Honey Pie (Cupcake Club) - By Donna Kauffman Page 0,60

not, I’d be responsible for that debt, too.”

“At least everything was handled properly. But wouldn’t your aunt have known then that her property wasn’t available for occupancy when she left it to you?”

Honey sighed. “To be honest, I’m not sure what her thoughts were or how sound. That she kept so much from me, which was really uncharacteristic of her, has me wondering just what her state of mind was. I think the stroke did more damage than she knew. It was certainly more than she allowed me to know.”

“You were in contact with her?”

“Oh, all the time. I wanted to come out here, spend time with her, help after the stroke, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She knew that flying would have been a nightmare for me, putting myself on a plane with so many people.” Honey still shivered a little just imagining the horror show that would have been. “She led me to believe she was doing really well, that with physical therapy she’d recovered most of her abilities, and was doing far better than expected. I should have known when she wouldn’t Skype with me that something more was up.”

“Wouldn’t . . . what?”

Honey laughed. “We used to chat via our computer monitors so we could see each other while we talked. It was as close to being together as we could get. Only she stopped doing that after her stroke. She told me it was because it had left her face droopy from muscle loss on one side, and she didn’t want to worry me. Normally, she’d have just made a joke about it and we’d have dealt with it, but . . . I was trying to be sensitive and, given how scary the whole thing was, who knew, maybe it did really bother her.”

Honey lifted a shoulder, then sighed. “That’s how she got away with moving to the senior care facility without me knowing, and putting her shop up for lease. Of course, when she wrote her will, I’m sure she didn’t think she’d be gone so soon. I spoke with the care facility today, too. They said she’d been doing much, much better and was in good health, just limited by the recovery far more than she’d let on to me, but needed continued assistance. The aneurysm . . .” Honey trailed off, closed her eyes for a moment, willed the threat of tears back, then continued. “She probably hadn’t thought that far ahead about the shop. She should have lived for a much longer time, so maybe she just hadn’t finished putting her plans into place.”

“You knew she wanted the shop for you?”

Honey nodded. “She left me a letter with her will, but it was written before the stroke. She hadn’t updated her will, either.”

“So, it was written assuming she’d be living there and operating the business up until the time she passed it on to you?”

“Yes—which is exactly what I thought had happened. Her lawyers didn’t advise me differently because they didn’t know, either. Bea never planned on retiring. She loved her work, loved her customers, who were also her friends. Her business was what gave her purpose and kept her engaged with life. I had no doubts that she’d gotten back to it so quickly after her stroke. That was exactly what would have motivated her to get better.”

“You weren’t surprised she left the business to you, then? Even though she discouraged you from coming to see her?”

“Oh, she’d urged me to move here over the years, but I wouldn’t even consider it. I told myself I was happy, successful—which I was, as much as I could be—so why mess with that? It was a lot more than some people had. It was only after I read her letter that I”—she paused again and swallowed hard—“really took stock and allowed myself to admit what I’d buried for so long, which was that I wanted a chance at a more normal life. I simply hadn’t had the courage to reach for it. Bea leaving me her shop space and her apartment was . . . I don’t know, like a sign. Or certainly a tantalizing prospect. One, in the end, I couldn’t ignore.”

“Just because it’s not panning out as you’d thought it would doesn’t mean it can’t work.”

“When the lease is up and they renew—and I’m assuming they will, given the popularity of the cupcake shop and Lani and Baxter—then it will be income for me, but that’s years off.