The bequest, p.1
The Bequest, page 1
The Bequest
B. E. Baker
Copyright © 2021 by B. E. Baker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For Angela.
For Jenae.
For everyone who has lost a spouse.
* * *
It’s never wrong to love again.
* * *
I promise.
Contents
1. Abigail
2. Amanda
3. Abigail
4. Amanda
5. Abigail
6. Amanda
7. Abigail
8. Amanda
9. Abigail
10. Amanda
11. Abigail
12. Amanda
13. Abigail
14. Amanda
15. Abigail
16. Amanda
17. Abigail
18. Amanda
19. Abigail
20. Amanda
21. Abigail
22. Amanda
23. Abigail
24. Amanda
25. Abigail
26. Amanda
27. Abigail
28. Eddy
29. Amanda
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by B. E. Baker
1
Abigail
In the week after my husband died, I said I was fine more than one hundred times. I didn’t even start counting until the second day.
I was lying every single time, of course.
When Nate was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was not fine. During the next few weeks, while he underwent surgery and then every treatment they could throw at it, I was not fine. And even though I drew up every document that we might need and spent every possible moment with him before the end, after he died, I was not fine.
But now it’s been a year, and with careful planning and a lot of hard work, I can actually tell the truth when someone asks how I’m doing.
“How’s it going?” Robert Marwell’s standing in my doorway, a half smile on his face. He’s not a managing partner with Chase, Holden, and Park, but he probably will be in the next few years.
“I’m fine,” I say. And I mean it.
He takes a few steps into my office and sits in one of the wingback chairs. One of the things I like best about Robert is that even though I’m an associate and he’s a partner, he doesn’t summon me. He walks all the way down the hall to my office when he has something to discuss. “They’re voting in early September,” he says. “I know that feels like a long way off, but I think it’s good timing.”
In just four and a half months, they’ll be voting on whether to add any new partners. “Why is it good?” It’s not that I think it’s bad, but I’d like to know his reasoning.
He glances back at the open doorway and drops his voice. “You’ve been at the firm for just as long as Nate and I, but other than your first two years, you’ve always been part time. If you were wanting to be Of Counsel or something, it would be a lock. But as it is. . .” He looks over his shoulder again.
Who’s he worried might overhear?
His voice is barely a whisper now. “Lance isn’t keen on adding you. Since you own Nate’s share in a limited capacity, if we make you partner—”
“I’ll be entitled to buy my own share when I’m voted in, and then I’d have double the ownership of anyone other than the named partners—which would give me twice the voting rights.”
“I told them that didn’t matter. How often do we disagree? When would your double share actually matter?” Robert shrugs. “You know Lance. It’s less about what will really happen and more about his ego.”
“But why is September good?” I press. “It’s not like he gets happier and more easygoing over the summer.” If anything, all the people taking vacation drives his blood pressure up.
Robert laughs. “No, but my other piece of news will help you understand.”
I raise my eyebrows. “And?”
“The BenchMark case goes to trial in August.” He leans forward. “I made sure you’re on it, but when it comes time to try the case, I’ll step back and let you take first chair.”
A big win on something like that would go a long way toward reassuring the partners that I can perform when the stakes are high.
He crosses his arms. “If you win something like this, no one could justify voting against you, not even Lance.”
I’m not even sure what to say. It’s such a generous offer, and it’s exactly the opportunity for which I’ve been hoping. With Robert in my corner, if this all goes as planned, my family will be back on track by the end of this year. “Thank you, so much.”
He stands up and shakes his head. “Please. Nate would have done the same for me if our roles were reversed.”
“Maybe not.” I scrunch my nose. “I can’t even imagine him handing a case to Maisie.”
“You know what I mean,” Robert says. “If I still had a wife and she needed his help, he would have given it.” When he laughs, his eyes brighten and his perfect, white teeth flash. Even with a tiny streak of grey at his temples, Robert’s a good-looking guy. “Nate certainly chose more wisely than I did. I’m just sorry that—” He swallows. “You know what I mean.”
I do. Robert was nearly as upset as our family when Nate passed away. They’d been best friends since college. And I didn’t meet the two of them until law school. I still remember the summer when the three of us had our first clerkship, together, at this very firm.
He pivots on his heel and walks to the doorway, pausing just before he leaves. “Do you have plans for lunch?”
I haven’t gone out for lunch since Nate died. He must know that—he’s certainly never asked me before. A warning bell goes off in the back of my brain. Is Robert asking me out? Surely not. First of all, he’s one of my oldest friends—and Nate’s. That alone would make it strange, but secondly, Nate’s only been gone a year. Surely no one could expect me to date again so soon.
“It would be nice to have a little time away from the office to discuss the plans for the case. I obviously can’t mention my full plans too loudly here.” He looks surreptitiously up and down the hall one last time, like we’re spies or something. “I have a deposition this afternoon, so if you want to hammer out some rough plans, lunch is probably our best bet.” He tilts his head sideways. “I promise not to bite.”
The case, duh. I’m such an idiot sometimes. Hopefully he didn’t notice my hesitation. “Oh, sure.”
My cell phone rings. Only my kids or their school call me on it, as Robert knows. “Take your call. I’ll circle back around in half an hour.”
Tension I didn’t realize I was holding in my back releases the second he’s gone, and I swipe to answer. “Hello?”
“Hey Mom, it’s me.”
“Gosh, I’m so glad you clarified, Ethan. One of these days I might even figure out how this phone thing works, and when I see your name, I’ll know who’s calling.”
“I’m not holding my breath, boomer,” he says.
“That’s rude. I’m Gen Y, okay?”
“Barely.”
“Everything okay?” He rarely calls me when I’m at work. Text messages are so much easier.
“Yeah, I’m fine. But look, Mom—I know you’re busy, and I know your gut instinct is going to be to shut me down, but can you just listen?”
I suppress the giant sigh that’s trying to claw its way out. “Is this about Dave’s speakers again? Because we—”
“Mom, no, it’s not about the speakers.”
“What, then?”
“Just listen, right? Before you freak out or say no, you’ll just hear me out?”
“I am listening,” I say. “And I never freak out.”
“You do say no a lot.”
“What do you want?”
“Look, Riley’s dad’s competing in the Baja 1000 and they need some extra cash, so he’s selling his brand new RZR XP turbo.”
“Didn’t Riley wreck it last week?”
“I mean, it got a little banged up, but it’s nothing I can’t fix. Seriously, Mom. Once it’s repaired, it’ll be worth thirty grand, easy, but Riley said he’d sell it to me for nineteen!”
I don’t laugh. Or at least, I try not to laugh. “You don’t want me to say no, and yet, you don’t have the money to buy that. Please help me out. What am I supposed to say right now?”
“Mom!”
“Ethan!” I know he’s struggling with his dad being gone. Spending time with Riley and his dad has been helpful, I think. But I don’t have the time, and we don’t have the money with only my (currently much lower) income, to buy huge things like fancy side-by-sides.
“How can you say I don’t have the money? I have like eighty grand!”
“Are you talking about your college fund?” He’s got to be kidding. All my sympathy for his cause just disappeared if he’s really trying to convince me to sacrifice his future on some fun weekend plans. “I know you’re not talking about spending your college fund on something this frivolous. And may I remind you, we would then need a trailer and a truck in order to even use that thing.”
“Mom—”
“Ethan, I don’t have time—”
“You didn’t even listen to me,” he says. “With the mone y I’d save getting this one—”
“The money you would save?” I can’t help laughing this time. “You sound like a spoiled housewife. You aren’t saving a single dollar—you’re buying something that costs, what? Twenty-five times the amount you have personally saved?”
“I have a job now, Mom. And—”
My office phone rings.
Even Ethan knows what that means. “I know, I know. You have to answer that. But don’t hang up. Hear me out at least. I’ll wait.”
I often wonder what God was thinking when he planned out the teenage years. They’re emotionally miswired, they rage against the people who are helping them (who have nothing to gain, incidentally), and they’re never satisfied with anything. Maybe it’s not about the kids. Maybe these years were created to expand parents’ patience. “Fine.” I set my cell phone on the desk and pick up my office line.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Brooks? Mrs. Nathaniel Brooks?”
I haven’t been called Mrs. Nathaniel Brooks in nearly a year. It catches me by surprise and leaves me almost unable to speak.
“Hello?”
“Yes,” I manage to say. “That’s me.” I clear my throat.
“Good.” The man shuffles some papers. “My name is Karl Swift.” Something about his voice, perhaps the wobbly timbre, makes me think that Karl is quite old.
“What can I help you with, Mr. Swift?”
“Er, well, it might be more correct for me to tell you what I think I can help you with.”
He sounds like Bilbo Baggins at his birthday party. “Okay.”
“I’m actually a lawyer as well—I found your name on your firm website from a simple search. I’m calling to notify you that last night, I read a will that had been posted in all the local papers and online.”
“A will for whom?” I still have no idea why he called, and I’m beginning to think he was improperly named. Spit it out, Ol’ Man River!
“Jedediah Brooks passed away almost two weeks ago.”
Brooks. He’s related to Nate, then. The name finally registers. “Nate’s uncle?”
“Even so,” Mr. Swift says.
“I’m very sorry to hear that he passed,” I say, rotely. I didn’t meet Nate’s uncle more than a handful of times, and even then we barely exchanged a handful of words. He had a full head of white hair the first time we met, nearly twenty years ago at my wedding to Nate. He must have lived quite a long life.
“Thank you. His death was quite a shock, but at least it was quick. Jed always said he wanted it to be fast, not drawn out.”
My hand trembles where it’s holding the phone. Nate’s wasn’t quick at all—and it was so fast I could barely think straight. “Is that why you called? To let me know that he’d passed?”
“Not precisely,” Mr. Swift says. “You see, as I understand it, both of Mr. Brooks’ nephews, Nathaniel and Paul, predeceased him.”
I murmur my assent. They were both so young. It still sounds so wrong to agree that they’re both dead, even now.
“In that case, there is quite a substantial bequest made to your children, Mrs. Brooks.”
“Excuse me?”
“Jed has a three thousand, two hundred and eleven acre cattle ranch out here, on the northern side of Utah. It’s one of only six properties in the state that date back to the original land grant. In fact, portions of the property are actually in Wyoming, but it’s mostly in a place called Daggett County.”
“Are you saying that my children’s great-uncle left them a three-thousand acre ranch?”
“Not entirely.”
I wish Mr. Swift would cut to the chase. For a lawyer, he certainly lacks in clarity. “What does the will say, then?”
“Specifically, it provides that the ranch and all its appurtenances, including the home, a guest house, two large barns, an outbuilding for storage, and some three hundred and fifty head of cattle should be left to your children and the children of Nathaniel’s brother, Paul, per stirpes.”
I wonder what something like that is worth. Maybe Ethan could get his Razor after all. “Well, that’s unexpected.”
“However.” Mr. Swift rustles more papers. “In order for the bequest to vest, the heirs or, in the case that they’re minors, their appointed guardians, must adequately and actively operate the Birch Creek Ranch for a period of one full year.”
Whoa. “A year?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“And if I hire someone?”
“I will, of course, send you the actual document so that you can read it yourself, but it was drawn up by a rather hot-shot lawyer in California. I doubt it will have any surprising loopholes.”
“Does that mean I can’t hire someone to run it for us?”
“I’m afraid the bequest stipulates that the heirs or their guardian must operate the ranch themselves and live on site for the full year. It allows no more than three ten day runs away from the ranch during that period.”
And the Razor is back off the table. “My email address is listed on the same firm website,” I say. “I would appreciate if you sent me a copy of that will.”
“Of course,” Mr. Swift says. “And I’m sorry it’s not a simpler bequest.”
“That’s alright,” I say. “I’m no stranger to the phrase, ‘easy come, easy go.’ I certainly didn’t expect anything from dear Uncle Jedediah, so I won’t be disappointed that nothing has materialized. My condolences, again.”
“So you anticipate that you’ll be turning down the offer?”
“I’m quite positive,” I say. “If you’d like to send over whatever paperwork your office would like to keep on file, I’m happy to sign it.”
“If none of his nephew’s children accept the bequest, the ranch will be sold and the proceeds will be donated to the Institute of Research into Alien Life on Planet Earth.”
The what? “That’s certainly. . .interesting.”
“The RALPE Institute received annual donations from Jed from the time he was doing well enough to make them. It’s not everyone’s thing, but that’s what the will says. If that changes your mind, please do let me know.”
“I wish them every bit of luck finding alien life.” I’m proud of myself for keeping my voice steady.
“Do you happen to have a phone number on a Mrs. Paul Brooks?”
“Amanda?” I scroll through my contacts on Outlook. “Sure.” I rattle off the phone number that I rarely use, and wish him a good day.
Robert pokes his head around the corner just as I hang up. “Ready?”
I’m about to stand when I remember that Ethan might still be on hold. “Almost.”
“I’ll go down and get the car. Meet you at the front?”
“Perfect, thanks.” I press the phone to my ear. “Ethan? Are you still there?”
But he’s not on the line anymore. I should have known. Teenagers aren’t celebrated for their long attention spans. I’m sure he’ll talk my ear off about all the reasons buying a wrecked Razor is the best idea he’s ever had as soon as I get home from work.
Robert’s waiting for me when I reach the ground level, his black BMW sleek and shiny. When he opens the door and stands up, my heart races. He can’t possibly be planning to come around and open my door for me, right? That would be squarely in date territory.
I practically leap for the passenger door and open it myself, sliding inside as quickly as I can in four-inch heels and a fitted suit skirt.
“Where do you want to eat?” he asks.
I have no idea what’s good around here. Before Nate died, I only came in for the morning, never staying for lunch, and since his death, I’ve been coming in at 7:15 after school drop off and leaving at 3:15, so I haven’t had time to take a lunch and still work a full day.
“I’m fine with anything other than Chinese food,” I say.
