He was so smart that he scared her sometimes. Not in a bad way, though. Her biggest fear was that she would never be able to provide him with the opportunities he deserved. College tuition was outrageous. She had already started saving for that but it wasn’t much to speak of. She had thirteen years and so far her math was way off reaching the necessary sum.
“That plan’s really holding together,” she muttered. Between the walk-in cooler in the High Noon’s kitchen going out and that fancy automatic toaster oven Tatum had insisted he needed to make sandwiches folks would love, the almighty dollar was tough to hang on to.
Laney sighed as she settled into her corner. She clicked the remote and set the station to a movie channel that featured classic love stories. What could she say? She had to get her happily-ever-afters from somewhere. And there was nothing like getting lost in a sappy movie after a long, hard night at the High Noon.
Truthfully, she couldn’t complain. Her life had sucked for a while after her parents died. The accident had devastated her entire life. Just a ten-year-old kid with no relatives to take her in. Foster care hadn’t been so bad, but Laney had. She’d been a pain in the butt until she was eighteen and then she’d been an idiot.
As stupid as she was and as many mistakes as she had made, she had a beautiful son because of at least one of those errors in judgment. She couldn’t regret Buddy.
Man, she hadn’t realized how starved she was. Something as simple as a ham and cheese sandwich shouldn’t have a girl moaning but Laney had learned enjoying the simple things in life came with the single-mom territory.
As a single mom and a business owner, there was rarely any time left for a social life. Hayden’s image tried to nudge its way into her thoughts.
Hayden was business. She had to keep that fact firmly in front of her. He had trouble written all over that sexy frame.
She gave herself another fifteen minutes of me time before reluctantly moving on to the other chores that would not be put off. Laundry, dishes. Forget about picking up around the house. She was way too exhausted.
Her hodgepodge kitchen wasn’t exactly state-of-the-art. Far from it actually. She’d spent the past two years scrounging for castoffs from folks remodeling their kitchens. Few of the cabinets matched; none of the appliances were the same color or from the same decade, but they all had one thing in common—they worked! Even Tatum saw the beauty in her vision when it came to getting that toaster oven secondhand.
The vinyl floor tiles were of a mixed variety as well, all leftovers from those same remodeling ventures. But her prized find was the old butcher’s chopping-block stand that she used as a center island to ground the assorted eras she’d converged in the room. The island didn’t sit level and the surface was beat all to hell and back, but still she cherished it.
She’d managed to replace all the broken windows in the house, again with castoffs from those moving to more energy-efficient choices. She’d painted the eighty-year-old wood siding herself. She’d painted the whole house as a matter of fact. Looking at it now made her proud even if she wasn’t likely to be featured in House Beautiful.
The saloon was a similar project. The building and five acres she’d gotten for a song at a tax sell-off. Someone had abandoned the place and Laney had grabbed it, using her measly savings to purchase it flat-out and do the necessary renovations. She’d talked the president of a small local independent bank into taking a risk and lending her the money on her newly remodeled house so she could buy and renovate the saloon.
That had worked great at first. Problem was, she hadn’t seen the nice older gentleman’s bad side until it was too late. The loan had been on a balloon note which wasn’t a problem at the time. Time flew and now that note came due in a mere ninety days. He had just informed her that he wouldn’t be renewing the loan so the full amount was due in three months.
If she didn’t pay, she would lose her business and her home. Worry crushed down on her shoulders.
Last month’s receipts had looked stellar, and she had felt confident she had proof of steady-enough income to get a new loan elsewhere. But now the trouble with Terry and good workers walking had started a trend in falling revenue.
Many of her regulars were complaining that the guy made them uncomfortable. With all the wackos shooting up restaurants and the like, she could understand. But the last thing she needed was a drop in cash flow as the drop-dead date on getting a new loan approached.
She needed the books to look good. Laney choked back the anxiety and reminded herself that there was still time.
With the washing machine churning and the dishes done, she walked through the house to ensure the windows and doors were locked. Before Terry reappeared, she left her windows open at night during good weather. That was a risk she couldn’t take with him lurking around. She couldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.
Keeping her .32 handy once Buddy was asleep was another new addition to her nightly routine. She hated that feeling of being afraid. She’d lived it too many times. Seemed just when life was looking up something else came along and rained on her parade.
She hesitated at the front window, one hand on the paper shade ready to drag it down. Her house sat a good fifty yards off the road and there were no streetlights on these old county roads, but the moon was big and bright tonight, giving her a clear view of the road that ran in front of her house.
A Jeep had parked on the shoulder directly in front of her house. With the convertible top removed, she could see that someone was behind the wheel but she couldn’t begin to determine whether the driver was male or female. Definitely wasn’t Terry’s fancy import. Since his keys were at the High Noon, she could safely assume it wasn’t him.
Unless he’d hitched or borrowed a ride from some jerk friend of his.
There was no logical reason for the driver to be stopped in front of her house unless he’d run out of gas. Since the closest convenience store was nearly all the way in town, a long ways from these twisting, winding roads, it wasn’t smart to joyride out here without at least half a tank.
Evidently the guy didn’t mind being seen since a few yards to the right or left of his position and her view would have been blocked by the trees in her yard. Not scary but definitely unsettling.
She didn’t have any binoculars but she could get closer to have a better look and assess the situation. Knowing old man Kingston, he had a P.I. or member of his personal staff watching her, hoping she would make some sort of unfit-mother mistake. She had decided that making his old man happy was the only possible reason Terry was interested in Buddy after all this time. There had to be an agenda.
“Not happening, old man.” He wasn’t getting her son and she wasn’t about to screw up. The thought that Kingston might be behind her banker’s change of heart had crossed her mind. Failing to keep a roof over her son’s head and food on the table might push her firmly into the unfit category.
“Don’t borrow trouble, Laney.”
She slid her cell into her back pocket and tucked the .32 in her waistband. She eased out the back door and made her way to the front of the house using the grapevine trellis and the old well house as cover. The trees and an abandoned tractor that was nearly as old as the house gave her a few points of cover from there. She’d considered having the old tractor hauled off when she first bought the place but she’d decided it gave the yard character. Her five acres had once been part of a huge family farm. It came with all sorts of funky character, like a leaky roof and unlevel floors.
The final tree available to shield her was only about ten yards from the road. She should be able to have a decent view of the interloper from there.
She rushed