Chapter Twenty-four
It was nearly two days after the reading of the will before Darby saw Nate in person and could tell him everything that had transpired. It was late and her husband had just come home, well past the dinner hour, after another town council meeting.
Valentine Key’s town council had met at the marina, because one of the town council guys was a member and could reserve the large private room in the back of the club once a month.
Darby was sipping a cup of tea and reading in her favorite chair when he came in.
She got up and followed him into their bedroom, turning lights off as she went and rinsing out her teacup in the sink along the way.
Once she shut their bedroom door, he turned to her with a smile. “So, are you rich now and we can quit our jobs and retire?”
Darby laughed so hard she snorted. “No. Not even close.”
“Well, it was worth the question. At least I got you to laugh.” Nate took her in his arms, kissed her cheek and hugged her tight.
She hugged him back just as hard. Darby didn’t think he was going to care for the actual content of the will and the coming challenge she was about to participate in.
“What happened?” he asked.
Darby, head resting on Nate’s shoulder, wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him. But that was foolish. Of course she had to tell him. “Well, there were shocks and surprises for sure.”
“Oh, yeah? Tell all.” He pulled away from her a bit, gazing at her face with one lifted eyebrow.
“The first shock of the day was Marigold Roselli, Horatio Lovelock’s seventh and youngest daughter.” Darby looked at Nate with both of her eyebrows raised, nodding to emphasize the truth of what she was telling him when he stared at her, wide-eyed.
“What? Another sister? Wow. So not an even six-sister split from the old man’s will, huh? Still, a seven-way split is quite a bit, right?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know yet.”
“Why not? I thought that was why you had to wait so long, because someone would have to divvy up all the money. ”
“That’s what I thought, but nope. Not at all.”
“Is there no money? Is that it? He was broke as a joke in the end?”
“I don’t think so. There’s money, I just think he’s going to make us all work for it.”
“I guess that’s not a big surprise. Rich folks can be really tight with their money, even in death. Or especially in death.” Nate’s lopsided smile came once more and Darby hoped this conversation wasn’t going to end in an argument. He was not going to like what she said next.
“Let me tell you more.”
“Okay. Tell me more.”
Darby plunged ahead, and blast the consequences. “Another surprise that was revealed is that our father wants each of us seven sisters to run businesses that he has personally selected for us to manage for a year on Valentine Key. At the end of the year, whoever does the best gets a non-voting seat on the Lovelock Enterprises board of directors. And the power to name someone to actually be a voting member on the board. His lawyer, Miles Lang, is the person most likely to be selected. That’s who Horatio would want on the board anyway, which I’m fine with.”
When Darby stopped talking, Nate didn’t say a word.
Trying to put the best spin on it she could, Darby said, “I guess the good news is that I don’t have to move anywhere to participate in the competition, unlike my six sisters, who will all have to pick up their lives and move to Florida if they want to compete.”
Nate still didn’t say anything. He didn’t let go of her, which was somewhat of a relief. But he also didn’t speak, which made her nervous.
Darby stumbled on. “The third shock was that Horatio never finalized his divorce from Sunshine. She’s officially his widow, which my mother will hate from now until the end of time, but it’s done.”
Nate stared. Was the argument about to start? She hoped not.
“Cat got your tongue?” she asked, trying for a smile.
“I’m processing.”
“Okay. Process faster. I want to know what you are thinking.”
“Well, if you have to go and run another business for what I’m assuming is full-time, who will be taking care of Heart’s Desire?”
“I’m going to guess that it will be you.”
“Me?” Nate did release her then. His hands lightly gripped her shoulders and his expression began to edge into hostile. “How would I have time to do it? You know I’m the vice-chair of the Valentine Key town council. I’m swamped and the busy season is coming up. We’re trying to get the annual Lower Florida Keys Regatta to launch from Valentine Key this year. You know how hard I’ve been working on that.”
Darby was not unaware that they were both busy people. However, his position as vice-chair of the town council wasn’t exactly bringing in the big bucks. He only got a small monthly stipend and even if he became the actual chair of the town council, he wouldn’t get much more.
She wasn’t against him being on the council, but it was often a lot of hours for not very much return on the investment in time. On top of that, he hadn’t exactly asked her if he could do it.
Not that he needed her permission, but a low-paying job that he spent a lot of time on that automatically made her the only one available to run Heart’s Desire made her grumpy. And her grumpy feeling had morphed as the months went on to big-time resentment.
Nate had mentioned in passing one day that one of his golf buddies had offered him a position on the council. Then—boom!—in no time at all, he was on the council, spending ten, fifteen or even more hours a week involved in whatever they did. While she handled everything else.
Yes, she knew he was working on some sort of regatta whatever. Yes, it was supposed to be for the good of all the businesses in Valentine Key. Yes, they would also benefit as business owners.
But Darby was long past tired of being the person in charge at Heart’s Desire and the first person who was called when there was an emergency. It wasn’t like this had been her dream job. It was the convenience store they’d gotten saddled with by Nate’s mother out of guilt, grief and, well, convenience.
Look at that, I made a pun.
Nate released her arms and took half a step back. “So at the end of the year, when you’ve run some business and a winner is announced, then what? Do you sell the business to get your inheritance?”
“Did you think I was going to get rich off my father? Because I didn’t. I didn’t expect anything. What I got was a new sister and the opportunity to run a business that my father selected for me to see how I do with it.”
“You sound very defensive.”
“Do I? Well, that’s the way I feel. You’re acting like I orchestrated what happened at the reading of the will. And I can tell you that I absolutely did not.”
“That’s not what I meant. I just mean this is very inconvenient for us.”
“Is it? Inconvenient? For us or just for you?”
Nate tilted his head to one side and his expression said he was frustrated. Well, welcome to the club. Darby was frustrated, too.
“You have gotten so used to me being able to fill in every shift at Heart’s Desire that it has somehow become my sole responsibility. Once the kids were all in school, it was Darby to the rescue every single time some employee had a sniffle or couldn’t come to work because they didn’t feel like it or whatever. It’s me all the time. Only me that can run in and take over and do whatever needs to be done at that stupid convenience store.”
“That stupid convenience store is our main source of income.”
“Oh? Then how come I’m the only one who worries about it? How come I’m the only one that has to race in whenever there’s some crisis that has to be solved?”
“You’re exaggerating. You aren’t the only one who has to go—”
“You are wrong! I am the only one. When was the last time you got called in to Heart’s Desire, huh? Give me a date. Show me a text that you received where you had to drop everything you were doing and go straight to the store to solve a crisis. Show me.”
Darby hadn’t even realized how angry she was about the situation at Heart’s Desire. The store was their main source of income. She didn’t dispute that.
She’d known a competition that required her to work on another business was going to cause trouble between her and Nate. And she was right. She just hadn’t realized how unhappy she was in her life and how that would contribute to the angry argument they were having.
The opportunity to do something different had given Darby a whole new frame of mind. It wasn’t that she was delighted that she was going to be running Racing Hearts Rentals. It was just that being able to do something on her own to prove herself, or maybe prove to herself, that she could do it was important to her.
She knew it would be a problem for them as a couple if she couldn’t be the primary crisis-solver at the convenience store.
Nate did not take out his cell phone to see when he’d last been called in, because he well knew it had been a year or longer. Yes, he worked regular shifts at the store, but beyond those hours, he didn’t spend any extra time there. She did.
“Darby.” He didn’t say anything else, just her name. And then he stared at her like he was forlorn and unhappy and didn’t seem to have the ability to solve this problem immediately.
What had she expected? That he would do a dance? Jump for joy over this new wrinkle in their lives? No. She had expected exactly this argument.
Nine times out of ten, whenever they had an argument, she was the one who went to him and said she was sorry. Not today.
“Darby, what?” she said and crossed her arms. She stared at him, not backing down.
He sighed and his whole body seemed to slump. “I’m tired. I had a long day. Why don’t we table this discussion for later?”
“Sure. Whatever. Let’s talk about it later.” Arms still crossed, Darby basically stomped across the room and into their adjoining bathroom. She didn’t slam the door, but it was close.
If he needed to use the facilities, he was going to have to use the girls’ bathroom on the other side of the house. Darby planned to park herself in here for a good long while and think about her future.
What did she want? How could she get it? Would this be the one-in-ten time that Nate came to her to say he was sorry and tried to work things out?
She hoped so. Because Darby was not going to say sorry this time.