Page 39 of Brewbies
Caryn stepped back a little, which made him acutely aware that he’d been gesturing more than normal. A man with his wingspan had to be careful.
“Oh, Ethan,” she said, her expression changing to either regret or squinting at the newly unveiled sun, he couldn’t tell. “You made so many different noises when you were young about what you wanted to do, and I knew you had the skills and smarts to do any of it. But, darling, you didn’t. You became the sheriff. You rented that workshop and an apartment on Taylor Street. I assumed you’d pivoted on your plans since your twenties.”
Because his father had a stroke, and Ethan came back from college to help, because the pressure to become an “influential Townsend” had begun in the womb, and because he could never in good conscience live off his trust in a post-Occupy Wall Street world, he’d dutifully joined the force. It was the only thing that’d appealed to him out of the civic positions he was all but gun-to-head coerced to pick from.
He’d never intended to abandon his dreams, but once old Sheriff Holt had died, his senior deputy, Dick Chambers, had immediately began campaigning.
And that guy was a gun-happy racist on a good day.
Then the years passed, like they do. And here Ethan was in his thirties, further from his ambitions than ever.
Unsure of how to respond, he shook his head, glancing back toward the secondhand shop with a world-weary sigh. “It doesn’t matter, Mom. I should probably get back to the botanical gardens before McGarvey gives up and goes back to the desert.”
Caryn’s arched brows dipped below the rims of her sunglasses as she scowled at him. “I know you don’t appreciate what I did, but the Townsend Building was your legacy. It bears your name,” she spat, gesturing across the street to Nevermore Bookstore’s lovely edifice. “I couldn’t let that stand.”
“No.” Ethan sliced the air with his hand. “You couldn’t stand that Dad gave it to Cady’s Aunt Fern while having an affair with her. And I don’t blame you for feeling that way, but taking it out on Cady was unacceptable.”
“I know it was,” Caryn said. “I know it was! I already apologized to Cady, and she was very gracious. More so than you, it must be said.” She lowered her sunglasses to spear him with a glare from the blue eyes she’d genetically gifted him.
“Yeah, well…that’s Cady.” They’d been perfect for each other. The town hero and the town sweetheart. It was like a fucking Hallmark movie. Hell, they already had the idyllic small-town setting.
Opening his mouth to reply, he spotted the Ravencroft Art Gallery across the way taping a Kiki Forrester sign in their window. “If I lose my job, it’s because of all the Nevermore bullshit, you know that, right? As much as you and Dad cared about legacy, you sure aren’t leaving me much to work with…”
The Caryn Townsend he knew would have sliced him in half with a scathing remark. This one only swallowed twice and said, “I know.”
That rocked him back on his heels a little.
“Then…why did you do it?”
“Because, as much as your grandfather was a dear, he’d never had to make money, and so he’d never learned to manage it. He passed that trait, along with a horrible sense of entitlement and devil-may-care attitude, to your father, who turned it into a gambling problem and apparently spent the rest of his fortune on mistresses.”
If Ethan felt bitter, his mother was a truck full of roasted hops.
“Wait.” He held a hand up as her words sank in properly. “Are you saying you sold Raven Creek because you needed money?”
She shifted nervously. “I’m saying it was either sell the Raven Creek property, or lose it due to the taxes your father hadn’t paid. The liens were already in place, and the lawyers said that selling was the safest thing to do for all involved.”
Taking in a deep breath, Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose.Of coursehis philandering father had fucked this all the way up one side and down the other. The Townsend Family lies were stacked as high and deep as bodies beneath Paris. That land had been the central component of his entire life plan, and his father had known it. “What’s done is done, Mom. All I can do is try to get the property back.”
“I can help—”
“Immediately, no.” He shook his head vehemently. It was her “help” that got them here in the first place. “You would do well to stay as far away from town politics and interested parties as possible for the time being.”
Caryn’s chin dipped toward Roy’s shop before she caught herself and checked the sidewalk for imperfections.
Ethan’s spider-sense was more of a zap than a tingle. “What were you doing, skulking around Roy’s shop?” He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “You two cooking up something new? Do I need to be worried?”
“I have never skulked in mylife,” she huffed. “You know I love the rhodys and came down to see them before the blooms disappeared for the last time.”
“Likely story,” he muttered.
It actually was. Because she did it every year.
Still. He wasn’t letting her off the hook. Crossing his arms over his chest, he demanded, “Tell me just exactly what’s going on here… The truth this time.”
NINE
Fair Trade
