Free Sleeping ’til Sunrise by Mary Calmes Page A

Tallahassee.”
    “Really?”
    He nodded. “Yeah, my girl and I are expecting a baby in the fall.”
    “Oh.” Roark was overwhelmed. The smile and the shiver told me that. “I would love to come and see you—if I could—when the baby’s born or—”
    “Or you and your boyfriend,” Crosby said, leaning sideways to smile at me, “could come down before that and visit. Lizzie would love that.”
    “I would too,” he assured his sibling.
    “You shouldn’t have any of these people near your baby!” Mr. Hammond, whose first name I still didn’t know, railed at Crosby.
    “These people?” Takeo asked softly.
    But before Mr. Hammond could say something in my house that could never be unsaid, Roark lifted a hand to shut everyone up.
    “After you and Mom threw me out,” he began, releasing Crosby’s hand and facing his father and his other brother, “Gran was my sole support system, and even when she had her strokes, she still knew me up until the last one.”
    “We know all—”
    “But I didn’t remember until this morning when I cleared my head about everything that she’d put a proviso in her will.”
    “What are you—”
    “She wanted to donate either the house in Grosse Pointe or the winery in Midway, Kentucky, to the at-risk youth in those areas.”
    We were all silent, everyone.
    “Gran said that she couldn’t imagine me on the street, which was exactly where I would have been without her. So she promised me then, that when she passed she’d make sure one or the other was given to charity while the bulk of the estate would go into a trust fund that I alone would oversee.”
    “We know you’re the trustee, that’s what we’re fight—”
    “Oh, I see,” Dwyer said quickly, looking up at Roark while the rest of us focused on him. “Whichever place your father and mother and brothers wanted, they could keep, but the other is then immediately transferred to the estate that you’re responsible for and becomes yours to grant to whatever charity you see fit.”
    “Yes.”
    “No!” Mr. Hammond shouted.
    Dwyer stood up and faced Roark’s family. “Though I’m not a lawyer, sir, I am an actuary, and from a money standpoint, I can tell you that even if you try to contest the will, as Roark would receive no monetary compensation for the transferring of assets, it’s doubtful that the will would even go through probate. And as you stand to inherit property, thus benefitting financially yourself… well… you see what I’m saying.”
    “No, I don’t see.”
    “You and your family will be given whichever property you want, and the other is dispensed in the manner in which your mother—” Dwyer turned to Roark for confirmation, and my boyfriend nodded. “—wanted.”
    “This matter is between my son and––”
    “Mr. Hammond,” Dwyer continued, “the issue for you now is that the will grants you both the choice and assets. So because you’re not cut out in any way, the best thing for you to do is not contest the will, as then it’ll get tied up in probate and it could be years before anything happens.”
    “I—”
    “But in the meantime, everything’s frozen, right?” The third man, Roark’s other brother, finally chimed in with a question.
    “Listen.” Dwyer was ready to start over with his explanation.
    “That’s why we plan to have Roark removed as executor if he doesn’t relinquish both properties to the family,” Mr. Hammond insisted.
    Dwyer turned his attention from the brother back to the father. “Yes, but Roark can’t do that. As executor, he’s bound to the wishes of the deceased party, in this case your mother, and we’re all very sorry about that,” Dwyer said, glancing over at Roark and Crosby standing beside him. “She sounds like she was wonderful.”
    “She was delusional!” Mr. Hammond yelled.
    “All the best people are a little nuts, in my opinion,” Dwyer said with a grin. “So at this point, you have to ask yourself, do you want one of