Chương 7
“Darren Cole.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Someone else?”
Greg hesitated.
That hesitation mattered.
“Who else?”
“Elaine.”
I stared at him.
“Your mother?”
“She owns a small interest.”
Ben gave a quiet exhale.
I thought about Elaine sitting at my dining table two months earlier, praising the view from the west hill.
She had asked how many weddings we hosted every year.
I told her none.
She said that seemed like a missed opportunity.
I had assumed she was making conversation.
Then I remembered something else.
She had asked whether county restrictions made commercial events difficult.
At the time, Greg answered before I could.
He said the restrictions were manageable.
I had not asked how he knew.
“Your mother invested in a company evaluating development on my property?”
“Potential development.”
“Before I agreed to give Samantha the house?”
“No.”
He answered too quickly.
I could not tell whether it was a lie or merely panic.
“When did North Creek form?”
“A few months ago.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
The wedding planning had been underway for eleven months.
Greg had begun pushing for the stone house around Christmas.
He never asked for it directly.
He did it in pieces.
Samantha loved the creek.
They wanted children someday.
City prices were absurd.
It would be wonderful to live near me.
Thomas would have wanted Samantha to have a piece of the vineyard.
He had said that last one while holding a glass of Thomas’s favorite cabernet.
I had gone upstairs and cried afterward.
A week later, I called my estate planner.
“Did Samantha invest?”
I asked.
Greg looked away.
“No.”
“Does she know you did?”
“She knows I’m interested in hospitality projects.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She knows enough.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means not every business discussion needs to become a family summit.”
“So she doesn’t know.”
“She knows I explore investments.”
“Does she know your investment depends on land you expected her to receive from me?”
“It doesn’t depend on anything.”
“The planning inquiry names my property.”
“It evaluates a possibility.”
“You expanded the gift parcel by twenty-five acres.”
“I proposed an adjustment.”
“Without telling me.”
“You hadn’t signed anything.”
“I had already signed toward the gift.”
“And the change would have required your approval.”
“Which you hoped I would give without noticing.”
“That is not fair.”
“What was your plan?”
He stepped away from the door.
“There was no plan.”
I laughed, and this time it sounded bitter even to me.
“You formed a company, hired a development lawyer, submitted questions to the county, altered a legal description, brought investors into it, and somehow none of that qualifies as a plan.”
Greg ran a hand through his hair.
“You don’t understand how early-stage development works.”
“No.”
I nodded.
“Apparently I don’t.”
His expression eased slightly, as though he thought I had conceded something.
“But I understand signatures.”
The easing vanished.
“And I understand when someone is trying to put more land under one.”
A car horn sounded from the direction of the west gate.
Ben glanced toward the vines.
“That’ll be Samantha.”
My heart stumbled.
“How do you know?”
“She drives like the horn is part of the steering system.”
Despite everything, he was right.
Samantha had been an impatient driver since she was sixteen.
I could almost hear Thomas telling her that a horn was for emergencies, not emotional expression.
Another horn blast came across the property.
Greg took out his phone.
“I’ll get her.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“She’s not authorized through the gate.”
“She lives here.”
“No, she does not.”
“She has the house.”
“She has keys to a house she does not legally own.”
“You’re really going to do that?”
“I’m going to wait for my attorney.”
Greg shook his head.
“This is exactly what I meant about control.”
Maybe he was right again in some small, ugly way.
That was the worst part of fighting with someone manipulative.
They did not need every accusation to be false.
They only needed enough truth to make you doubt the rest.
I turned to Ben.
“Let Samantha through.”
Greg’s expression changed.
“Thank you.”
“But no one else.”
Ben nodded.
“I’ll drive down.”
He stepped outside through the side exit.
Greg moved toward his car.
“Where are you going?”
“To meet her.”
“You can wait there.”
He stopped.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not a trespasser.”
“Right now, you are an invited visitor standing outside my house.”
“Invited?”
“I haven’t had you removed.”
His face went still again.
For the first time, I saw something like humiliation in him.
I did not enjoy it.
That surprised me.
A younger version of myself might have.
The woman I had become after five years of widowhood had less appetite for spectacle.
Greg returned to his Mercedes.
I closed the wooden door and went into the kitchen.
My legs felt weaker now that I was no longer standing in front of him.
I sat down.
The table still held the wedding folder.
One of Samantha’s seating drafts stuck out from beneath a florist invoice.
I pulled it free.
Rows of names filled the page in her neat handwriting.
Elaine and Robert Foster were listed at the central family table.
Greg’s sister and her husband were there.
Two aunts.
A cousin.
Three family friends.
My name appeared nowhere.
Not at that table.
Not at another.
I searched the page twice anyway.
Then I found a small notation near the bottom.
MOB?
Three letters and a question mark.
Mother of the bride.
Beside it Samantha had written, Ask Greg.
I sat with that longer than I should have.
By the time I heard Samantha’s car on the gravel, grief had replaced most of my anger.
She parked crooked beside Ben’s truck.
The driver’s door opened before the engine stopped.
Samantha came toward the house wearing cream trousers, oversized sunglasses, and the expression she used when she had already decided someone else had created the problem.
May you like
“Mom.”
She did not wait for me to answer.
