In Her Keeping by Valerie Connors

Author:Valerie Connors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BelleBooks Inc.
Published: 2013-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

WHEN I HUNG UP the phone, my head was swimming. I was sure that in Jonathan’s mind, the whole “we’ll just get Sylvia to move somewhere else” idea made perfect sense. His world revolved around financial transactions, and that’s all this was to him. It never would have occurred to him that I liked my life the way it was, finally, and that I might not be willing to just hand it over in exchange for a more valuable piece of real estate.

I had to sort through this mess. It was bad enough, the trouble Mullins was trying to make for the sanctuary, but now Jonathan was in the middle of it, with plans to take away everything in the world that meant something to me. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to call Ethan, right away.

Two hours later my doorbell rang. Ethan handed me a bottle of Cabernet to go with the steaks I was going to prepare for our dinner.

“Thanks for coming Ethan. Everybody tucked in for the night?” I asked.

“All settled in, gates double checked, alarms set,” he replied.

I poured us each a glass of wine, and Ethan sat at the kitchen table while I cooked the steaks, tossed the salad and warmed up a loaf of crispy Italian bread.

“What’s going on Sylvia? You sounded upset on the phone.”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“I’ve got as much time as you need. Let’s have it.”

I told him about my conversation with Marilyn, and tried to make sense of the politics and who was doing what for whom. It was so convoluted. But what it boiled down to was nothing more than a pissing match between Bartholomew Black and Ethan. Mr. Black wasn’t in the habit of taking no for an answer, and when Ethan refused to sell the property to him, it was like drawing a line in the sand. Now it seemed that Mr. Black felt compelled to get his hands on the property one way or another, at any cost, just to have it his way. Only now he had upped the ante and wanted my property in the bargain.

“Okay, first of all, they can’t force either of us to give up our property,” he said.

“No, but they can make it very uncomfortable for us to stay. And I swear, I’ll burn this house to the ground before I’ll let Brooke have it.”

“Hmm,” Ethan said. “Sounds like some history I’m unfamiliar with. I know that Brooke is Jonathan’s new wife, so I understand why there might be tension between you, but there’s more to it than that. Want to tell me about it?”

I hadn’t told Ethan the miserable details of my recent past, but I decided that if there was going to be something between us, something romantic, he should probably understand some of my baggage while he still had a chance to make a run for it.

“I had a life planned. That life included a good husband and several children. It was supposed to be a perfect, shiny, happy life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.