all my money. I got the land when Jake Wilkes’s old tax debt finally caught up with him. A man doesn’t think he has to pay taxes and then makes up all kinds of stories about how he paid it. Well, why can’t he produce proof, I say?”
“Brandon said there were other—”
“You listening to that Brandon Wilkes? You believe that lug of a deputy over me? Your own flesh and blood?” he thundered, his face turning purple.
Penelope held up a hand. “Whoa, calm down, Grandpa. Of course I believe you. I wanted to be sure, that’s all.”
She could see a storm of emotions swirl over him, but finally his expression settled into an uneasy calm. “Yeah. Yeah. That Brandon can spin a sad tale, that’s for damn sure. I can see why you felt the need to ask, although, I can’t lie. It cuts that you doubted me, your own grandfather.”
“I’m sorry, Grandpa. I meant…I wasn’t questioning…well, I guess I was, wasn’t I?” Penelope chuckled, but that didn’t ease the tension.
“It’s okay, Penelope. I understand. But listen, about your money problems.”
The abrupt shift in topic confused her for a moment. “That’s okay, Grandpa, I’ll figure—”
“No, no. I want to hook you up with some people, some folks who will give you good money for your land. They’ve been after it for a while. Before the banks started calling in their notes, I was about to sell the land you’ve got now to these people.”
“If they wanted the land, why didn’t they bid against me at the auction?”
“Didn’t know about it. It all happened so fast. Penny-girl, I hope you never have to see all you worked for being bid off on the auction block. It’s a horrible thing.”
She wrapped her fingers around his again and squeezed. The twist of his lips reminded her of Brandon’s when he’d tried to explain his uncle’s loss. “I feel really awful, Grandpa, that I managed to profit off your misfortune.”
He pulled his hand from hers and pressed his fingertips to his eyes. “Well, if I had to lose it all, I’m glad some of it went to you. That’s why I told you. You’re family, Penny-girl, and I knew you’d want to help out. I knew you wouldn’t want to see everything I’d worked for gone.”
“I do want to help.” Penelope dropped her gaze from him and busied herself with straightening her grandfather’s bottles of medicine in the center of the kitchen table. Did he have to take so much?
“Then talk to these people. They have this solid-waste facility company, based out of Florida. They do all this gee-whiz stuff to garbage and recycle it, all with robots and stuff. Hardly a human hand touches it.”
“Solid waste?” Penelope set down the bottle in her hand. “Oh, Grandpa, I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like—”
“It’s all real, what do you call it? Green? Keeps it out of landfills and stuff. I figured that’d be right up your alley, Penny-girl, as big on the environment as you are. And these guys are so hot for it that they’re willing to pay three times the market value. Why do you think I didn’t tell ’em about the auction? I figured you and me, we could sell it together.” He leaned forward in his chair, his face alight with excitement. “And then…well, no lie, Penny, I need every dime I can get for those vultures I call lawyers. I can’t face going to jail. You said you wanted to help me.”
Penelope struggled for the words to tell him no without hurting him. Solid waste? A company that, from the sound of it, used hardly any employees?
“Don’t say no. If you can’t say yes right now, say you’ll think about it, okay? Don’t say no,” Grandpa Murphy urged her. “Just think about it. There’s no rush. No rush at all.”
“I offered to sell to Brandon,” she confessed.
Again he let loose a foul expletive. With visible effort, he reined his temper back in. “He can’t beat this deal, Penny-girl. And remember, you can’t trust him. Not one whit. He’s the reason I’m in this mess to begin with.”
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