Page 134 of Summers at the Saint
“Mom, what if I don’twanttheir money? What if I don’t want to fight? How many times did you tell me how awful the Eddingses were?”
Shannon had thought long and hard about this topic, ever since she’d gotten the phone call from Andy Plankenhorn.
“Because, Livvy, if youdon’ttake the money, Ric Eddings wins. And the old man, even though he’s dead now? He wins too. But if you do inherit, that money has the power to change your life, in a good way. Remember, I made the old man pay for my nursing school. That allowed me to have a career, a good one, helping other people. His money paid off Granny’s house note, so you and I could have a safe place to live. Otherwise, I don’t know where we’d have ended up. I don’t have to tell you what a struggle it’s been for us all these years, because you’ve lived it. You went out and got a job at the doughnut shop when you were only fifteen, drove the same kind of crappy cars I always drove. But now, if you want, you can pay off those school loans. You can go back to college, any college you want, and not worry about being buried under crippling debt.”
Livvy was shaking her head with that oh-so-familiar stubborn set to her jaw.
“I know you claim to like that dorm you’re living in,” Shannon went on. “But maybe you could buy a house of your own. Think of it, Liv.”
Her daughter’s eyes widened. “You really think it might be that much money? For real?”
“Probably. And the big thing—the most important thing? People—and it’s mostly the ones who’ve never had any—they say money can’t buy happiness. But you know what it can buy? Choices.The choice to be who and what you want. And maybe, if it’s as much money as I think it will be, you can help out other people, and make a difference in their lives too.”
Livvy did a little golf clap. “Nice speech, Mom. Did you practice that on the way over here?”
“Repeatedly. Will you think about it, please? Mr. Plankenhorn wants to have a meeting with you and Traci.”
“Mrs. E? Why?”
“Because whatever happens with the old man’s will directly affects her and the Saint. She’s going to need you to be on her side.”
“Areyouon her side? I thought you guys were frenemies.”
Shannon winced. “That was all on me. I’ve wasted half my life hating Traci for something she had nothing to do with. Another thing the old man took from me. My best friend. But we’re good now.”
Livvy tilted her head, and in the afternoon light, Shannon thought she saw a little of herself at that age. Stubborn, willful, and hopefully, brave.
She reached out her arms, and this time, Livvy allowed herself to be embraced.
CHAPTER 61
Livvy drove up to the Saint, parked in the employee lot, then walked into the lobby. She stood and stared at the portrait of Fred Eddings. His expression was haughty, imperious. She might have the old man’s DNA, but that was the extent of the resemblance.
When she got back to the dorm, she opened her laptop and did a deep dive into her new “family” background.
She found aFortunemagazine story that talked about how the old man’s father, F. A. Eddings, had moved south from Philadelphia to open a paper bag plant in Bonaventure more than a hundred years earlier, and then bought an undeveloped eight-mile-long island of pine trees and palmettos, and then built a luxury hotel and resort named after his youngest daughter, Cecelia.
“So that’s where the name came from,” she mused, as the realization slowly settled over her that Cecelia Eddings would be her great-great-aunt.
According to the six-year-old magazine article, the Eddings family’s Georgia real estate holdings at the time were worth an estimated thirty million dollars.
“Thirty million?” she breathed. It didn’t seem real.
When she emerged from her room, Garrett was in his usual position—sprawled across the sofa in the lounge area, wearing his headset and playingCall of Duty.
She gave him a curt nod, then went back into her room to fetch her basket of dirty clothes. In the laundry room, she dumped the clothes in the washer, tossed in a detergent pod, shut the door, and started it. When she turned around, Garrett was standing nearby, leaning against the kitchen counter, drinking from a carton of milk.
“Can you not do that?” she said sharply. “Use a glass like a normal person.”
“Why? It’s my milk, and I don’t feel like having to wash a glass.”
“Like you’ve ever washed a glass in your life,” Livvy muttered. She reached around him, got a liter bottle of her favorite Diet Dr Pepper from the bottom shelf, and poured some into a glass, placing the half-full bottle back into the fridge.
“So,” Garrett said. “Heard you been talking to Chelsea about me.”
A cold prickle ran down her spine.How the fuck????
“We ran into each other in town,” Livvy said.
