AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s not what we need help with. We’ve made a big mistake at the store.”
“What kind of a mistake?”
“The thousands of dollars kind.”
“What did you do?”
“We don’t know,” she cried. “We were balancing the cash drawer and reconciling the receipts and we are off by over $6,000.”
Holy crap. I didn’t know they made that kind of money. “How much do you make in a day?”
“Normally around $2500 in the summer.”
“Then how can you be off by that much?”
She paused. And paused some more.
“Macey?”
“We haven’t balanced the drawer in a while or—”
“How long is a while?”
“Like, two months.”
This was why when Mom was alive, she wouldn’t let Dad give them the money to open their own store. “Macey, you can’t run a business like that.”
“We thought our point of sale software would keep track of everything, so it didn’t matter.”
I wanted to bang my head against the desk.
“You’re smart. You know how to do all this stuff. Will you please help us? If Dad finds out right now, he’ll probably make us close the store.”
“It sounds like you would deserve it.”
“I know,” she sniffled.
Marlowe got on the phone. “Emma,” she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “we know we’ve been brats to you. If you don’t help us, we’ll understand.”
I’d never heard Marlowe grovel before. She wasn’t all that good at it, to be honest, but for her I guess it was something. I debated on whether I should help the brats or not. I wanted to tell them no, but then I heard Mom’s voice in my head saying, “Sometimes you have to be the one to start mending the fence even if you didn’t break it. Never be afraid of being the bigger person.” Mom’s final assault on me was to remind me what was written on her headstone, Where there is great love there are miracles.
“Fine,” I breathed out. “I can be there in about an hour.” I wasn’t expecting any miracles, but I knew Mom was. She always did.
“You’re the best,” Macey shouted.
“Thank you,” Marlowe whispered.
On the drive to Carrington Cove, all I could think about was what the girls had said about the Ranch. What had happened to Dad? How could he let Mom’s dream die such a cruel death? What kind of spell had Josephine cast on him? It had to be in the bedroom, and that thought grossed me out. Scrubbing that from my memory and moving on. Where had Ashton disappeared to? Was Sawyer seeing all this? Did he really think this was happiness? I would never know. I hadn’t heard from him and I wasn’t planning on it. He hadn’t even picked up his stupid bag on my porch.
Now here I was bailing my sisters out.
I parallel parked in front of M&M on Main. A chalkboard closed sign hung on the door even though it was only four in the afternoon. They must really be in a state to close their store early, especially with so many tourists flocking the streets. I had to admit their storefront was darling with a striped black and white awning and a simple glass and black door with their insignia on it. An array of all white clothes on black mannequins was displayed in the windows in an artsy sort of way. Their storefront was a lot like them. A beautiful exterior, but the substance inside was lacking. I knew Mom worried that Macey and Marlowe let the Carrington name and looks go to their heads. She wanted them to work for this store. Work for something.
I took a deep breath of the mountain air before I knocked on their door.
Macey rushed to open it and pull me in. “Thank you, Emma.” She wrapped her skinny arms around me. She was so much taller than me that my face landed in her boobs.
I tried to lighten the moment. “There’s a lot of padding in your bra.”
She pulled away. “We didn’t luck out and get Mom’s boobs like you did.”
I looked down at my ample, but not too ample girls. Huh. I’d never thought about it. I guess I did have a pretty nice set.
Marlowe came out of the back holding a fistful of receipts. “We’re still off.”
“Let’s see what we can find.”
Both of the girls gave me sheepish grins.
Their back office area was a mess with receipts and cash spread out in piles across both of their desks. I had to roll my eyes.
“Where have you been keeping all this cash? Don’t you make daily bank deposits?”
“We have a safe,” Macey offered.
I rubbed my head. This was going to be a long night.
As I started sorting through their mess, I found one of their biggest problems was they were each taking cash for personal use and leaving notes saying how much they took. I warned them to stop doing that. They were begging to be audited by the IRS. They had no idea what that meant.
