Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Even Daisy shivered at the tone in his voice.
“What are you going to do with all your dough, Daisy?” Sarah asked, rocking the baby in her arms.
Daisy tugged at the hem of her t-shirt. “Well, for starters I need more clothes. I don’t have that many, and I don’t want to spend any more time in that sorry excuse for a laundry room at the Rainbow than I have to.”
Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Oh, God I know. The dryer-”
“Doesn’t even work,” Daisy told her.
“Really? It was on its last legs when I lived there. Can’t say I’m surprised it finally gave out or that she didn’t replace it.”
“You lived there?”
Sarah nodded. “For a while, when I first came to town. It’s awful, and so’s the landlady. She tried to charge me for hooking in my room. As if I’d do that!”
Daisy plucked at her shirt again, recalling that the old lady tried to charge her, too. She felt a little better knowing it probably happened to everyone at that place.
“We can go shopping this weekend,” Abby suggested. “Tildy and I are off.”
“You work together?” Daisy asked, looking back and forth between the two. “I mean,” she asked Tildy, “you work for her.”
“Yeah,” Tildy replied. “I quit my job last year. Just kind of walked away from it, no plan, nothing.”
“What kind of job?” Daisy asked, curious.
“I worked at my parent’s bank,” she mumbled.
“Wow,” Daisy replied. “That’s like a real job. Like a career.”
Tildy shrugged. “It wasn’t for me. And my parents are, well, they’re just...” She waved her hand dismissively.
Daisy nodded. “Yeah, I can probably relate to shitty parent stories. Never met my dad, but my mama’s enough for the both of them.”
“But Abby gave me a job,” Tildy said with a smile.
“I didn’t give you a job,” Abby countered. “You got the job.” To Daisy, she said, “Her Spanish is outstanding, so much better than mine. And the sales reports are a breeze for her. She’s going to steal the place out from under me and run it better than I do.”
Tildy blushed but grinned at the same time. “I would,” she said. “But I don’t have a gun.”
“Huh?” Daisy asked, baffled.
Abby shook her head and waved her hand. “God,” she grumbled. “You steal one hotel and they never let you live it down.”
“You, wait,” Daisy said. “You stole a hotel? With a gun?” She tried but failed to understand how that was possible.
Abby shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta go old school on people.”
Daisy stole a look at Caleb, who merely shrugged right alongside the redhead. “I wasn’t there,” he told her.
“Huh,” Daisy said. “Here I was looking to lay low, and I seem to have wandered into a den of thieves.”
“Lay low?” Abby asked, grinning. “Are you a wanted woman?”
Daisy’s cheeks flushed. “No,” she protested a little too loudly. “I just- despite the tattoos, I’m not much of a lawbreaker,” she told them, not making eye contact with Caleb.
Abby laughed. “Me, neither.”
“Except for breaking and entering,” Hawk chimed in.
Daisy gaped at her new friend.
“Doesn’t count!” Abby protested and jabbed a finger at Tex. “It was his house!”
“We try,” Tex drawled, “to stay on the right side of the law, as long as it’s convenient.”
“Good to know,” Daisy replied.
She helped clear the table and set the dishes in the dishwasher as Sarah rearranged the fridge to accommodate the leftovers.
“So, you guys really are a family,” Daisy observed. “You all work with each other. Or... for each other.”
Sarah glanced over her shoulder and nodded. “Mostly ‘with,’ but yep.”
“For me family’s just me and mama, and most of the time it doesn’t feel like family at all.”
“You’re not born into a family, Daisy,” Sarah told her. “You choose one. And you fight like hell for them. Sometimes with them,” she admitted. “But mostly for them.”
“No one’s ever fought for me,” Daisy admitted.
Sarah considered this at length and then said, “Fight for them. If they’re worth it, then eventually they’ll come around.”
Chapter 12
Easy caught sight of Sarah’s SUV pulling into the lot and frowned as she stalked across the lot. She had lunch with her but no Hope. Tex went out to meet her, but instead of letting him help her she shook her head, glaring past the older man’s shoulder and right at Easy himself.
He grimaced. He knew he wouldn’t get away with his tantrum last night. Slick never let him get away with anything. She was determined and unscrupulous to boot. So far, she’d nearly run over him and his mailbox, broke into his house and painted it, and once offered him a loaded .45 to put himself out of his misery.
The woman played fast and loose with the rules of polite society when it came to her family, and Easy had no doubt that for all the times that they’d locked horns Sarah Sullivan was as much his sister as Chris was his brother.