Chapter 15 #2
Tessa had never once heard music described that way. But it was wise beyond a child’s years. The school bus rumbled into around the bend in the road.
“Bus is coming,” she said.
Makayla paused at the top of the porch steps and looked back at Tessa. “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Is Grandmother going to make us go?”
“No,” Tessa said immediately and firmly. “We get to decide. You and me. Nobody else.”
“Okay.”
Makayla looked at her for a moment longer. “I love you.”
“I love you back.”
Her child ran down the steps and raced to the bus. Only when the dust had settled back over the road did she allow herself to wonder how she was going the farm afloat if they decided to stay here.
A cereal bowl sat abandoned on the table. Beside it lay Makayla’s iPad. As Tessa picked up the bowl to carry it to the sink, she bumped the iPad, and the screen lit up.
A video was paused on a man’s hand at full draw across a violin. The title beneath it read OLD JOE CLARK — TRADITIONAL FIDDLE — SLOW THEN UP TO TEMPO.
Tessa stared at it as a dozen puzzle pieces clicked together all at once in Tessa’s brain. Makayla wanted to learn how to fiddle. And her daughter was figuring it out on her own. On the sly.
A laugh crept up on Tessa and took her by surprise. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to see Judith’s face if she ever heard her granddaughter break into a jig on the expensive violin Tessa’s grandfather sent Makayla several years ago.
She was still standing at the sink, grinning like she’d lost her mind, when she heard a truck pull up the drive.
She glanced out the window, and Reno climbed out of the red pick-up. The set of his shoulders said the lawyer was on duty today, not the rodeo clown.
Speaking of which, she stepped out on the porch and called, “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Spokane for a rodeo?”
He grimaced as he climbed out of his truck and she gaped at the knee brace on his left leg. “What happened to you?”
“I zigged when I should have zagged and got tagged by a bull.”
“How hurt are you?” she asked, aghast.
“Just twisted my knee. It’s an old injury. No new damage according to Hank. And he happens to be a topnotch sports orthopedist.”
She ushered him inside, turned a chair, for him to prop up his leg on and poured him a cup of coffee. She sat down across from him.
“Bad news?” she asked.
“Mixed.”
“Lead with the bad.”
“They’ve filed a motion for expedited discovery.
They want every document, email, and text message related to this property going back five years.
Including yours. Including Fern’s. They also want the medical records of every animal on this farm, on the theory that the property’s value depends partly on its operating condition. ”
“That sounds like a fishing expedition.”
“It is.”
“Will the judge grant it?”
“Not all of it. Doesn’t much matter either way.
” He tapped the pad. “The point isn’t what they get.
The point is what it costs you to comply.
And there’s a sweetener attached. They’ve raised their offer to twenty-five million.
Cash. Conditional on you signing a letter of agreement to sell this place to them a year and a day after the will was executed. ”
Twenty-five-million dollars. She calculated fast. It was approximately five times what she would have to pay for the rest of her life to keep the farm operating. It was also less than the property might fetch on the open market five years from now if this side of the lake really started to develop.
“I’m guessing you don’t recommend I take it,” she said.
“That’s your call. It’s a lot of money. If you’re asking me purely as a negotiator, I’d recommend you not take it because I think they’re nervous.
We can get them to come up even more on the price.
Given the rumors I’m hearing from my contacts in the oil business about the size of the shale deposit in this valley, whoever drills here stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars.
The oil company will pony up even more cash to get their hands on land here and be the first to drill. ”
“If this was about the money, I’d take their offer right now. But it’s not that simple.”
He smiled kindly. “It never is.” He paused then said, “The handwriting expert is willing to testify that the letter’s a forgery. He’s the best in the business. Never loses forgery cases.”
“How much does he charge?”
Reno hesitated, then said, “He’ll do it as a favor. He owes me one. Don’t make me explain why.”
“Thank you.”
He waved it off and changed the subject the same way Dillon would have. The Steele brothers were, she observed, really only one man in three slightly different costumes.
“How’re you doing?” he asked.
“My mother just called.”
He looked up sharply. “And? I’m asking as your attorney.”
“Then I’ll need to invoke attorney-client privilege.”
His eyebrows went up but he nodded without comment.
“She has stopped the checks my grandfather was sending from my trust fund until I enroll Makayla in a music academy in Connecticut. The deposit is due Friday.”
Reno set his coffee mug down. “Does your mother by any chance have a relationship with the oil company currently challenging Fern’s will?”
She laughed lightly. “Doubtful. My mother does her own dirty work. She wants me to know she’s the one twisting my arm.”
“More like applying thumb screws,” Reno muttered.
Tessa shrugged. “I never said she’s a nice person. She’s more shark than human.”
“Sharks don’t eat their young,” he retorted.
“My apologies to sharks everywhere for the comparison,” she replied.
They traded smiles, and he said kindly, “I’m sorry your family’s like that.
Sadly, it’s people like them who keep lawyers like me in business.
And on that note, I’m going to file a set of motions with the court tomorrow.
I’ll try to block as much as I can of the oil company’s discovery motion, and I’ll drag out the process as long as I possibly can.
It’ll be the one thing they don’t expect from you.
Should cause them a fair bit of consternation and throw their lawyers off balance. ”
“You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”
“Absolutely. I can’t stand legal hacks who throw around their law degrees to harm regular people.
” He picked up his briefcase and said, “If you want to talk through your mother’s blackmail or your decision about how to respond, call me.
And don’t sign anything from her that you haven’t run by me first. Got it? ”
“Got it.”
“And Tessa, I’ve worked for a lot of big corporations trying to bankrupt little guys into folding, and I’ve represented some of those little guys. One thing I know: the corporations never expect the little guy to fight and they don’t plan for it. You’ve got way more leverage than you think.”
“What if I’m not inclined to fight?”
“Then we’ll make sure you sell this place on terms that make the bastards bleed.”
She sat at the kitchen table for a long time after Reno’s truck disappeared.
She truly didn’t know what she was going to do.
Which felt exceedingly strange. She’d spent her entire life knowing exactly what she was supposed to do.
Be a good student, go to a prestigious university, marry the right man, marry the wrong one to spite her parents, set up the same kind of life for her daughter, even though her child had inherited every drop of her father’s free spirit.
The script had always been there, even when she was rebelling against it.
But now there was no script. She was on her own to shape her life and it was scary as heck.