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Liam leveled a hard green stare on her. "And Colin needs his father, too."
"Of course he does," Eileen backpedaled, "I wasn't trying to suggest otherwise."
"It's a moot point anyway," Colleen said. "If Kristie wanted Colin to move with her to Chicago, the judge probably would have let her do it. No offense, Liam."
"None taken. I know the courts usually favor the mothers, but having a little kid around would throw a wrench into her fairytale ending with Mr. Happily-Ever-After. Not that I'm complaining. Not only will I get to see Colin more, as soon as they're married I get my alimony payments and child support payments reduced."
"Couldn't happen at a better time," Colleen muttered and took a sip of her iced tea. "If I don't get this house stuff settled with Gregory, we'll be lucky to keep up with the payment schedule."
Her mother sat back in her seat and swallowed heavily. "I hate this. I hate that your father and I have put you in this position. If only I hadn't thrown up my hands and let it get so out of control—"
Liam reached out and covered her clenched fist with his hand. "There wasn't much you could have done, Mom. Even if you'd started out paying on time, you would have run dry before you could cover them."
But they might not have had hundreds of dollars of late penalties stacked on top of them. An observation Colleen knew better than to voice aloud.
As if sensing the turmoil, Frankie whined from underneath Eileen's chair.
"It's all going to work out fine," Liam said. "Pretty soon I'll have a lot more to contribute."
"But you should be keeping that money to help take care of Colin. And Colleen, you should be focused on taking care of yourself and getting back on your feet after everything that's happened, not working yourself to the bone to clean up your parents' mess." She paused a moment and took a deep breath. "I've said it before, but I'm going to say it again. If we sold the place—"
"No!"
"Not happening!" Liam's protest came out on the heels of her own.
"We've already been over this. We would never allow you to be forced out of your home if there's something we can do to stop it. Besides, who knows how long it would take to sell? There are places like ours that have been sitting on the market for years."
"You know the Osbornes have expressed interest over the years. Maybe we should hear them out. If they made a reasonable offer..."
"We don't need it," Colleen said with conviction she didn't entirely feel. Goddamn, she wished Gregory would stop screwing around and pay her what she was owed. Maybe the letter she'd paid for her lawyer to draft would give him the push he needed.
"But if we sold the place you'd have money in the bank to start over. I could even pay you back some."
Colleen shook her head and drained the last of her iced tea. "Dad is spinning in his grave right now, listening to you even consider it. We're going to get through this, and we're going hold onto the land." She stood up, cleared her plate and excused herself to get ready for her shift at the ranch.
Her shower eased some of the tension she'd taken with her from the dinner table. But as she took extra care on her makeup and blew her hair dry so it fell in a dark, shiny curtain down her back, another kind of tension prickled her nerves.
Anticipation.
She slipped into a sleeveless cotton dress that left her legs bare to mid-thigh. She was going to see JT tonight, and damn if she didn't want to dazzle him a little bit. Make him regret giving her the cold shoulder for the past two days. Make him push past whatever resistance was keeping him from taking things further than one brief kiss.
A kiss that proved he was very interested in helping her discover what sex might feel like with a new person for the first time in eight years. He wanted her, she thought as she gathered a few necessities and put them in her oversized purse. Tonight, she was going to make him do something about it.
Colleen watched as the last of the guests left the bar. Sighing, she went up and down the bar collecting used glasses on a tray.
So much for her grand plans of seduction, she thought as she carried the glasses back to the kitchen and loaded them in the dishwasher. She hadn't seen hide nor hair of JT all night. She'd checked her phone compulsively, but there were no texts, nothing to explain his absence tonight.
Not that he owed her any explanation. She wiped down the bar, gathered up her purse, and headed for her car.
Her key was in the lock when she heard a deep voice call her name.
Goosebumps scattered across her bare shoulders that had nothing to do with the cool summer breeze. She turned and saw JT's tall, rangy frame silhouetted by the parking lot lights.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked.
"Of course." She leaned against her jeep and waited for him to approach. He slipped his hat off his head and even in the dim light she could see the tension in his jaw. "Is something wrong?"
He stopped a few feet short of her, and she felt his gaze do a quick head-to-toe scan of her before landing back on her face.
