"What?" I yelled.
"Calm down. I will not have you shouting and carrying on. The bank sent me an updated list of properties. Her property was not on the original list, but I'll check this one."
"It's on Main Street," I urged.
"There are two Main Street properties, 506 and 1080."
"Hers is 1080," I said, defeated. "There must be some mistake."
"We didn't seek out and buy these properties. These were all various foreclosures," Greg said carefully. "The only way her property would be in this bundle is if she defaulted on her mortgage and the bank took the parcel back."
I felt sick. "I have to go," I mumbled and hung up on Greg.
Normally that would be a death sentence, but I ignored the angry rings and drove over to Hazel's sister's house.
65
Hazel
"If you're here for good," my sister Meg said when I was in the kitchen making breakfast the next morning, "I'm going to gain a dress size because of your cooking."
I had spent last night wallowing, watching movies, and eating junk food with my sisters. Now I was determined to face my failure and fix my life—even if all I really wanted to do was curl up in my childhood bed and sob.
"I can find you a job in the city," Meg offered.
"I don't know. I'm not sure what I want to do. Maybe I'll move to Seattle."
"Seattle?" Meghan gasped.
* * *
After fieldingmy sister's questions about why I would move to Seattle, I headed over to Ida's to talk to her about moving the sandwich operation to her store.
"I'm so sorry, lass," she said, giving me a big hug when she saw me.
"If you still want to sell sandwiches, I will need to make them in your kitchen."
"Of course!" Ida said. "I'm offended you would think otherwise! I already had the ingredients dropped off here."
"I can't believe you walked away from your business," Jemma said as we set up in the general store's small back kitchen.
"I just couldn't make it work," I said, trying to sound like a professional woman who had only experienced a minor setback and not a little girl who failed at everything she tried.
"What about Archer?"
"Seems to me," Ida said, "if you're sleeping with a billionaire and his ego, you should be entitled to some perks."
"Archer doesn't have an ego—okay, notthatbig of an ego. But I don't want any handouts. I'm going to figure out what I want. It will just take some time."
"You can have a couple shifts at the store," Ida offered. "Zarah invited me to go on a fancy yacht with her. There's going to be hot crew members and expensive liquor and everything. The timing works out perfectly."
"What about Bert?" Jemma asked.
"What Bert doesn't know can't hurt him. This is a girls' trip."
* * *
I felta little better after making the sandwiches and arranging them in the display case.
