by Lacey Baker
This morning Quinn would face one more family hurdle before he could finally leave this town and all it held for him behind. Gramma’s will was being read in the parlor promptly at nine thirty. That’s what the lawyer, Edison Creed, had told them last night. So Quinn showered, dressed, and headed down the stairs toward the parlor. He wanted to be on time and he wanted this to be over as soon as possible.
Gramma loved colors as much as she loved life, and it showed in the decor of the house. The parlor had wallpapered walls with a cream background and pale pink rosettes. The plush carpet was a deep crimson, while the curtains were pink with a matching crimson brocade drape over the top. The furniture was mostly antiques. A huge coffee table sat in the center of the room with a couch on each side. Four high-backed Victorian chairs were positioned between the couches. But the focal point of the room had to be Gramma’s collection of antique lamps. Along one wall a set of four matching 1900s wall sconces hung. On a small table beside the entryway was a pair of green Bohemian lamps with crystals. She also had crystal lamps with prisms and a pair of cranberry Victorian lamps with gold prisms.
Quinn was an antiques fanatic, one of the things he supposed he’d inherited from his grandmother. Although he didn’t have time to collect a lot of antiques himself, he knew them when he saw them and was in awe of what he figured was a small showing of his grandmother’s collection.
“How long is this going to take?” Savannah came in first, heading directly to the sideboard that always held a pitcher of iced tea and a pitcher of iced water. She picked up a glass and poured herself some tea.
If he didn’t know for a fact that she’d been born right here in Maryland, Quinn would swear his sister was a twenty-first-century southern belle in complete harmony with her name. This morning Savannah wore a sundress—it was May, the prelude to summer in Maryland, which meant that eighty-plus-degree days with matching humidity were not unusual. But Savannah’s entire back was bare, down to her waist. The dress tied around her neck and hugged her bodice. Her shoes were sky-high heels that made her look even more alluring, if that were possible. Quinn’s temples immediately began to ache at the sight of his baby sister dressed this way. He’d kept a close eye on her career and was the first person she called if she needed anything, which wasn’t often since she probably made more money than he did. But he’d never get used to the idea of her as a grown woman.
“Mr. Creed said not more than an hour.” Raine had already been in the room and seated in one of the high-backed chairs, which actually looked like it would engulf her slim fame.
Quinn made his way to one of the couches and took a seat looking from one of his sisters to the other. If ever there were two people who were more different … and yet their resemblance was clear. They shared the same wide pretty smile and brown eyes, even though Raine’s were lighter than Savannah’s. Savannah’s butter-toned complexion was in contrast with Raine’s cinnamon brown. They had the high cheekbones that were part of the Cantrells’ half–Native American heritage, and both were built tall and slim like their mother.
“Surely you can stay in town another hour,” Michelle stated as she entered the room.
Now, here was where the differences really came into play. Michelle was two years younger than Quinn, and he knew her probably as well as any of the others. Michelle had always taken responsibility for her siblings, which in her eyes made her the boss. And truth be told, next to Gramma, Michelle did most of the motherly things for them, including making sure she called each of the siblings when they went too long without calling her.
Michelle also looked most like their grandmother with her chocolate-brown complexion, thick arched eyebrows, and infectious laugh. She wore a sensible business suit in a pale shade of yellow and high heels that confirmed all of his sisters had grown up while Quinn hadn’t been looking.
“I didn’t say I couldn’t,” Savannah quipped. “But I do have things to do.”
“Things that are more important than hearing Gramma’s wishes.” Michelle shook her head. “You haven’t changed one bit. Still spoiled and selfish.”
“And you’re still bossy and evil,” Savannah replied.
Raine rubbed her temples. “Please, you two. It’s too early for this.”
“She’s right, it is early,” Preston said, walking into the room in khaki shorts and a white polo shirt. His sunglasses were pushed up onto his head, and he rubbed his eyes as if he were still half asleep.
“What time did you get to bed last night?” Michelle asked him.
Preston groaned. “I don’t even know. That O’Hurley girl can talk.”
“I know you weren’t hanging out with Casey O’Hurley, the youngest of the O’Hurley girls?” Michelle asked. “And when I say youngest, that’s exactly what I mean. She’s barely twenty-one.”
“And I’m only thirty-three. Come on, she’s an adult and so am I. Help me out here, Quinn; she’s legal, right?” Preston looked to him.
Quinn, who had been quiet, simply sitting back watching the familiar exchange between his siblings, frowned to bite back a grin. Preston loved women. He and his twin, Parker, had broken so many hearts during their teenage years in Sweetland, they were legendary. As adults they hadn’t changed much in the women arena. Quinn couldn’t help but feel a hint of pride at the men his brothers had grown into; after all, he was the oldest and had been the only male figure in their life after their father’s death. However, at this moment he wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.
“She’s a bit on the young side,” he told Preston honestly because really, they weren’t teenagers anymore.
Savannah chuckled. “You’re the star attorney. You should know better than the rest of us how wrong that is.”
“What? She’s legal,” Preston insisted amid continued laughter from Savannah and even Michelle.
For a minute it felt like old times, and Quinn enjoyed it. He actually liked being back in his grandmother’s parlor with his siblings. It had a really comfortable feeling, almost like they all belonged right here at this very moment. Then Mr. Creed came in and the atmosphere shifted.
“Good morning. Is everyone here?” he asked, all business in his three-piece mud-brown suit and mustard-yellow shirt. He was a short man with a gaunt look and quick steps. His balding head glistened with whatever product he smoothed on to keep the remaining strands down, and his wire-framed glasses slid to the end of his nose as he tilted his head and looked over them.
There was a small desk in one corner of the room where Gramma used to write her correspondence, as she would say. Creed plopped his worn leather briefcase on top and began pulling out papers.
“I’m here,” Parker said, coming in last and taking a seat on the couch next to Quinn.
“Good. We can get started,” Creed stated, licking his finger then sifting through papers.
Preston frowned. Raine shrugged and Savannah crossed her legs, letting the top one dangle with her impatience.
“I’ll skip the formalities and get right to it,” Creed began, folding a set of papers back at the stapled edge. “I, Mary Janet Cantrell, leave and bequeath all my monetary holdings to my six grandchildren: Quinton Clifford Cantrell, Mary Michelle Cantrell, Preston Reece Cantrell, Parker Roland Cantrell, Raine Marie Cantrell, and Savannah Lynn Cantrell. It is also my wish that The Silver Spoon be given with joint ownership to my grandchildren.”
Quinn let out the deep breath he’d been holding. It was as he’d suspected. Besides them, Gramma had no other family and he knew she’d never leave any one of them out of her will, even though she probably had good cause to. So it was done, he thought with relief. Now he could go back to Seattle.
“Okay, so we need to figure out what to do with the B and B,” Savannah was first to say.
“We’re not selling it if that’s what you mean by ‘figure out,’” Michelle stated adamantly.
“That’s not what I meant,” Savannah huffed.
Creed cleared his throat. “I’m not finished.”
The siblings looked at one another with questioning shrugs, but all clapped their mouths shut to listen to the attorney once more.
When Creed lifted a small brass bell, shaking it so that it rang with a loud clanging sound, they all looked even more confused. Sylvester came into the parlor, a smile on his face that showed his white teeth against his leathery cocoa-brown complexion. On a leash was a dog. A female—no, the female from last night—came in behind Sylvester with a kennel holding a bunch of yapping puppies. She looked fresh as a new day, yet just like Quinn remembered her from last night—her hair unruly but sexy, her body petite and curvy enough to garner a second look. And then a third. And finally, Quinn paused to take a quick breath. She wasn’t the focus here; he presumed the dogs were.
“I also bequeath to my grandchildren as follows,” Creed began reading from the will again. “To Mary Michelle, Ms. Cleo and Lily.”
Sylvester walked the larger dog over to Michelle and handed her the leash. The female reached into the kennel and after a few moments of searching pulled out a puppy that was identical to the larger dog. She walked over and sat the puppy in Michelle’s lap.
Creed read on, “To Raine, Loki. To Savannah, Micah. To Preston, Coco. To Parker, Rufus.”
As he read, Quinn had been holding his breath hoping against everything he knew that the kennel would be empty by the time his name was called. He should have hoped something else.
“And to Quinn, my Sweet Dixi.”
The puppy who was dropped in his lap instantly hopped down as if she were afraid for her life. She landed at his feet, where she danced around for a few seconds then fell back onto her bottom like she had run out of options.
“It is my last wish and desire that each of you cares for my precious Labs. They meant the world to me, the family in place of my real family. In the event that you feel you cannot handle this task, be not worried, Gramma understands. I ask, however, that you take time and good care to find loving homes for them.”
The room was silent except for the puppies, who seemed to be having a conversation of their own.
“Now I am finished,” Creed concluded with a nod of his head and dutifully began putting all his paperwork back into his ragged briefcase.
“He’s kidding, right?” Savannah asked with a squeal as she swatted at the puppy licking her shoes because she hadn’t hesitated to remove it from her lap.
Michelle sighed, rubbing a hand over what Quinn assumed was the mother dog’s, Ms. Cleo’s, brown head. “I don’t think so.”
“What am I supposed to do with a puppy?” Preston inquired with a frown.
“We’re supposed to do as she said,” Quinn added. “Take care of them.” He looked down to the floor and held in a curse of his own as the puppy he’d been assigned, Sweet Dixi, unceremoniously peed on his shoes.
Chapter 3
“We can either keep them and take care of them or find a good and loving home for them,” Michelle stated, rubbing a hand over Ms. Cleo’s head.
She was a show-quality Lab but Gramma hadn’t wanted to put that kind of stress on her, especially after the previous owner had barely fed her and trained her until she was sick. Gramma had found Ms. Cleo at a rescue shelter on a trip to Easton about two years ago. Since coming to Sweetland, Ms. Cleo was just as happy running around the couple of acres of land that surrounded The Silver Spoon. She’d entertained guests and their children since that first day, and when Judson Heathrow suggested Gramma let her try breeding, Gramma had gone along with the idea, figuring Ms. Cleo would love to be a mother. Besides, the previous owners hadn’t bothered to have her spayed. Unfortunately the male who’d been used in the breeding had been hit by a truck when he’d gotten out of his kennel and wandered all the way up to Interstate 33. Mr. Heathrow let Gramma keep all the puppies, and she hadn’t entertained any plans to sell the purebred pups.
“Good,” Savannah said quickly. “Where’s the dog pound so I can drop her off?” She was again swatting at the puppy, who was sniffing around her shoes. But her moving arm only caught the dog’s attention, resulting in quick laps with the puppy’s tongue over Savannah’s exposed arm. “Yuck!” she squealed, pulling her arm back.
“It’s a dog, Savannah, not a disease,” Raine told her younger sister.
“And she’s a he,” Michelle informed her. “His name is Micah.”
“Whatever it is, it’s not mine and I’m not keeping it,” Savannah said, sounding contrite. It was her usual where her siblings were concerned, so none of them looked shocked at all.
“Then you’ll have to find a good home for it,” Preston said, holding his puppy in his lap, letting her lick all she wanted up and down his arm. When she noticed his shiny belt buckle she immediately diverted all her attention there.
“I don’t have time for this,” was Savannah’s next reply. “What am I going to do with a puppy?”
“I think Gramma’s trying to teach us something,” Quinn said. Michelle was grateful.
Quinn was older than her with a very reserved manner about him. He took everything in stride, with the same monotone demeanor. Nothing upset him; nothing ruffled his always-smooth feathers, ever. Even now, after the puppy he’d been assigned, Dixi, had already peed on his shoes—the leather tie-up ones that he’d untied and taken off, pushing them to the side as he used tissues to wipe up the wetness from the floor—Quinn’s voice sounded as level as it had twenty minutes ago.
“You’re probably right,” Michelle added. “She was always teaching us lessons.” And Michelle prayed her siblings were open enough to learn from this one because it was going to take everything they had to make sure that all their grandmother had worked so hard for continued to thrive.
Preston nodded. “Life lessons, that’s what she called them. Said they’d teach us to lead a better life.”
“Not giving me money to buy a new dress for the ring dance was not a life lesson. I had to wear one of Raine’s old dresses instead. It was embarrassing.”
Of course this was Savannah. The one who was blessed too heavily in the looks department and not enough in the brains department, as Michelle always said. Gramma would scold her for that. She swore Savannah was smart in her own way. Michelle figured somewhere under all the makeup and hair spray Savannah might have a brain; she just wished the girl would learn to use it instead of her looks to get ahead.
“I think it might be something a little more poignant than a dress, Savannah,” Preston told her.
“It doesn’t matter because I have a life. I do not have time to find a home for this thing.” Micah had pushed himself close to Savannah’s legs, his chin and ears flopping down to cover the buckles of her shoes. Savannah had been trying to move out of the way, but short of getting up and walking out of the room there really wasn’t much she could do to escape the friendly dog.
And speaking of friendly, Michelle noted that Quinn’s pup was not. Dixi, who was normally very happy and very sociable, had moved about a foot away from Quinn and sat with her back to him. Quinn didn’t look like he minded the distance because he definitely did not like that his shoes were wet. Another thing Michelle remembered about her brother was that he’d always been a neat freak. Everything had its place, and if something wasn’t where it belonged, Quinn wasn’t happy. She almost smiled to herself as she wondered how he was going to deal with the pampered and spoiled Dixi, who didn’t care where anything belonged, only worried about what she wanted and how fast she could get it.
“We’re abiding by Gramma’s rules,” Quinn said with a solemn type of authority.
“That’s easy for you to say.” Savannah was the first to argue.
Not that anyone was surprised by that fact.
“I don’t have a nice house in the coveted Maple Leaf neighborhood in Seattle. I have an apartment in New York that I’m not even sure allows dogs. Not to mention the fact that I’m hardly ever there, or in any one place for that long, which means I cannot take care of a dog,” Savannah continued.
&
nbsp; “Do these types of dogs require a lot of attention?” Parker asked. His puppy had long since wandered off in search of something much more exciting than Parker.
Michelle had noticed him watching where the puppy went in the room but he hadn’t gotten up to retrieve him, which told her he was still trying to figure out just how close he planned to get. Cautious was not a word she’d normally use to describe this brother. That was usually reserved for Quinn.
“Yes, they do,” she said. “There’s a book in the living room that tells all about what they need. Gramma bought it at Nan Giles’s bookstore when she brought Ms. Cleo home with her.”
“So I take it she really loved these dogs?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, she did,” Michelle answered. “Just like she loved all of us. I agree with you, I think we should follow the mandate of her will.”
“I think that’s a given,” Preston said. “But there are obvious problems with that idea. For one, if we all own a part of this bed-and-breakfast, which one of us is going to run it? None of us lives here.”
Michelle frowned. “One of us does.”
“I apologize,” Preston added. “What I meant was that only you live here and it’s not fair to ask you to take on the brunt of running this place by yourself.”
“I’ve been here since the place opened. But I’d have to admit that I know more about the menus and the grocery expenses for the restaurant than I do about renting out the rooms. Gramma and Nikki did all that kind of work.”
Parker sat up in his chair, peering around the back of the couch, finally in search of his puppy. “Was that little Nikki that you used to hang out with, Savannah? The one who brought the dogs in?”
Savannah nodded. “Yes, that was her. I haven’t seen her in ages. But she looks exactly the same.”
