Her whole life had been about peanut pie. Well . . . for
the past twenty–nine years, five months, three weeks,
five days, and—Kit Bellamy glanced at the digital
clock on the dash of her car—about twelve hours, it
had been about pie. Mamie Sue's Peanut Pie, to be specific.
As if there were any other kind.
She'd lived, breathed, walked, talked, dreamed, eaten,
baked, boxed, shipped, and sweated over peanut pie, every
single day of her life, for as long as she could remember.
So, she was having an understandably hard time embracing
the idea that her future was going to be all about cupcakes.
Twenty–nine years. She might have been slightly off
on the number of weeks and days, math not being her strong
point—a painfully evident truth, given her recent
life evolution—but she knew she had the hours part
correct. Grandma Laureen hadn't told the story of Kit's
mother going into labor right there in Mamie Sue's kitchen
just once. No, that story had become part of the Bellamy
legend, which was a rich and colorful one, even without the
story of Kit coming into the world between the burlap
peanut sacks and the six–burner Wedgewood stove. But
then, as Grandma Reenie always said, "Bellamy women know
how to make an entrance."
What Kit Bellamy was presently trying to figure out, was
how Bellamy women—at least this particular Bellamy
woman—made an exit.
There wasn't any historical lore on that point. As far as
Kit knew, at least in the previous three generations, no
Bellamy woman had ever walked away. From anything. Or
anyone. Ever. Least of all family, and most of all, the
family business.
Kit had done both.
Not that there was a business, per se, to walk away
from—or much of a family, for that matter. She'd
managed to destroy both of those first. She never should
have trusted Teddy. "Having a few investors will allow us
to expand Mamie Sue's into the kind of global empire she'd
have been thrilled to see come to fruition," her
brotherin– law had said, all earnest sincerity and
gleaming dental perfection.
Never trust a man with puppy dog eyes and pearly whites.
Kit could hear her great–grandmother's words of
wisdom as clearly as if she was sitting next to
her. "Lesson learned, Grammy Sue," she murmured. "Lesson so
learned."
The past thirteen months had been filled with lawyers,
courtrooms, judges, shocking revelations, and the kind of
utter betrayal Kit wasn't sure she'd ever recover from.
Since Teddy's Big Reveal during what had turned out to be
Mamie Sue's Peanut Pie Company's final board meeting she
had stumbled from being frozen in shock, into utter
devastation and guilt, on through blistering fury, and had
only recently settled into merciful numbness.
The Bellamy women who had come before her were surely still
rolling in their graves. Kit had fought back, and could
only hope they'd have at least been proud of the grit and
gumption she'd displayed in striving to save every thing
they'd all worked so hard for. But even that was a small
consolation given that, in the end, Teddy and his fancy
Westlake lawyers had won the day.
The company and the women who'd built it had each
experienced their share of stumbling blocks and
setbacks. "But none of them screwed up so badly they
managed to let the damn thing be sold right out from under
them," Kit muttered. "Much less to a vending machine snack
company." She bit out those last four words as if she'd
tasted one of their products. You couldn't call what they
sold food.
Mamie Sue's deliciously decadent peanut pie—each and
every one of them lovingly handmade with the very same
ingredients Mamie Sue had used when she'd started the
company in her own kitchen over seventy–eight years
ago—should never, not ever, come in a cellophane
wrapper. Or be shelved in the E5 slot of a
Tas–T–Snaks vending machine, for a
buck–twenty–five a slice.
"I should have shot him dead right there in the boardroom,"
Kit mumbled.
Would a jury have convicted her? She thought not. All she'd
have had to do was submit footage of smarmy, self–
important Teddy orating his way though any of the board
meetings he'd wormed his way into over the last few years
now that the older generations of Bellamy women no longer
presided over such things.
It was probably just as well that Mamie Sue herself had
passed on before Teddy had come on the scene. Kit had just
graduated high school when, at ninety–four, Mamie
Sue—who'd wielded a rolling pin pretty much every day
of her long and bountiful life—had finally proven
them all wrong and passed peacefully in her sleep. Up until
that moment, they'd been pretty much convinced she'd live
forever.
Mamie Sue's daughter–in–law, Laureen, and her
grand daughter–in–law, Kit's mother Katie, had
continued running the company they'd helped build just as
confidently and assertively as Mamie Sue ever had.
Unfortunately, soon afterward, Grandma Reenie had begun a
rapid decline in health, with the devastating diagnosis of
early onset Alzheimer's. Her merciful passing had been
followed only a few short years later by the tragic death
of Kit's mother and father in a car accident, leaving Kit,
who had just turned twenty–four, and her
twenty–two year–old sister Trixie, to head up
the family company far, far sooner than anyone could have
predicted.
Kit had, at least, been involved in the business since
she'd been old enough to totter on top of a stool and smear
flour on the rolling boards. Trixie's interests, however,
had always been more focused on the lifestyle and prestige
the family business brought her way—which was why
Teddy, Trixie's husband of less than two years at the time
of their parents' deaths, had stepped in and taken on what
was Trixie's share of the company load.
Kit recalled how relieved the family had been when Trixie
had settled on Teddy Carruthers. Trixie had barely turned
twenty when she'd gotten engaged, but after spending most
of her teenage years bringing home the most amazing array
of users and losers—her way of "acting out" when her
parents wouldn't enable the lifestyle Trixie was certain
she deserved—they'd been so thrilled with her choice,
they'd given the couple their heartfelt blessing.
Privately, Kit had always thought Teddy was a little too
slick and a lot too full of himself, but all the family saw
was that he was smart, ambitious, and came from an
established Atlanta family, which meant he wasn't after
Trixie for her money.
Even with his too–polished exterior, none of them
could have predicted the true nature of Teddy's ambition or
the depths of his greed. Least of all, as was now
self– evident, Kit.
She allowed herself a moment to savor what the courtroom
scene would have been like once the jury saw the heartless
deviousness of Teddy's back–stabbing plan—one
he'd concocted with the assistance of her "whatever you
think is best, dear!" sister, who was far too busy with her
new life as Trixie Carruthers, enjoying her country club
groups and Junior League engagements, to pay any attention
to what her husband was doing with her stake in the family
company.
With the help of his slick, high priced, and
oh–so–smug Westlake lawyers, Teddy had used his
sneaky little investor plan to blindside Kit, the board of
directors . . . and everyone else at Mamie Sue's, into
giving him the leverage to sell the company to
Tas–T–Snaks, which was interested only in
owning rights to the name of the product itself. They'd be
mass producing the product in another country and shipping
it out in cartons, putting generations of employees who had
invested heart, soul, and faith into the company out on the
streets. Right next to Kit.
"Oh yeah. I'd have walked a free woman."
She was a free woman, all right. Free of the family
business she'd loved with all her heart. Free of the
family—if she could still consider Trixie or Teddy
family—who had taken that beloved business and turned
it into a colossal joke. All for greed. It begged the
question, just how much money did two people actually need?
Kit was even free of their equally beloved family home,
with the very kitchen Mamie Sue had used to launch her
fledgling little business over three–quarters of a
century before. The same home Trixie and Teddy had
summarily sold the moment the judge's verdict had been
handed down on Kit's last and final appeal.
Yep, Kit was free to start her life completely over. From
scratch.
Yippee.
She'd spent pretty much everything she'd had and all of
what she'd gotten from the sale of the company to pay the
lawyers she'd hired to fight Teddy and
Tas–T–Snaks. Teddy had been astonished when
she'd fought back, unable to comprehend why she hadn't been
happy and just skipped into the sunset with the sudden
windfall of income he'd procured for her from the sale. And
Trixie had had the nerve to ask her why she was betraying
her own sister like that, dragging family into court. Kit
still almost had apoplexy just thinking about that
conversation.
When Kit hadn't backed down, Trixie's righteous tears and
Teddy's cajoling "there, there, it's just business" pats on
the head had swiftly turned into downright fury when they'd
had to spend their own money to fight back.
It wasn't much vindication—Teddy's family's pockets
were deep—so Kit sincerely doubted he'd suffer from
paying Westlake's steep legal tab, but it made her feel
she'd at least done her best in the name of her family.
That was what mattered to her, doing the right thing for
all of those who'd worked so hard to make Mamie Sue's what
it was. Or... had been, anyway.
Of course, now she was in the same boat they were—
scrambling to find new work, trying to start over, figuring
out what came next.
She frowned hard to keep fresh tears of anger and guilt
from leaking out. She'd cried far too many already. It was
just...how had she let it happen? Why hadn't she seen
through his plan? Those two questions would plague her for
the rest of her days. Through the shimmer of threatening
tears, she spied the sign for the causeway over Os sabaw
Sound to her final destination.
Sugarberry Island.