Page 21 of Sunset Tides
“Why don’t you see where it goes?”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Fine. But I’m not going to get all wrapped up in it again and miss out on everything important.”
Lillian stared at her and nodded slowly. “Okay. No one is asking you to.”
After catching up with Lillian and a night of decent sleep, Lucy had the strength to face Fiona in the morning.
What she lacked in enthusiasm Fiona more than made up for.
“I can’t believe they went for it!” Fiona said, pacing the length of the trailer.
“For bankruptcy?” Lucy nodded. “It’s the easy way out.”
“It is, and we found a way for us to keep the land, so all we need to get back at auction is our equipment. You know, from the distillery, the apple picker, the freezers…”
Lucy stared at the auction list in front of her. Who would want all this crap? “When is the auction?”
“Three weeks from now. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. Anyone could show up and outbid us.”
“Can’t we just buy new stuff?” Lucy asked.
“We’d need more than double the money you’ve raised to buy everything new.”
Lucy made a face. “Sheesh. Why is farming so expensive?”
Fiona laughed. “That’s the business. Are you sure you’re okay? You seem down.”
“I’m just a little tired. Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
“Good.” She paused. “I’m a little worried about Rob.”
“Oh?” A smile crept over Lucy’s face. “Was he upset?”
Fiona started to speak, then stopped herself.
“Tell me!” Lucy said, leaning forward.
“Well, no, not upset. He was very nice about it all. Which made me worried that his company might still plan to snap everything up. They could, you know. I never really understood what he wanted from us.”
“That’s a good point. He’s still dangerous.” Lucy drummed her fingers on the table before shooting up from her seat. “I’m going to find him. Do you know where his office is? I’ll get it out of him.”
“Do you really think he’ll tell you? I didn’t get the impression that the two of you got along.”
“I can beextremelycharming,” Lucy said. “Now hand over the address.”
Fiona didn’t protest, hiding her smile as she wrote the address down on a scrap of paper.
Lucy snapped it from her hand. “I’ll talk to you soon!”
She turned and walked through the door, speed-walking to her car. It turned out there was still some fun to be had.
Chapter Twelve
When Rob had rented a small second floor office on the island, he’d had no way of knowing how awful it would be. If he’d had the time to stop by and check it out in person, he would’ve noticed the flaws, but time was money and he had excess of neither.
Because of that, he was now subjected to the smell of fried fish from the next-door restaurant ten hours a day. He thought that would be the worst of it, but then the fitness studio directly beneath him resumed their classes after a winter break.
There was a high-energy spin class every day, complete with pulsing music and an instructor that yelled encouragements over a microphone. On top of that, the twice daily dance classes had a thirty-minute stretch where participants seemingly took turns kicking the walls and jumping into the ceiling.
