Page 4 of Mending Fences
Today Candace sported an oversized black art-deco T-shirt and vibrant blue-and-violet hair, one of her favorite wigs. She turned to a gawking toddler and smiled. The child laughed and pointed. “Look! Clown!” His mother picked him up and moved to the other side of the room.
Candace turned back to Mandy. “So, what happened? ‘Fell at C Mansion. Meet at ER. DC is a jerk’ is hardly enough information.”
“I went to take a photo, and the—”
“Excuse me, Mandy Fowler?” A nurse parked a wheelchair in front of the two women. Mandy moved to the chair and jerked her head so Candace would follow.
“Is she family?” The nurse didn’t make any attempt to mask his skepticism.
“She’s my cousin.”Eighth, twice removed? Something close to that.
The nurse studied them both, no doubt comparing Mandy’s fair skin to Candace’s olive for a moment before signaling Candace to follow.
Mandy endured the nurse’s questions and having her vitals taken. She tried not to watch Candace’s reaction to the story she related of how she injured her foot.
The nurse looked up from the computer he was using. “You climbed a fence wearing a skirt?”
“Hence the rip.” Mandy toyed with the frayed edge of the ruined vintage ’90s broomstick skirt.
The nurse raised his brow and continued typing.
As soon as he left, Candace pounced. “You didn’t tell the nurse what startled you? DC? As in the famous, rich one whose grandfather owned the old mansion north of town?”
“Daniel Crawford came up behind me and accused me of trespassing.”
“TheDaniel Crawford? Is he as handsome as his photos?” Candace mock-fanned herself.
Didn’t matter how handsome he was. Those piercing-blue eyes could not overcome his rudeness. Mandy didn’t want to get into that now, so she shrugged.
Candace moved beside the gurney. “There has got to be more to the story than that.”
Why isn’t the doctor here yet?“Okay, how about he is the rudest, most bullheaded, most condescending, ungentlemanly person I have ever met. Grandma Mae would tan his hide if she could see him now.”
Candace’s penciled-in brows disappeared under her blue bangs.
Someone tapped on the door. A balding doctor stuck his head in. “Miss Fowler?”
“That’s me.” Anticipating his next question, Mandy rattled off her birth date like a prisoner in a French novel.
The doctor manipulated her foot one way, then another. “I don’t think it’s broken. Let’s double-check with some X-rays.”
An hour later she left the hospital with a large bandage on her elbow, a boot on her left foot, and a pair of crutches. Calcaneal fracture, fortunately a very small one, two to three weeks on crutches, and four to six in the boot. She headed toward her car, but Candace stopped her. “You can’t drive.”
“But I need to get my car home.” Mandy leaned on the crutches. Thanks to a shot of some painkiller, the name of which escaped her, her heel no longer throbbed, but she did feel extraordinarily tired.
Candace guided Mandy to her green Saturn. “I’ll come back with someone and get your car later. I can’t believe you drove yourself here. And I can’t believe he didn’t offer to help you. You are right. He is a jerk.”
Daniel scrolled through Mandy’s public profile. There were photos with friends and roommates and a link to a blog featuring some of her portfolio. Digital arts were her forte, but she wasn’t bad with a brush, either. Only a handful of selfies on another account. Most of the photos were of old buildings and architecture—evidence she’d told the truth about wanting to photograph the old place.
Shutting the browser, he got back to the reason he was here. What to do with the old mansion and nearly a square mile of land. Half of the land had been farmed in corn until the farmer he’d rented to had retired two years ago. The fifteen acres around the house had once been lovingly maintained. Now the roses and lilacs grew as wild as the forested areas his great-grandfather had set aside to be left in their natural state. The same great-grandfather stipulated the land could not be sold for one hundred years, the expiration date only weeks away, the anniversary date of some World War I battle he knew little about.
He flipped through the proposals. Although some were very lucrative, most of them would end up destroying the forested area. Only a couple of the proposals allowed him to subdivide the land. He hadn’t considered them seriously until he recalled the summer spent playing in the pond, climbing trees, and counting clouds. Maybe if he tore down the house, he would enjoy the land. He heard some of the Amish farmers to the northeast were looking for farms for their sons. He could sell off the old farmland to them. But he wasn’t sure how to even approach them with an offer. They wouldn’t want the house either, but they might dismantle it.
The third paragraph on the second page of one proposal stood out. Why were the mineral rights specified in such detail?
