Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
W illow came out the front door and joined Rose on the gravel drive. She asked, “Is that Finn Murphy?”
“Uh-huh.” It was all Rose could manage as she watched Finn help his dad into a dark SUV.
“I don’t remember him looking like that.”
“No.” She couldn’t look away. Her sister was right. That scraggly, wavy hair he’d kept hanging in his face as a teenager was both managed and wind-tousled. She wanted to stick her fingers in it. The feel of his strong arms around her, his chest against hers, both comforted and weakened her knees.
“You should stop staring,” Willow said. “We are in mourning. Although Grandmother would find your behavior amusing.”
Rose didn’t care if people noticed. Grief for Magnolia buried her. She’d cried more in the last week than she had in years.
Watching Finn help his dad into a car soothed her. It was so everyday.
He gave her one last glance before he left.
“Looks like he hasn’t forgotten you either.”
Rose stood there till both taillights disappeared.
Willow took her arm, tucked it in hers, and pulled her toward the house. “I always wondered if you and he were in love. Now I know.”
A frisson of alarm went through her. “Know? Know what?”
Willow shrugged her shoulders. “That you and Finn had a thing.”
Rose forced Willow to a stop. Her words were a whisper. “We did not have a thing. We never even dated.” They hadn’t, but she didn’t want the rest of the family to hear speculation. Like Willow said. They were grieving. All of them.
This wasn’t the time or place to discuss such things, despite Magnolia’s belief in living towards the future instead of sinking in the past. Hadn’t she given her that very advice the last time they’d talked?
Willow said, “By the way—your friends, Ada and Becks are looking for you. They’re in the kitchen with Tess.”
She’d spoken with her college roommates at the cemetery before the graveside service.
Ada had been a huge help to the family. Her family owned the local florist. She’d set all the flowers up and brought the white wreath that currently hung on the front door.
Becks had flown in from New York yesterday.
“Thank you, I’ll slip in and talk to them.” They were likely thanking Tess for all the cookies she sent when they’d lived in the dorms together at New York University.
Rose slipped into the kitchen. She was right; they were talking about cookies. She hugged Tess first; she’d taken Magnolia’s death hard. The two had been as close as sisters.
After hugging her roommates, the four of them sat down at the table, talking until Thorne appeared in the doorway.
“Broome wants us in the parlor,” he said. “Uncle Tamarack and crew plan to leave soon.”
“Of course.” She stood and thanked her friends for coming. Another round of hugs ensued, with promises to check on her in the coming days.
She entered the parlor beside Thorne. Uncle Tamarack, his wife Cora, and their son, Oakley, stood in the middle with her siblings. Their granddaughters played with stuffed animals by the array of windows.
Uncle Tamarack said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t get Cherry to come. She despises this town.”
Rose knew Broome had tried to convince Aunt Cherry to fly out from England for her older sister’s funeral, but she’d refused.
At least Uncle Tamarack and his family were here.
They sat together in the parlor for a time.
He shared his favorite memories of his sister.
Their granddaughters told them about their new kitten, named Posey.
When it was time for them to leave, Rose and her siblings followed them out, promising to stay in touch. A gray sedan entered the driveway as they said their farewells. This must be the lawyer Broome mentioned.
They were an hour into the reading of the will at the large claw-footed oak dining table when Aspen erupted out of her seat. She slammed her hand on the dark-stained surface. “What do you mean Rose gets the house?”
The lawyer, a Mr. Simon Winslow, flinched.
Rose too, wondered if she’d heard wrong. Magnolia loved her, loved all of them, but she would never choose her, the youngest, to inherit this house.
Seated across the table with his muddy blonde hair slicked back, Gavin’s smarmy smile flatlined. “There must be a mistake.”
Aspen sat back in her chair, shoulders stiff above her prominent baby bump. Her words were clipped. “Briar House is mine.”
Mr. Winslow, a gaunt man perhaps in his fifties, cleared his throat, removed a yellow pocket square from his gray suit and dabbed his forehead. Then repeated his words. They came out the same.
I, Magnolia Eleanor Everson-Brooks, leave the property known as Briar House and the grounds that surround it to Rose Everson Finch.
Rose gripped the edges of her chair.
Beside her, Thorne’s eyebrows rose.
Rose glanced at Broome. His expression gave away nothing. His cryptic words earlier came to mind. Was this what he referred to?
Gavin’s jaw jutted out. He and Aspen had been married four years. Magnolia required him to sign a prenuptial agreement. Despite that, he looked unreasonably pissed.
The lawyer’s face carried a pinched expression as he adjusted his papers. He looked pointedly at Aspen and Gavin. “Ms. Everson-Brooks was clear about her wishes. She wished Rose to inherit the estate.”
Her stomach churned as if the words had been said for the first time instead of the third.
Briar House.
Magnolia wanted her to have Briar House.
Her hands twisted beneath the table.
Rose loved everything about this gentle old place.
The window in her bedroom, its tiny reading cubby.
The brightness of the morning room, the library with towers of bookshelves around the edges.
The forest perimeter, the rose garden, even the row of worn cottages, one of which she’d lived in for the past two years.
When Magnolia suffered her first stroke, it made sense for Rose to move home. Of all the Everson descendants, as long as she had power, an internet connection, and a phone, she could work anywhere.
Worked, she had. More than she had in New York City. She’d indie published three more Criminy Mystery books since she moved home. Her sixth was under edit with Elise, her developmental editor.
Briar House and the surrounding forest fed her mind. Her books revolved around this house and the nearby woods. Her settings came more alive after she moved back.
But she’d always considered living on the estate temporary. She’d known the house would never come to her. In the past month, she’d decided that when the time came, she would buy a small place in Evers Hollow so that she could continue to walk through the woods and find inspiration.
But now…
Rose looked around the dining room. Took in its faded cream floral wallpaper, original to the house.
Generations of scuffs and light stains marked the lower perimeter.
The tattered ceiling above could use a bit of love.
The chandelier caught her eye, its many prisms radiating light throughout the once glamorous room.
A single wisp of a spiderweb hung from one of them.
Of all the chores, the chandelier had been the most time consuming and tedious. Magnolia felt that no Everson descendant should take the household staff for granted. Each of them had been tasked with doing every chore at least once, so they knew the effort it took to maintain such a place.
The lawyer said her name. Everyone looked at her. She’d missed something.
She leaned forward. “I’m sorry, I didn’t?—”
Slap.
Aspen’s palm hit the table. “She’s not even listening to you, Winthrop.”
The partially balding man looked affronted. “My name is Winslow.”
Aspen waved a hand as if in dismissal. “Do you really think this is who my grandmother had in mind when she wrote her will? She’s the youngest. This house has stood for a hundred years. Rose will run our family’s legacy into the ground.”
Her emotions bubbled. Why Aspen would think such a thing, Rose couldn’t be sure, but this wasn’t the moment to whip out her financials to prove she wouldn’t. She folded her arms and glared at Aspen.
In agitated tones, Willow said, “Would you lower your voice? Grandmother wouldn’t want us to argue.”
Thorne rocked his chair back on two legs, one hand on the table as he turned his head towards the lawyer. “Bet this happens all the time.”
Rose watched as the lawyer met Thorne’s eyes. If the slight inclination of his chin was a nod, it was the most subtle she’d seen. Aspen and Gavin had their heads together.
Aspen leaned over the table with a twisted, desperate look about her face, her voice shaky. “Rose. Give me and Gavin the house. It should belong to me. I was Grandmother’s favorite.”
Across from her, Willow’s eyes narrowed, but Aspen pressed. “I went to all her social events with her, all the way to the end. I’m pregnant. You don’t even have a boyfriend.”
An impolite noise came from Thorne, his chair still off-balance, a contrast to the faded formality of the room.
“It’s true,” Aspen said.
A catalog of ugly words perched on the tip of Rose’s tongue. Her teenage self would have said them, every single one. None would do any good. Not with Aspen. Not today.
Willow was right; they shouldn’t argue. Their grandmother had been buried only hours before.
Yet Aspen tried again, her tone placating as if she were speaking to an irate child. “Please Rose. You could stay in the cottage. We’ll hire you to be our nanny.”
A privilege indeed.
As if she would ever agree to live on the same property with them, not with what she knew about Gavin.
Rose glanced back at the chandelier. She’d near forgotten.
Aspen had never cleaned it. Rose couldn’t remember what excuse she’d used.
The rest of them each spent their two hours removing every prism and cleaning it with the housekeeper’s homemade cleaning solution with cloth diapers.
It had taken another hour to hang every prism back in its place.