“Well, that’s dumb,” Drew said. “Why not cash out and donate it to the local school or somethin’?”
“He killed my mother. I don’t want to touch it.”
She rolled her eyes, but Willow said, “I totally get it. I think you’re doin’ the right thing. Let the state figure out what to do with it.”
“Me, too,” Maria said. “I mean, you could do somethin’ in your mom’s name, but…either way. You sound like your mind’s made up.”
“It is.”
“Then why’d you call the bonfire?” Trevor asked. Then he took another sip of his beer and stretched out his legs. “Not that I mind a bonfire.”
Beside him, Orrin sat quiet, observing them all. He never missed a thing, Drew’s brother. But he said very little.
“Because he saddled me with one item I can’t refuse. Manny’s Cantina,” he said.
Everyone exclaimed at once, and he pumped his hands for quiet. “I assumed it was some kind of loan shark deal, but turns out Manny sold him the place knowingly. He’s been able to keep all the profits all this time on the condition that he’d clear out and retire upon de Lorean’s death.”
“Well, what if Manny doesn’t want to retire?” Maria Michele blurted, rising from her chair with emotion.
Ethan said, “I tried to give it back to him, no strings. He said absolutely not. Especially after his heart attack. He’s ready to let it go, and his deal with my—with de Lorean left him with quite a retirement fund.”
Maria crooked one eyebrow. “Really?”
“The only other condition on Manny was that he use de Lorean’s bookkeeper. Which makes me wonder if there was money launderin’ going on. But we’ll be startin’ fresh, so it might not matter. I don’t want to stir up trouble for Manny if I don’t have to. Whatever was done, it’s over. Still, I have to look into it, make sure nothin’s going to come back on me later.”
There were several deep “ohs” and some heads nodding.
Maria sank back into her chair as if her legs had melted. “Well, shoot.” She looked heartbroken.
“I don’t know what I want to do about it,” Ethan said. “On the one hand, I don’t want anything from him, and I’ve had a feller name of Angus Silver, pesterin’ me about buyin’ it already. Must’ve stumbled onto the transfer of deed or something in the public records, I don’t know. He’s eager. I could flip it easy.” He shook his head slowly.
“Angus Silver’s a small-time criminal, cuz,” Willow said. And when Ethan sent her a surprised look, she went on. “It’s a familiar name to law enforcement. He’s tangled up with his older brother’s fentanyl smuggling enterprise, but is mostly a screw-up. Always causing problems big brother has to fix. Often caught, never convicted. You can’t sell it to him.”
“I didn’t know. I’d have checked though. I’d never sell it to anybody like that.” “It’s Manny’s place,” Maria said. “That makes it all but family-owned already.”
Her eyes held a plea for Ethan.
He sighed. “Manny said knowin’ it was goin’ to me would let him retire in peace.”
“It’s part of the fabric down here,” Willow said softly. And the others all nodded. “What the heck is Mad Bull’s Bend without Manny’s Cantina?”
Lily’s big brother Harrison looked around at all the faces, and said, “I don’t see the problem, then. Keep it. Run it.”
Maria put her hand over his. “That would mean givin’ up his career as a country singer,” she said.
Ethan nodded, too. “So, I don’t know. I thought you’d all have input. But Lily said I should ask you to be objective about it, you know, rather than emotional. I know you’d all prefer me to stay, but?—”
“We get it,” Orrin said, looking around with one eyebrow raised. “But that’s easier said than done, Cuz. We freakin’ miss you.”
Everyone murmured agreement, and they all got out of their chairs and surrounded Ethan. Everybody had a hand on him. He wondered whether Lily was among them. He couldn’t see her, the way the cousins had closed in.
Then she cleared her throat, from the direction of where she’d been sitting and apparently still was. “I don’t see why you think you have to choose,” she said.
The sea of cousins parted to reveal her sitting there, sipping beer from a long-neck brown bottle. She’d worn her hair down. It hung like a silvery cloud around her shoulders. The firelight caught and reflected in her blouse, somehow.
“You said you had some ideas,” he said.
“Yeah, later on those,” she said. “But why not take a short time off from the road, and focus on the cantina? Make it into whatever you want it to be. Use your name and celebrity status to have an amazing launch. Then hire somebody else to run it for you and go back on the road, if that’s what you still want.”
