Nora Roberts - A Will And A Way

“Hogwash.” Monroe puffed on his cigar and glared at everyone. “Hogwash,” he repeated while Patience patted his arm and chirped ineffectually.

“Uncle Jolley liked hogwash,” Pandora said as she balled her tissue. She was ready to face them down, almost hoped she’d have to. It would take her mind off her grief. “If he wanted to leave his money to the Society for the Prevention of Stupidity, it was his right.”

“Easily said, my dear.” Biff polished his nails on his lapel. The gold band of his watch caught a bit of the sun and gleamed. “Perhaps the old lunatic left you a ball of twine so you can string more beads.”

“You haven’t got the matches yet, old boy.” Michael spoke lazily from his corner, but every eye turned his way. “Careful what you light.”

“Let him read, why don’t you?” Ginger piped up, quite pleased with her bequest. Marie Antoinette, she mused. Just imagine.

“The last two bequests are joint,” Fitzhugh began before there could be another interruption. “And, a bit unorthodox.”

“The entire document’s unorthodox,” Carlson tossed out, then harrumphed. Several heads nodded in agreement.

Pandora remembered why she always avoided family gatherings. They bored her to death. Quite deliberately, she waved a hand in front of her mouth and yawned. “Could we have the rest, Mr. Fitzhugh, before my family embarrasses themselves any further?”

She thought, but couldn’t be sure, that she saw a quick light of approval in the fusty attorney’s eyes. “Mr. McVie wrote this portion in his own words.” He paused a moment, either for effect or courage. “To Pandora McVie and Michael Donahue,” Fitzhugh read. “The two members of my family who have given me the most pleasure with their outlook on life, their enjoyment of an old man and old jokes, I leave the rest of my estate, in entirety, all accounts, all business interests, all stocks, bonds and trusts, all real and personal property, with all affection. Share and share alike.”

Pandora didn’t hear the half-dozen objections that sprang out. She rose, stunned and infuriated. “I can’t take his money.” Towering over the family who sat around her, she strode straight up to Fitzhugh. The lawyer, who’d anticipated attacks from other areas, braced for the unexpected. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it. It’d just clutter up my life.” She waved a hand at the papers on the desk as if they were a minor annoyance. “He should’ve asked me first.”

“Miss McVie…”

Before the lawyer could speak again, she whirled on Michael. “You can have it all. You’d know what to do with it, after all. Buy a hotel in New York, a condo in L.A., a club in Chicago and a plane to fly you back and forth, I don’t care.”

Deadly calm, Michael slipped his hands in his pockets. “I appreciate the offer, cousin. Before you pull the trigger, why don’t we wait until Mr. Fitzhugh finishes before you embarrass yourself any further?”

She stared at him a moment, nearly nose to nose with him in heels. Then, because she’d been taught to do so at an early age, she took a deep breath and waited for her temper to ebb. “I don’t want his money.”

“You’ve made your point.” He lifted a brow in the cynical, half-amused way that always infuriated her. “You’re fascinating the relatives by the little show you’re putting on.”

Nothing could have made her find control quicker. She angled her chin at him, hissed once, then subsided. “All right then.” She turned and stood her ground. “I apologize for the interruption. Please finish reading, Mr. Fitzhugh.”

The lawyer gave himself a moment by taking off his glasses and polishing them on a big white handkerchief. He’d known when Jolley had made the will the day would come when he’d be forced to face an enraged family. He’d argued with his client about it, cajoled, reasoned, pointed out the absurdities. Then he’d drawn up the will and closed the loopholes.

“I leave all of this,” he continued, “the money, which is a small thing, the stocks and bonds, which are necessary but boring, the business interests, which are interesting weights around the neck. And my home and all in it, which is everything important to me, the memories made there, to Pandora and Michael because they understood and cared. I leave this to them, though it may annoy them, because there is no one else in my family I can leave what is important to me. What was mine is Pandora and Michael’s now, because I know they’ll keep me alive. I ask only one thing of each of them in return.”

Michael’s grip relaxed, and he nearly smiled again. “Here comes the kicker,” he murmured.

“Beginning no more than a week after the reading of this document, Pandora and Michael will move into my home in the Catskills, known as Jolley’s Folley. They will live there together for a period of six months, neither one spending more than two nights in succession under another roof. After this six-month period, the estate reverts to them, entirely and without encumbrance, share and share alike.

“If one does not agree with this provision, or breaks the terms of this provision within the six-month period, the estate, in its entirety will be given over to all my surviving heirs and the Institute for the Study of Carnivorous Plants in joint shares.

“You have my blessing, children. Don’t let an old, dead man down.”

For a full thirty seconds there was silence. Taking advantage of it, Fitzhugh began straightening his papers.

“The old bastard,” Michael murmured. Pandora would’ve taken offense if she hadn’t agreed so completely. Because he judged the temperature in the room to be on the rise, Michael pulled Pandora out, down the hall and into one of the funny little parlors that could be found throughout the house. Just before he closed the door, the first explosion in the library erupted.

Pandora drew out a fresh tissue, sneezed into it, then plopped down on the arm of a chair. She was too flabbergasted and worn-out to be amused. “Well, what now?”

Michael reached for a cigarette before he remembered he’d quit. “Now we have to make a couple of decisions.”

Pandora gave him one of the long lingering stares she’d learned made most men stutter. Michael merely sat across from her and stared back. “I meant what I said. I don’t want his money. By the time it’s divided up and the taxes dealt with, it’s close to fifty million apiece. Fifty million,” she repeated, rolling her eyes. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Jolley always thought so,” Michael said, and watched the grief come and go in her eyes.

“He only had it to play with. The trouble was, every time he played, he made more.” Unable to sit, Pandora paced to the window. “Michael, I’d suffocate with that much money.”

“Cash isn’t as heavy as you think.”

With something close to a sneer, she turned and sat on the window ledge. “You don’t object to fifty million or so after taxes I take it.”

He’d have loved to have wiped that look off her face. “I haven’t your fine disregard for money, Pandora, probably because I was raised with the illusion of it rather than the reality.”

She shrugged, knowing his parents existed, and always had, mainly on credit and connections. “So, take it all then.”

Michael picked up a little blue glass egg and tossed it from palm to palm. It was cool and smooth and worth several thousand. “That’s not what Jolley wanted.”

With a sniff, she snatched the egg from his hand. “He wanted us to get married and live happily ever after. I’d like to humor him….” She tossed the egg back again. “But I’m not that much of a martyr. Besides, aren’t you engaged to some little blond dancer?”

He set the egg down before he could heave it at her. “For someone who turns their pampered nose up at television, you don’t have the same intellectual snobbery about gossip rags.”