Chapter 14 #3
“Reno, please. Our dad’s the only person in our family who answers to Mr. Steele.”
“Reno.” She paused. “What are the chances that they’ll break the will and force me to sell to them?”
He set down his pencil and looked at her kindly.
“Slim to none that they’ll break the will.
They’ve got a forged document, a hostile witness in the form of the dead woman’s neighbor, and a solid will drafted by a competent attorney who will testify that she was in her right mind when she signed it.
If we can prove the letter of intent to sell that the oil company claims she wrote is a fake—and I think we can—they won’t get within a country mile of breaking that will. ”
She started to exhale in relief, but then Reno leaned forward, staring hard at her.
“They will, however, try to force you to sell to them anyway. I guarantee that lawyer doesn’t care if his challenge to the will succeeds or not.
He and his bosses are betting you can’t afford to fight them long enough to find out.
They’re hoping you’ll cave and sell your place to make their lawyers and your bills for your own lawyers go away.
That’s the actual play, here. They plan to bankrupt you into selling your land to them. ”
Dillon, leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms folded, watched Tessa absorb that.
She didn’t react the way Lexi would have—not that he expected her to, anymore.
Lexi would have gotten flustered and indignant and demanded to know how much it was going to cost and how to stick it to the other guy.
Tessa got still and focused, giving all her attention to the problem and finding a solution.
Eventually, she leaned forward and asked, “What the plan, counselor?”
Reno’s mouth curved up just a little. The clown peeked through for half a second, and Dillon could see his brother at twelve, organizing the neighborhood lemonade stand into a profit-sharing model and almost getting their parents sued by several neighbors over it.
“First,” Reno drawled, “we make their life as lawyers genuinely unpleasant. I’m going to file a blizzard of motions that will bury them in irritating legal details.
Then we’ll get a handwriting expert to analyze Fern’s alleged letter.
When he declares it a forgery, we’ll file a motion to dismiss with prejudice.
In the meantime, you keep doing what you do.
Run the farm, raise your kid, take care of your business.
I’ll handle the legal stuff. That’s what I’m here for. ”
“And the bill?” she asked quietly. “What’s your hourly rate?”
“What bill?”
“Reno—”
“I came up here on my own time, Tessa. You’re in the right, you need help, and I want to help you. My hourly rate is zero. End of discussion.”
She looked at him for a long moment then said with quiet dignity, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. We’ve got a fight on our hands before this will be over.”
“Still. Thanks for being in my corner.”
Reno grinned. “This is gonna be fun. I deeply enjoy taking down sleazy lawyers who give my profession a bad name.” Then Reno glanced over at him, his grin widening even more. “Dillon, walk my client out, would you? Some of us want to drink a beer and go to bed because we barely slept last night.”
Dillon walked Tessa to her car in the dim glow of a half moon. The April night had cooled off, faintly damp with the smell of wet earth around them. The crickets weren’t out yet, but the spring peeper frogs were trilling their high-pitched notes.
She paused with her hand on the car door. “You weren’t kidding about your brother being sharp. He looked at me once, and I think he knows my life history and entire financial situation.”
“He probably does. He’s annoying like that.”
She gazed up at him in the moonlight. For a second, he thought she might lift up onto her toes and kiss him again, and he was caught off guard by how much he wanted her to.
She squeezed his hand instead, and murmured, “Soon. After this mess is sorted out, okay?”
He smiled reassuringly, trying to communicate that he understood her need to focus all her energy on this and that he would wait for her as long as it took. “Okay.”
“Thank you for calling him,” she said. “I hope he shuts down this lawsuit quickly.”
“Me too.”
They traded crooked smiles.
He held her car door for her and stood in the driveway watching her taillights until they disappeared around the bend.
When he turned around, Reno was on the porch with two open beers, waiting.
“Don’t say it,” Dillon bit out.
“Wasn’t going to.” Reno handed him a beer.
“Yes, you were.”
“Yeah. I was definitely going to razz you. But I changed my mind.” Reno sat on the porch rail and took a long pull of his beer. “I’m gonna say a different thing instead. You ready?”
“No.”
“Drink you beer first, then. I got a hold of some huckleberry beer from the brewery in Apple Pie Creek. The stuff that’s been winning all the international beer awards. It’s supposed to be life changing.”
Dillon had never been much of a drinker and he wasn’t sure how he felt about berries and beer in the same bottle.
“If you’re not drinking, then I’m gonna say my piece now.” Reno tipped the purple bottle at him. “You’re in love with Tessa.”
“Dude—”
“All the way in love. The kind you don’t come back from. I knew it the moment I saw your face today.”
“You’re so full of—”
Reno cut him off. “Don’t waste my time or yours denying it.
” He wasn’t smiling, now. His pale blue eyes —their mother’s eyes — were steady on Dillon’s face.
“I came here to take a case, and I’d do it for any client you send me, because you’re my brother and I owe you more than I can ever repay. But I’m not just here for the lawsuit.”
Reno paused and Dillon groaned as comprehension struck. “You’ve been talking to Hank about me. What did he say?”
“He and I have been talking about you. Along with Mom and Dad. Unfortunately, I drew the short straw when we all decided who was gonna talk to you about you.”
Dillon winced and braced himself. He’d seen Reno argue a case once in court, and it had been brutal.
He’d let a witness lie under oath multiple times while Reno questioned him.
Only then did Reno whip out proof that the guy was lying and proceed to destroy him on the witness stand—without ever once raising his voice.
Reno finished his beer before speaking, which was alarming. What was so bad that Reno had to gird himself with liquid courage before saying it?
Finally his brother said, “I came to tell you that whatever you’ve been carrying around since Lexi left, you can put it down now. She’s gone and good riddance. It’s time to start living your life again.”
The porch light buzzed faintly. Down by the lake, the first bullfrog of the year sent its deep, resonant mating call into the night.
Dillon set his beer on the porch rail without taking a drink. “I thought everyone in the family loved Lexi.”
“She was nice enough. But totally wrong for you.” He picked up Dillon’s untouched bottle and took an appreciative swig. “Tessa Lawrence, however. Now she’s the kind of woman you need.”
“I’m not ready to be in love with her,” he said. “It’s not like that between us.”
It was the worst lie he’d told in twenty years. He could hear it for what it was the second it left his mouth. So could Reno. Neither of them said anything for a long time.
Reno finished the second beer before finally saying, “Okay.” Then he said, “I believe you omitted a critical word from that grand declaration, brother mine.”
“Oh yeah? What word?”
“Yet. You’re not ready to be in love with her yet. It’s not like that between you two, yet.” He finished off his beer with a flourish and went inside.
Dillon stood on his porch and listened to the frogs for a long time. He thought about a woman with a cow’s head in her lap and a fistful of his shirt in her hand and how she’d cried for her grandfather two thousand miles away, waiting for his mother to pick him up from school.
If he was honest with himself, there was no need to add a yet to either of his statements to Reno because neither statement was true at all. Ready or not, he was in love with her and it was like that between them.
The only thing he didn’t know for sure was what to do about it.
He didn’t go inside until the porch light snapped off on its timer and made him.