Chapter 65
Savannah
Therese met him at the door with a perfectly chilled dirty martini: Bombay Sapphire gin, a hint of vermouth, blue cheese–stuffed olives, and a splash of olive juice.
It was one of the wonders of being in a relationship with an actual grown-ass mature man. One who didn’t get shit-faced doing shots and beer or stoned stupid on weed. A man who showed up when he said he would, and one who owned his mistakes or shortcomings—not that he had many.
Scotty Childress, in just two short weeks of what she thought of as their coupledom, had taught her to value these qualities.
Therese liked to think she’d taught him a few things too, and not all of them had to do with sex, or what he so endearingly called lovemaking.
Anticipating his arrival tonight, she’d scrubbed the joint compound and paint from her hair and her body, although her nails would probably never recover.
During her first week of being back in the house on Blueberry Hill she’d found the stash of Mary Helen’s vintage lingerie that Maeve had held back from the donation bin.
She’d also unearthed her mother’s white leather jewelry box with the gold embossing.
This treasure was what their mother had called her “junk jewelry”: flashy rhinestone brooches, faux pearls, enameled flower pins, strings of colored bead necklaces, and dozens of pairs of clip-on earrings from different decades.
Some of the pieces, she knew, had been her nana’s, and Therese and Maeve had spent many happy hours of their childhood adorning themselves with dangly earrings and jangly charm bracelets.
Tonight Therese was wearing an ice-blue silk slip with nude lace overlays on the cups and at the hem. She’d fastened a long string of pearls around her neck and dabbed cologne behind her ears and in her cleavage.
When she heard the Mustang pull into the carport she waited, then met him at the door, martini in hand.
“Whoa,” Scotty said, loosening his tie and taking a step backward. His eyes traveled over her, and he whistled softly.
“To what do I owe this magnificent greeting?” he asked as she pressed herself against him.
“We’re celebrating. I got the paperwork today. The bank has written off the loan, and as of today, this house belongs to me, free and clear.”
“Fantastic.” Scotty took a sip of his drink and smacked his lips in appreciation. “Like this martini. Best I ever had.”
“I thought you said I was the best you’d ever had,” she said, winking at him as she took him by the hand and led him into her new not-pink bedroom suite.
“Listen! Did you hear that?”
Therese raised her head and stopped what she was doing.
“I don’t hear anything,” Scotty said. “Go back to what you were doing. Don’t ever stop what you were doing.”
Therese sat up. “There’s someone at the front door, Scott. Someone’s trying to get in the house.”
“Shit.” He groped in the half darkness for his glasses. Heard them drop onto the newly uncovered hardwood floor. Now he was on the floor on his hands and knees, searching for them, when he heard the front door open.
“They’re coming in,” Therese said, her voice frantic. “Do something.”
He found the glasses, donned them, then pulled on his underwear.
“You don’t have a gun, do you?” he whispered. They heard footsteps, moving through the living room, and now coming down the hallway toward the bedroom.
“No, I don’t have a gun. Why would I have a gun?”
“You’re probably the only woman in Georgia who doesn’t have one,” Scotty said, looking around the room for something to fend off their intruder.
Finally, his eyes settled on the corner of the room where Therese had paused her painting project. A canvas drop cloth covered the floor and on it stood a gallon of Benjamin Moore premium interior latex, a paint pan, roller brush, and the steel prybar she’d used to remove the baseboards.
The footsteps were coming closer. He seized the tool. “Hide!” he hissed as he inched toward the door, prybar raised over his head, poised to strike, while Therese, paralyzed with fear, could only pull the sheet over her head.
With agonizing slowness, the doorknob turned, and suddenly the overhead light snapped on.
Maeve Dunagin stood in the doorway, staring at the crowbar-wielding man standing in her mother’s bedroom dressed only in a pair of Minions boxer briefs.
“Scotty? What the fuck? Where’s my sister?”
“Here!” Therese yanked the sheet off her head.
Maeve took in the scene before her: the scattered clothes, empty martini glasses, and paper plates with pizza crusts. “I guess I don’t need to ask what you two have been up to.”
After they’d dressed, they joined Maeve in the kitchen, where they found her pouring herself a glass of wine.
“What are you doing here? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming home?”
“I tried,” Maeve said. “I called and called, but your phone kept sending me directly to voice mail.”
She pointed at the cell phone lying on the counter near the gin bottle. “You have to actually plug the phone in to charge it and make it work. And it also helps if you check your email occasionally.”
Therese picked up her phone. The screen was dark. She shrugged. “Sorry. I’ve been kind of busy with painting and yard work. But if I’d known you were coming, I would have picked you up at the airport.”
“It’s okay. I took a Lyft.”
Maeve glanced over at Scotty, debating whether to tell him his jeans were unzipped, or that his shirt was inside-out. She decided to cut him some slack because he was so adorably nerdy, his red hair standing up in tufts, the milky skin on his neck peppered with what looked like love bites.
“I didn’t mean to walk in on you guys, but I didn’t see a car in the driveway.”
“He parks it under the carport around back, ever since busybody Esther Trabert made it a point to remark on my overnight company to Aunt Fran,” Therese said.
“Good thinking.” Maeve opened the refrigerator and scanned the shelves. “Any of that pizza left?”
“Sorry,” Scotty said sheepishly. “But I can DoorDash some more.”
“Perfect,” Maeve said. “There’s no DoorDash in Tarrymore. Come to think of it, there’s not a pizza place in the village either.”
“Welcome back to civilization,” Therese said.
“You didn’t tell her the good news yet,” Scotty pointed out.
“Oh yeah. Maeve, I signed the paperwork today. The bank totally wrote off Mama’s mortgage.”
“What?” Maeve threw her arms around her big sister’s shoulders. “That’s fabulous. How’d you manage it? Last I heard, Hoot Wooten was stonewalling you.”
“Scotty helped,” Therese said.
“Nah. Don’t let her fool you,” Scotty said proudly. “Your sister marched into that bank with the receipts. She had the proof that Letha warned her bosses your mother was not competent to be making financial decisions and that the bank had failed to protect one of their customers.”
“And also, Frannie and Bernie play mahjong every week with Hoot’s wife, and they gave her an earful.”
“That’s such a huge relief,” Maeve said. “Speaking of paperwork, I’ve got a bunch of documents Billy Mac needs for you to sign for Esme’s estate stuff.”
“Is that why you came home?”
“That’s part of it. I’ve decided to sell the carriage house. My tenant moved out last week, so I need to clean it out and pack up the stuff I’m going to ship home to Tarrymore. And also, I want my clothes. And my books.”
“Ahh.” Therese looked stricken, as though she’d just had the wind knocked out of her sails.
Her voice cracked with emotion. “You’re really doing it? Permanently?”
Maeve was touched by her sister’s reaction.
“This was all your idea, you know. You were the one who stole my passport and hid it so I couldn’t come back here.”
“You stole her passport?” Scotty asked, elbowing her in the ribs. “Baller move, babe.”
“It was for her own good,” Therese insisted. “And look how it worked out. How’s Liam, by the way?”
“He’s good. I wanted him to come with me, but it’s busy at the distillery, and he’s dog-sitting Sinead. I’ve also got news about Lady G.”
“About time,” Therese said. She pointed to a stack of mail on the kitchen counter. “The bills keep rolling in. I had no idea how much home ownership costs. The light bill, water and sewer, property taxes…”
“Tell me about it. Billy Mac, our solicitor, says we can start drawing funds from the trust as soon as probate is done, which should be soon, since Geoffrey Rossington is in no position to file a lawsuit from prison. I got a text message from Billy today saying we have an offer on the painting.”
“I thought we agreed to sell it at auction.”
“Hear me out. An anonymous donor wants to buy the painting and give it to the National Trust—so Lady Geraldine can be returned to hang in the portrait gallery at Tarrymore.”
“How much?”
“The offer is for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“Is that all? Hell to the no. Remember, Esme’s painting sold for almost a quarter million more than that.”
“But she didn’t net that much money. The auction house charged a commission, which I figured out was twenty percent.
They also charge for shipping, marketing, cleaning the painting, et cetera.
We know our painting would need to be restored and reframed, which can be expensive.
And we’d probably have to wait for the auction house to put it in their next fine art sale, which could be months from now. ”
“I don’t have months to pay these bills,” Therese said.
“Yeah, my finances are getting a little tight too,” Maeve said. “But we need to be cognizant of the fact that a portrait of Lady G already sold, at the top of the market. We think our painting is better, but potential buyers might not know that.”
“So, what do you want to do?”
“I was thinking we counter the offer. See if we could get the buyer up to eight hundred thousand. By selling direct, we save on the commission and other seller’s costs.”
Therese glanced at Scotty. “What do you think?”
“Is your solicitor looking to take a cut of the sale price?”
“See why I’m crazy about the guy?” Therese asked. “Hot and smart.”
“That is a great question. Since he’s the executor of Esme’s estate, I think he’s already being paid handsomely,” Maeve said. “And he’s aware we’re not his garden-variety heiresses. I’ll just flat out tell him, we want to net at least eight hundred thousand.”
“I like it. Simple and timely,” Therese said.
“Good. I’ll text Billy Mac and let him know. In the meantime, where am I sleeping tonight?”