“Tessa?” Lincoln said. “Do you have any questions?”
She had a whole lot of questions, starting with how dare she? and ending with how am I supposed to do this? But her mother had raised her at all costs to maintain composure under fire. If there was one thing Tessa could do, it was sit in a chair and look calm while her insides detonated.
“Seventy-two hours,” she said evenly. “Is that negotiable?”
“I’m afraid not. Fern instructed me to write the will in such a way that you have, as she put it, ‘not a single inch of wiggle room.’ I’m sorry, ma’am, but I was legally bound to do my best for my client.”
“And I suppose you’re a very good lawyer, aren’t you?” she responded.
“I am.”
“What about my store? My apartment? I have a business to run and a daughter in school.”
“The will doesn’t prevent you from working in town. It simply requires residence on the property and care for the animals. You and Makayla must commence living there in three days. Unfortunately, I’m tasked with inspecting the house four days from now and randomly throughout the next year to insure that you have actually taken up full-time residence.”
Makayla tugged on Tessa’s sleeve. Her eyes were enormous and her voice filled with wonder. “Mom. We get to live on the farm.”
Tessa looked at her daughter’s face and her heart sank.
Game, set, and match, Fern.
The old biddy had cleverly outmaneuvered her and cornered her. Fern knew full well Makayla would be over the moon at the idea of moving to the farm and that would be the final nail in Tessa’s coffin.
I’m going to have to do this.
Not because of the college trust. Not because of the legal trap. But because Makayla was vibrating with more excitement than Tessa had seen from her in, well, longer than she could remember.
Chagrin roiled in her belly. Not at being defeated by her dead mother-in-law, but at the fact that Fern had known better than her what would make Makayla happy . . . and had arranged to give it to her.
“It appears you and I are moving to Granny Fern’s farm,” she told her daughter.
Makayla sucked in a sharp breath of delight.
She looked up at Lincoln. “Today’s Thursday. Will Saturday be satisfactory to you for my daughter and me to move in to Fern’s house?”
He answered apologetically, “That does fulfill the condition of the will, yes.”
“Would you mind stopping by the farm on Sunday, then? Monday’s a work day for me and a school day for Makayla, and we won’t be home during the day.”
“I’ll see you then, Mrs. Lawrence,” he said formally.
Arlo, who hadn’t spoken since the reading began, stood up creakily. He put on his hat, smiled briefly at Makayla, then looked at Tessa and said, “Fern always said you were smarter than you let on.”
He left before she could decide if that was a compliment.
The farm was fifteen minutes from town by the lake road, and with every mile, Tessa’s composure thinned a little more.
She’d been here before, of course. Many times when Mick was alive, less often after he died. Fern hadn’t exactly rolled out the welcome mat for her. Makayla, of course, was welcomed with open arms, warm cookies, and long visits by the two of them to the barn.
But Tessa’s relationship with Fern had settled into a pattern of stiff Sunday lunches where Fern criticized Tessa’s parenting, Tessa smiled through her teeth, and Makayla snuck away to pet the animals.
But she’d never arrived at the farm before with the understanding that this was home now.
Lake Stillwater shimmered through the trees, impossibly blue against the still-brown spring landscape. The farm appeared—a long gravel drive leading to a white clapboard farmhouse with a 360-degree wraparound porch. Behind it were a red barn, a smaller outbuilding, and fenced pastures rolling down toward the water. To the east stretched eighty acres of forest Fern also owned and had left wild. It was mature woodland with old growth oaks and huge firs. Across the lake stood the town of Apple Pie Creek, nestled at the base of a mountain range dominated by the mighty Sik-sika Mountain. Sik-sika meant ‘black foot’ and was the name by which the Native Americans indigenous to these mountains called themselves.
The slope of Sik-sika facing the lake was currently striped with white ski runs at Valhalla, the world-class ski resort that had opened a few years ago.
Tessa parked the car and turned off the ignition. She paused for a moment to take in the beauty of the shimmering lake and towering, snowy mountains while Makayla jumped out of the car and sprinted for the barn.
