Page 8 of Blame it on the Bet
“And that’s exactly when all this was happening. Near as I can tell, Truitt had some inside information that the pub was in trouble. He reached out to Pops and expressed an interest in the business.”
“So he is a predator,” she says with some satisfaction. For me, it’s not so cut and dry.
“Maybe, in that he had Pops over a barrel. But honestly, he didn’t try to undercut him. In fact, near as I can tell, he was offering full fair-market value on the pub. Pops would have walked away debt-free with a good chunk of change in his pocket.”
We stare at one another silently for a very long, very awkward moment.
“So…” she begins. “What does that mean?”
I sigh.
“I think it means that Pops saw selling as a way to avoid the embarrassment of foreclosure…and a way to avoid letting on to us just how much debt he was in. He probably intended to play it off as being his plan all along. And by then, there wouldn’t be anything any of us could have done about it, anyway. But now he’s gone, and we know the whole story. And, just maybe, we can still do something to turn this thing around.”
My sister is nodding, her face solemn as she processes what I’m saying.
“So, this isn’t just about money anymore,” Jameson observes.
“No,” I agree. “It’s about pride. His pride…and ours.”
Chapter Four
BRYAN
Truittism Number 3: Don’t judge a book by its cover…or its title.
It’s taken me the entire day to get to this godforsaken speck on the map. Three flights and one harrowing drive through the Arctic Circle later, I pull into the town of Mayhem, Minnesota. What a name.
The first thing that strikes me is the snow.
This is not the snow of film and television—light, fluffy, glittery flakes of goodness that serenely float down from the heavens. The snow I see now is heaped into scuzzy piles in parking lots, against buildings, and lining the sidewalks like filthy, muddy icebergs. This snow is pocked and scarred from rock salt. It’s dirty from sand and grime. This is not angelic snow. This is angry snow. Snow with an attitude.
“Ugh.” I scowl at it in disgust as I maneuver my rented Lexus sedan down Main Street.
I have no trouble spotting the pub, and I’m happy to find a clear spot to park directly across the street from the quaint two-story building. The building that I should own by now. I take a deep breath and put on my game face. Expensive car. Impeccably tailored suit. Hand-tooled, leather-soled Italian dress shoes. An Armani trench and a buttery leather briefcase. As I open the door and step out onto the street, I’m ready to make an impression Jack O’Halloran will never forget.
I cross the street, careful not to step in any slushy puddles, but when I get to the curb, I’m faced with a dilemma. Some genius has neglected to shovel a path through the stacked snow between the road and the sidewalk. I can either go over the three-foot mound or walk to the end of the block and come back around from the corner.
“Oh screw it,” I mutter, clutching my briefcase tightly and stepping up high to hoist myself over the berm.
No sooner does my foot land than it sinks, the snow beneath it giving way under my weight and leaving me with one leg embedded up to the thigh while the other dangles behind me. I grumble under my breath and try to extricate myself without falling forward or backward—I’m balancing precariously between the two. Except that my left leg—the free leg—doesn’t quite reach the asphalt, so I don’t have anything to push against for leverage in order to pull my right one out of its icy prison.
“What the?—”
“Hey, you all right?” comes a female voice at close range. I’ve been focusing so hard on this conundrum that I
didn’t even notice I have an audience. Great. Just what I need, some local yokel come to gawk at the townie.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I mutter, trying, unsuccessfully, to yank myself free. I grunt in disgust at the bottom of my Armani trench, which is now covered in filth from dragging along this iceberg that has absorbed a quarter of my body.
“Funny, you don’t look fine.”
I tear myself away from my current predicament to examine the smart-ass on the sidewalk. I don’t know what I’m expecting to see, but she’s not it.
The woman I’m looking at is, quite simply, gorgeous. Like, heart-stoppingly beautiful. And the funny thing is, she’s not like the women I’m usually drawn to. This is the real girl next door. She’s dressed in jeans, her arms folded across the plaid flannel shirt she’s wearing over a tee that reads O’Halloran’s Pub. On her feet are a pair of boots—and I’m not talking about those tall, leather, spiky-heeled boots that women teeter around on in L.A. These are boot boots. Like the functional kind with navy blue rubber-bottoms and brown leather uppers that lace up high on her shins. Tufts of warm lining peek out around the collars.
Her hair is dirty blond, hanging down around her face in a messy tumble of untamed curls and waves. There’s an arc of freckles dotting the bridge of her slightly upturned nose, and her eyes are the brightest blue I think I’ve ever seen.
Wow.
