Chapter One
“How much longer is this going to take?” Prescott Lee Buchanan said in a condescending tone, his fingers drumming on the conference table.
Georgie Buchanan knew that drumming all too well. She’d lived with it for her entire childhood.
“The attorney said we’re waiting on something,” she told her father.
“I don’t understand why we’re even here for the will reading,” Georgie’s baby sister, Adalia, moaned. “I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen Grandpa Buchanan. The last time was over a decade ago. He’s not going to leave us anything. I heard his brewery’s basically worthless.”
Georgie’s brother, Lee, who was the middle child but always acted like he was the most important one, shot Adalia an irritated glare. “Unfortunately, Adalia, life isn’t a free-for-all. Sometimes there are duties and obligations, and they’re not always fun and games.”
Adalia slapped her ink-stained hand on the table and leaned forward. “I know you don’t think much of my life, Junior, but at least I’m not Dad’s puppet.”
“That will be enough, Adalia,” Prescott snapped. Then he turned to Lee. “Junior, go and see what’s taking so long.”
Irritation flickered in Lee’s eyes. Georgie knew how much he hated to be called Junior, and if he jumped up to do their father’s bidding, he’d be proving Adalia’s point.
Lee’s girlfriend, Victoria, stood with a grace that made Georgie feel like a backwoods hick, which was saying something since Georgie had created and built a company that she’d just sold for five million dollars. Of course, her father would argue that a company that sells feminine products was nothing to brag about.
Victoria gave Prescott a smile that suggested a comradery Georgie had never shared with her father. “I’ll get answers,” she said in a commanding tone that was probably reassuring to her clients but was grating on Georgie’s nerves. “Professional courtesy.”
The woman, a corporate attorney who was tall and skinny enough to be a supermodel, walked out of the room, her gray pencil skirt so tight Georgie wondered how she could walk at all.
“They have high-priced call girls here?” Adalia asked in a dry tone.
One of the men sitting at the opposite end of the table covered his mouth with his hand, but Georgie could tell he was trying to hide his laughter. He’d walked in after she was seated and she’d let her gaze linger on him for longer than was polite. Tall, dark, and handsome was definitely Georgie’s type, and it had been far too long since her last boyfriend. Still, the reading of her grandfather’s will hardly seemed like the place to pick up a guy.
“Have you no impulse control at all, Adalia?” Lee demanded, the veins in his neck bulging.
“There’s something to be said for saying how you feel instead of keeping it all bottled up inside,” Adalia said with a smirk. Then she glanced back at Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome and the people around him. “Am I right?”
There were a handful of people Georgie didn’t recognize at the table. A man wearing jeans and a button-down shirt who looked to be in his late fifties. A middle-aged Latina woman wearing a simple floral dress. The smirking man, who looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, wore a black suit that was obviously off the rack and not tailored like Prescott’s and Lee’s. The man who sat next to him was around the same age, dressed in khakis, a button-down shirt that still had creases that hadn’t quite been ironed out from the packaging, and a cheap black tie. He sat stoically in his chair, mostly watching her father but occasionally sneaking glances at her and her siblings. And in the center of them all, at the head of the table opposite Georgie’s father, sat the one non-Buchanan person Georgie recognized, an elderly woman with short, curly lavender hair, who had on a bright pink business suit that looked like it was straight from the 1980s, shoulder pads and all. Dottie Hendrickson was dressed just as colorfully as she had been when Georgie had met her a few weeks ago at her grandfather’s brewery.
When Georgie had asked the legal assistant about all the nonfamily newcomers who’d shown up for the reading of the will, the woman had said, “He bequeathed a few odds and ends to them.”
They’d all sat at the opposite end of the room, as if Prescott had sectioned off a kids’ table for them. Of course. Prescott was flanked by his three children in their finest black attire: Georgie and Adalia on one side—with an empty chair between Georgie and her father—and Lee and Victoria on the other, Lee glued to his father’s side, of course, and Victoria’s vacated seat next to him.
Of the Buchanan contingent, Georgie was the only one who’d seen Beau at all in recent years. She’d paid him a visit a few weeks ago, at his request. He’d called to congratulate her on the sale of her company, something her own father had still not done, and invited her to come to Asheville in the near future. Something in his voice had told her the visit should come sooner rather than later, and with no new project yet in the works, she’d made an impulsive decision (not her usual) and hopped on a plane. He hadn’t looked like the picture of health, but then again, he’d been in his late eighties. Still, she hadn’t expected him to die so quickly.
During her two-day visit, he’d taken her on a tour of Buchanan Brewery, the oldest brewery in Asheville, North Carolina, a city which had become a hotbed for beer brewing…and apparently left Buchanan Brewery in its dust. The equipment was old, some of the staff even older, including the woman currently holding court opposite Georgie’s father. Dottie was the tasting room manager.
Dottie smiled at Georgie now, her eyes twinkling as though she was privy to an amusing secret.
Georgie’s back stiffened. Wait. Was she?
She was about to say something to her father, but Victoria and an older man with salt-and-pepper hair—Georgie’s grandfather’s estate attorney—walked in arm in arm, smiling and laughing as though they’d been close for ages.
Georgie wanted to gag.
She’d been in the business world long enough to know a woman could get ahead either by flirting her way to the top or becoming a hard-ass who took no crap.
She’d gone the latter route.
So why did she still let her father and brother walk all over her?
Georgie didn’t have time to think about it because the attorney walked in with Victoria and escorted her to her leather chair, pulling it out for her to sit down.
“Thank you for your patience,” the man said as he moved to an empty seat in the middle, standing behind the chair. “For those of you who don’t know, I’m Henry Manning, Beau Buchanan’s attorney, and everyone present has been mentioned in the will. Again, thank you for your patience, but we had to be certain we had everything in order before we began.”
“I still don’t understand the need for all the pomp and circumstance,” Prescott grumbled. “Just hand us a copy of the will and be done with it.”
The attorney gave Prescott a tight smile. “These were the wishes of your father, Prescott. I am merely his instrument.”
The way he held Georgie’s father’s gaze suggested the two men had already made an acquaintance and it hadn’t gone well.