CHAPTER 6
Reagan
As we entered my office, I couldn’t help but notice Cheyenne’s nerves. It wasn’t hard to read, they were radiating off of her. She sat in one of the two chairs facing my desk and wrung her hands in her lap, clearly anxious, and I put all thoughts of Billy to the side and began to wonder what this impromptu meeting might be about.
“So what can I do for you?” I finally asked when she didn’t speak.
“Um, well. I was wondering if you know who handled my mother’s will?”
“Your mother’s will?”
“Yes.”
“No. I have no idea.” When I’d looked over the Comfort file it was noted that Sabrina Comfort died in a car accident twenty years ago, but that was the extent of my knowledge.
“I only ask because I heard my grandparents mention that there was some sort of a trust.”
That was news to me. “What did they say?”
She was quiet once more and I could sense her discomfort in discussing the topic mounting.
“I only heard bits and pieces, but from what I gathered, my brothers are entitled to the inheritance.”
I hadn’t seen anything about any sort of inheritance but I’d solely been working with Mr. Comfort’s affairs. Her phrasing was interesting, though. “Your brothers? Not you?”
She blinked at me as if that was the first time she’d thought about that. “Oh…I don’t know. They just mentioned my brothers.”
“Did you ask them about it?”
Cheyenne’s baby blues widened. “No.”
My impulse was to ask why not, but I curbed it. Although I’d taken an immediate liking to Cheyenne, this wasn’t two friends getting to know one another. This was a professional setting and I was being paid for this conversation.
“We’re not exactly close,” she offered in way of explanation.
Again, I had questions. I found it strange that she wasn’t close to the people that had raised her, but again, it was none of my business.
“Okay,” I answered evenly.
Her lips flattened into a straight line as she inhaled through her nose. This was obviously a topic she was uncomfortable with and for some reason, I felt protective of Cheyenne. Which was odd since she was only a few years younger than me.
The blonde-haired, blue-eyed young woman sitting in front of me was twenty-five years old but there was a distinct naïveté in her demeanor. From the limited background information I had, I knew that her maternal grandparents had raised her from the age of five. I could only imagine that her childhood must’ve been drastically different than her brothers. She grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut and, from what I’d gathered, she’d had zero contact with her brothers or father. I couldn’t imagine how complicated that must be.
Not that I had a lot of experience with family dynamics, complicated or otherwise. My father had never been in my life.
I’d only spoken to him once, it hadn’t gone well. He was married and had his own family when my mom got pregnant. For the first eight years of my life it had been me, my mom, and whatever guy my mom happened to be dating.
Then, when I was eight, my mom met Harold York. That was when everything changed. From the first day I met Hal, I loved him. He was funny, smart, and treated me like his very own.
They had a whirlwind romance, marrying only a month after meeting. On my last day of third grade, Hal and Mom picked me up and we flew to Manhattan.
Hal was an attorney who came from an affluent family. He was twenty years my mom’s senior, and he treated her like a queen and me like a princess.
For the first time in my life I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I’d come home from school to find an eviction notice on the door, or whether or not there would be food in the cupboards, or if the lights and heat would be on.
He was strict but fair. He gave me rules, which was something I’d never had, since my mom had always treated me more like a friend than a daughter.
I felt safe in the world for the first time in my life. He adopted me on my tenth birthday and even talked my mom into allowing me to legally change not only my last name, but also my first.