When we pull into Colleen’s driveway and Penny sees where we are, she gives me a dramatic sigh. The accompanying look lets me know if she could talk, I’d be getting quite the earful right now.
I’m running early, so once I have Penny settled, I change into jeans and a T-shirt. The entire time, I’m trying to come up with advice for Cara on how to soften Gin toward our cause.
I’m not coming up with much.
At this point, I have to admit my ego caused me to make a mistake it’ll be hard to recover from. Cara wasn’t wrong when she said I should have made the offer in a way that obscured my identity. Getting her to sell would still have been a challenge because of the promise Gin made to Marcus, but at least the Reilly name wouldn’t have been in the mix.
But it’s too late now. There’s no way, if I drop the offer and then another offer comes in from a different entity, that Gin doesn’t figure that out. For the moment, it looks as if the only way to achieve my goal is to keep pushing forward and try to wear the woman down with the reality of her situation.
When I pull into the parking lot of the old diner, Cara’s getting out of her car, giving me a glimpse of her with her guard down. She’s still so pretty, with her dark hair in a messy bun and worn jeans hugging her curves, but I can see that she’s exhausted. Maybe even defeated.
I have to get her out of that house somehow.
By quickening my steps, I’m able to beat her to the door so I can hold it open for her. The smile she gives me as she steps inside doesn’t reach her eyes, but we’re quiet until the hostess seats us at a quiet booth toward the back of the old-fashioned dining car.
“I think I got most of the dog hair off,” she says as she slides across the vinyl seat, looking down at herself. “I change in the garage when I get home because Gin’s allergic to dogs, but I forgot to replace the clean set of clothes I had at the shop for mid-day appointments or errands.”
“Your mom is allergic to dogs so you made dog fur your actual job?” I chuckle as I pull two menus from the rack at the end of the table and hand her one. “I guess that’s one way to keep her from visiting you at work.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure the allergy is even real. She doesn’t like dogs and dogs don’t like her, so claiming she’s allergic to them keeps people from looking at her sideways, wondering what’s wrong with her that even a black Lab doesn’t want to go anywhere near her.”
Whether or not dogs can tell Gin Gamble isn’t a good person isn’t a topic I’m wading into. The woman’s feelings about me are entirely mutual, but I can’t lose sight of the fact she’s Cara’s mother. “Speaking of Gin, she’s not budging, huh?”
“Not even a little.” She looks at me over the top of her menu and sighs. “I think it’s a dead end road.”
I don’t believe in dead ends—there’s always a way around them—but our server steps up to the booth to take our orders. Cara orders a BLT on wheat toast with fries, and I decide on a turkey sandwich. Quick to make and easy to eat because we don’t have a lot of time. Both of us get coffee and she asks for a glass of water to go with it.
Once we’re alone again, I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table. “Did you explain to her that it’s already in bad enough shape so it won’t pass the inspections needed for a mortgage? Most people couldn’t buy it even if she was looking to sell.”
“I did tell her that, and I also told her I don’t know if it’ll cave in or get taken for back taxes first, but either way, we’ll have nothing.”
The taxes are current on the property for now. It was one of the first things I looked into. “I didn’t realize she hates my family that much.”
“Oh, she does. But I think it’s the promise she made to my dad to keep it in the family that’s the real problem. Even if you had made the offer under another name, I don’t think she’d sell it.”
“Unless there’s a fortune hidden under the floorboards, I think that’s a promise she’s going to have to break. And the sooner she realizes that, the sooner she can get on with her life. And, more importantly, the sooner you can move on.”
She takes a sip of her coffee and winces. I’m not surprised—it’s pretty bitter. “I told her how it is and how it’s only going to get worse with every passing year, but she’s convinced I’ll marry some guy from Sumac Falls and he’ll fix the house up and she’ll live with us and…it’s quite the fairy tale. But the bottom line is that her only plan for that house is that it becomes my problem—more than it already is, I mean. Like a my name on the deed kind of problem.”
And there’s that detour around the dead end I’m looking for.
“Cara Gamble?” I look her right in the eye and smile. “You should marry me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Cara
I should marry him?
Did Hayden Reilly seriously just semi-propose to me in this ancient diner with the shitty coffee?
I laugh at him, because there’s no way he’s being serious right now. “I guess sending my mother to an early grave would solve a lot of my problems, but it’s certainly not Plan A.”
“If you marry me, we both get what we want.”
“Oh sure, I woke up this morning wishing I could marry the man who hurt and humiliated me and then disappeared for seventeen years.” He has to be joking, but then he reaches out and covers my hand with his. The contact jolts through me, and I take a breath that’s shallow and shaky rather than the deep, steadying breath I was going for.
“I can’t change what I did to you in the past,” he says in a low voice. “But I have a chance to try to make amends by making your future better.”
