Not on Her Own. Cynthia Reese

you worked for being bid off on the auction block. It’s a horrible thing.”

      She wrapped her fingers around his again and squeezed. The twist of his lips reminded her of Brandon’s when he’d tried to explain his uncle’s loss. “I feel really awful, Grandpa, that I managed to profit off your misfortune.”

      He pulled his hand from hers and pressed his fingertips to his eyes. “Well, if I had to lose it all, I’m glad some of it went to you. That’s why I told you. You’re family, Penny-girl, and I knew you’d want to help out. I knew you wouldn’t want to see everything I’d worked for gone.”

      “I do want to help.” Penelope dropped her gaze from him and busied herself with straightening her grandfather’s bottles of medicine in the center of the kitchen table. Did he have to take so much?

      “Then talk to these people. They have this solid-waste facility company, based out of Florida. They do all this gee-whiz stuff to garbage and recycle it, all with robots and stuff. Hardly a human hand touches it.”

      “Solid waste?” Penelope set down the bottle in her hand. “Oh, Grandpa, I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like—”

      “It’s all real, what do you call it? Green? Keeps it out of landfills and stuff. I figured that’d be right up your alley, Penny-girl, as big on the environment as you are. And these guys are so hot for it that they’re willing to pay three times the market value. Why do you think I didn’t tell ’em about the auction? I figured you and me, we could sell it together.” He leaned forward in his chair, his face alight with excitement. “And then…well, no lie, Penny, I need every dime I can get for those vultures I call lawyers. I can’t face going to jail. You said you wanted to help me.”

      Penelope struggled for the words to tell him no without hurting him. Solid waste? A company that, from the sound of it, used hardly any employees?

      “Don’t say no. If you can’t say yes right now, say you’ll think about it, okay? Don’t say no,” Grandpa Murphy urged her. “Just think about it. There’s no rush. No rush at all.”

      “I offered to sell to Brandon,” she confessed.

      Again he let loose a foul expletive. With visible effort, he reined his temper back in. “He can’t beat this deal, Penny-girl. And remember, you can’t trust him. Not one whit. He’s the reason I’m in this mess to begin with.”