Page 23 of Love Bound

"Nice to meet you finally," says Glen Gilbert.

I have a hard time trusting people with two first names. There's a handsome guy with a tight cut and sheer fade, slightly graying, who’s sitting down in a leather chair opposite Gilbert's desk. His hands are folded in his lap and though he glances at me, his face is impassive. Gilbert gestures to the other chair, but I decide to stand.

"Dr. Johnson here understands you feel like you were cheated out of some land you thought came with the property," says Gilbert.

"Well, it did come with the property up until a month before the final sale." I turn to the man in the chair. "Dr. Johnson—"

He waves a hand and cuts me off, "Call me Geo," he says, speaking slowly. "That's Gee-O."

"Like the rock. You know like a geode," Gilbert offers by way of explanation.

I stare at the ornate molding running along the edges of the tin ceiling and feel like I'm in a time warp.

What the fuck?

"Okay. Well, Geo, I want to buy that land, but the person you sold it to for a buck or whatever that was, won’t sell," I tell him.

Geo rises out of his chair and stands eye-to-eye with me—no easy feat as I'm six-two. His suit is pressed and his tie gleams; I don’t feel appropriately dressed in my work boots and jeans.

"Let me show you something," he says and pulls out his wallet. His dark hands thumb through a few hazy plastic photo holders before he pulls one out.

It’s a cropped Polaroid of a family sitting on the front porch of The Inn. A pretty good-looking family, handsome father, willowy blond mother, three raven haired little girls, and a fourth tousled blonde one.

"That's Claire," he says, tapping the blonde little girl with her arm around her father's neck. "Her family owned The Inn. Those girls grew up running it. Except for Claire. She worked with her dad in the clinic."

Realization is dawning. "And he was a veterinarian."

"You win, my man."

For the first time, my frustration, my inability to understand what’s going on, ebbs. He sits back down, and I ease myself into the other leather chair. "So that's why she won’t sell," I say.

"When Claire was nineteen, I became their legal guardian."

"How did you know them?" I ask.

"You mean, what was a black guy like me doing in a place like this?" He pauses and glances at Gilbert. "I'll make this short. My great-granddaddy worked as a whaling captain out of Gloucester and we never left. I met Tony Russo in vet school at Cornell. He and Maggie were already married, and Chloe and Claire were just bitty little things. We graduated from vet school and became partners. And when they died, I became the kids' guardian."

"Wait. They died? They're dead?" I ask.

Geo winced. "Car accident. Claire was nineteen."

Suddenly, little pieces of some puzzle I didn’t even know existed begin to snap into place. There’s nothing to say. But this changes some things that’ll have to be reconfigured. I can’t possibly take their birthright away. I mean, I guess I already have by buying The Inn, but the land is hers. Theirs.

Gilbert clears his throat and coughs a little. "I explained to Dr. Johnson, though compelling, this wouldn't change your mind, and we'd move forward."

Gilbert's a drip.

Geo continues. "We all tried to keep The Inn going, but I had my hands full. Those girls—Jesus, what a handful. We mostly lived upstairs in the clinic and tried to get local women to help out at The Inn, but God almighty, that place is a piece of work to run." He wipes his forehead with his hand. "Every spring, Claire or Devon would turn on the water and we'd all just hold still, waiting to see if we heard running water anywhere."

"So, you let it go," I guess.

"Well, I held on to it as long as I could. When Claire graduated from Tufts and came back to practice, I left for Portland. This area isn't what it was in terms of work."

"So, should we go over the paperwork I've drawn up?" Gilbert asks, and I want to slap him. The guy has the instincts of a rock.

"No," I say. "No."

"But what about the park you wanted to develop for your wife and—"