“How long do we have to decide?” he asked Billy.
Billy shrugged. “There’s no time restrictions on that. But if you want to beat the deadline on rebuilding the bar, I wouldn’t dilly dally.” He stood. “Now if there’s nothing else, I have a meeting to be at.” Since he was dressed in shorts and a polo shirt, Jaxon figured his meeting was at the county golf course. “If you boys have any questions, you can call me any time.”
After thanking him, Jaxon followed Huck out of the office, their boot heels echoing as they strode down the marble-floored hallway of the town hall.
Huck glanced at him. “So we’re gonna do it, right, Jax?”
“I’m still thinking on it.”
Huck’s face grew belligerent. “Well, think all you want. I’m doing it. I’ll do it alone if I have to. I’m not stupid enough to leave all that money just to get back at mama. And that’s exactly what you and Dawson will be trying to do if you walk away. But she’s dead, Jax.”
Jaxon couldn’t argue the point. Rosie was dead and it was stupid to think walking away would make her pay for not loving her kids more than a stupid bar. But walking away wasn’t all about Rosie. He’d just as soon forget about this part of his life—to start over in a town that didn’t see him as a criminal.
But in order to start over, he needed money.
“There’s Dawg!” Huck voice echoed in the gold-domed ceiling above them.
Dawson stood in the second-floor rotunda in front of one of the portraits of Promise Springs’s founding fathers that lined the walls. And not just any portrait, but the portrait of their great-great-great grandfather, Leland Ryan Walters.
Dawson turned when Jaxon and Huck approached and Jaxon was struck once again by how much his brother resembled their great-grandfather . . . right down to the sullen look. Dawson must have thought so too because it wasn’t the first time Jaxon had caught him studying the picture. Or maybe he just liked the fact that at least one male Hennessy had been thought of well by the town.
“I hope you told Billy where to shove Mama’s will,” Dawson said.
Huck opened his mouth to speak, but Jaxon placed a hand on his arm and stopped him. “Would you go back to Billy’s office and ask his receptionist for a copy of the will? I forgot to get one.”
Huck hesitated for a moment before he nodded. “Fine, but don’t think you’re going to conspire with Dawg while I’m gone and change my mind.” He turned and walked off, tugging on the dilapidated straw cowboy hat he’d inherited from their daddy.
Dawson shook his head. “He’s living in a dream world if he thinks he can rebuild Honky Tonk Heaven in just three months all by himself.”
“He won’t be by himself.”
Dawson turned his stunned gaze to Jaxon. “You’ve got to be kidding me? You’re seriously going to let her manipulate you even from the grave? Don’t you remember how she manipulated us as kids to get what she wanted? And it always involved a bribe. Candy. Money. A couple of moments of her attention. Then once we gave her what she wanted, we’d be lucky to get what she promised. The same goes for this. There’s no way we can get that bar up and running in three months' time. A building permit can take that long to get. Not to mention any other permits we might need for electrical, plumbing, heating, and air conditioning. And that’s just for the building itself. That’s not including all the paperwork we’ll need to fill out to change over the liquor license—if we can even change over the liquor license to our names. That’s something I know nothing about. And neither do you.”
Dawson threw up his hands. “It’s impossible and Rosie knew it. This is just her screwing with us. She wants us to work our asses off saving the bar and not meet the deadline. Whoever’s name is in that envelope is who she wanted to have the bar. She’s just using us as manual labor like she always did. It’s a trap, Jax. This whole town is probably in on it. Billy included.”
Dawson could be right. The townsfolk loved the bar as much as Rosie had. And it wouldn’t be the first time she’d joined forces with the townsfolk to ensure that the Honky Tonk Heaven’s legacy continued. But if that was true, then why hadn’t she rebuilt the bar in the eight years after the fire?
Jaxon had thought it had to do with money. Like Billy had pointed out, construction costs had gone through the roof and insurance money was never enough to cover actual costs.
Now he knew differently.
“Where do you think she got all that money?” he asked Dawson.
Dawson shrugged. “Bars make a lot of money, Jax, and Rosie didn’t spend much on herself . . . or her kids.”
“So why didn’t she rebuild the bar herself?”
“Because like I said before, she was waiting to spring a trap on us. To get back at us for wanting no part of the bar.”
Jaxon stared at the picture of their grandfather. “What if we spring the trap and beat her at her own game?”
“That’s impossible, Jax.”
“That’s what the kids at school thought when it snowed for the first time in years and Huck went around bragging that he was going to build an igloo in our front yard. Even you and I didn’t believe he could do it when there was only a half inch of snow on the ground . . . but that didn’t stop us from helping him.”
Dawson shook his head. “And getting our asses blistered for stealing blocks of ice out of Honky Tonk Heaven’s freezer.”
Jaxon shrugged. “We still did it. Just like we helped him build a raft.”
