Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
It wasn’t anger, hurt, revenge or anything like that.
They led their three minions into that mess, fully intending to harm Hutch in some way to best him, just for shits and grins.
That was it.
For shits and grins.
Obviously, both men had mental illnesses.
But that wasn’t for me to worry about.
Perhaps the therapists in prison could sort their crap.
Mr. Flannery’s fraudulent will was overturned, the one he’d commissioned under his own steam was reinstated, and Lacey Diever and her family took rightful possession of their land.
She was reportedly very happy about this, but the win was bittersweet, considering Enstrom, Buress and their men leveled a cabin that had been on that patch for over a hundred years, and they sold or discarded everything in it, including pictures, diaries and family heirlooms.
Nevertheless, the Flannery family had their land back. The feds had seized then cleared it of everything portable, namely the houses, equipment, ATVs and the shed, and they auctioned those off.
Lacey and her family razed the church and the fence, but kept the pole and cattle barns, pigsty and chicken coop because Lacey’s son and his wife were going to build on that land, and they wanted to raise animals there.
They also did a lot of replanting so they could grow back the trees that Enstrom’s crew had cleared.
So that, too, had a happy ending.
And there’d be decent neighbors for whoever rented Mrs. Matthews’s cabin next.
One thing did happen when the trials were on at the Fret County courthouse…
Harry got ahold of me.
He shared Paisley would be there to testify, and while she was, she wanted to meet me.
Since I didn’t want to ask her up to Stony Bluff (for obvious reasons), I asked Abigail and Brett if we could use her living room, and they agreed.
Paisley came in with her mom and dad. No old-fashioned nightdress, no Washington State zealots’ version of a Handmaid’s Tale gown. She was wearing a cute skirt, boots, sweater and makeup.
The first thing she did was hug me.
The next thing she did was whisper, “Thank you,” in my ear.
The last thing she did was start weeping softly.
I held on and joined her.
I really didn’t do much of anything.
But care.
Though I told her Hutch, Harry and Rus were the ones to thank, and she did that right then with Hutch being there with me. She’d already done her thing with Harry and Rus and the team.
We sat down and she told us she kept in touch with most of the other women.
There were ups and downs. Some were handling it better than others. Even if those who were handling it relatively well were getting on with things, there were dark times.
Just like life.
It would take a couple of years before we got the invitation to her wedding.
It was happening in Sonoma.
Doc, Ledger, Stormy and Jaeger looked after our dogs.
Because Hutch and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
And we didn’t.
Word from Orlando was, well…hilarious.
All my friends who had become acquaintance/friends with Bryce drifted away from him due to his constant bent to be so messy.
But God love my gal, Olivia.
She kept her ear to the ground.
Though, it wasn’t Olivia who called to tell me Tara was pregnant with her new hubby’s baby. It was Tara.
She sounded so happy on the phone, bright and free.
It was amazing.
Bryce, on the other hand, never ponged back to me, thankfully.
Instead, he married a woman who, six months in, went on a cruise with her girls, fucked the steel drum player in the ship’s band, came home, filed for divorce and moved to Curaçao.
Olivia said he was crushed.
That wasn’t what I was feeling.
Abigail and I had our girls’ day, during which we took Jill’s history tour.
I’d read the whole book, returned it to the library, and got my library card. But Jill’s tour—which cost twenty bucks, lasted two hours, and you walked a lot further than a mile—was fascinating.
She knew her stuff, and she was correct.
There was a ton of fascinating history in Misted Pines.
After the tour, Jill went with Abigail and I to Aromacobana for coffee and treats, and we all talked about how great an idea the museum would be. We then started planning how we could get the town council to agree.
We were going to start with petitions while Jill and Abigail drew up a plan to present to the council.
Money was money, and although Misted Pines thrived, it wasn’t like it was populated by billionaires (not that any of them paid much tax anyway), so it was a long shot the council could find enough tax dollars to build a museum.
But we were going to try.
And we had hope.
Getting Hutch’s permission, later, I invited Jill up to see the Tate kitchen.
She was suitably enthralled.
Not long later, she came home to find that leather chair she wanted in my shop outside her door with a big bow on it and a thank-you note from me (though, Hutch delivered it for me).