Page 15 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
This was progress. At least he was reading the letters. Maybe I wouldn’t have to persuade him to take the money. Maybe whatever Ben had put in his letter would do the convincing.
I drained my wineglass and set it on the railing, focusing on the brilliant colors of the horizon until Jess cleared his throat behind me.
“I’ll take the check.”
“Okay. Great,” I breathed, my frame relaxing.
I wrote the check, which he shoved in his back jeans pocket along with his letter, and turned back to the sunset. He left without another word.
I didn’t watch him go. I didn’t want to give Jess Cleary any more of my time. I’d done what Ben needed me to do and now Jess had his money. And I wouldn’t ever have to deal with the sheriff again.
Relieved to have the encounter behind me, I watched the sun set, wondering if Ben had ever done the same.
I smiled. He’d probably spent many nights in this very spot. It made me feel good to have that connection to Ben. A bond we would always have through his farmhouse.
Jess
As I drove home, all I could think about was the letter in my back pocket.
Take the money, Brick. Don’t make Gigi fight you on it. She’ll do it and won’t stop because I asked her not to. She’s a damn stubborn woman.
Proud to have known you, kid. Grew into a good man.
Look after my girls. Let them look after you. You won’t regret it.
Ben
Over the years, Ben had made it a point to call me about once a month. We wouldn’t talk for long and the conversations were never serious. Mostly just checking in and Ben asking if I needed money for any of the work I was doing on the farmhouse. Something I’d always refused.
I would have done just about anything for Ben Coppersmith. Keeping up the farmhouse was the least I could do to repay the kindness he had shown me when I was a kid. And after nineteen years, that farmhouse felt more like my home than the house where I actually lived.
If I needed to unwind or get some perspective, that’s where I went.
Three years ago, I’d noticed a change in Ben’s monthly phone calls. He’d started to share things about his life rather than just asking me about mine. And all that Ben had to share was about Georgia Ellars and her daughter. I didn’t know much about her. Ben didn’t share her past. But he’d tell me little things. What Gigi had made for dinner the night before. What Rowen had said that made him bust a gut laughing.
I was happy for Ben. That he wasn’t alone all the way out there in Washington.
I liked it up until the day Ben called me six months ago and asked me to make sure the farmhouse was in good enough shape for Gigi to live there.
Gigi had just been out for Ben’s money. His property. She was tricking an old man out of his possessions.
I kept my opinions to myself though, hoping that Ben would never see her true colors. That he could live his final years thinking she was the daughter he’d never had. Ben had endured enough sadness. He’d deserved a few years of happiness in his old age.
Even if it had all been a show from a greedy, gold-digging woman.
Ben had been getting up there in years, and every day I had checked the Spokane obituaries. The day I found out he died, I drank an entire bottle of Crown and passed out in the swing at the farmhouse.
Then I’d watched and waited.
With Ben gone, I had known that woman would soon come to claim what wasn’t hers.
And like usual, I’d been right.
It had only taken her two weeks to start making phone calls throughout Prescott, arranging for her upcoming move. Two weeks after that, she’d pulled into town.
I knew she had spent last week moving into the farmhouse. I knew this was her first week at the hospital. There wasn’t much that happened in Prescott that the sheriff wasn’t aware of.
But what I hadn’t known was that sitting on a stool in the ER, cleaning Milo’s hand, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever lay eyes on.
