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  “My only asset to be held outside the trust is the house, land, and all outbuildings and equipment on the farm. This I bequeath to my cousin, Autumn, with the stipulation that upon her death, she in turn bequeath it back to Gabriella. Autumn and I spent many happy summers there together. It was our safe place. In the event both Autumn and Gabriella become deceased prior to Catherine, the farm and all property on it will transfer to Catherine.

  “A word of warning. The land already is bound by a federal conservation agreement so that it can never be used for anything other than agriculture purposes. If Catherine, Autumn, and Gabriella become deceased with no heir to maintain the property, it is to be turned over to the Elijah Wildlife Conservancy.

  “At no time, under no circumstances is any part of Gabriella’s trust or the farm to be turned over to or shared with my parents or any other children or grandchildren they might have produced.”

  Gaylord paused and sipped from the glass of water next to him. His dry throat was a thinly disguised pretense because he used the delay to pin Catherine, then Autumn with a warning stare. Autumn straightened her shoulders and met his gaze without flinching. She was certain she saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes. She had no idea how she would work this out, but no country lawyer was going to look down his nose at her. Yeah, she was young, and maybe her leggings and super-cute, off-the-shoulder top was a little informal, but she was wearing shades of gray. She barely refrained from rolling her eyes when the risqué movie of that title popped into her head. Not like that. Somber. Not black, but her leggings were close to it.

  “So, who do I live with?”

  Gabe’s irritated demand jerked Autumn from her usual internal conversation. Elvis had slumped to rest his head on the table, his only indication of continued interest the twitching of his eyebrows as his eyes shifted from Ed to Janice to Gaylord. Gabe, however, focused a fierce scowl on Gaylord. The kid could be scary. For some reason, that made Autumn want to smile. Catherine did smile but rested her hand on Gabe’s forearm. Reassurance or admonishment?

  “I’m getting to that, young lady.” Gaylord put down the will and took off his glasses. “Becki met with Ms. Everhart and myself to set up a legal arrangement for Catherine Daye and Autumn Swan to assume joint guardianship of Gabriella Annise Swan.” He nodded to Janice, who stood and came around the table to place a single sheet of paper and a pen before Catherine, and a second sheet in front of Autumn. “The guardianship is not legally binding until you two sign those papers, attesting that you will share responsibility for Gabe’s welfare until she reaches the age of twenty-one. It’s also temporary for one year, at which time the relationship and Ms. Gabriella Swan’s welfare will be evaluated to make sure everything is working out.”

  Catherine picked up her paper and extracted a pair of reading glasses from her shirt pocket to begin reading.

  “I’m a legal adult at eighteen,” Gabe said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Gaylord nodded. “Yes, you are. But you won’t inherit your trust until you are twenty-one. And these two ladies will have control of those funds until that time.” He squinted at her. “You’d do well not to piss them off while they’re still approving your expenses.”

  Gabe didn’t answer, but she reached up to grasp Elvis’s therapy-dog harness in a white-knuckled grip. The move was almost imperceptible, but the space between them had closed. Gabe stared down at the table. A minute ticked by, then another.

  Catherine put her paper back on the table and removed her glasses. “Could you give Gabe, Autumn, and me a few minutes to talk privately?”

  Gaylord hesitated, then stood. “Ms. Everhart?”

  Janice also stood. “This joint guardianship is unusual, so I’d be a little worried if you didn’t want to talk it over. But we’ll need to return before you actually sign the papers. They have to be witnessed by both myself, as a representative for the Department of Children Services, and Mr. Cooper, who will notarize both contracts. You also might have questions for me after you talk.”

  Autumn had read her paper and already had questions. But the thought of Catherine’s private sit-down made her queasy. She wasn’t good at one-on-one, and this felt an awful lot like two-on-one since she was the only stranger in the room. Her anxiety built as she watched Gaylord and Janice exit the room, and she realized the annoying noise that was growing louder was her own nervous tapping of her pen against the table. She stopped, and a nanosecond of silence filled the room before the loud click of the conference-room door closing broke it. She looked up to three pairs of eyes staring at her.

  Catherine studied Autumn. Damn, but she was cute. That was the problem. Becki had said her cousin was twenty-five, but very mature for her years—a survivor, independent, a self-starter, a successful entrepreneur. But Catherine didn’t see the businesswoman she’d expected.

  She saw a millennial with multiple ear piercings—she didn’t want to know if there were others—and at least three tattoos she could spot peeking out from her clothing. Her light-brown hair was cut short in one of those purposefully messy, spiky styles and tipped with blond highlights. Autumn’s fingernails were freshly painted a stylish red to contrast with her tunic that tied at one dark-gray, legging-covered hip, and her black ankle boots looked like something an elf would wear. Was she even wearing a bra? Only the strap of a black racer-back undershirt showed over the bared shoulder.

  Altogether, it didn’t seem to Catherine like appropriate attire for the reading of a will. Or a business meeting, for that matter. Sure, her face was strikingly pretty, and her eyes were the same mesmerizing hazel as Becki’s and Gabe’s. But she looked young—translation, cute rather than beautiful. Too young to be in charge of a super-smart preteen on the cusp of the dangerous years of puberty. How good an influence would she be on Gabe? How well did Becki really know the cousin who had been gone since they were teens?

  She let her eyes travel over Autumn’s slim frame, then drift up to intelligent eyes that challenged hers. Catherine’s face heated. She was embarrassed to have been caught looking. Yeah, like embarrassment ever made her sex contract and throb. Damn. How long had it been? Too long, apparently.

  Autumn opened her mouth, then closed it.

  “What were you going to say?” Catherine’s defenses rose. She didn’t need some fancy city woman showing up to remind her how lacking she was.

  Autumn glanced at Gabe and shook her head, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Nothing.”

  “It must be something. Go ahead.”

  Autumn glared at her. “Nothing appropriate in front of Gabe.”

  Gabe leaned forward, her expression darkening, but Catherine jumped in before the dam broke. “Gabe might not physically be an adult yet, but her IQ is much higher than the majority of the adult population. Anything you would say to me can be said in front of Gabe.”

  “Fine. I was about to say—” Autumn pushed her chair back and stood close enough that Catherine had to look up from her seated position. “Really? Were you just cruising me?”

  “No.” Catherine leaned back in her chair to create some space between them. Autumn smelled of chocolate and cinnamon. The shards of forest green shooting through her light-brown irises were igniting sparks in Catherine’s belly. “I was conducting advance reconnaissance.”

  “And what did you deduce? That I’m too young to supervise Gabe, to make sure she doesn’t become a self-involved mall rat like so many city teens?”

  Gabe had gone quiet, her head turning like a spectator at a tennis match as she watched the exchange between Catherine and Autumn.

  Catherine couldn’t say what she was actually thinking. That she should absolutely ignore the apparent awakening of her long-slumbering libido because it was stupid to even consider that someone like Autumn would even entertain a one-nighter with someone boring like Catherine. Hell, it wasn’t like she would do something like that anyway, even if Autumn was interested. She had too much pride, was too mature for such nonsense. Catherine scowled. Christ.
Where did she get so off track? “This isn’t about you or me. We’re here to talk about Gabe’s future.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Ms. Daye. Apparently, Gabe’s future is dependent on who you and I are. Becki and I both had biological parents completely ill-equipped to rear children. I intend to do everything in my power to make sure my niece never finds herself in those same circumstances.”

  This young, hip millennial had morphed into the fire-breathing, take-no-prisoners CEO of her own company. Maybe she’d misjudged Autumn.

  “Then we’re in agreement.” Catherine pushed her chair back, too, and stood, noting with satisfaction that Autumn had to look up now because Catherine was several inches taller. “You’ve answered my concern.”

  Autumn put her hands on her hips. “Which was?”

  “How committed you are to Gabe.” She moved around Autumn but stopped at the door. “Are you ready to sign some papers?”

  Autumn gave a curt nod.

  Chapter Five

  “I don’t know, Jay.” Autumn parked next to the battered truck in Catherine’s driveway and took a long suck on the straw in her iced latte. The Sweet Everything coffee shop was her first stop after they left Gaylord’s office. She’d loaded up on scones, gourmet coffee beans, a grinder, and a French press since she could find only herbal teas in Becki’s cabinet. “It’s already Thursday. I met with Becki’s lawyer this morning, but Catherine and I have to see Becki’s banker tomorrow, and I need to take care of several other things immediately. I’m afraid I’ll be going back and forth a lot for a while. Shit!”

  A bang on the car window next to her head made her almost hop onto the console. Two of Elvis’s big front paws were splayed against the glass, and he peered at her from between them, a big, tongue-lolling, doggie smile exposing pearly white canines. “God, Elvis. You nearly scared me to death.”

  “Elvis? He’s not dead?”

  “He’s reincarnated as a brown mutt.”

  “Bruh, I think the air must be too thin wherever you are.”

  Elvis pushed off the window and bounded up the stairs to the porch. Gabe was there, frowning down at her sitting in the car.

  “You might be right. Look, Jay. I’ve got to go. I’ll drive back Sunday and fill you in on everything Monday. Go ahead and pack everything you can into the first half of next week, because I’m going to have to turn around and come back here as soon as possible.”

  He sighed. “I’ll see if I can work some magic, but I don’t understand why you have to go right back. The internet is our friend. You can take care of all kinds of things without ever leaving your house.”

  “Not everything, Jay. Not my cousin’s eleven-year-old daughter I’m now co-parenting.”

  Jay was still sputtering when she disconnected and climbed out of her vehicle.

  ***

  Catherine took the plate of thick ham slices from the microwave and set it among bowls that held potato salad, summer-squash casserole, creamed corn, and baby lima beans. She checked the apple pie warming in the oven. There’d be a lot more food Saturday, when a lot of the town turned out for the memorial service. Until then, the core group of ladies, who always seemed to coordinate these things, had brought over more than enough so that she and Gabe didn’t have to think about cooking.

  Gabe slouched into the kitchen with Elvis at her heels.

  “Well?”

  “She’s coming,” Gabe said, sounding bored. “She was on the phone again.”

  Gabe slumped into her usual chair, and Elvis sat politely next to her and raised his muzzle to sample the aromas coming from the table.

  “Nothing off the table goes into his mouth until after we eat,” Catherine warned Gabe, waving a serving spoon over the table in an unnecessary indication of what “nothing” encompassed before dipping it into the bowl of lima beans. Elvis laid his ears back and sank to the floor, but Gabe played with her fork and didn’t look up.

  Catherine sighed. She wanted to cut Gabe some slack because she had to feel lost and alone. But if Catherine let this uncharacteristic behavior continue, Becki’s sweet, inquisitive kid could become mired in this unattractive attitude of sullen belligerence. “Sit up straight, Gabe. Becki never let you slouch like that at the dinner table.”

  Gabe still wouldn’t look at Catherine. “She’s not here, so I reckon I can sit any way I want.”

  Catherine narrowed her eyes. “And I reckon anyone who slouches at the dinner table can clean out the chicken coop this afternoon. I haven’t gotten to it in a while, so it’s pretty rank.”

  Gabe looked up, uncertainty flickering across her face before transforming into defiance. She opened her mouth to speak, but Autumn breezed into the room.

  “Oh, man. Grandma used to make us clean the chicken coop when we got into trouble. It was the worst. It used to make me gag, so Becki would dab some of her perfume under my nose so I couldn’t smell the chicken shi…uh, chicken poop.” She plunked her oversized phone down next to the place setting directly across from Gabe’s, leaving the chair at the head of the table for Catherine. She surveyed the selection of food. “Wow. I didn’t think I was hungry, but I haven’t seen this much homemade food since Grandma cooked for us.” She snatched up her napkin and patted the corners of her mouth. “God. I’m drooling on myself.”

  Gabe sat up and leaned forward to look at the table below Autumn’s chin.

  “Made you look.” Autumn smiled, pointing at Gabe. “Your mom used to pull that trick on me all the time, and I constantly fell for it.”

  Gabe scowled. “I bet Mom didn’t fall for tricks like that.”

  Catherine forked a couple of slices of ham onto her plate and began passing food around while she listened. This different side of Autumn fascinated her. It was as though the edgy, ambitious, city millennial disappeared when Autumn put her phone down, and a sunny, friendly country girl emerged.

  “Nope. Not often.” Autumn shook her head, scooping two big spoonfuls of creamed corn onto her plate. “But I remember one time she wished she had.” She continued to fill her plate as they passed bowls around the table. “We had our fishing poles and were walking down to the pond. I’d already tried to fool her by claiming to spot a snake. She didn’t fall for it, of course. But when we were almost at the pond, I saw a hole on the side of the path and just had to stop and poke a stick down in it. Yellow-jacket wasps, the mean kind that’ll chase you, came pouring out. I was stung twice before I could throw down my pole and run. I flew past her, screaming ‘yellow jackets!’ She just kept strolling along, laughing when I plowed into the water, clothes and all. A few seconds later, she was screaming and running, too, because they’d swarmed her, stinging her eight or ten times before she could dive in after me.”

  Gabe’s eyes were wide, her fork stilled. “Mom’s allergic to bees, probably wasps, too.”

  “She wasn’t before, but she was after the wasp fiasco, as Grandma called it. Anyway, we had to sit in the pond for more than an hour before it was safe to go back to the house. Becki’s face puffed all up, and she started having trouble breathing, so Grandma rushed her to the hospital. She had to get a couple of shots, and then they made her stay overnight until she could breathe okay again.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. It scared all of us—me, Becki, and Grandma. We never joked about serious stuff anymore, like snakes or wasps.” Autumn shoved a forkful of ham and potatoes into her mouth and hummed as she chewed. “God, this is so good. If I lived here and ate like this all the time, I’d be as big as a house.”

  Catherine cleared her throat. “I guess we’d better talk about that. What are your plans now?”

  For the first time since she’d accepted her invitation to have lunch at her house, Catherine thought Autumn looked nervous. They waited while she took a long drink of iced tea.

  “Well, you and I have an appointment with the banker tomorrow,” Autumn said slowly.

  Catherine nodded.

  “Then the memorial is Saturday.”
/>   Before they’d left Gaylord’s office, Ed had helped them work out the details for the memorial service. Catherine had made the calls to the ladies who would organize the food, and Ed said he’d take care of lining up music, chairs, and several large canopies in case it rained, as well as volunteers for traffic control and set-up. Autumn had reluctantly left to run her errands, since she didn’t have local resources and contacts to help.

  Autumn’s shoulders rose and fell before she began. “The day that Sheriff Cofy, uh, Ed called to tell me that Becki had passed away, I’d had a breakthrough with an important client that morning. We blew right past his three-month goal for customer engagement in only ten days. News like that spreads fast in my business, and by noon, I had requests from five new companies for presentations on what I could do for them.” She met Catherine’s eyes. “This is a giant leap forward for my company, AA Swan, and I had to convince those potential clients to wait so I could take care of family things first. I need to drive back Sunday and meet with them next week. I’ll be back, probably by next weekend. If they decide to sign with me, I can set up their accounts and get started from here. I’ve been working out of my apartment, but we’re looking for office space now.”

  Relief flooded Catherine. Becki’s death had been sudden, and she feared another radical change in Gabe’s life right now could be devastating. “No rush. Gabe is here. She’s got about a month of school left before she’s out for the summer.” Catherine didn’t see any value in changing her school when only a few weeks were left in the term.

  Gabe fixed her gaze on Autumn and frowned. “You can come visit as often as you want, but I’m not going to live in the city. I don’t even know you.”

  Autumn smiled. “And I don’t know you. But I knew your mom. I loved her, and I’m sure I’m going to love you, too, when I’ve had a chance to get to know you.”

  Gabe scowled. “You don’t know that. You might not like me at all.”