Her Broke Handyman Husband Was the Secret Billionaire novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Apron
At Thanksgiving Kasey's mother ties an apron on her handyman husband and seats him with the kids, and Kasey loses her chair defending him; she walks out and her cousin chases her with page 14 of the rescue deal.
My mother handed my husband an apron at the front door.
It was her good one, white linen, with the Haverkamp Furniture logo stitched on the bib.
"You'll want this, Elias," she said. "Gravy spits."
She said it the way she'd have said it to the caterer.
Elias looked at the apron for a second.
Then he tied it on over his canvas work jacket and said, "Yes, ma'am."
"Mom," I said. "He's a guest."
"He's family," she said. "Family helps."
She swept off down the hall in her camel coat and pearls, and twenty-two Haverkamp relatives made room for her.
I'm Kasey Haverkamp, I'm twenty-eight, and I've kept the books at my family's furniture factory for six years.
I know exactly how much this house cost and exactly how little of it is left to pay for.
The dining table seated sixteen, so the rest of us were sorted by usefulness.
My mother put Landon Huddleston at her right hand.
He was thirty-five, tanned in November, with teeth so white they looked ironed.
My cousin Roberta sat beside him, glowing, with his ring on her finger.
My mother put me four seats down, beside a stranger from the bank.
Then she pointed my husband to a folding table in the sunroom.
"There's a plate set for you with the little ones, Elias," she said. "The big table's full, and we have business."
Six children under ten looked up at him over their paper turkeys.
Elias sat down on a chair made for a third grader and began cutting a boy's meat.
He didn't look at me.
He never does when he's decided to be kind about something that should make him angry.
Landon tapped his glass.
"Marcia, I'll keep it short," he said.
"Nine million dollars. Lakeshore Trust gets paid in full, and Haverkamp stays a Haverkamp company."
Everyone at the table breathed out together.
"I've also got a letter of interest from Halyard Capital," he added lightly.
"The most private fund in the Midwest. They don't talk to anyone, and they talked to me."
My mother touched her pearls like she was thanking God.
Behind the swinging door, the kitchen sink began to drip.
It was a small, steady tick, tick, tick, and I knew it was driving Elias mad.
He stood up, still wearing the apron.
He slipped a wrench out of his tool belt and went into the kitchen without a sound.
"Leave it," my mother called. "We'll get a plumber Monday."
"It'll flood your cabinet by Monday," Elias said from the other room.
Water shut off.
The ticking stopped.
Landon laughed, easy and pleased with himself.
"Well, there's a man who knows his place," he said. "Every house needs one. Pipes burst, you call the help."
Forks stopped.
My aunt hid a smile in her wine.
Something in my chest went very cold and very clear.
I pushed back my chair and stood.
"That's my husband," I said.
"Kasey, sit down," my mother said.
"Not until he has a chair at this table."
"He has a chair," she said. "It's in the sunroom, and it fits him."
Elias had come to the kitchen door, drying his hands on the apron.
He gave me the smallest shake of his head.
Don't, it said.
I did anyway.
"He fixes your sink, your gutters, and your furnace for nothing," I said.
"He has never once sat down to a meal in this house without a chore."
"And I'm grateful," my mother said, in the voice she uses when she is not. "Now sit."
She raised one finger toward the caterer.
A young man in black came up behind my seat and lifted my chair out from under my hand.
He carried it out of the room.
Twenty-two relatives watched it go.
"Mr. Huddleston needs every Haverkamp signature by the twentieth," my mother said. "Yours included."
"You'll sign, and you'll end this marriage, or you'll be out of my carriage house by Christmas."
My legs were shaking.
I looked at the empty place where my chair had been.
Then I walked into the sunroom, took my plate off the paper tablecloth, and set it on the floor.
"We're leaving," I told the children, and one of them nodded gravely.
I took Elias's hand, slid the apron off him, and laid it over the back of the empty dining chair.
Outside, the snow had started.
We were halfway down the drive when I heard boots on the gravel behind us.
Roberta ran up in her heels, crying, with a folded paper crushed in her fist.
"Take it," she whispered. "I took it out of his folder. Page fourteen."
I opened it under the porch light.
The deal had a clause I could read in one second, because I'm an accountant, and because I could not stop reading it.
On day one, before a single dollar moved, the forty acres at Zeeland would be deeded to Huddleston Holdings, LLC.
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