The Evolution of Man (The Trust Fund Duet 2)

My smile feels grim. “That’s what it’s worth now. I had independent appraisers confirm it. It’s definitely the most expensive pile of rubble I’ve ever seen.”

We cross the room together in silence—hers thoughtful, mine full of useless frustration. Losing the money doesn’t bother me. The fact that Christopher demanded it does.

The heavy plastic sheeting blocks out most of the light from the front, leaving only the broken stained-glass atrium shining down on us. There are still sheets of paper in stacks on the circular desk. Still a few books stacked haphazardly. Still the wall—carved with industrious people mingling with the four elements.

“It’s beautiful,” Avery breathes.

Her taste runs more to Hellenic art, but I knew she’d appreciate the wall. Beautiful, even though it has a huge crack in the middle. It looks like a wound in flesh, a gash made from some giant from one of her Greek myths wielding an ancient weapon.

Twenty feet of butternut wood carvings climb the back of the library. It feels like a single, impossibly large slab of wood even though it’s constructed like puzzle pieces—stylized waves jutting against wheat-filled plains, an angled man wielding an ax set against a bursting sunrise. It fits together as if drawn in smooth strokes, made from imagination and sheer will instead of months of painstaking labor.

I touch the tip of a wood-made ocean wave, almost a caress. “This piece belongs to the community. The way they work and break and hope. You can feel its heart here.”

“I can feel it beating,” she says, awed.

“It was about two minutes and twenty feet from being a pile of splinters.”

She traces a constellation with her forefinger. “God. Lucky you were here, then. I don’t think anyone could have saved it except you. You are the only one crazy enough to do it.”

Her voice has reverence, taking the sting out of the observation. And I understand where she’s coming from. I’m the one who buys a multi-million dollar antebellum mansion because my mother likes the columns in the front. I’m the one who stages a protest on the steps o

f an old library. That’s Harper, someone you can count on to be over the top.

I glance toward the front of the library, where most of the wall and glass doors have crumbled. The wrecking ball didn’t reach all the way to the back wall, but it still managed to harm it. It was sold as a teardown property, only useful for the land to rebuild something new.

My over-the-top ideas aren’t always practical.

“So far I haven’t found a construction company willing to take on the project. They’re insisting the only thing to do is bulldoze it.”

The building itself seems to shudder, on the verge of collapse. It wasn’t like this when I left it six months ago, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The purchase price is based on razing the library to the ground, on turning the carvings into sawdust. This is my chance to save it.

The men in these carvings build and lift and break. They don’t bow to the land, but they’re yoked to it all the same, strong and somehow surrendered. These men in their newsboy caps and heavy boots shouldn’t be familiar, but they are. The potent drive inside them that makes them human, the limitless thirst for something more.

“I can’t stop looking at it,” she says, her gaze lifted.

God, they shouldn’t remind me of modern-day men with their suits and their cunning. Their limitless ambition for things they weren’t born with. They shouldn’t soften me toward Christopher Bardot, because that would make me vulnerable. Again.

I touch the wide gouge, a sympathetic throb of pain in my finger. “It’s a survivor.”

She nods as if I’ve said something profound. “You’re right, but it’s more than that. Survival is about staying the same. This piece is about yearning.”

My stomach clenches, because it’s useless to yearn. Didn’t I learn that after watching Daddy marry over and over while my mother struggled to pay the rent?

Didn’t I learn that after wanting two men and ending up alone?

She’s right though. The way the men rise above their struggles, the way they reach even higher. It’s a monument to longing, which is terrifying, because that can only lead to disappointment.

I snatch my hand back, determined to hide the strange tightening in my chest.

Walking through a high archway, I step deeper into the library. All the construction people I talked to seemed to agree: the part of the building with the books is the most stable. Unfortunately they also agree that the main hall, the part with the gorgeous stained-glass dome at the top, the priceless carved wall, the rare blue-gold marble mosaic floor, is not.

Avery gasps when she follows me. It’s an impressive sight, all this history. All these stories. How many hands turned the pages? How many questions were answered?

She runs her fingers across the spines. “Fairy tales,” she moans, sounding almost orgasmic. “There’s a whole section for fairy tales. I could die right here.”

“Please don’t. Gabriel would definitely kill me.”

Dust rises in the air as she pulls a faded clothbound book from the shelf. “Once upon a time, there was a miller who had a beautiful daughter,” she reads, her forefinger on the yellowed page. “He told the king his daughter could spin straw into gold.”