Chapter One #2
“Clay, shh,” Iris snapped without taking her eyes off the lawyer. Then, sweetly, “Please go on, Mr. Schneider.”
Annoyance flared in my chest. Iris hadn’t spent a single Saturday weeding flower beds or hauling bags of soil. She hadn’t fallen asleep in the greenhouse listening to Alice’s soft, soothing stories about other worlds and what-ifs.
I did, I thought. And I didn’t even know she had this kind of money.
Mr. Schneider adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat again. “It is Alice’s express wish that all assets I’ve listed, including all monies, go to Piper Wakefield.”
Time hiccupped.
Iris shot to her feet. “What?”
Gladys’s mouth fell open. Clay let out a loud, delighted, “Well, I’ll be.”
Heat rushed up my neck and into my face. For a second, the words didn’t register. They were just noise.
“Sorry,” I heard myself say, my voice thinner than I liked. “Yes. What?”
“You mean she’s giving everything to Piper?” Iris rounded on me, blue eyes blazing. “You little suck-up.”
Anger crackled beneath my skin, sharp and electric. “I am no such thing,” I snapped. “I had no idea she was doing this. And anyway, I don’t want this.”
That part came out a little too honest.
I hadn’t planned on staying. I had no idea how to run a business—much less a small-town flower shop. I could style a couture spread twelve ways from Sunday, but I didn’t know the first thing about balance sheets or inventory.
“If you want it so bad,” I added, my voice going cold, “you can have it.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Mr. Schneider said calmly.
“Why not?” Iris sounded like a petulant teenager instead of a forty-something divorcée. “She doesn’t want it. She said so herself.”
“Alice stipulates, specifically, that Piper is to be the sole successor to her estate.” He glanced at me again, expression unreadable. “There is no provision for transferring those assets to another party.”
“She’s left nothing for anyone else?” Gladys asked. Her tone was flat and brittle. Her knuckles whitened around the handkerchief.
“I’m afraid not,” Mr. Schneider said.
“Oh, no,” I muttered under my breath.
Clay let out another appreciative whistle. “How about that, sis?” He tipped his hat back farther with a grin. “You were Aunt Alice’s favorite all along and no one knew it.”
“Well, clearly she did,” Iris snarled. “Didn’t you, Piper? You’re trying to hide it. You knew about this. You talked her into it.”
“No, I didn’t.” My voice shook with fury. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“She didn’t,” Mr. Schneider said, backing me up. “Alice stated you were the only one she trusted with her business.”
That landed like another punch. I stared at him. Trusted? With what, exactly? The shop? The money? Something else?
Because sure, I’d always felt close to my aunt. But trusted? Enough to leave me everything? When I’d been a long-distance niece for the last decade, texting on holidays and liking Facebook posts?
“What about me?” Iris demanded. “What do I get?”
Mr. Schneider didn’t answer. That silence was loud.
“Why is she getting everything?” Iris snapped.
“Just because she ran off to Manhattan with her fancy degree and her fancy job? You’re not as good as you think you are,” she spat at me.
“You can hide behind those expensive clothes, but we all know who you are underneath it all. Just a redneck like the rest of us.”
My temper finally snapped. I stood, fists clenched.
“And you’re nothing but a divorced middle-aged high school dropout,” I shot back.
The words hung in the air like a slap.
Gladys gasped. Clay winced. For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Iris’s face went rigid, her expression hardening into something ugly and sharp. Fury, jealousy, old resentment—all of it flickered in her eyes.
When we were little, Iris had shaved the hair off my favorite Barbie and called it a makeover. Some things never changed.
Mr. Schneider cleared his throat again, slicing through the tension like a knife.
“There’s one more stipulation,” he said, addressing me.
“Alice’s last recorded wish was to ensure you understood that inheriting the flower shop comes with a condition.
You must take it on and run it yourself.
She specifically states that she does not want you to sell it. Ever.”
Ever.
The word echoed in my skull. My stomach twisted into a knot that felt suspiciously like panic.
Ever meant no quick sale, no cashing out and fleeing to Los Angeles. Ever meant roots, permanence, being locked into Hickory Hollow—into Snapdragon Drive and Enchanted Blossoms and the life I’d worked so hard to escape.
“Why?” I rasped when I finally found my voice.
“She didn’t say,” Mr. Schneider replied.
“You conniving little snake,” Iris spat, directing it at me like a curse.
Then she spun on her heel and stormed out of the room, out the front door, and into her car, punctuating the exit with a dramatic slam.
Gladys stood, smoothing her hands down the front of her dress as if ironing out wrinkles in reality. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Schneider,” she said tightly. Then she turned and walked upstairs without looking at me once.
The silence left behind felt heavy and deafening.
Clay stretched, joints popping, and then leaned down to kiss me on the cheek. “That was fun,” he said lightly. “Congrats, sis. I’m happy for you.” And I believed him. Clay never did drama. He existed, steady as fencepost. “See y’all later.”
His boots thudded across the worn floorboards as he ambled out.
Just like that, the room emptied—leaving me, my father, and the lawyer in a bubble of awkward quiet.
“So what happens now?” I asked.
“We’ll need to probate the will, of course,” Mr. Schneider said. He opened his briefcase again and pulled out a ring of keys, the metal clinking softly as they shifted. “In the meantime, I’m authorized to give you these. Alice wanted you to take possession of everything immediately.”