While I was off trying to find Anson Burns’s gold and sever my ties with Nash, Reese subtly overhauled the business. Aside from hiring two part-time employees and updating our website, she opened space for vendors so we could generate income while increasing inventory with less overhead.
The most radical change was her repurposing of the now-empty storage room. We’ve leased it to a small business that moves in next week. From her fancy office in Chicago, Reese has been dealing with the logistics.
I haven’t met the owner yet, terrified I’ll hate them as much as I already hate the idea of sharing the building, but the numbers made sense. Even if business doesn’t pick up right away, the rent money alone will cover most of our monthly expenses.
We get to keep the store.
“I’ll never admit they’ve made our life easier,” I tell her. “Even if I don’t know how we ever got by so long without all this.” She smiles, pleased. “And Mom’s surgery is just over a month away.”
“Did you get all the info I sent?” Reese asks, more serious. “And the recipes? You’ll want to get the drugs out of her system from the surgery, so she needs clean food. And there are exercises she should do—she’s going to need to take it slow, you know? But not too slow, because that could slow her recovery. I ordered a walker—make her use it. And there’s a PT provider—don’t go with that local one, I didn’t like her. She seemed lazy. Like she’ll take her sweet-ass time to show up and won’t push Mom when she finally does. Those first weeks will be critical to her recovery. She’ll be in pa?—”
“God, Reese,” I cut her off. “We know.” I look at Mom. She smiles, but it’s slight. She’s scared. We all are. “And if you’re so worried about it, maybe you should take care of her since you seem to think we’re so incompetent.”
“I don’t think you’re incompetent,” Reese retorts. “I know I could do better than you two is all.”
“That’s not fair,” Remy chimes in. “Rue and I can take care of Mom. We have kids.”
Reese snorts. “Yet you let her give all of your money away while cells assembled and led a mutiny on her brain.”
I scowl at the phone, fully offended. “Then maybeyoushould come down from your ivory Chicago tower and pick up our slack.”
“To Fontain?” Reese snorts. “No.”
“You could buy a vineyard with all that money you must sit and count every night before you fall asleep,” I shoot back.
Around the rim of her champagne glass, she says, “I don’t have time to count my money because I’m too busy masturbating to pictures of Scrooge.”
“Oh my Go?—”
“Okay, you two.” Mom cuts me off, playing Switzerland. “New subject. I can take care of myself, thank you. Probably be better off the way you all hover over me and act like I’m already dead. Remy started decorating her new library this week.”
“Temporary library,” Remy corrects. She smiles, but it’s shaped like a Lego. Forced and pained. “It’s a maternity leave position and I’ll probably only be here a few months. Darren and I talked yesterday, and it was ...” Her voice trails off, and we all look at her with mirrored expressions of pity. “Great.”
We don’t call her out for lying.
“What’s the Nash update?” Reese asks. “You two reunited and making the entire town of Fontain vomit in the vintner’s blend yet with your disgusting PDA?”
“He’s working on it.” I fidget with the lace of my dress. “Whatever that means.”
According to Nash, it means finalizing the details of having someone else running Thirsty for History—none other than Sunny—and ensuring things go smoothly if he isn’t in Charleston.
It also means, much to my dismay, trying to figure out how to expand. Even after he promised he’d come to Fontain, he’s been having meetings for another location.
I don’t want to stand in his way—I won’t—but I miss him. Badly. Even though we’ve talked on the phone every day, as have he and Bennie, he’s only been here once in the last month.
“Shit, Rue,” Reese says with a snort. “You’re impatient as hell. Man’s running a business—a successful one that you should take notes on.” I pin her with an annoyed look she ignores. “You don’t just walk away from that without making sure it staysthat way. Two million dollars is chump change in the scheme of things.”
She’s right; other than having the cushions back in place we once had, our lives are completely the same.
“I know.”
And I do, but I want what I want, which is him in this town. Now.
Remy and Mom start talking about the dinners they’ve been having together, making Reese and I fall quiet. I’m thinking about Nash, but there’s a dash of lonely in Reese’s eyes.
The bells to the store jingle, and my attention instinctively goes to the sound, along with my most welcoming smile ... that instantly turns to a frown when I see Psychic Sylvia enter with her arms full.
Of a crystal ball.
