Chapter 4
Hayes
I jumped at the knock on the glass panes of the French doors that separated Granddad’s study from the rest of the house. Did I doze off with my eyes open? I blinked and tried to refocus on the email from my attorney, but the words kept blurring together.
The knock sounded again, and I looked up.
Hallie let herself in and dropped a plate on the desk. “You need to eat, Mr. Wilder.”
Now I knew I was hallucinating. There was no way Hallie had called me Mr. Wilder.
I stared at the towering turkey sandwich, then looked up at Hallie. “Not once in all the years I’ve known you have you ever called me Mr. Wilder.”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t my boss when we were in high school.” She smirked. “And I like to stay on my boss’s good side.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Did you ever call my granddad ‘Mr. Wilder’?”
“Heavens no,” she said with a laugh. “I called him that once on my first day, and he put a stop to that real fast. He was always ‘Walt.’ ”
“Then you’re sure as hell not going to call me that,” I said. “And you don’t have to fix me sandwiches. I know where the kitchen is.”
“I’m aware of that,” Hallie said with her hands on her hips. “My concern is that you have barely left this office in the last four days. You’re in here when I go to bed and you’re in here when I get up in the morning. And I’m up early.”
“What’s your point?” I asked as I rubbed the exhaustion from my eyes.
“You’re grieving and running yourself into the ground. Take a breath before you have a heart attack, die, and make Lewis my new boss.”
“That’s what I’m trying to avoid.”
She rested her hands on the edge of the sprawling desk. “Level with me. What’s going on?”
Hallie was a steel trap. Granddad had trusted her with nearly everything. And at the moment, I needed someone to bounce ideas off of. She was reasonable, and I needed that levelheadedness to keep me from doing something incredibly rash.
Incredibly rash, like getting married.
“How much time you got?” I asked as I picked up the sandwich and managed to swallow a bite. It sank like an anvil in my gut.
Hallie glanced at the old-school grandfather clock nestled in the corner. “An hour before I go down to the stables and pick up a check from one of the boarders.”
On top of taking care of my granddad, managing the cleaners that came to the house once a week, and cooking for guests, Hallie served as the point of contact for all the trainers and riders who boarded their horses and trained at the facilities on the property.
She collected payments, made sure they had everything they needed, and ran the estate’s social media presence to highlight the title contenders.
She worked with the estate’s accountant to make sure property taxes were paid and the business interests stayed in the black.
Though it was much less labor-intensive, she made sure that the cowboy who leased the far side of the estate for his cattle operation was up to date on all his payments, and that the land was respected.
She was an irreplaceable Jane-of-all-trades, a calming, stalwart presence, and someone who was not to be crossed.
Hallie sank into the chair across from me. “Have you heard from your attorney about the will?”
“Yeah,” I said with a groan as I scrubbed my palm down the scruff that had sprouted after days of trying to work through the legal drivel that came with taking over the estate.
I thought Friday’s funeral would be the worst part. It wasn’t.
The worst part was the aftermath of losing someone I wanted to be immortal.
The worst part was dealing with paperwork, taxes, and an inconvenient will.
The worst part was my job looming around the corner to remind me that, at some point, life had to move on.
The worst part was not being able to stop long enough to grieve.
I perused the copy of the will I had been reading over and over again, hoping something would change. When it didn’t, I looked up at Hallie as the weariness I had been ignoring started to settle like a low morning fog.
“My attorney said she’ll contest the will if I want since neither Lewis nor I is married, but that doing so could raise more questions around the language about a portion of the land going to someone’s wife.
If we push the issue, the transfer of the estate could be held up in litigation or I could lose it entirely.
I wouldn’t put it past Lewis to do whatever it takes to get the estate and sell it off to make a buck.
When I talked to Granddad’s lawyer on Monday, he said Lewis had already started the process of filing a petition to contest the will. ”
“Hayes,” Hallie said as she hunched forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Do you understand what you’re talking about?”
“I know,” I grumbled.
“This isn’t a fake relationship. We’re talking about a very real marriage that will end in a very real divorce. We’re talking about someone being involved in this…this scheme. Who do you know that you can trust that much? Money makes people do crazy things.”
“I’m aware,” I said. “Granddad bought this land in 1980 because it was going to be developed. The valley would have disappeared. He outbid some heavy hitters so the land would stay mostly untouched and pissed off a lot of people in the process. He didn’t do it to lock the land away and hoard it for himself.
He kept the gates open so Honey Hollow could enjoy it.
I’m not going to let Lewis do the exact thing that Granddad stopped.
And if a rumor gets out that there’s an issue with the will, who knows who will come out of the woodwork to try to acquire the land. ”
“The parkway is already federally protected land. So is the national park,” she said. “That’s the majority of the valley.”
“You never know when that could change. Like you said, money makes people do crazy things.”
Hallie stuffed her hand in her hair because I had her there.
“Why would Walt earmark land for your nonexistent wife in the first place? He had the will amended right before he died. Even if your grandma wanted your future wife to be protected by having her own assets, why wouldn’t Walt take it out since he knew the land was about to go to you?
” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “He was a romantic, but strong-arming you into a marriage doesn’t seem like Walt. ”
I worked my tongue over my teeth, trying to buy time.
The thing about Hallie was that she had the patience of a saint and would wait someone out if she really wanted more information. She would have made a great CIA interrogator.
I let out a slow breath as I looked up from the will. “I was supposed to be.”
Hallie reared back in shock. “Supposed to be?”
I gritted my teeth, trying to distract the rest of my body from the ache deep inside.
“I was in a relationship. It wasn’t casual, but we weren’t rushing to get married either.
” I sighed. “Granddad was my hero. When he had his first stroke, it felt like I was losing the one person I could always count on. Fear makes people do crazy things. I panicked and proposed. In a way, I was grasping at straws—trying to find that…that magic that my parents and grandparents had. Trying to hold on to a piece of them before I lost them all for good.”
“Hayes…” Hallie said gently.
I just shook my head. “I had never seen him look happier than he did when I told him I was engaged. It was like he had been waiting on me to find someone before he passed away. He must have amended the will to include what my grandma wanted to give her right after I told him.”
“I remember when he had me call the attorney’s office.” Hallie glanced away as her voice cracked. “He was so upbeat…I thought he was getting better.”
“He had his last stroke before I could even bring her down here to meet him.”
Hallie blinked away her tears. “He never recovered after that one. He didn’t have many good days after that.”
Frankly, neither do I.
“She and I broke up a few weeks ago, but I never told him that it ended because I didn’t want to burden him.”
Warring emotions crisscrossed Hallie’s face as she wavered between sympathy and the reality of the situation.
“I know how much this land means to you. But are you really willing to turn into Lewis? Doing something asinine to get what you want? Marriage is…” She sighed.
“It’s a lot. Trust me on that. You’re talking about love here. ”
I leaned back in the chair, tapping Granddad’s gilded pen on the copy of the will. “If Lewis isn’t going to play by the rules, then why should I? Besides, the will says I need a spouse. A marriage license is just a contract. I don’t need to be in love to sign a contract.”
“What’s your plan?” Hallie asked sternly as she sat back in the seat, crossed her arms, and propped her ankle up on her knee.
“Get married to a woman in Honey Hollow and make her uproot her life and move back to Bethesda with you? Marry a woman you know from Bethesda and make her move here? Marry anyone from anywhere to save an estate that you don’t live at just so it can collect dust? ”
I steepled my hands, pressing my thumbs into the divots between the bridge of my nose and my eyes. Her logic was going to give me a migraine. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”
Hallie sighed. “Hayes, I’m not saying this as your employee.
I’m saying this as your friend. You need to take a hard look at all the implications this will have on your life.
On someone else’s life. Signing a marriage license isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.
It’s not something to do just to save face. Trust me on that.”
I tried to force an easy smile, but it came out lopsided. “Do you want to marry me, Hal? Make it easy on me? We’ll have a nice, platonic time of it.”
“What the hell?” Mason said as he poked his head into the study. Latent streaks of soil and dust crisscrossed his face and arms. He must have been working to get the rose garden back in pristine condition after the funeral tent was removed.