Page 34 of Vow

Wasn’t that what she wanted the most?

“Okay,” Haven said, pushing the folder aside, and giving Dale her full attention once more. “Where do I sign, and how do we get the ball rolling on taking this offer?”

The man laughed. “I will call the buyer’s contact as soon as I leave here to let him know everything looks good, and you’re a go on taking the offer.”

She clapped her hands together. The relief was a sweet sensation clawing through her bloodstream. “Okay, good.”

“But you should be warned … the lawyer who made the offer was clear on the buyer’s wishes, and it could take a bit of time to get through all of that.”

Ah, shit.

Haven gave the man a look. “And what exactly does that mean, now?”

“The buyer is pretty particular and picky about the businesses they purchase, I guess. They have to make sure everything is on the up and up. They don’t want to buy a place only to find out it’s two steps away from being condemned. Never mind, building code violations and health code issues—that all spells fines and problems.”

Haven tried not to be offended. She really, really did. It was fucking hard. “Safe Haven is up to date, follows all the codes, and there isn’t even a goddamn shingle loose.”

Dale put his hands up in mock surrender. Okay, so maybe she could have curbed her attitude a little for that one. But probably not—this place had been her father’s baby, and now it was hers, too. There was no way in hell that Haven wouldn’t get offended at someone suggesting the place was a fucking dive.

Unreal.

“It’s pretty standard for all of this stuff to be checked out during a sale,” the realtor said. “I promise it’s not personal.”

Haven sighed, and rested her chin on her palm as she stared at the shiny bottles gleaming under the lights of the built-in bar.

“I take it that you didn’t have to worry about those things when you bought the place?”

“I bought it from my father—we had inspectors, but all the reports went straight to the bank, and we already knew the place needed some work. I agreed to have it all done before re-opening, and I did.”

Dale made an understanding noise in the back of his throat. “Well, it’ll be a little bit more extensive this time around. You usually could just make a call, and shell out the money to have inspectors come in to check out the place, but the buyer requested their chosen inspectors do so. Which is where the time thing comes in … depending on how long they want to fuck around with getting all of that done, we could be looking at a couple of months.”

Jesus.

But the offer …

The money …

It was too good to ignore. She could easily take one of the other two offers, but she kept going back to that extra money, and the idea of how helpful and useful it could be for her mother in the end. Being the smart, reasonable woman she was, Haven couldn’t turn it down even if it did mean she might be stuck in this goddamn city for another couple of months longer than she originally planned to.

Details, she supposed.

Those were all just details.

Haven could deal with it later.

“Accept the offer,” Haven said, deciding on her choice but still not entirely settled with it. Funny how that worked. She bet this would be yet another decision of hers that would keep her up at night to overanalyze and consider. Like she didn’t have enough shit already on her plate to do that, for fuck’s sake. It seemed like she was making decisions that lingered with her in all the wrong ways a lot lately. “And let’s get this thing started.”

Dale gave her another wide smile as he slipped off the stool. “You got it, Haven. Congrats on this, huh?”

Yeah.

Congrats.

Why didn’t it feel like something worth celebrating?

That was the better question.

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