27. The Secret Society
The Secret Society
If anyone had told Cole Bennett six months ago that he’d be sitting at a bakery table with a teenage girl and a legal pad, planning a small-town resistance movement, he probably would’ve laughed.
But life, turns out, had a sense of humor.
“Okay,” Emmie said, leaning over the screen with a focused frown. “So if the appraiser’s right, and the house plus the bakery is, what, eight hundred grand combined—”
“Seven-fifty,” Cole corrected, pen tapping the margin. “On the low end.”
“Fine. Seven-fifty,” she said. “Twenty-five percent of that is still . . . a disgusting number.”
“About one-eighty-seven,” Cole said. “Call it one-ninety. Roughly.”
“Roughly,” she muttered. “I don’t even have one-ninety in my Sims account.”
They were hunched in the corner booth at The Blue Cypress after closing.
The front lights were dimmed, and the chairs were flipped upside down on most of the tables.
The only light came from the kitchen and the brass pendant over their heads, casting a soft pool of yellow across the legal pad between them.
Jenna had gone to her parents’ house to drop off a copy of the legal paperwork—her father had demanded to look it over, and her mother had insisted on feeding her a real meal.
Emmie leaned her elbows on the table, scowling at the sketches he’d made. Floor plans, rough numbers, and a couple of ideas circled so hard the pen had nearly torn the paper.
“The lawyer said the court is going to look at contributions, right?” she said. “That was the word? Contributions?”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “Jenna’s, specifically. Financial, sweat equity, all of it.”
He flipped to the next page in his notebook where he’d scribbled his own notes.
“They’re going to care that she’s the one who’s been overseeing everything since Grace died. They’re going to care that Troy hasn’t paid into the mortgage or the business expenses for what, eight months? More?”
“Try two years,” Emmie muttered.
“Well,” Cole said, “legally, they’ll probably focus on the last stretch since he left. But yeah. That.”
“And you said there’s some kind of court case?” she asked. “Like . . . precedent?”
He couldn’t help the tiny smile. Emmie had picked up the attorney’s vocabulary like it was a new sport.
“Yeah,” he said. “Your lawyer mentioned it to Jenna. In cases where one co-owner walked away, the other stayed and did all the work, including renovations and repairs, and increased the property’s value.
Judges have reduced the walk-away person’s share because, essentially, they’re trying to cash in on work they didn’t do. ”
“Which is exactly what he’s doing,” Emmie said.
“Exactly,” Cole agreed. “The big thing is: we document. Every invoice. Every scope. Every contractor check she’s signed. Every material purchase. All the work we’ve done here and at the house since he left.”
He flipped another page, showing the rough list he’d started: new roof, electrical updates, structural repairs, ADA bathroom, kitchen upgrades, exterior paint. The list ran halfway down the sheet.
“Ballpark,” he said, “we’re sitting on over a hundred grand in renovations Jenna’s already poured in. Maybe more. She’s too exhausted to add it all up yet, but I’ve got most of the numbers from the scopes.”
Something in her expression shifted.
“She really bet everything on this place, didn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Cole said quietly. “She did.”
Emmie looked at the page, eyes dark. “So that counts?”
“It can,” Cole said. “The lawyer can argue that this work was necessary, that it preserved and increased the value of the property. And that it was funded and managed by Jenna, not Troy. So, when they’re calculating what he’s actually entitled to, that has to be factored in.”
“So maybe we don’t need the full one-ninety,” Emmie said slowly. “Maybe we just need the difference.”
“Exactly,” Cole said. “If renovations plus unpaid mortgage plus taxes and business costs get credited on Jenna’s side of the ledger, it shrinks what we have to come up with in cash to make him go away.”
Emmie stared at the numbers for a moment, her jaw working.
“Okay,” she said finally. “So, we’re not raising a whole quarter of the value. We’re basically … filling a gap.”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “Still a big gap. But smaller than it could’ve been.”
“And we do that how?” she asked. “Car washes? Bake sales? Sell my soul? Because I doubt the judge will take what is in my Sims account, and I’m currently failing at becoming YouTube’s next Jenna Marbles.”
“Look around,” Cole said. She did.
Rows of glass bakery cases gleaming even after closing.
The chalkboard menu. The framed article from some food blogger who had once called Grace “the beating heart of Athens Street.” Photos of girls’ soccer teams, charity fun runs, and church groups, all with The Blue Cypress banner somewhere in the background.
“This place is the town’s kitchen,” Cole said. “It always has been. People celebrate here. They grieve here. They gossip here.”
“I’m aware,” Emmie said dryly. “Half the old ladies in the women’s club have diagnosed me with at least three different fictional boyfriends.”
“They care,” he continued. “This isn’t just a building to them. It’s history. Tradition. Comfort. The lawyer kept talking about ‘market value.’ That’s fine. Necessary. But there’s another kind of value you can’t put in a spreadsheet.”
Emmie eyed him. “Please don’t say ‘The real Blue Cypress was the friends we made along the way.’”
He huffed out a laugh. “I’m serious. You’re not just some random owner trying to flip a property.
You’re Grace’s daughter. Jenna’s your aunt.
I remember Jenna and Grace being ‘The Bakery Sisters’ in high school; everyone in town does.
The two of you are trying to keep this place alive.
You’ve got a story. A good one. And a small town that loves a cause. ”
Emmie blinked. Then squinted suspiciously. “You’re about to say fundraiser, aren’t you?”
His mouth curved. “Yes, I’m about to say fundraiser.”
She sat back. “Like . . . a GoFundMe?”
“Sure, that’s part of it,” Cole said. “But I was thinking more . . . all of it. An event. A rally. Something people can show up for. Something that reminds everybody what they’re fighting for.”
He grabbed another piece of paper and started jotting words.
SAVE THE BLUE CYPRESS – COMMUNITY RALLY KEEP IT LOCAL – KEEP IT HISTORIC – KEEP IT HERS
“Cheesy,” Emmie said automatically, but, after a beat, “Also . . . not terrible.”
“High praise,” he said.
She leaned forward, tapping the paper as his ideas spilled faster.
“We get the old crew,” Cole said. “The ones who’ve been eating here since your grandma was running the place. The construction guys, the nurses, the teachers, the retirees who treat that corner table like it’s reserved. Ask them to spread the word.”
“Mrs. Cartwright and her book club,” Emmie said, eyes starting to spark. “She’s basically the benevolent mafia boss of the Rotary and the women’s club.”
“Exactly.” Cole jotted ROTARY CLUB, WOMEN’S CLUB, HISTORICAL SOCIETY. “You’ve got the historical angle. This building’s been here since, what, the fifties?”
“Forties,” Emmie corrected, already catching the rhythm. “It’s one of the only original commercial buildings left on this stretch. It’s literally on the historic preservation list.”
“So we lean into that. Locally owned. Historically significant. Female-led. ‘Help us keep The Blue Cypress in the hands of the women who built it.’”
A slow, dangerous smile spread across Emmie’s face.
“Oh,” she said. “They’ll eat that up at the women’s club luncheon.”
“I’ll talk to a couple of people I know at the Rotary,” Cole said. “There are at least three old guys who think they owe me because I’ve remodeled their kitchens.”
“We rope in the historical society,” Emmie said, now fully on board. “They’ve been dying for an excuse to put plaques on something that isn’t a fountain. ‘Save a piece of old Athens Street.’ They can bring their sepia-toned photos and bore people into donating.”
“Now you’re thinking like a general,” Cole said.
She ignored that, drumming her fingers. “We could do a silent auction,” she said. “Extra services, local gift baskets, art. People love bidding on things they don’t need.”
“And live music,” Cole added. “I know a guy who plays acoustic sets at Capt’n Jack’s on Thursdays. He owes me at least two favors.”
“And obviously baked goods,” Emmie said. “We can’t run a Save the Bakery rally without sugar attached.”
“Obviously.”
“And we set up tables about the history of the place,” she continued. “Pictures of Mom and Great Grandma. Stories. Maybe some quotes. We remind people that this isn’t some nameless property on a spreadsheet. It’s . . . it’s her.”
Her voice went soft on that last word.
Cole’s chest tightened.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “We remind them it’s her.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of it stretching between them. Then Emmie straightened, determination settling back over her like armor.
“Okay,” she said briskly. “Next order of business: Jenna’s going to hate this.”
“Yup,” Cole said.
“She’s going to say it’s too much work. Or that it’s embarrassing. Or that she doesn’t want to be a charity case.”
“Correct again.”
“She’s also going to say we should be focusing on lawyers, not ‘some big spectacle,’” Emmie added, complete with air quotes.
“She’s not wrong,” Cole said. “We do need the lawyer. We do need the paperwork. But we also need money. And support. And a town that understands what’s at stake. This isn’t an either/or. It’s both.”
Emmie chewed her bottom lip. “So . . . we don’t tell her yet?”
He hesitated. It went against his default setting. He liked straight lines, straight answers, clean plans. Secrets made his shoulders itch.
But then he thought of Jenna’s tired eyes. Of the way her hands had trembled when she showed them the lawsuit. Of the way she kept apologizing, as if she’d personally invented probate just to ruin everyone’s week.