“Well, maybe you own it, sure,” Hannah said, looking mildly annoyed.
“What do you mean maybe?”
“Goose, you really think this thing is valid?” Hannah asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he shot back. “I’m not a lawyer, so unless you can tell me there’s some reason this isn’t valid, I’m assuming that it is. In fact, I don’t think you would’ve called me back here unless you thought it was legitimate.” He turned to Harriet. “How long have you known about this?”
“She found out this morning,” Hannah revealed, sparing Harriet from responding.
Goose’s mouth dropped open. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“She couldn’t, Goose,” Hannah interjected. “She did the right thing.”
Goose gave Harriet a cold look. “Yeah. She always has to do the right thing.”
Harriet’s face fell and her stomach did a nasty flip. The situation was starting to turn into what it was like five years ago—but worse, much worse.
“That’s not fair to her, Goose,” Hannah snapped.
“Fair to her? What about me? Where do I fit in? Or do I?”
“You do, Goose, and you’re the very reason I called you in here to talk about this. You know we need to resolve this land issue, and this deed really complicates things.”
“It sure does.” He looked at Harriet as he said it.
“This deed is going to slow everything down unless you agree it’s not valid,” Hannah said.
His face reddened in an instant. “You’re actually suggesting I walk away from this?” he asked and pointed to the deed on the table. “That this deed means nothing?”
“You want to make a claim on it?” Hannah threw back. “You want to drag us all through a fight?”
Goose rose from his chair. “Hannah, I know you never believed there was a still out there on that land, that you always thought it was a bunch of bullshit, but—”
“What I used to think has nothing to do with the reality on the ground now, Goose,” she said in a firm voice and stood.
“It has everything to do with it!” he bellowed. “You never believed that my family had to do shine to stay alive! You didn’t want to believe your family looked the other way! You finally had to accept it when I brought back that worm from an old still. Now you have this deed that shows your great-grandpa actually gave mine the land. You just want to sweep it under the rug? Or are you just trying to screw me out of my land?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Hannah cried. “Your land? You’d fight for that little patch of nothing down there?”
“Hell, yes! It’s not nothing to me! And from the way you’re acting, it’s not nothing to you! You need me to sign it away so you can get on with what you want to do, don’t you?”
“But don’t we all want the same thing? To get the boundary nailed down for Old Garnet and—”
Harriet finally stood and tried to intervene.
“Wait, please,” she said, trying to position herself between Goose and Hannah. “You need to stop, calm down, and get attorneys. The both of you. And I really should go. I have a conflict, and this situation is getting out of hand.”
Goose spun on her. “I’d say you have a conflict. Telling Hannah first instead of me. And I guess you were the one that came up with the idea that I should just sign it away, weren’t you? Gotta serve your client first, right? That’s how it’s always been with you.”
“Always been? What are you talking about?” Hannah asked Goose, then looked to Harriet, who was already in tears. “And for what it’s worth, trying to get you to agree to something was my idea, not hers!”
“Nice of you to cover for her,” Goose said.
“I’m not covering for her!” Hannah cried. “And what the hell is wrong with you? Why are you treating her like this?”
“Because it feels too damn familiar, that’s why!” he cried and looked at Harriet. “Choosing something or someone else over me.”
“What the—” began Hannah.
Goose glared at Harriet as she struggled to speak, to find the words to make things right. But the words weren’t there. They didn’t exist.
“You chose your law license five years ago over me. Then you had to go and get permission from some idiot to be with me this time. And now you learn about this land—a special place you knew was so important to me—and you have to go running to Hannah first? You can’t tell the man you say you love he has a claim to his own heritage because of your damn law license?”
“Five years ago?” Hannah whispered.
“I couldn’t tell you, Goose. You know that. And do you know how much that hurt? Don’t you realize you were the first person I wanted to call and tell, but I couldn’t? It killed me I wasn’t going to be the one to tell you about this—like some kind of gift straight from the past.”
“But you didn’t call me, did you? You didn’t tell me. You chose something else and someone else again. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of you choosing your stupid law license—a fucking piece of paper—over me,” he said and stormed out.
Harriet started to go after him, but Hannah stopped her. “Let him cool off,” Hannah said as she tried to hold her back.
But Harriet broke free and ran after Goose, catching up to him in front of the mess in the middle of the floor in the visitors’ center. “Goose, please stop,” she begged as he reached the front doors. Her fingers swept across his arm, but he slipped away from her touch.
He stopped, took in a heaving sigh, and turned around. “I can’t do this Harriet, I just can’t,” he said, shaking his head.
She wanted to reach for him, hold him, comfort him. And for him to do the same for her. But they stood several feet apart, tense and angry. To Harriet, it felt like she’d been swallowed by the land crumbling beneath her feet, an appropriate comparison, considering that the dispute started and ended with a tiny chunk of land on the southern end of the distillery grounds.
“I—I thought you understood, Goose. I have certain obligations as an attorney.”
“I do understand, believe me. I get it. That point got driven home—and right through my heart—five years ago. But just because I understand doesn’t mean I’m okay with it. Because I’m not. I hate this. You kept something from me, something you knew would thrill me. You wanted to tell me. But you didn’t, and I don’t know whether I can handle that. How can I trust you if you can’t share everything with me that has to do with me?”
“And how could you trust me if I broke my word and bond as an attorney? What kind of attorney and person would that make me?”
“Then you need to figure out where your loyalty really lies, Harriet.”
“I know! With you!”
“Does it? Then why did you suggest that I give up my claim?”
“I didn’t do that! You heard Hannah! It was her idea!”
He said nothing, and his jaw clenched.
“You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t trust me.” Her last sentence was a statement, not a question.
Harriet was crying, overwhelmed at the idea that Goose couldn’t trust her. She was getting out of the case—why wasn’t that enough?
Because it still looked to him like betrayal. And he couldn’t get over that, she realized. Not with his family and personal history of being made to feel different, apart, not as good.
She was trying to muster up the wits and courage to say something, but he suddenly turned and left, leaving her crying by the door.
Harriet heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Hannah arriving to collect her.
“Please tell me what’s happened between you two,” Hannah encouraged her as she put an arm across Harriet’s shoulders and walked her toward a couch in the middle of the lobby. “You and Goose obviously have more of a history than anyone ever knew.”
History. Yes, they had a history, Harriet thought.
It haunted them, just like the stories of moonshine stills and fortunes lost, of brothers estranged, and now lo
vers torn apart.
* * *
At first, he’d just been angry, but then it festered into something worse.
The feeling he’d been betrayed.
Harriet had chosen sides and had chosen the distillery Davenports. That’s how it looked, how it felt, and how it was in his eyes. She’d discovered that land was his and hadn’t even picked up the phone to tell him.
She had known the importance of that place. The land that had helped his family survive the darkest of times. He’d told her those stories, had shared that pain with her.
Now he felt abandoned. Was this how Parker had felt when he’d fallen on hard times and had gone begging for a scrap of land to make shine? Like he was second best, an afterthought.
He was tired of feeling that way in Bourbon Springs.
And the woman he loved was trying to straddle that invisible line between past and present. But no one can serve two masters. And in Harriet’s case, he had seen that her head had tried to serve the distillery while her heart had been attached to him.
He didn’t want to talk to her until the whole thing with the old deed had been resolved. He just couldn’t handle all the excuses he knew he would hear from her again.
He hoped negotiations with Hannah, Bo, and Lila would go quickly, but his attorney warned the process could take weeks, months, or even years.
“And you’re looking at years if you go to court,” Drake advised.
Drake Mercer had been the first and only attorney Goose had considered hiring to represent him. Goose remembered overhearing Bo complaining about Drake during the land dispute with Lila and figured it might be a good idea to hire someone who had the ability to get under his cousin’s skin.
“I’m not sure what you really want out of this,” Drake said that Tuesday morning after the meltdown at the distillery the previous evening. Goose had gotten the first available appointment with Drake. He wanted to resolve this thing.
“I want the land, some money, or an ownership interest.”
“I’m not sure I can get you any of those things. But the most likely would be a little bit of money. I’m telling you, this case only has nuisance value. And you’ve got the added complication that you’re working up there at the distillery and you’re family. If you push too far, you’ll be out of a job and wreck your relationships.”
“Yeah, I get all that.”
“So do you want to be out of a job?”
“No, I love working at Old Garnet,” Goose admitted.
“Then I strongly suggest you abandon any claim to the land itself and focus on the other two possibilities: money or a bit of ownership.”
“You’re going to tell me money is more likely, aren’t you?”
“Of those two choices, yes,” Drake said and sat back in his chair.
The man had an odd look for an attorney in a sleepy Southern town: he would have fit right in as a surfer dude on some far-flung beach miles from little Bourbon Springs. He had shaggy white-blond hair and sort of a windswept look to his sharp, angular features. Yet even though he looked like he belonged to another place, the guy was a Bourbon Springs native.
“Great,” muttered Goose.
“And that’s not to say either of those choices is likely, of course. So which one will it be? Do you want to get some land surveyor to get a value on what you have? Or just make an offer?”
“I think I need to know how much leverage I have, so let’s get a surveyor.”
“Easy enough. I can get someone out there soon unless Hannah or someone else puts a stop to it, but I doubt they’d do that. I guess Colyard’s representing them?” Drake asked. Goose sighed and slumped in his seat. “Okay, what aren’t you telling me—oh, I get it. Harriet.”
Drake knew Harriet had been dating Goose; it had become common knowledge in the community. Goose also knew his lawyer needed to know everything that had happened, so he revealed what had happened at the distillery the previous evening.
“And so I told her last night I didn’t want to talk until all this is over,” Goose wrapped up. “Which is probably the advice you were going to give me anyway.”
“Well, I would’ve told you not to talk to her about this matter, about the land dispute,” Drake said. “But I don’t think I’d go so far as to tell you not to speak to her at all. Unless you just don’t want to.”
“I’m not sure I do right now.”
Drake shrugged. “Suit yourself. Anyway, I’ll call Jon Buckler since it sounds like he’ll be representing the distillery on this. We’ll get something set up for a surveyor and appraiser and get this ball rolling. With the historic aspect, we may be able to leverage that for a decent monetary settlement.”
“But what about an ownership interest?”
“You really want a slice of Old Garnet?” Drake asked. “You’d rather have that instead of money?”
“Why can’t I have both?” Goose asked.
“Which do you want more?”
“I want them equally.”
“Then you’d have to settle for something a lot less on both points: less money and less ownership percentage, in lieu of more money or a bigger percentage of ownership in the distillery. Why split the baby?”
“Ownership means a lot to me because I would be reclaiming something my family lost a long time ago. We gave it up, that’s true enough. But getting something back just feels right. And as far as the money, I could simply use it. I don’t make scads of money as it is, although I have savings.”
“Why not negotiate a higher salary?” Drake suggested.
“Because they could fire me tomorrow.”
“Smart man,” Drake acknowledged. “Look, I don’t know if I can get you what you want, but I think it’s unlikely you’ll walk away completely empty-handed.”
Goose thanked him, left, and headed to work, thinking about Drake’s last words to him.
Regardless of what he got in any settlement or (God forbid) a court battle, if he didn’t have Harriet, he’d not merely be walking away empty-handed in the financial sense.
He’d be walking away with a broken, empty heart. A complete loser.
Just how he’d felt five years ago.
And he feared that was the direction in which he was headed because he had no idea how to deal with her, how to make it right, how to get past the anger and hurt he still felt.
28
Harriet dreaded the appointment with Linsey. After the events at the distillery, she wasn’t in the best frame of mind to listen to Linsey’s story of heartache.
Harriet had her own. Again.
Goose had ignored her calls, texts, and e-mails until he finally texted her back late Monday night that he didn’t want to talk until the issue with the newly discovered deed was resolved. He also said he was hiring Drake Mercer, the same attorney who had represented Lila in her land dispute with Bo.
Harriet was happy he was getting his own lawyer. Drake was a very good attorney and had done an excellent job for Lila from what Jon had said about that land dispute. She hoped the sides could reach a resolution that would make Goose happy—although she had no idea what that might be. Did he really want the land? There were no methods to access it, except across the open, unimproved distillery acreage. He must want something else, and that could mean the dispute could drag out.
Where would that leave them?
In some kind of horrible limbo.
And maybe that limbo would become the norm—being apart. For good.
Harriet wasn’t even sure whether she should tell people they’d broken up. Goose had seemingly held out the possibility of getting back together after the dispute was over.
But her heart knew the truth.
They were not together. They were broken up.
And she had no idea whether they’d reunite.
It was in this unsettled state of mind she met with Linsey, and the conference was everything and more than she’d expected. Lots of tears and anger, with little clear-headed thinking.
&nbs
p; “You know how I found out?” Linsey asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “I was in the grocery store, waiting in line behind the home wrecker. She was on the phone to him, and I heard all kinds of naughty talk. That was hard not to notice, of course, but I had no idea who was on the other end of the call until the bitch called Rob by his full name! Right there in front of me! I totally lost it.”
Linsey went on to recount the fight in the grocery store line, how she’d wrenched the phone from the girlfriend and told her husband she was there, and that he’d better get home and talk to her.
“And so he comes home and dumps me!” she spat just before collapsing into more tears. Linsey’s usually lustrous blond hair looked dull, and her sweet face looked like it had aged ten years since Harriet had last seen her, which had only been a few weeks ago at the hardware store.
Harriet handed her friend a box of tissues. “Linsey, I know you’re upset, and I’m so sorry, but we really need to go over some of these things about your financial situation.”
Linsey took the box, plucked out a few tissues, and patted at her face.
“I know. It’s just hard. I can’t concentrate. I keep thinking about Rob and the horrible things he said to me,” she said. “You know, he used to tell me all these wild stories about some of the other deputies, how they’d go out and flirt with women in various dives they’d patrol, then go back and pick them up later. And I got to thinking: why are you telling me this? Are you doing this as well? And it finally hit me that he probably was, just using the others as a means to tell me these tales while keeping himself out of it.”
Harriet felt sick.
Now that Goose was rid of her, she realized, he could go back to that kind of life if he so wanted.
“You all right?” Linsey asked.
“Let’s move on.” Harriet shoved some forms across the desk toward her client, trying to get them both to focus on the tasks at hand rather than all the sad stories and anecdotes that tagged along with a broken heart.
Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume II, Books 4-6 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 2) Page 56
