The Hope Chest, page 2
April was a different matter. She was only four months younger than Nessa, but she looked ten years older. She’d always been tall and thin, but today her clothes hung on her like a burlap bag on a broomstick. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a ponytail, but a few strands had escaped to stick to the sweat on her narrow face, and her green eyes looked haunted as they darted around the restaurant. She finally managed a weak smile when she locked eyes with Flynn. He hadn’t seen her in at least ten years, and she’d definitely changed—a lot.
“Sorry I’m late. I got stuck in construction traffic around Wichita Falls.” Nessa pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.
“And I’m running on a prayer and four bald tires, so I didn’t dare go very fast.” April sighed as she slid into a chair beside Nessa.
“So this is it, Mr. Jones,” Nessa said. “Is Daddy still cussin’ you through his lawyer? He’s tried every way in the world to find a loophole to appeal this will.”
“Please, call me Paul. There are no loopholes. Miz Lucy O’Riley made sure of that when she had me draw it up,” he said, “and you ladies aren’t late. We’ve only been here a few minutes.” He adjusted his bifocals and focused on April. “You’re the youngest one of the grandchildren, right?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I’m April, born in that month. Nessa was born in January, and Flynn on the last day of February, so I’m just barely the youngest, and I’m pleased to meet you.” April’s eyes seemed to be glued to the last bite of pie on Paul’s plate.
“Do y’all want a cup of coffee or a fried pie?” Flynn asked. “I’m going to wait until we get done here before I order.”
“I’ll wait, but I am hungry. I skipped lunch so I wouldn’t be too late,” Nessa said.
“I’d like a sweet tea,” April said.
Flynn caught the waitress’s attention and ordered tea for April and refills for Paul and himself.
“Are we ready, then?” Paul handed each of them a folder. “This is a copy of her will. In simple language, it says that you three grandchildren inherit her entire estate to be held jointly, which is the two-bedroom house, her quilting shed, the four and a half acres that it sits on, and everything in the house. The property cannot be sold. She wanted it to always be there in case one of you needed a place to live or just wanted to use it for a vacation home. There is a quilt in the frame out in her work shed, and before any of you can leave, you have to hand-quilt it. She was adamant about that part of the will. It cannot be quilted on the sewing machine. If any of you fail to work together, then you forfeit your third to the other two.” He flipped through a few more papers. “There is a hope chest, also known as a cedar chest, that you will put the quilt in when it is completed. That hope chest is now in the care of Jackson Devereaux, her friend and nearest neighbor, and it will remain in his care until one of you gets married. The person who marries first inherits the chest. Jackson also has the key to the hope chest and will open it for you when the quilt is finished. You can see whatever is inside when you open it, and at that time, the contents will belong to you three grandchildren. She didn’t even tell me what’s in the chest, so it will be your surprise.”
“It’s probably some of her extra pillowcases,” Nessa said.
“Or maybe she kept all her money in there rather than burying it in quart jars out in the backyard.” Flynn chuckled. She had to have money hidden somewhere. She’d lived frugally and sold her quilts and quilt kits for a high price, so what had she done with the profits?
“What if we don’t give a damn about the hope chest or what’s in it?” April asked.
“That’s your choice, but I would advise you strongly to at least finish that quilt and find out what Lucy has left you. Now, the last thing we need to consider is her car. It is part of the estate and cannot be sold. The keys are on this ring with the house key.” He handed the ring to Nessa and then laid out a stack of papers with yellow, red, and blue tabs. “Each of you need to sign on every sheet. This is acknowledging that I have explained the terms of the will and that you are accepting them. April, you are yellow. Flynn, you are blue. And Vanessa, red.”
Nessa picked up the pen first and began flipping pages and signing on the appropriate lines. “What if none of us want to leave at the end of the quilting stuff?” She tucked an errant strand of curly red hair behind her ear as if focused on the document, but her steely blue eyes floated in tears.
Leave it to Nessa to ask that question. She’d always been Nanny Lucy’s favorite of the three, even when she rebelled against her father’s strict religion and did not marry the guy he had picked out for her. Nessa looked like Lucy and was the daughter of her favorite child.
“Then I suggest you learn to live together in harmony,” Paul answered as he pulled envelopes from his briefcase.
“Did she leave any money at all?” April asked as she took her turn with the pen.
That’s April, Flynn thought. When Nanny Lucy’s only daughter, Rachel, died just four days after April was born, Granny had taken her in and raised her, given her a home until she graduated from high school and moved to San Antonio to live with a group of her friends. She had been a pretty little girl with a round face and blonde hair, but from the looks of her now, life had not been too good to her.
“There’s a thousand-dollar check for each of you up front,” Paul informed them. “Beginning today, you will be responsible for the electric bill. I’ve taken care of having the bill put in Nessa’s name. Y’all can figure out how you want to split the payment. The propane tank is full, and the water comes straight from a well. I’m not sure what there is in the house in the way of food. She died quite suddenly, as you all know.” Paul passed the three envelopes around, one to each of them.
“On Christmas Day.” April wiped a tear from her cheek with the sleeve of her chambray shirt. “I didn’t even get to come to the funeral.”
“That’s on you.” Nessa glared at her. “I tried to get in touch with you.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” April said. “You’re not God. I lost my job, got kicked out of my apartment, and was living in my car with no phone. Not all of us—”
Nessa’s finger shot up so fast it was a blur. “Don’t start with that poor, poor, pitiful me crap. It’s not like I was royalty. I worked hard to get my teaching degree. I’ve taken care of myself since I was eighteen and Daddy cut me off. Granny raised you herself, so you had it better than me or Flynn, either one.”
“Yeah, right.” April folded her arms across her chest and turned to stare out the window.
“We don’t need to air our dirty laundry in public.” Flynn shot stern looks across the table.
“I think that concludes our business,” Paul interjected, “but maybe I will remind you, again, that on the second page of the will, it states that Jackson Devereaux, your next-door neighbor, not only has possession of the hope chest, but he also has the key that opens it. The Blossom Quilting Club will inspect your quilt when it is finished, and if they give you a passing grade on it, he will open the chest to add the quilt to whatever it holds. Then the chest itself will remain in his custody until one of you gets married.” Paul closed his briefcase. “My business card is attached to each of your copies of the will. If you have questions, feel free to call.”
“Thank you,” Flynn said. “We appreciate you meeting us here.”
“You are welcome.” He smiled and adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. “Blossom isn’t that far from Paris, and I’ll take any excuse to come to Weezy’s. I love their pies.” He picked up his briefcase and disappeared out the door.
“Well, you’ve each got a thousand dollars,” Flynn said. “Are y’all really serious about leaving or staying? I think I’ll stick around. My curiosity wants to know what’s in the hope chest.”
Besides, I need a place to see if I can become a better man, he thought as stared at the menu. I don’t like the person I am right now. I need some direction, and I hope coming back to Blossom will turn me around.
“I’m not going anywhere. I finished up the school year yesterday, and I don’t go back to Turkey, Texas, until the middle of August”—Nessa picked up a menu—“if I go back at all. I’m serious about that much anyway. I may look for a job in this area. It all depends on how things go around here.” She picked up the menu.
April shrugged. “I don’t have anyplace to go. I’ve been living out of my car again for the past week, and I’m broke. Flynn, are you looking forward to quilting?”
“No, I’m not.” Flynn said. “But I learned to do all kinds of things when I had to move in with Dad, so I can manage to thread a needle and sew on a button. Don’t worry about me. I’ll do my share, and I’m here for the summer, too. Let’s have something to eat before we go out to the house—I’m starving. It’s my treat today, but don’t expect it to happen very often.” He couldn’t bear to see anyone go hungry, not even his pesky cousins, who had driven him crazy when they had been teenagers.
“I’ll have a chicken-fried steak.” Nessa focused on Flynn. “Are you still buying?”
“Yes, I am.” Flynn flashed one of the smiles that had always drawn women to him like flies to a jar of honey. He had gotten his brown eyes and dark hair from his Latina mother, but he’d gotten his charm from his father, the girls’ uncle Matthew. His short height he could blame on Nanny Lucy, since she had been barely five feet tall.
All that oozing charm wasn’t necessarily a good thing because, when it came to women, the grass was always greener on the other side of the fence for both Uncle Matthew and Flynn O’Riley. Uncle Matthew was working on his fifth wife these days—Nessa’s brow wrinkled when she frowned—or was it his sixth? The way he changed wives, he would never live long enough to see a golden anniversary. Flynn had followed in his father’s footsteps and had flitted from one woman to another since he was fifteen. The only difference between the two O’Riley men was that Flynn had never married—or stayed with one woman long enough to form a relationship.
They were a far cry from Nessa’s father, Isaac, who had married his college sweetheart thirty-five years earlier and had pastored a huge all-faith church near Canyon, Texas, for the past twenty years. Nessa figured he never even glanced at the grass on the other side of the fence, and if he had, her mother, Cora, would have taken him straight to the cleaners. If religion could be measured on a scale of one to ten, Uncle Matthew would come in at a minus four, and her father and mother would each rack up a score of at least fifteen. Looking back, Nessa figured Uncle Matthew was proud of his only child, since he’d followed right in his footsteps, whereas her father probably had calluses on his knees from praying for his only child, who had rejected his faith and joined a more liberal church.
At that thought she glanced down at her knees. She’d spent plenty of hours herself kneeling beside her bed over not doing exactly what her parents thought she should. They’d tried to shove their religious views down her throat, and she’d rebelled by refusing to date any boy who went to their church. That meant sneaking around with bad boys—sometimes even meeting them at the church and going inside to make out in a Sunday-school room.
Nothing seemed to satisfy her. She couldn’t commit to a relationship—not in college or since she’d become a teacher. She had realized that something was missing in her life right after Nanny Lucy’s funeral, but nothing she tried seemed to satisfy the longing for change. When the court ruling finally came down and she and her two cousins owned their grandmother’s property, a peace had settled over her heart and soul. She was going back, at least for the summer, to the only place where she’d ever felt free and happy—to her perfect grandmother’s house.
“Y’all ready to order?” a waitress asked.
Her voice startled Nessa and jerked her right back from her woolgathering.
“I’d like the double meat cheeseburger, fries, a root beer, and a couple of those apricot fried pies,” Flynn said.
The waitress looked over at Nessa. “And for you?”
“Chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and white gravy, corn, and green beans, sweet tea, and a cherry pie, please,” Nessa said.
“I want the fish dinner and a slice of coconut pie,” April said before the waitress got finished writing. “And could we have an order of onion rings for an appetizer?”
“Next time, I won’t be so quick to offer to pay.” Flynn grinned.
“I haven’t eaten a real meal in two days,” April said. “I’ve been living on potted meat sandwiches and water, so thank you for the meal, Flynn, and thank you for calling me when you did to tell me about the will, Nessa. My phone service was cut off pretty much right after you made that call.”
“What happened to you?” Nessa asked.
“Bad choices, bad men, bad everything.” April shrugged. “I’m hoping that this move will give me a new start.”
“Me too,” Flynn said.
April cut her eyes across the table at Flynn. “You’ve had women falling all over themselves to get at you since you were a teenager. You’ve had a good job, and I figure one of those big dual-cab trucks out there belongs to you.” She pointed out the window. “So why do you need a new start?”
“That’s a conversation for another day, but yes, the black truck is mine,” Flynn answered. “I see the waitress coming this way with our onion rings.”
Like April, Nessa wondered what the mystery with her male cousin could be. Had he gotten hurt by some woman, or was he truly tired of being like his father?
“You’re Flynn O’Riley, right?” The woman set the plate of onion rings in the middle of the table, passed the drinks around, and then pointed to the name tag on her shirt. “Remember me? I’m Tilly Waters. I thought I recognized you, but I didn’t want to interrupt when you were talking to the lawyer. He comes in here pretty often for a slice of pie. Haven’t seen you since we were in junior high school, and you used to come to church with your grandmother. Where have you been keeping yourself?”
Nessa bit back a giggle. The women couldn’t keep their eyes and, probably, most of the time, their hands off her cousin, even when he had onions on his breath. She’d always heard that women liked tall, dark, and handsome men, but evidently they didn’t mind if he was on the short side if he had the dark-and-handsome bit down pat.
“I’ve moved around a lot,” Flynn answered. “Houston, Galveston, El Paso.”
“Well, I’m divorced and have two kids, but I’m always up for a good time,” Tilly said with a broad wink. “You can call me here from noon until closing, six days a week, or . . .”—she lowered her voice—“I’ll put my cell phone number on the back of your ticket.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Flynn picked up an onion ring.
“Your orders will be out in about five minutes.” Tilly rushed off to wait on another customer.
“You going to call her?” April whispered.
“Hell, no!” Flynn snapped.
“Have you gotten religion like Uncle Isaac?” April picked up an onion ring and bit into it.
“Hell, no, again,” Flynn said.
“Then what’s the matter with you? Did you fall into bed with one too many women, and now you’ve got something wrong?” April whispered. “Are you sick? Good Lord, Flynn, do you have a sex-related disease? You do still chase every skirt that passes by you, don’t you, or have you reformed?”
“I’m not sick, but I need to get away from women for a while,” Flynn growled. “And I’m not talking about why. I’m here for a few weeks, and then I’ll probably be on my way. I’m not interested in dating while I’m here.”
“Are you dying?” Nessa asked.
“I told you, I’m not sick,” Flynn said.
April leaned forward and eyed him closely. “But are you telling us the truth? You and Uncle Matthew have never been able to resist a pretty woman, so something is definitely wrong.”
“I also told you that I’m not talking about it,” Flynn said. “We have to do this job of quilting together. It’s a joint effort, like the one we have with the house. If I’m not there to buffer, y’all will argue more than you’ll work. And Nanny Lucy has raised my curiosity about that hope chest. Is that the thing that sat at the end of her bed?”
“Yes,” Nessa answered. “Grandpa had their neighbor make it for her for their first-anniversary present. I’ve always thought that was the sweetest thing.”
“D. J. Devereaux made it? I never knew that.” April grabbed the last onion ring.
“I remember him,” Flynn said. “He used to come to Thanksgiving dinner at Nanny Lucy’s. I only got to be there a couple of times after my mother died and I went to live with Dad, but before that, Mama and I went to Nanny Lucy’s almost every year for that holiday. According to Mama, Nanny Lucy had high hopes that my dad would settle down when he got married and had a son, and she was so disappointed when he didn’t that she washed her hands of him. But she was always nice to Mama even if she was an ex-daughter-in-law.”
“I liked Aunt Gabby,” Nessa said. “She was always sweet to me.”
“Me too.” April nodded. “Is this the Jackson that’s keeping the hope chest hostage? I wonder what the D stands for.”
“D. J. died a while back,” Flynn said. “Nanny was all broken up about it when I called her to wish her a happy birthday. She said his nephew Jackson had taken over the custom furniture business. I suppose that’s the person with the hope chest and the key to open it.”
Nessa remembered her grandmother talking about Jackson coming to live with D. J. about five years before. Since she was never there except for a couple of days in the summer, she’d never met the nephew—or was he a great-nephew?
