voice came out admirably level and controlled considering the chaos inside me.
He followed me into the kitchen.
“Can I offer you coffee or tea?”
“No, no. Have a seat. Please.”
Every instinct was shouting at me to run from whatever news he brought, but I lowered myself into a chair, digging my fingers into Roy’s ruff.
Mr. O’Shea cleared his throat. “I will be brief and to the point, because time is going to be of the essence.”
“Time for what?”
He took a moment to fold his hands on the table. “Your grandfather assumed, rightly so, that your parents were going to fight the terms of the will, and so he left funds earmarked for the purpose of hiring a private detective to follow their movements for a span of time after the reading.”
Well, that was a level of paranoia I hadn’t expected from Granddaddy.
“I don’t understand. We already knew they were planning to challenge.”
“Yes, we did. I didn’t think that there were any grounds on which they could legally challenge. I may be wrong.”
Those talons dug in deeper, dragging lower to skewer my gut. My fingers automatically tightened on Roy’s ruff, but he didn’t protest, simply leaned harder against me.
“Okay, what does this mean? What are they doing?”
“They’re not challenging the competency of your grandparents in writing of the will. They’re challenging your competency.”
His words barreled into me like a freight train.
This was my worst nightmare. In a flash, everything I’d experienced off-island came flooding back. The hospital. The drugs. The locks.
I didn’t realize I’d started hyperventilating until Mr. O’Shea gently forced my head between my knees. Roy whined, nosing and licking at my face.
Five things I can see. Roy. Flip flops. Chair leg. Frayed hem of my cutoffs. Mr. O’Shea’s dress shoes.
Four things I can feel. Roy’s tongue. Roy’s fur. The hard seat of the chair. Cotton of my shorts.
Three things I can hear. Roy’s panting. Violin from the speaker. Gulls.
Two things I can smell. Lemon. Rosemary.
A glass was thrust into my line of vision, and slowly I straightened, wrapping both hands around it. Carefully, I lifted it to my lips.
One thing I can taste. Water.
I drew in a ragged breath, and then another, until the leading edge of terror waned. As if I hadn’t just had a panic attack in front of my attorney, I squared my shoulders. “I’m an adult. How can they do that?”
“I don’t know for sure whether they could pull it off, but I was given to understand that there are some circumstances in your past that make this a more viable possibility than it might otherwise be.” He was hedging in a way that made it impossible to know what he knew. He wasn’t offering any information on that front, and I sure as hell wasn’t offering up the reality of what I’d been through. Not yet. Not unless it became absolutely necessary.
Hold it together, girl.
“Okay, so what do we do?”
He spread his hands in apology. “Honestly, I don’t know yet. Some of it will depend on the specifics of what they file. But I wanted you to be aware of what was coming so that you could prepare.”
How could I possibly prepare for this? This was everything I’d cut myself off from my parents to prevent.
I shook my head. “How can they possibly have any grounds to say what I’m like as an adult?”
“It’ll depend on the judge. I’ll continue to look for precedent and some way to combat this, but I didn’t want to move forward without both your awareness and permission. We’re going to be ready for whatever they’re bringing.”
Did they train that confidence in law school, or was he really that certain? He was here, delivering this news in person, where we wouldn’t be overheard. Surely, that meant he had his doubts. Or maybe it was simply a sign of his discretion and awareness of client confidentiality.
“Thank you, I understand.” Except I really didn’t.
I’d slid from panic into numbness because this was all too much to process at once. I needed to speak to someone I trusted about all of this. Another attorney. Someone who knew at least the broad strokes of what had happened to me while I was off-island.
Somehow, I managed to get O’Shea out the door. Then I systematically went through the entire house, shutting all the windows and locking up before loading Roy into the Jeep and driving to the opposite end of the island.
The lighthouse rose like the beacon it once had been. I sent up a prayer that it would give me hope, as it had to countless sailors on stormy seas in the past.
Delilah answered the door, massive feather earrings dangling from her ears. Her lovely dark eyes went wide at the sight of me.
“Is Florence here?”
“Yes, absolutely. Come in, child.” Her warm arm slid around me, ushering me inside, and I managed not to flinch at the touch.
Florence emerged from her home office, a pair of reading glasses perched on her long nose. At the sight of me, she pulled off the glasses and straightened into battle posture. I must’ve looked pretty bad.
The back door slammed. “Hey, I thought I saw—Wren, what’s wrong?”
Sawyer closed the distance to where I stood in a blink, stopping just short of touching me.
I couldn’t look at him or give into the urge to throw myself into his arms, or I’d never get through this. Instead, I kept my focus on Florence. “I need your advice as an attorney. I know that this is not going to be your area of expertise, but you are the only one that I trust.”
She offered a decisive nod. “Okay, do you want to talk privately?”
I thought about it. I wasn’t keen to share even the barest details of my own private hell with anyone, but I trusted everyone in this room. “No.”
“Then let’s move this into the kitchen, and I’ll make you some tea.” Delilah steered me in that direction, and the rest of them followed.
As Delilah clattered around, putting a kettle on to boil and filling a tea ball with loose leaves, I told them what Mr. O’Shea had told me.
“That’s ridiculous!” Sawyer burst out. “How could they possibly challenge your competency? You are one of the most stable, sane people I know.”
I’d never told him this. Never wanted to tell him, because I didn’t want to change how he looked at me. But if this went forward, he’d find out, eventually. Better to get it over with now, before my foolish heart managed to convince me there could be anything more between us but friendship.
I wrapped my hands around the warm mug Delilah passed me. “Because I was institutionalized for two years.”
He stared at me, brows drawn together in confusion. “What?”
“That’s where I went when they dragged me off-island. After I got out of the hospital, they had me committed and kept me there for two years.”
With a rush of profanity, Sawyer shot to his feet so fast, his chair clattered to the floor. His fury was palpable. I both appreciated his instant defense and was overwhelmed by it. This was as much rage over what was done to me as rage at his own impotence to stop it. Not that he’d have been able to do anything about it if he had known back then.
“Sawyer!” Florence’s voice snapped out. “Reel it in. She doesn’t need that right now.”
He stopped his restless stalking of the kitchen, hands curled to fists, and worked on stuffing his rage back down. “Tell me one thing. Did Jace know?”
Ah, so that was also underneath this reaction. Needing to know if his oldest friend would’ve betrayed me like that.
“No. Not until after I turned eighteen and managed to contact him. He’s the reason I got out. And that’s the only reason I didn’t cut him off with everyone else.”
A little of the tension in him eased, and he righted the chair, sitting back down. “Sorry.”
I clutched the mug a little tighter as I turned my attention back to Florence. “What I want to know is if they can really do this.”
The older woman dragged a hand down her face. “Well, as you know, this is not my area, but to my knowledge, yes, they can try.”
My breath wheezed out as that sucker punch hit me again.
“But there is a way out. Potentially,” she added.
Maybe I’d get the hope I’d come seeking after all. “Great. What is it?”
“Well, the reason they have the right to challenge is because they are your next of kin.”
“Even though we’ve been estranged for a decade?”
“Even though.”
“So, what’s the answer?”
Florence carefully folded her hands as she seemed to search for the right words. “If you had a different next of kin, that would solve the issue.”
“How am I going to get a different next of kin? I can’t change my family. Do we need to try to get Jace back? I mean, he’s out of contact until God knows when.”
“That is one option, though not the only one.”
I gave a humorless laugh. “Are you planning to adopt me the way you’ve adopted all the Wayward Sons?”
Delilah laid a hand on my arm. “Oh, child, we would in a heartbeat.”
“But since you’re too old for that… Well, if you were married, your husband would be your next of kin. That would override any blood ties your parents have.”
Stunned, I could only stare for a long minute. “Where the hell am I gonna get one of those? I don’t even date. I can’t even remember the last time I had a date.” Because I didn’t trust men enough to get that far.
“I didn’t say it would necessarily be easy or truly practical, but getting married in a hurry would save you from all of this.”
The absolute absurdity of the suggestion left me speechless.
Before I could open my mouth to ask for more options, Sawyer announced, “I’m in.”
I frowned at him. “In what?”
“I’ll do it. I’ll marry you.”
How many shocks could one person take before her head exploded? I couldn’t possibly have heard him right. Because this was my childhood crush, the guy I’d been at least halfway in love with from the time I was thirteen, saying he was willing to enter into what amounted to a marriage of convenience in order to save me from my parents.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. I couldn’t do anything to stop them from the bullshit they put you through when we were young.” He covered my hand with his. “Let me do this for you now, Wren.”
Conviction was written all over his face. He truly meant this. And though I suspected this was largely driven by an extra heaping of misplaced guilt, I was… actually considering it. There was no one else on offer. Not even any other candidates I could scare up in the next week or ten days before my parents made their filing. And I did trust Sawyer. Implicitly. He’d do whatever was necessary to protect me.
But if I did this… if I married him… who was going to protect me from my own heart? Because no question, if I made this choice, we’d have to sell it, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that the torch I’d carried for him for years wouldn’t fan to full flame.
It didn’t really matter. I trusted him a lot more than I trusted my parents, and God knew I’d survived far worse than heartbreak.
“This would only be temporary, until everything else is resolved.” Because even under the best of circumstances, I hadn’t seen much that made me believe in the institution of marriage.
“Until we’re certain you’re safe,” he corrected.
I couldn’t find fault with that.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but okay. Let’s get married.”