“Think about October,” he says, the pleasant tone now completely gone. “You’re gonna have to decide whether to keep this place or walk away. If you walk away, it goes to the church, and you get nothing. So you can take my offer now and set yourself up for life, or you can gamble that you’ll actually want to stay in this backwater town. Because let me tell you something, people like you don’t stay in places like this. You’ll get bored. You’ll miss the life you had. And when you realize you want out, I won’t be here with this offer anymore.”
“Good.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said good. Because I don’t want your offer now, and I won’t want it in the future.” I lean forward, matching his posture. “You say you want to help Copper Creek, but you don’t. You want to turn it into something else entirely. Something that pushes out people who actually live here. And I won’t be a part of that.”
He stands abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. “You’re making a mistake.”
“And that’s my right.”
“You think these people are your friends? You think they care about you?” He gestures around the empty bar. “They care about what you can do for them. The minute you stop being useful, and this bar stops being theirs, they’ll turn on you. I’m trying to help you.”
“Get out.”
We stare at each other for a moment, and then Gary picks up his briefcase and adjusts his tie. “Fine. But when you change your mind, and you will change your mind, don’t expect me to be so generous.” He starts toward the door, then turns back. “Oh, and Ms. Whitfield, Ashby and Associates doesn’t give up easily. We wanted The Rusty Spur to be the centerpiece of our project, but there are other properties, other ways to make this work. You might want to keep that in mind.”
The bell over the door chimes as he leaves.
I stand there shaking, adrenaline coursing through me. I just turned down three and a half million dollars. I just told off a developer in my own bar. I just chose The Rusty Spur, and I have no idea if I just made the best decision of my life or the worst.
CHAPTER 15
“That was something.”
I turn around to find Dolly standing in the doorway of the kitchen with her arms crossed, a small smile on her face.
“How long were you listening?”
“Long enough.” She walks over and squeezes my shoulder. “You did good, sugar.”
“Did I? Because I feel like I might throw up.”
“Well, that’s how you know you made the right choice, because the wrong ones always feel easy.” She heads behind the bar and pours me a glass of water. “Now, sit down before you fall down.”
I collapse onto the stool, my legs suddenly weak. “Three point five million,” I say to no one in particular. “I just turned down three point five million.”
“You turned down a lot more than that. You turned down the easy way out, the path that would have let you run from everything messy and complicated.” Dolly sets the water in front of me. “Mavis would be so proud.”
“Mavis never had to choose between financial ruin and doing the right thing.”
“Well, actually, she did. Several times. First time was when she left Atlanta, walked away from the family money, from her inheritance, from everything she was supposed to be, and came here with nothing but what she could fit in her car.” Dolly leans against the bar. “She told me once it was the scariest thing she ever did, but also the best.”
I take a sip of water, trying to calm my racing heart. “Gary said they’re not giving up, that they’ll find other ways.”
“Oh, I’m sure they will. Men like him always do.” Dolly shrugs. “But that’s a problem for another day. Today, you stood up for this place, for all of us, and that matters.”
“I just hope I didn’t make everything worse.”
“Honey, you can’t make the right choice and have it turn out wrong. It just doesn’t work that way.”
I’m still standing in the bar an hour later, staring at my water glass and second-guessing every decision I’ve ever made, when the front door opens.
Wyatt.
He stops when he sees me, his hand still on the door. We haven’t been alone in a room since our fight, and the tension is immediate and suffocating.
“I heard what happened,” he finally says.
