a fortune to run that road through there. The Pfeiffer property will save the state hundreds of thousands. If you won't cooperate, we'll have to proceed with the land condemnation."
Maya shrugged. "Aside from the cost of building a bridge over the flood zone, moving the school should make you real popular with the parents of my students. They like the school where it is. And the ladies of the Garden Club are planning a fall tour of the landscaping. They've been working hard at it. Apparently, Pfeiffer has some plants in there that date back to the settling of the colony. Come to think of it, the Historic Society might get interested. There aren't many sites like that left."
"It's just a damned piece of land!" Arnold exploded. "You can't deprive the public of their right of access or the heirs to their rightful inheritance. We'll take it to court. Axell will be damned sorry he let you get into this."
Probably, but Axell would be damned sorry about a lot of things, and the Pfeiffer property was the least of them. Maya shrugged. "Whatever. I'll give you a good price on the crystal ball."
"There's no point arguing with her," Katherine pointed out, taking the mayor's arm. "She'll be reading your cards next."
"Remember the Fool in yours?" Maya called out as they hurried toward the door. "Keep him in mind when you think of me!"
Katherine was too literal to catch the reference. As the pair hurried out, Maya sighed and stared at the unhappy dragon she'd just created. The cards played tricks with the mind, but she could tell she was the Fool in Katherine's woodpile. Even the Death card had been literal. Pfeiffer had been a relative of Katherine's, she remembered Axell saying.
August, 1946
I have taken my savings and purchased a lucrative rental property. I cannot tell Dolly of my child or use her money for the child's support. She does not know about the property. I have found a lawyer who will send the proceeds to Helen's cousins. I will pray they will raise my daughter to be stronger than I am.
Chapter 30
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
"Shit." Swinging his chair to face the window as he hung up the phone, Axell glanced out in time to see Katherine and Ralph Arnold scurrying from the building next door. He couldn't think of anything good coming from a conversation between Maya and the mayor.
He was probably better off letting Maya simmer in peace until she'd had time to cool off. But he'd held her naked in his arms just hours before and the memory of that closeness still warmed the long-empty hollows of his heart. He didn't want to lose the tentative ties they'd begun to form. If marriage was anything like a business, it had to be tended carefully. With that kind of rational outlook instead of a sentimental one, he should be able to make this marriage work.
Not knowing whether he'd meet the newly confrontational Maya or the fey one, Axell took the stairs two at a time. If nothing else, life with Maya would never be boring. He'd never realized he had such a strong streak of curiosity in him, or that it thrived on constant nourishment.
The sound system was ominously silent as he entered the shop. Belatedly, he realized Cleo was in charge now, but he'd seen Maya arrive earlier. The mayor wouldn't have gotten far with Cleo.
Fog still hid the sunshine this morning, and no one had turned on lights in the back of the shop. Axell smacked the switch and discovered Maya curled up in her wicker chair, cuddling a cooing Alexa in her arms. The empty chambers of his heart clanged hollow as he read her look.
"All right, what did the mayor have to say?" Axell asked in resignation as he took the other chair. He wished she would offer him a cup of tea. She still hadn't brought the damned cups back.
"I'll scratch my own back, thank you very much," she said coldly.
That should make no sense at all, but he'd learned to look past Maya's words to the convoluted path of her mind. He didn't have far to go for this one. "I never said that, and at the time the mayor suggested it, I had to get him and the alcohol board off my back," he reminded her. "I figured I could find you another property if I had to."
"I don't want another property." Stubbornly, she refused to look