“This is Griffin Renshaw. I’m starting to think whoever is managing this shop doesn’t want to speak to me.”
I stare at the phone.
At least the guy can take a hint. Here’s hoping I bought myself more time.
Except the pit in my stomach says otherwise. I’m pretty sure my luck is about to run out.
Chapter Three
Griffin
“Seriously!”If phones were like when I was a kid, I’d slam it down. Sadly, smartphones don’t offer the same satisfaction.
“I don’t have time for this,” I mumble to my empty car. I’m halfway to the office in downtown Denver and pull over.
I won’t call again. If the first four didn’t get a callback, the fifth probably won’t either. I picture a matronly woman staring at a ringing phone with disdain, thinking her evasion will make me go away.
Well, the flower shop manager is in for a big surprise. I don’t like being ignored. I call my secretary.
“Jean, I’m taking an impromptu business trip. I’ll handle my morning calls from the car.” I hear her groan.Paperwork was supposed to be waiting for me. It’ll have to wait a bit longer.
“And tell the estate lawyer that, unless he hears otherwise, on February 15th, he is to have my aunt’s shop shuttered.”
After she confirms she got it all, I ask her to patch me through to my business partner, who also happens to be my little brother.
“Logan, you ever think Aunt Clara did this on purpose?” I mutter into my headset.
“You mean leaving you a flower shop?” my brother pants, his voice crackling with treadmill effort. He has one at home and one at the office.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe she wanted to test your allergies.”
I grunt. “She left you a lakeside property and me a failing florist.”
“She also left you her cat.”
“I rehomed the cat.”
Logan chuckles. “She’ll haunt you.”
“She already is.” I set my GPS. “I’ll need to go up there and deal with this.”
“Just don’t go all Ebenezer Scrooge in the town square.”
“Noted.”
I hang up before he can make another annoying joke. Logan’s five years younger, eternally tanned, and skillfully navigates our boutique finance firm like he does his mountain bike. He handles the schmoozing, I handle the spreadsheets. It works.
When Aunt Clara died, I expected sentimentaltrinkets, maybe her collectible car. Not Oopsie Daisies, a failing flower shop in a mountain town where the internet probably runs on dial-up.
Two hours and enough traffic to test my patience later, I take the exit. It’s about darn time. A large sign with a cowboy boot reads,
Welcome to Silver Pine, Colorado, the heart of the Rockies
I’m officially in the middle of the boonies.
I follow the GPS to Main Street. The town is blanketed in fresh snow, icicles hang from eaves. Shop windows glow warmly against the pale January sun. To my right is a mostly frozen river. Snow-capped peaks loom in the distance beneath crystal-blue skies. It’s breathtaking, if you like that sort of thing. Not that Clara didn’t describe it countless times. She asked me to visit again and again, but I always bowed out, blaming work.
