Chapter 1
Donald “Ducky” Donaldson sat at his kitchen table and nursed a cup of coffee as he read the letter he had received in the mail a few days ago.
He looked at the photograph of his late wife, the one he had placed on the table to stare at every morning as he had his coffee, and shook the papers in his hands at the photo, knowing she couldn’t hear him, but wanting to speak his concerns out loud.
When she had been alive, they had always talked their problems out.
That was how they had had a successful marriage before she’d gotten sick.
Just because she wasn’t around any longer, he hadn’t stopped talking to her when he needed to voice his opinion, or just to hear someone talk and break up the loneliness he felt sometimes.
“The nerve of these ungrateful little brats,” he said. “How dare they say this to me.” He shook the papers again, and shook his head. He didn’t know if he was disappointed, angry, or just plain tired of it all.
Years ago, right at the height of his wife’s battle with cancer, someone from the local bank had tried to step in and take his home from him.
At that time, he had not had a mortgage on his farm in over three decades.
Other than paying the taxes, he owned the farm outright, no banks or mortgage companies standing there with their hands out.
He had been so consumed with his wife’s illness, and nursing her, he had ignored the letters from the bank saying they were going to foreclose on his land and take it from him.
Thank goodness his neighbor had been able to step in and help him.
After his wife’s funeral, and a respectable time had passed, Erin Riceman had come to him with her lawyer, who happened to be his lawyer also.
The joys of living in a small town, everyone knew everyone’s business.
Sometimes living in a small town had its benefits.
But Erin and Liam had laid it all out what had happened.
Before Ducky had been able to get angry, Liam had calmly told him what Erin had done by paying the alleged amount owed, which happened to only be the taxes he had forgotten to pay because he was so wrapped up in taking care of his wife, he hadn’t paid them. Then Erin gave him a proposition.
If Ducky agreed, she would allow him to live in the house for the rest of his life, as long as she could keep the land she had purchased, and the buildings.
If he needed anything for the home, she would gladly pay it.
After his questions had been answered he signed the deal, and got on with his life.
It wasn’t until several years later that Erin and her brother, Clark, the man who had given him the moniker of Ducky, came to him and proposed a solution to a situation that had arisen.
Once he realized the severity of the problem, Ducky had readily agreed, and gone over to Broken Wheel to spend time with Prudora Tibbs, a young woman that he had fallen in love with in a grandfatherly way.
Her having chickens, something he had farmed for five decades, might have had something to do with his feelings for her.
It had made his heart feel young when he was able to dispel his knowledge on her.
Once the situation has sorted itself out, Ducky had moved back home, except he wasn’t alone after that.
People from Broken Wheel came over to talk to him, if not daily, then at least weekly.
Then another situation had cropped up, where Erin had needed to put his former chicken barns to use for horses.
He had come up with a plan, and worked with Ryan to see it come to fruition.
Now, his former chicken farm was a thriving horse ranch that not only housed racehorses, but also raced them on the track that had been built.
Part of the deal he had made with Erin was that he had life use of the home, and she had use of the rest of the property.
He looked at the papers in his hands and shook his head at the audacity of the sender.
On a heavy sigh, he sipped his coffee, looked at his own notes, and made a decision.
Instead of calling, he finished his coffee, walked down the hall to his bedroom, and dressed. Thirty minutes later, he was armed with all the information he needed and went out to climb into the golf cart. Being damn near eighty-seven years old, he felt he didn’t have to report to anyone.
Once he climbed into the golf cart, he drove over to the security shack, and climbed the steps to enter. He grinned when Kevin came out of his office and stared at him. “Ducky, what’s up?”
“Can you drive me over to Erin’s Way? I need to speak with Erin. I’d drive myself, but I know you guys would run me off the road if I took the golf cart.”
“You’re probably right in that,” Kevin laughed. “Let me tell Yvonne what I’m doing.”
“Okay, thanks,” Ducky said, and went back out to the cart and picked up the supplies he had brought with him, They got underway in less than three minutes, and neither of them said a word on the drive over. When Kevin parked, he looked at Ducky before he got out of the truck.
“If you need a ride home, call and someone will come get you.”
“Okay, thanks, Kevin,” Ducky said, and got out of the truck.
He waved to Duane and the others he saw and went to the back door of Erin’s house.
He walked in like he always did, then went down the hall to her office.
Years ago, it had been her daddy’s, but since he perished in the accident that took Erin’s hand, she had taken it over to continue to run Erin’s Way, then to also expand the business into what it was today.
He knocked on the doorjamb and grinned when the two women looked up at him.
“Ducky, this is a surprise,” Erin said as she leaned back in her chair to study him. “What brings you here?”
“Can we talk? Business?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Do you want me to leave?” Julie asked.
Before Ducky could say anything, she stood, and spoke quietly. “You look like you have something serious to talk about. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thank you,” Ducky said, and waited for her to leave before he took the seat before Erin’s desk.
“What can I do for you, Ducky,” Erin asked as she reached for her bottle of water and took a healthy sip.
“I promise to get to the point, but could you possibly call Clark in to join us.”
“Ah, it’s one of those business situations.” She set her water bottle back on the desk, picked up her cell phone and sent a text message, she didn’t look up until she got a response, and she looked at Ducky. “He says he’s already on his way. Do you want anything to drink before he gets here?”
“I’m good.” He settled back in his chair and studied her, then looked around the office. Less than five minutes later, Clark entered carrying a steaming cup of coffee. He held his hand out to Ducky to shake, then sat in the chair beside him.
“What’s up, Rin?” he asked his sister.
“Not me, this is Ducky’s meeting.” Erin pointed to the older man, and saw Clark whip his head around to study the man that could have been their grandfather. “Are you okay? Is it your health? Is something wrong with you? With the house? With the property? Talk to me, us, Ducky.”
“Shut up so I can get a word in, and I will,” Ducky said without malice, and Erin had to stifle her giggles at the shocked look on Clark’s face.
“I deserved that. Sorry, I’ll listen now.”
“Okay, first and foremost, Erin, I can’t thank you enough for stepping in and saving my farm when my Peggy was sick. If it hadn’t been for you, then we wouldn’t have New Double now. I want to tell you that I never regretted one thing about you saving that piece of land.”
“Thank you for saying that, but it’s been years, Ducky, why are you bringing it up now?”
“Because my great-grandchildren are fucking idiots,” he said with such fury, both Erin and Clark jerked back and exchanged concerned looks. “I don’t know if we should read Liam into this, since he was the lawyer from back then, or bring one of the others in.”
“Others?” Clark asked.
“Jason, Ilsa, or Raymond.”
“I understand, but what’s going on?” Erin asked, and held out her hand when Ducky handed her the papers he’d brought.
He didn’t say anything, but turned to nod at Clark.
The younger man rose to his feet, and with his coffee in his hand, he walked around to stand behind his sister in order to read the papers over her shoulder.
The siblings looked up at the same time, and echoed each other. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Nope, that’s why I’m here. I received those papers last Friday, I’ve been thinking all weekend, and I’ve come up with a solution.”
“Do tell,” Erin said and Clark returned to his seat.
“As you both just read, my great-grandchildren will be here in three months’ time to move into my home, look into nursing homes to shove me in, and then slowly sell off the land to developers. This won’t happen on my watch.”
“Damn, when was the last time you saw them?”
“This one that signed this letter. I’ve never heard of her or him, I can’t tell by the signature if it’s a girl or boy.
I don’t even know if they are my great-grandchild.
” He sighed and scrubbed his face as he studied the young people before him.
“Let me explain my family dynamics. I don’t think you’ve ever known the whole story.
” He saw the siblings exchange looks, then turned to him with a shrug.
“Peggy and I met in high school. I had lived in this area, right over at New Double, my entire life.” He looked at them and actually laughed, a full belly laugh.
“I thought I was in love with someone else back in grade school, and all through middle school. The summer before our eighth year she moved away. I met, no, that’s not right, I noticed Peggy in the middle of our freshman year.
It took a few months before I got up the nerve to ask, but she eventually agreed to go out with me.
Once we started dating, there was no looking back.
Being the same age, this will be easy for our timeline.
We graduated, and married six weeks later.
Five months into our marriage, I was drafted for the Vietnam war.
Neither one of us knew that Peggy was pregnant when I left. ”
“Damn,” Clark said with a shake of his head.
“Yeah, but my Peggy was smart. Even though she was pregnant, she was still able to keep her job, and when my parents found out, they invited her to come live with them, but still be able to keep working after moving in with them.
I was over there fighting the war for fourteen months before I came home.
I saw she had Donnie Jr. We immediately settled into married life.
I helped Dad expand the chicken farm. We only had one barn about half the size of one of the horse barns we converted to over at New Double.
“I helped extend that one barn into what it is today. Peggy and I lived our lives, and two years after I returned home, Peter was born. As our family expanded so did the chicken farm. I built another barn, and we bought more chickens. Three years after Peter, Samuel came along. By the time I was twenty-eight, I was running the entire farm, Dad had retired, he and Mom did some traveling, but always came home to the farm, and by the time I was thirty, I owned it all lock stock and barrel.”
“So, when Miller tried to take it from you, you knew he was lying,” Erin said with a nod as she remembered what had happened years ago when she’d stepped in.
“Yes, and not once after my name was on the deed did I ever get a second mortgage, or borrow against that property. I never had to. We were successful, and then after Mom and Dad passed, I had their life insurance. No one ever knew this, but when I was over there fighting in the war, one of my brothers-in-arms was dabbling in finance. I guess in today’s language you would have called him a financial planner.
When we weren’t dodging bullets, he talked to the entire unit about investing.
Three quarters of the people didn’t listen, I did.
He came home with me, but he was missing a leg.
Over the years, we kept in touch. I would reach out to him if I thought of something I wanted to invest in.
He would reach out to me to tell me something to look into, not once did he give me insider trading information.
He just told me what to research, the rest was all on me. ”
“Wow, is this guy still around?” Clark asked with a grin.
“No, he passed away almost twenty years ago, cancer.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, anyway, those investments were what put my kids through school. When they left for college, they returned for breaks and summers, but once they graduated from college, and started their careers, they never returned here. Peggy and I continued with the chicken farm, and just lived our lives. When the boys got married and started having kids of their own, our kids always expected us to go visit them. That lasted until the youngest was about ten, then it got to be a hassle to find a hand to do the chores for us, the travel, and all, it all dwindled down to about one visit every two years. Then, my kids slowly died off, and their kids went to college, married, and had kids of their own. By the time my Peggy passed, our kids were already gone. The only family that came to her funeral were my grandkids.”
“Did they have kids by then?”
“Yes, but they had never met either of us, and they were in high school or college. They didn’t want to impose on someone’s funeral to someone they didn’t know.
Their words. The last time I saw my grandkids was when Liam presented them with the papers for them to sign off on any claims to New Double. ”
“And their children?”
“They were all under the age of eighteen when Erin saved the farm.” He paused and looked at the siblings. “I think I’ve come up with a plan that will work out for everyone. My ungrateful idiot family won’t get what they want, and the rest of us will get what we need and deserve.”