Page 2 of That Reilly Boy
She sniffs. “We don’t like to talk about it.”
There has to be more to it than which grandmother brought better homemade pickles to be judged at the fair. I’m on the verge of asking my mom if she even knows the story, but my phone rings. It’s Brenda Eccleston, whose Irish setter is supposed to walk through the door of my shop in about eighteen minutes.
“Cara, we’re running a few minutes late. Peaches is in a mood and she buried her collar in the new garden. And yes, I know June is late to be putting in a garden, but I just got the urge. Anyway, as soon as David finds it, we’ll be on our way. The entire patch was just turned over, though, so it might take him a few minutes to find the freshly dug spot.”
“I’ll be there whenever you get there, Mrs. Eccleston. Thanks for letting me know.”
As I slide my phone back into my pocket, my mom wrinkles her nose. “I’ll never understand why you insist on grooming animals instead of cutting hair for the ladies in town, who certainly smell better.”
“Because those ladies never stop talking, and I like animals more than I like people.” Also, people smelling better isn’t necessarily a given, but I keep that thought to myself.
I also don’t point out that Sumac Falls didn’t have a groomer before I opened Pampered Pets Grooming, but if you add up the barber shops, salons and the stylists who work out of their homes, I think there’s a chair for every roughly two and a half residents in this town. I don’t know how they all stay in business, but I knew I couldn’t afford to scrounge for customers in an oversaturated market.
Mostly I’m in it for the dogs, though. With the exception of Mrs. Brophy’s Chihuahua, they never judge me.
“We need to consider his offer,” I tell my mother, bringing the subject back to Hayden.
“No.” She scrubs harder, and I feel bad for the speckled countertop that needed to be updated before I was born. “This house has been in the Gamble family since the day it was built. I made a promise to your father, and I’m not going to be the one who loses it.”
No, that’s going to be me. My sister, Georgia, is two years older than me, and she managed to get away before I was old enough to beat her to it. And as much as Mom likes to go on about the Gamble family, it’s down to just us. My mother, Georgia and me.
Oh, and my Aunt Tess. She’s my paternal great-aunt, and she’s never been okay with the house passing from her father to her older brother to my father while her inheritance consisted of an ugly broach and a fancy dinner setting for twelve. She won’t contribute to the upkeep of the house—not that I blame her since it’s not hers—but she never misses an opportunity to remind me of my legacy.
That’s a weighty word for a money pit of a house. And honestly, there’s more value in the ten dollar bill she still sends me in a birthday card every year than in “the Gamble legacy.”
The bottom line is that if I leave, my mother will be alone. And despite what Georgia says, I don’t think me walking away would give Gin the kick in the pants she needs to move on from this house. I think she’d stay, and then she and the house would deteriorate together. And no matter how many Instagram posts I see urging me to set boundaries and live my life, I can’t do it.
She’s my mother. I’ve already lost my father, so she’s the only parent I’ve got.
But I can tell by the set of her mouth and the way she’s intensely focused on an imaginary stain on the counter that the conversation is over.
For now.
I’ll give her some time to stew about it, but we’re going to talk about that offer again. And again and again, until I get her to at least consider hearing him out.
We scrape by okay—most months—but selling the house sure would relieve some of the pressure.
Even if we sell it to Hayden Reilly.
Chapter Two
Hayden
“There’s no way Gin Gamble is going to sell you that house.”
My younger brother isn’t usually a pessimist. “Have you seen that house, Aaron? If she doesn’t sell it, it’s going to fall down around her.”
“I’m not saying she won’t sell. But she sure as shit ain’t going to sell it to you.”
“Bet me.”
The familiar challenge from our childhood makes him smile. “Too easy. There’s no chance.”
He’s wrong. Gin will sell it to me because buying that house is the only reason I’m back in Sumac Falls, and I don’t fail. If her baseless hatred for my family is stronger than her need for the money I’m prepared to offer her, I’ll find another way to get it.
Sure, I could have paid somebody to conduct this business for me, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying. This is personal and I’m ready to get my hands dirty because I made a promise to myself when I was eighteen, and it’s time to keep it.
One way or another, the Gamble house is going to become the Reilly house.
