Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Jaxon assumed Billy Jones’s law office would be crowded with people for the reading of Rosie’s will. His mama had been a bad mama, but she’d been a damn good boss. Jaxon figured she’d want to reward her most loyal employees for sticking by her side and helping her with her beloved bar.
But surprisingly, there wasn’t one bar manager, bartender, server, or bouncer waiting inside Billy’s office when Jaxon and his brothers walked in.
He thought they were just running late, until, after shaking their hands and greeting them, Billy sat down behind his cluttered desk and picked up a stack of paper.
“Let’s get to it then.” He nudged up his glasses and started reading.
Jaxon cut him off. “Excuse me, Mr. Jones. But no one else is coming?”
Billy glanced up from the will and tipped his balding head. “Why would anyone else be coming? Besides your sister—who you told me couldn’t be here—y’all are the only beneficiaries of your mama’s will . . . besides the extra stipulation. Which I’ll get to later.”
The brothers exchanged glances before Jaxon nodded. “Sorry. Continue.”
Billy cleared his throat and went back to reading the will while Jaxon sat there puzzled.
They were the only beneficiaries of their mama’s will?
This had to be another one of Rosie’s jokes.
Just like the angel perched on her headstone.
In a few minutes, Billy would get to the punch line where he told them that Rosie didn’t have a cent to her name and both the house and the land it and Honky Tonk Heaven sat on were so heavily mortgaged the bank would get everything.
Although Jaxon would be surprised if that were the case. Rosie had always been a good money manager. So maybe the joke was that they’d each get a dollar and the rest would go to some charity.
But that didn’t make sense either. Rosie had always believed that charity started at home . . . or at Honky Tonk Heaven. If she had spare money, it would go right back into the bar.
Jaxon was so busy trying to figure out what his mama had been thinking he wasn’t paying attention to Billy.
But Dawson and Huck were.
Both his brothers sat straight up in their chairs as Dawson cut in. “Read that last part again, Billy.”
Billy glanced up from the will. “What part?”
Huck was staring at the lawyer as if he’d suddenly grown hair. “The money part. Read that again.”
Billy glanced down. “An estate estimated at one point five million dollars.”
Jaxon felt like his jaw hit the floor. “Mama had one point five million?”
Billy nodded. “As of the writing of this will. Depending on the stock market and real estate values, it could be more or less than that.” He shuffled through the papers until he found what he was looking for.
“At the writing of this will, your mother had close to a million in her investment fund, plus her completely paid for house and land. And those could be worth more than half a million, depending on the market when you sell them. Of course, y’all getting the money and property are contingent on the requirements of the will. ”
“I’ll meet any requirements!” Huck jumped up and pumped a fist in the air before looking at Jaxon and Dawson, who sat there stunned.
“We’re rich! As soon as I leave here, I’m heading to Lubbock to buy me a brand new Dodge Ram truck with all the bells and whistles and a pair of real ostrich leather boots and a—”
Jaxon cut him off. “Sit down, Huck.” For once, his little brother did as he asked without arguing—probably because he was so busy thinking about everything he was going to buy. Jaxon turned to Billy. “What kind of requirements? And cut through all the legal jargon. Just give it to us straight.”
Billy leaned back in his chair. “You’ll only get everything if you return Honky Tonk Heaven to its former glory. Otherwise, the house, land, and all the money go to someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t have a clue.” Billy lifted a sealed envelope. “Their name is in here. I’m only to open it if y’all don’t meet the requirements.”
Here was Mama’s punch line.
She knew how much the Hennessy kids hated Honky Tonk Heaven. Hated it for getting all her love and attention when all four of her kids went without. Hated it because they’d had to work their asses off in it when they got old enough to help out. Now, she was forcing those kids to make a choice.
Rebuild the bar they hated or lose a lot of money to some surprise recipient.
Jaxon could feel the veins throbbing at his temples. “So we reopen the bar or we don’t get the money?”
“In three months. You have to return the bar to its former glory in three months from today. And then you can’t sell it for a year.”
“So we’ll get money for the bar too?” Huck asked. When Billy nodded, he bellowed. “Damn, we will be rich!”
Jaxon wasn’t thinking about the money. “Three months to rebuild it when it’s nothing more than a pile of charcoal briquettes?”
Billy shrugged. “I mentioned that, but she was dead set on three months. She put aside the money she got from the insurance company after the fire. But seeing how construction prices have gone up quite a bit in the last eight years, I figure it won’t be enough.
Which means if you spend over the amount she set aside, you’ll have to pay for the overtures out of your own pockets.
“What the fuck?” Dawson growled.
Billy got a scared look and held up his hands as if Dawson was going to jump over the desk and strangle him. Jaxon couldn’t blame him. His brother had been known to overreact.
“I didn’t make up the requirements,” Billy said. “I only legalized them. And I wouldn’t say the dancehall was a pile of briquettes. The outside walls are still standing. As is the steeple.”
And that was it.
When Jaxon had been there the other night, he’d been stunned to see all the damage the fire had done.
He’d thought he’d feel vindicated standing in the rubble.
As a kid, he’d prayed lightning would strike the building and burn it to the ground.
Then maybe his mama would put her kids first for a change.
Now he realized that even if lightning had struck earlier, nothing would have changed.
Even on her deathbed, Rosie could only think about her beloved bar.
“So let me get this straight.” Dawson cut into Jaxon’s thoughts. “In order to get our mama’s money, we have to stay in this shithole town for three months and rebuild a gutted bar?”
Billy nodded. “And open it to the public.”
This time, it was Dawson who jumped to his feet. “Fuck that! I don’t need money that bad.” He stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him.
There was a part of Jaxon that wanted to do the exact same thing. It would feel good, so damn good, to decline the offer and walk out the door with his hand raised to the sky, flipping his mama off.
But over a million dollars was hard to walk away from.
Especially when he had dreams. Dreams that his share of the money would go a long way in helping him achieve.
And it wasn’t like he would be rebuilding Honky Tonk Heaven for his mama.
She was gone. Once the bar was up and running, they’d sell it and he’d be gone too.
But he couldn’t rebuild the bar alone. He’d need the help of his brothers .
. . and his sister. Poppy had not only sung in bars all over Texas, she’d also worked at them to help make ends meet.
Her knowledge of the bar world would be invaluable.
As would Huck’s carpentry skills and Dawson’s brains.
He was the smartest Hennessy. The one who had excelled at school.
He could help keep the project as close to their budget as possible.
Wait. Was Jaxon really considering doing this?
Considering seemed to be the optimal word.
“How long do we have to decide?” he asked Billy.
Billy shrugged. “There’s no time restrictions on that.
But if you want to beat the deadline on rebuilding the bar, I wouldn’t dilly dally.
” He stood. “Now if there’s nothing else, I have a meeting to be at.
” Since he was dressed in shorts and a polo shirt, Jaxon figured his meeting was at the county golf course.
“If you boys have any questions, you can call me any time.”
After thanking him, Jaxon followed Huck out of the office, their boot heels echoing as they strode down the marble-floored hallway of the town hall.
Huck glanced at him. “So we’re gonna do it, right, Jax?”
“I’m still thinking on it.”
Huck’s face grew belligerent. “Well, think all you want. I’m doing it. I’ll do it alone if I have to. I’m not stupid enough to leave all that money just to get back at mama. And that’s exactly what you and Dawson will be trying to do if you walk away. But she’s dead, Jax.”
Jaxon couldn’t argue the point. Rosie was dead and it was stupid to think walking away would make her pay for not loving her kids more than a stupid bar.
But walking away wasn’t all about Rosie.
He’d just as soon forget about this part of his life—to start over in a town that didn’t see him as a criminal.
But in order to start over, he needed money.
“There’s Dawg!” Huck voice echoed in the gold-domed ceiling above them.
Dawson stood in the second-floor rotunda in front of one of the portraits of Promise Springs’s founding fathers that lined the walls. And not just any portrait, but the portrait of their great-great-great grandfather, Leland Ryan Walters.
Dawson turned when Jaxon and Huck approached and Jaxon was struck once again by how much his brother resembled their great-grandfather .
. . right down to the sullen look. Dawson must have thought so too because it wasn’t the first time Jaxon had caught him studying the picture.
Or maybe he just liked the fact that at least one male Hennessy had been thought of well by the town.
“I hope you told Billy where to shove Mama’s will,” Dawson said.
Huck opened his mouth to speak, but Jaxon placed a hand on his arm and stopped him. “Would you go back to Billy’s office and ask his receptionist for a copy of the will? I forgot to get one.”
Huck hesitated for a moment before he nodded. “Fine, but don’t think you’re going to conspire with Dawg while I’m gone and change my mind.” He turned and walked off, tugging on the dilapidated straw cowboy hat he’d inherited from their daddy.
Dawson shook his head. “He’s living in a dream world if he thinks he can rebuild Honky Tonk Heaven in just three months all by himself.”
“He won’t be by himself.”
Dawson turned his stunned gaze to Jaxon.
“You’ve got to be kidding me? You’re seriously going to let her manipulate you even from the grave?
Don’t you remember how she manipulated us as kids to get what she wanted?
And it always involved a bribe. Candy. Money.
A couple of moments of her attention. Then once we gave her what she wanted, we’d be lucky to get what she promised.
The same goes for this. There’s no way we can get that bar up and running in three months' time. A building permit can take that long to get. Not to mention any other permits we might need for electrical, plumbing, heating, and air conditioning. And that’s just for the building itself.
That’s not including all the paperwork we’ll need to fill out to change over the liquor license—if we can even change over the liquor license to our names.
That’s something I know nothing about. And neither do you. ”
Dawson threw up his hands. “It’s impossible and Rosie knew it.
This is just her screwing with us. She wants us to work our asses off saving the bar and not meet the deadline.
Whoever’s name is in that envelope is who she wanted to have the bar.
She’s just using us as manual labor like she always did.
It’s a trap, Jax. This whole town is probably in on it. Billy included.”
Dawson could be right. The townsfolk loved the bar as much as Rosie had. And it wouldn’t be the first time she’d joined forces with the townsfolk to ensure that the Honky Tonk Heaven’s legacy continued. But if that was true, then why hadn’t she rebuilt the bar in the eight years after the fire?
Jaxon had thought it had to do with money. Like Billy had pointed out, construction costs had gone through the roof and insurance money was never enough to cover actual costs.
Now he knew differently.
“Where do you think she got all that money?” he asked Dawson.
Dawson shrugged. “Bars make a lot of money, Jax, and Rosie didn’t spend much on herself . . . or her kids.”
“So why didn’t she rebuild the bar herself?”
“Because like I said before, she was waiting to spring a trap on us. To get back at us for wanting no part of the bar.”
Jaxon stared at the picture of their grandfather. “What if we spring the trap and beat her at her own game?”
“That’s impossible, Jax.”
“That’s what the kids at school thought when it snowed for the first time in years and Huck went around bragging that he was going to build an igloo in our front yard.
Even you and I didn’t believe he could do it when there was only a half inch of snow on the ground .
. . but that didn’t stop us from helping him. ”
Dawson shook his head. “And getting our asses blistered for stealing blocks of ice out of Honky Tonk Heaven’s freezer.”
Jaxon shrugged. “We still did it. Just like we helped him build a raft.”
“That sunk.”
“It made one helluva of a tree house.”
Dawson sighed. “That it did.”
Jaxon put an arm around Dawson’s shoulders. “Come on, Dawg. Let’s prove to Rosie and everyone in this puddle-jump of a town that the Hennessys should not be underestimated.”
“I don’t have anything to prove to this shithole town.”
“You’re right. Maybe I just want to prove it to myself. Come on, Dawson, we can’t do it without you.”
Huck walked up and slung his arms around them. “Of course, we can do it without him. But it wouldn’t be half as much fun. Come on, Dawg. I’ll let you win at arm wrestling if you say yes.”
Dawson snorted. “I always win at arm wrestling.”
“Only because you cheat. Now are you going to help me get a new truck and boots or not?”
Dawson looked up at the big domed ceiling and blew out his breath. “Fine.”
“Yeehaw!!!” Huck took off his hat and threw it into the air while Dawson rolled his eyes and Jaxon laughed. He stopped laughing when the county clerk stepped out of her office to see who was making all the ruckus.
“What is going on out—” She cut off when she saw them and her eyes widened. “So the gossip is true. The Hennessy Hooligans are back in town.”