bought the house through a special program that allowed me to put zero money down. I’ve barely got five percent equity and no bank is going to give me a second mortgage for that. You’re just going to have to wait. I’ll get the next installment to you in nine months.”
“That’s not working for me.” He pushed himself off the couch and headed toward her.
She flinched as he brushed past her on his way to the window that overlooked her driveway.
“Nice car. It’s got to be worth something.”
“It’s leased.”
He shot her a look over his shoulder. “What about that business of yours?”
She bit her tongue rather than fire off a sharp retort. Making him mad wasn’t going to get him out of her house or her life. The man was a bully, plain and simple. And he’d figured out where she lived and what she was doing for a living.
“The business is barely breaking even.” A deliberate lie, but it wasn’t as if her simple lifestyle betrayed the nest egg she’d been building. For so much of her adult life, she’d been on the edge of financial disaster. Having a bank balance of several thousand dollars gave her peace, and she’d fight hard not to give that up.
“I get it. Times are tough for you. But I need that money. You’re going to have to figure out how to get it for me or times are going to get even tougher for you and your pretty baby sister.” He patted her cheek and she flinched a second time. “You hear what I’m saying?”
“I hear.”
“And?”
“I’ll get you what I can.” As difficult as it would be to give up her financial cushion and postpone moving Lansing Employment Agency into a bigger, fancier office, she’d make the sacrifice if it meant keeping Brody out of her and Hailey’s life. “Now, get out.”
Brody laughed and headed for the front door.
Rachel followed him across the room and slid the deadbolt home before his tasseled loafers reached her front walk. She didn’t realize how loud her heart thundered in her ears until Hailey spoke. She had trouble hearing her sister’s apology.
“He must have followed me home from work,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. We weren’t going to hide from him forever.”
“We’ve managed for four years.”
“Only because he never came looking.” Rachel sat down on the recliner’s arm and hugged her sister. Hailey was shaking. Her confident, bright sister had been alone with Brody and afraid. “Why did you open the door to him?”
“He followed me into the house when I came home from work. I didn’t realize he was there until he shoved me inside.”
Rachel rested her cheek on her sister’s head. “I’m sorry I didn’t get home sooner.”
Hailey shrugged her off. “Why do you owe him fifty thousand dollars?”
“I borrowed some money to start up the employment agency.” It was a lie, but Rachel didn’t want her sister to worry. The burden was hers and hers alone.
“Why would you do that?” Hailey demanded. “You know how he is.”
Rachel shrugged. “No bank is going to lend a high school graduate with big ideas and a sketchy business plan the sort of money I needed. Besides, he owed me something for the five years I put up with him.” She tried to reassure her sister with a smile, but Hailey had regained her spunk now that Brody was gone.
“Those years were worth a lot more than fifty thousand.” Hailey levered herself out of the chair and whirled to confront Rachel. Her brows launched themselves at each other. “What are we going to do? How are we going to come up with the fifty grand?” Hailey’s pitch rose as her anxiety escalated.
Rachel stood and took her sister’s cold hands to rub warmth back into them. “There is no we, Hales. It was my decision to borrow the money and it’s my debt to repay.”
“But—”
“No.” Rachel gave her head an emphatic shake and stood. She could out-stubborn her sister any day. “You are not going to worry about this.”
“You never let me worry about anything,” Hailey complained. “Not how we were going to get by after Aunt Jesse took off, not paying for college, not anything.”
“I’m your big sister. It’s my job to take care of you.”
“I’m twenty-six years old,” Hailey asserted, her tone aggrieved. “I don’t need you to take care of me anymore. Why won’t you let me help?”
“You already helped. You graduated from college with straight As and got a fabulous job at one of Houston’s top CPA firms. You pay for half the groceries, do almost all the cooking and even your own laundry.” Rachel grinned to hide the way her mind was already furiously working on a solution to the Brody problem. “I couldn’t ask for more. Besides, once I pay Brody the money, he’ll be out of our lives once and for all.”
“But how are you going to come up with the money?”
“I’ll try to get a bank loan. They might not have been willing to loan me money four years ago when I was starting up, but Lansing Employment Agency has a profitable track record now.”
Perched on a guest chair in the loan officer’s small cubicle, Rachel knew from the expression on the man’s face what was coming.
“Economic times have hit us hard, Ms. Lansing.” For the last four days she’d been listening to similar rhetoric, a broken record of no’s. “Our small business lending is down to nothing. I wish I had better news for you.”
“Thank you, anyway.” She forced a smile and stood. A quick glance at her watch told her she’d run over her allotted hour lunch break.
This morning she’d wired her twenty-five thousand dollar nest egg to her lawyer with instructions to give the money to Brody. For the last five years, she’d been paying him ten thousand a year, double what she’d agreed to in their divorce settlement. Reimbursement for a debt she didn’t owe. Punishment for divorcing him. No, Rachel amended, punishment for marrying him in the first place.
Returning to the Case Consolidated Holding offices, she slid into her desk and shoved her purse into a bottom drawer a second before Max’s scowl peered at her from his office.
“You’re late.”
Rachel sighed. “Sorry. It won’t happen again. Did you need something?”
“I need you to be at your desk for eight hours.”
She tried again. “Something specific?”
“Get Chuck Weaver on the phone. Tell him I needed his numbers three hours ago.”
“Right away.”
As she was dialing, her cell started
