Chapter Ten
F amily feud. Families fighting. Longtime family feud. Alaska feuds in Evergreen. Burke scrolled through the search results filling his screen. Nope. Nothing useful. How about Hatfield and McCoy ? Or Montagues and Capulets ?
Ugh. Too depressing.
His phone slipped from his grasp and landed with a soft thud in his lap.
“Are you kidding me?” He glared at the device as if it had somehow leaped from his hand of its own free will.
The two women sitting diagonally across from him in the cramped medical clinic waiting room gave him curious looks. Burke formed his mouth into a tight-lipped smile. They tipped their heads closer and whispered to one another.
Hopefully, after this afternoon’s appointment, he could say goodbye to the restrictive cast on his wrist and transition to a hard splint. Typing with a cast for almost three weeks had been nearly impossible, crippling his productivity and dampening the small amount of motivation he’d cultivated.
He retrieved his phone and then resumed his internet search.
Not that his quest had been fruitful at all, and pecking away at the tiny keyboard with his nondominant hand really made him cranky.
This whole unfortunate situation made him cranky.
If Jovi didn’t know why his aunt and her grandmother had stopped being friends and his messages to his brother and his mother had so far gone ignored, how in the world would he ever find any helpful clues?
Burke’s aggravation grew with every futile search result.
The rift between his aunt and Jovi’s grandmother had consumed too much of his mental energy lately.
Last night, when he’d been falling asleep, he’d almost convinced himself that the conflict had likely been petty and insignificant.
But, today, it still gnawed at him. Like Darby Jane and her stubborn allegiance to Bobo, he had latched on to the notion that a propulsive story might somehow materialize.
A thread he could spin into a completed manuscript.
Okay, so maybe his agent and his publisher expected something a little darker.
A story that meshed with the genre expectations of domestic thriller readers.
But he’d fallen so far from his debut bestseller pedestal.
Did it matter if he changed gears and tried something new?
He’d already aggravated nearly everyone in his professional life.
They probably wouldn’t be at all surprised if he proposed a completely different novel.
Stop. This is madness. What are you thinking?
Sighing, he raked his hand through his hair and leaned back in the uncomfortable plastic chair. The murmurs of other patients waiting alongside him blended into a dull background noise. Jovi’s pretty face flashed in his mind. A pleasant warmth bloomed in his chest.
She was part of the reason he wanted to resolve this feud. Okay, most of the reason.
Burke glanced at the two women. They both quickly looked away. Ignoring their prying eyes, he pecked out a new query in the search bar.
Alaska family feud Evergreen history
He checked the time. His appointment started in five minutes, but the assistant at the front desk had already let him know they were running behind.
Might as well use the time he had to keep sleuthing.
He thumbed past several articles about the history of the area, then paused when an obscure blog post title buried deep in the search results caught his attention.
“‘Tragic Tale of Betrayal Soils a Remarkable Life of Service,’” he whispered.
Yes, please.
He tapped the phone, eager for the slow-loading screen to produce more juicy details. As the text appeared, he quickly scanned the words. The blog post recounted the story of two prominent families in Evergreen, Alaska, the Montgomerys and the Harrisons.
Disappointment tightened his chest. Frankly, not the names he’d hoped to read. But he kept going. It described their once-close friendship that had spanned generations, only to be shattered by a devastating betrayal.
Tragic tales? Betrayal? Essential ingredients for a compelling story.
According to the author, there had been rumors of a massive vein of gold running through the heart of the Montgomerys’ property that they’d homesteaded in Evergreen.
Allegedly an unimaginable fortune, even by 1897 standards.
The Harrisons possessed the tools necessary to mine the gold, so they convinced the Montgomery family to form a partnership, and they embarked on an arduous journey together, united by their shared pursuit of this elusive treasure.
But somewhere along the way, darkness seeped in, and a misunderstanding swelled until it consumed both families.
The animosity trickled down to the next generation like a poisonous inheritance and—
“Burke Solomon?”
A young blonde woman wearing purple scrubs stood in an open doorway nearby. She held a laptop and offered a polite smile.
He stood and pocketed his phone. “That’s me.”
“This way, please.” She led him down a wide hallway lined with closed doors. The muffled sound of a baby crying, followed by a woman’s soothing voice, filtered from the last room on the left.
“Come on in here.” She turned into the last exam room on the right side of the hallway.
Burke complied. The room was small and clean, furnished with medical equipment and the standard padded exam table.
A framed photo of a famous athlete dunking a basketball paired with an inspirational quote hung on one wall.
The air carried that distinct antiseptic smell that always made him feel a bit uneasy.
He sat down on the vinyl chair by the counter as the medical assistant took a seat on the rolling stool, then glanced at her laptop.
He waited for her to ask the usual introductory questions, his mind quickly wandering to the information he’d just gleaned. Did the history of that particular family feud have any connection to the mystery behind his aunt and Jovi’s grandmother’s severed friendship?
“All right, Burke,” the medical assistant said with a warm smile, “how’s your wrist been feeling since we last saw you?”
“It’s been okay.” He tried to sound positive. “The pain has subsided, but wearing this cast is a hassle. Any chance I can transition to something more flexible?”
She nodded sympathetically and clicked away on her computer. “I get that. Casts can be quite restricting. I imagine the doctor will request an X-ray, and if everything looks good, she might transition you to a hard splint.”
That sounded like progress. Sort of. “Will I be able to do more with a splint on? Like typing?”
She stood and turned to the blood pressure machine on a rolling cart nearby.
“Yes, the hard splint allows for slightly more range of motion. Hopefully, that will allow you to increase your daily activities and encourage the fracture to heal. We always tell patients it takes between six and twelve weeks for complete healing.”
Burke nodded. “Got it.”
While she checked his vitals, his thoughts wandered back to the captivating post he’d read.
The more he thought about it, the more the tragic tale of betrayal that had torn apart the Montgomerys and the Harrisons sounded familiar.
And it felt like the perfect fork-in-the-road inspiration he’d been seeking for his novel.
* * *
There had to be somebody in town who had the inside scoop about her family’s feud with Mac and Lois Phillips.
Marriages, divorces, spring break vacations, engagements, juicy secrets and the latest special at Trailside—nothing stayed concealed for long.
At least that had been the way things went when she’d grown up here.
Jovi set her latte and her berry granola parfait on a small round table near the front door—the last empty spot in Alpenglow Espresso—then took off her coat and sat down.
The whir of the beans grinding and the hiss of the espresso machine mingled with the cries of a fussy infant in a car seat nearby.
Shiplap walls painted an inviting shade of crisp white showcased an impressive collection of framed photos and art created by Alaskans.
The large windows granted customers a gorgeous view of a bustling street corner in Evergreen with a glimpse of Winterhaven Ski Resort in the distance.
A fireplace filled the opposite wall, inviting guests to enjoy one of the overstuffed chairs flanking its river rock hearth.
One of the coffee shop employees added another log to the crackling flames.
She stirred the granola and berries into the vanilla Greek yogurt and then took a bite.
Stifling a grimace, she forced it down. She’d talked herself into making a healthy choice to offset the calories from her latte, but the fresh blueberry scone with the coarse sugar sprinkled on top still tempted her through the glass bakery case nearby.