A Fortune to Die For (White Oak - Mafia Series Book 1)

by O'Connor, Liza

  He slowly accelerated at the speed of a turtle crossing the road.

  “You can go faster,” she prompted.

  “Okay, you tell me when the speed is good for you.”

  She settled on forty miles per hour with some caveats. “Slow down on the curves and warn me about potholes.”

  “Okay, one’s coming up on your left.”

  She tensed, ready to maneuver around it, but saw nothing. “I never saw it.”

  “It was on the other lane. Should I not tell you about those?”

  Patience. As Steve would no doubt observe, the boy was doing her a colossal favor. And Andy’s desire to please was no doubt making him annoyingly cautious.

  “I just need to know about the ones I might hit.”

  With his responsibilities clarified, Andy improved immensely. Given the various unmarked country roads they crossed, Megan was very glad he was leading her to Helen’s because, honestly, she would have never found the way.

  Why had the woman given her such horrible directions? “Does Helen go down to Donatus often?”

  “Where?”

  He lived there, why was he asking “where”?

  “Donatus, the town we just left.”

  “Oh, St. Donatus. She never comes down to either St. Donatus or La Motte. If she buys anything, she has it delivered to Sam’s store, then I drive it up for her.”

  Okay, so the kid couldn’t recognize his town without the “Saint” before it. And Helen had no clue how to get to her house anymore because she hadn’t left it in the last century.

  She breathed in. These are just normal things all traveler’s encounter. This did not mean her Lottery Curse followed her to Iowa. If it had, she would have never stopped at Bob’s, who just happened to have a kid driving up to Helen’s.

  She was not cursed. This was just life.

  She relaxed a bit. Not too much because Andy kept calling out potholes to watch for. “Pothole right, move to center. Pothole center, straddle it. Pothole right, move right and straddle. Huge pothole, slow the fuck down…excuse my language.”

  She managed to stop before hitting the two-foot deep crevice in the road. “Andy hold up. My car will fall inside this cavern.”

  Andy not only stopped, but it turned out he had lumber in the back of his truck. He grabbed two twelve-by-three inch planks and laid them across the crevice before guiding her over. Then they came to a creek flowing over the road. Andy got out and walked it to determine its depth. “It’s only three feet deep in the center. My truck can make it, but your car will suck water into the fuel line, so I’ll chain your car and pull it through. That way your car won’t suck.”

  “This car sucks a great deal, but we’ll do what you say. Mind if I ride in your truck?”

  By his happy smile, she guessed not.

  She grabbed her computer case from the floor and got in the pickup as Andy chained her car. Turned out he needed her car key, which she handed over without a qualm. Honestly, if Andy destroyed the car, she didn’t care. They should have given her the Subaru she’d asked for.

  He slowly drove his truck across the flooded road, breathing out a sigh of relief when he made it. Revving his engine, Andy pulled her crap rental through the water and climbed the rather steep hill at the same time. Water ran across the bottom of the next hill as well, but Andy ran the newborn creek without checking.

  Three hours later, they finally pulled onto a rutted, single-lane, dirt road, guarded on each side by a row of ancient trees.

  “My dad says they’ll cut all these white oaks down the moment Helen’s buried. No doubt why she refuses to die. She must be a hundred and something by now.”

  Meg stared at the beautiful trees with massive branches stretching across the road, creating a tunnel effect as Andy chatted on.

  “When they do, they’ll smooth out the land so people can live here. Then La Motte will have lots of jobs to choose from.” He sighed heavily. “Still, it’ll break Helen’s heart. She loves these trees. At one time, all of Iowa was forest land, but then the Wisconsin glaciers came and flattened everything. Afterward, it was plains, perfect for farming by our ancestors. Except for here. This section got a bunch of wind-driven dirt from Illinois dumped on it. We also had a giant asteroid hit Iowa seventy-four million years ago. They used to think it killed all the animals, but it didn’t. The mass extinction happened later.”

  This conversation surprised the hell out of her. “Are you planning to become a geologist?”

  He sighed heavily. “No money there. I wanted to be a programmer…writing apps for phones and stuff, but we don’t have the money for college. I don’t know what I’ll do when I graduate from High School. I lack the strength to do road construction.”

  “How are your grades?”

  “There okay. B’s mostly. No point in killing myself for As. Not like I need them.”

  “If you have really good grades, you might get a scholarship for college.”

  He snorted. “Not a chance. My parents aren’t poor enough for charity money, and you wouldn’t believe the stuff kids have to do to get a real scholarship. And those only pay half or less. So even if I got one, I still couldn’t go.”

  “Do me a favor. I work with different groups who give out money for worthy causes. Get your grades to As, and I’ll see if I can find you a free ride.”

  He snorted. “My parents don’t think I’m college material. They say I have to face reality and learn a skill people around here need.”

  “Not terrible advice, but I think you’re giving up too soon. Write down your number in case I can find something.”

  He sighed heavily. “I don’t mean to offend you, but I’ll catch all sorts of hell if you call my house and my mom answers. I’ll probably still be working at Bob’s, so could you call there? If not, ask around town. Someone will know where I am.”

  Wow! First time someone had refused their number when she wanted to help them, but then Andy didn’t know she had the ability to actually provide assistance, and evidently his mother didn’t like older women calling her son.

  She would have loved to ask him if he got hit on by older women a lot, but couldn’t find a reasonable way to phrase her question without sounding like a cougar herself. Nor did she wish to be called such. She hadn’t even hit thirty-one yet.

  Finally, they arrived at an honest-to-God log cabin. If it didn’t have running water and a toilet, there was no way in hell she’d stay here.

  “Whoa! Where’d all the cars come from?” Andy asked, then smiled. “Looks like Helen invited a lot of people to come see her.”

  A gray-haired woman wearing hiking pants and T-shirt stepped out to the porch. Andy picked up a box from the back of his pickup. Seeing a second one, Meg picked it up.

  “You don’t have to help me.”

  His panicked voice confused her until she remembered her tip was going to be his pay for the day. “I want to help.”

  “If you want to, okay. But you don’t owe me anything for bringing you up here. I was coming all the same.”

  His words were like balm to her soul. Finally, a person who didn’t expect a dime from her, when, in fact, he’d earned far more.

  She had definitely made the right choice about starting her life over.

  As they climbed up the gray, weathered steps, the old woman eyed her with caution.

  “Miss Campbell, this lady says…”

  “Hush. Take the groceries in the kitchen like a good boy.” She stuffed a dollar bill in his shirt pocket and then focused on Meg. “And you go with him. I’ve got a house full of angry relatives right now. Somehow they got wind of my plans to sell my land.”

  Meg nodded and hurried to catch up with Andy. She entered the main room of the small cabin, presently filled with half a dozen angry people.

  “Just the locals bringing up the groceries,” Helen said and pointed her to a door. Meg hurried through.

  The hand pump at the kitchen sink didn’t bode well for a toilet, neither did the
small round-edged antique Frigidaire.

  “Just put the vegetables in here. I’ll handle the rest of the stuff,” Andy whispered.

  She hoped so because the inside of the fridge was only a foot and half wide and two feet tall. She passed the vegetables in her box over to Andy and let him put them away.

  When she handed him the tomatoes, he set them back in the box, same thing with the onions and potatoes.

  “Out of room?” she teased.

  “Yeah, but you don’t put those in a refrigerator.”

  “Says who?”

  “My mom.” He lifted his box, then frowned at the kitchen door they had come through. “Lean on the door so no one can get in.”

  “Why?”

  “So no one can get in.” He rolled his eyes and stared at her until she finally did as he asked.

  It bothered her he now thought she was an idiot, but pleased her that he clearly had forgotten all about his tip. With her head against the wood, she could actually make out the angry words of Helen’s guests on the other side.

  “Momma, you aren’t thinking right,” a man said. “We’re your family. You can’t value a bunch of trees over us. When you die, do you really think the trees are going to give a damn you’re gone?”

  “I suppose it depends upon their future. If they’re cut down and turned into timber and used to build homes over a flattened version of this land, then I suspect they’ll haunt me for eternity.”

  “Oh, God! You’ve lost your mind,” a shrill female voice exclaimed. “No contract she signs will be valid if she’s lost her mind. One of my soap operas went on and on about it last week.”

  “I have not lost my mind. I was being sarcastic. It’s what I do when my children and grandchildren decide to have an intervention just because I don’t plan to make them multi-millionaires when I die.”

  “So you admit you’re doing this just to spite us?” another angry female voice demanded.

  “No. I wish to save my trees. They are the last white oak forest in the whole state, which makes it something worth preserving. I’m sorry your personal greed prevents you from seeing the importance of these woods, but the failing is yours, not mine. Now, it’s getting late. As I told you before, the buyer to my land did not commit to an exact date, but clearly no one in their right mind would drive these roads at nighttime. And neither should any of you.”

  Meg chuckled at her clever segregation of the hostile relatives from people in their right minds.

  “We are not done here!” a man warned.

  “I never thought you were,” Helen replied.

  “Where’s the lady’s room?” the shrill-voiced woman asked.

  “What lady’s room, dear?”

  “The bathroom!” the man snapped. “Sara is asking where your bathroom is.”

  “Oh. Go out the front door and take a left. It’s two hundred feet down the cliff.”

  “Jeffrey!” the shrill voice screeched.

  “You don’t have indoor plumbing yet? For the love of God, I should have this place condemned.”

  “I have running water in the kitchen sink, but she’s not going to the bathroom there.”

  “Jeffrey, we need to leave at once!” the shrill voice yelled, and the screen slammed a second later.

  “Nice, mother. You really know how to make your relatives feel welcome.” A second later, the screen door slammed a second time.

  Then the fellow returned. “Whose car is out there?”

  “I don’t know. Andy dragged it up here. Maybe he wants to give it to me. The boy treats me a hell of a lot better than my real kin does.”

  “Probably thinks you’ll leave him a fortune when you die.”

  “Oh, I’d never ruin the boy’s life like that. I think too highly of him. Andy will do just fine making his own way. He’s smart and a hard worker. He doesn’t need or want any handouts.”

  Meg frowned at Helen’s words. While she’d thus far discovered all her handouts only made matters worse, she had to think Andy was the exception. He had truly earned the five hundred dollars she planned to give him today, and no one could get to college without some help these days.

  Still, matters had gone badly with her initial attempts to set her family members on solid financial ground. She thought paying off their credit cards, their car loans, and their mortgages would be an excellent gift to each. But instead of starting from this high ground and working to create their own savings, several of them sold their mortgage-free homes and bought mansions with new and much larger mortgages. Others used the excess cash, plus new home equity loans, to put down payments on boats and high-end car leases.

  And then the bills came in, and they all expected her to cover them. Realizing to do so would only send them further out of control, she refused. And so she became the most detested person in the world.

  It was then she discovered the Lottery Curse was real and all-consuming.

  She heard several cars start up and pull onto the dirt driveway. Did all relatives become extra horrible when someone became rich? She watched through the kitchen window as they drove away.

  She glanced at the closet and frowned. Where was Andy? A moment later the back of the closet holding brooms and broom pans opened, and the cheery fellow stepped into the kitchen and closed the closet doors. “All done.” He glanced outside and frowned. “Crap, I need to get your car unhooked.”

  She continued to block his escape. “Before you go, Andy, I want to give you a tip.”

  “You don’t have to. I was coming up here, anyway.”

  “Yes, but from my perspective, you saved my life, given the absolute certainty that even if I had managed to choose all the right roads…”

  “Not very likely,” he muttered.

  “…then I would have hit the two-foot deep crevice in the road and possibly killed myself. If I somehow managed to live, and my cell phone worked…”

  He shook his head.

  “…then I would have called a towing company. And maybe they would have agreed to come out.”

  Again he shook his head.

  “If not, I would have probably tried to walk the rest of the way.”

  He grimaced.

  “And would probably still be walking through the night unless I was eaten by wolves.”

  “Coyotes…we have a big pack of coyotes.”

  “Death by coyote then.”

  “There’s a bear, too.”

  “And bear.”

  She pulled out the six bills, kept one, and handed him five. “I’d give you all I have for saving my life and getting my car here, but…”

  “No, you should keep your cash. You seem prone to getting yourself into trouble. Everything you said was true. You could have died a whole lot of times if you’d done this on your own.”

  She approached him and stuffed the five bills in his pocket. “You earned this tip a hundred times over. Now stop arguing and unhitch my car.”

  He smiled. “Okay, but promise you won’t take the way I came up. You’ll never make it.”

  “There’s another way in?”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t go to La Motte. That’s where you stopped today, not St. Donatus. It’s further east. The safer road goes north to Dubuque. Miss Campbell can tell you how to get there. Those roads are better…or all her relatives wouldn’t have made it here in their fancy cars.”

  She gripped Andy’s hand. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, and I will be in contact if I find a scholarship, so get your grades up.”

  He gave her a salute and scurried out, clearly wishing to escape more lectures.

  Meg wasn’t sure if some relatives still lurked in the other room, so she sat in an ancient kitchen chair and stared at what was probably once a very grand kitchen…for some woman in the 1800s.

  Her musings were interrupted by Andy’s angry voice spoken from outside. “Crap!” She looked out the window as he stormed toward the house.

  Chapter 3

  “Miss Campbell, would you give this
money back to your guest,” Andy asked.

  Meg, listening at the door, cringed. Most people would be thrilled to find substantial money in their pocket. Just her luck to reward the one who wasn’t.

  “No. How much is it?” Helen asked.

  “Five hundred. I thought she gave me five dollars, which I wasn’t okay about, but since I saved her life and all by bringing her up here safe and sound, and she was so intent I take it, I didn’t pull it out when she stuffed it in my pocket like you do.”

  Helen snorted. “Well, I’m not taking it. She’s from the northeast. They have no sense when it comes to tipping. If I try to make her take it back, she’ll probably refuse and stick me with the money. So you’re just gonna have to put it in the bank for college. And let this be a lesson to you. Don’t let people go stuffing bills in your pocket unless you know them.”

  “My mom’s going to throw a fit. You know what she’ll think when I tell her how pretty Miss Williams is,” Andy said.

  “Who?” Helen asked.

  “Miss Williams.”

  “Hold on…”

  Helen burst into the kitchen and gripped Meg’s face. “Are you who I think you are?”

  “Yes. I’ll explain when we’re alone.”

  “Yes, you will. And what were you thinking, giving the boy five hundred dollars?”

  “I was thinking I wouldn’t have made it here alive without his help. There are evidently coyotes and bears in these woods.”

  Her brow furrowed, and she released Meg’s chin. “Damn foolishness.” She stormed back to Andy. “There is nothing I can do about this. Be more careful the next time you save someone’s life and button your pockets. Now get home safely. I don’t like you driving on these roads anywhere close to dusk.”

  “I’ll be okay. I’m going to Dubuque and deposit this money before my mom knows about it. Bank’s open ’til five. I can make it easy.”

  “Good, that road is clearly better.”

  “Miss Williams left this case in my truck. Will you give it to her? Be gentle. I think it has a laptop inside.”

  God! What would I have done if he’d driven off with my computer case? Actually, this boy would have probably driven all the way back when he discovered it. Never had any young man impressed Meg this much. She was definitely getting him a scholarship.