Chapter 7 #2
Mrs. Talbot blinked up at me with wide, innocent eyes, as if she hadn’t realized I was in the room—like I hadn’t been sitting ten feet away, participating in this meeting for the last hour and a half, fielding complaints about parking violations and noise ordinances.
“Oh, Chief Gibson, you didn’t hear? I thought surely someone would have told you by now. ”
“Hear what?” My voice came out sharper than I intended, edged with the kind of authority that usually made people straighten up and start talking faster.
Mo’nique, sliding up beside our little group with a tray of fresh sweet tea glasses sweating in the humid air, gave the cluster of women a look that could’ve curdled the cream in their coffee.
Her dark eyes flashed with disapproval as she set down the glasses with perhaps more force than strictly necessary.
“Don’t you go circling like buzzards over fresh roadkill.
If you got something to say about that girl, say your piece plain instead of dropping hints like breadcrumbs. ”
Mrs. Henderson cleared her throat nervously, glancing around as if checking to make sure we had an appropriately sized audience for this revelation.
“Well, it’s the Maddox will, you see. Poor Evelyn’s final wishes, God rest her soul.
” She paused for dramatic effect, pressing a hand to her chest. “She left the house to Marla and Karen—that’s Emmaline’s mama and aunt, you know—and as for the bakery…
” Her voice dropped to a stage whisper that somehow managed to carry even further than her normal speaking voice.
“She left it to Emmaline, but only if she’s married by the close of probate.
Otherwise, it goes right back to her mama and aunt too. ”
The words dropped between us like a boulder thrown into a still lake, sending ripples of shock through my system. The lemon bar crumbled in my suddenly tight grip, pieces falling to the floor where Rubble promptly hoovered them up.
I shook my head slowly, as if the physical motion might somehow rearrange the words I’d just heard into something that made sense. “That can’t be right.”
“I’m afraid it is.” There was no mistaking the note of satisfaction in Mrs. Talbot’s voice now, the pleasure that came from being the bearer of particularly juicy bad tidings.
“Marla’s been telling everyone who’ll listen how her mama finally saw sense before she passed.
She’s been fairly crowing about it over at the beauty parlor, talking about all the ‘improvements’ they’re planning to make. ”
Rubble whined softly at my feet, a low, worried sound that perfectly matched the churning in my gut. She could sense the tension radiating off me in waves, the way my hands had clenched into fists so tight my nails were biting crescents into my palms.
Emmaline had rebuilt that bakery with her own two hands after the floodwaters receded.
While the rest of us were still pumping mud out of our basements and arguing with insurance adjusters, she’d been there every morning before dawn, scraping mold off walls and replacing water-damaged equipment with whatever she could afford.
She’d scraped and painted and scrubbed that place back to life, working eighteen-hour days until her fingers cracked and bled, keeping the ovens warm and the coffee brewing even when she had nothing left to give.
She’d fed half the town during the worst of the cleanup, refusing payment from families who were struggling, extending credit to folks who couldn’t afford groceries, let alone fresh bread and pastries.
And now—because of some outdated, cruel clause buried in legal paperwork, some twisted logic that belonged in a different century—she was about to lose everything she’d fought so hard to save.
A slow burn spread up through my chest and settled like acid in my throat.
Evelyn Maddox hadn’t been perfect—hell, she’d been about as warm and welcoming as a January morning—but she’d loved that bakery.
Had built it from nothing back in the day, had taught Emmaline everything she knew about running a business and feeding a community.
There was no sense to this. None at all.
“She’s barely in the ground,” I muttered, the words scraping past the tightness in my throat. “And the vultures are already circling, making plans to pick the bones clean.”
Nobody answered me directly, but the silence that followed was loaded with meaning. A few of the women exchanged glances, and I caught Mrs. Talbot’s slight shrug that seemed to say, well, what did you expect?
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw, my short beard rough against my palm, and forced myself to step back from the edge of rage to find some steady ground.
Anger wouldn’t help Emmaline—wouldn’t change the will or stop the probate clock from ticking.
But action might. Practical, methodical action was something I knew how to do.
“Hot tea to go,” I said to Grandma Elsie, my voice coming out rougher than I’d intended. The words felt like gravel in my mouth.
She shot me a knowing look from behind the counter, her shrewd eyes taking in my clenched jaw and the rigid set of my shoulders.
Grandma Elsie had raised three boys and run a business in a small town for more than fifty years—she read tension and trouble like other people read recipe cards.
“Extra sugar?” she asked, already reaching for the largest to-go cup.
“Yeah.” My throat felt tight, constricted. “Extra sugar.”
Because I had a sick feeling that whatever conversation I was about to have with Emmaline was going to be bitter enough to need all the sweetening I could get.