whipped out his checkbook. “Ever heard of the Lowery Ranch?”
She nodded, frowning.
“Well, I’m the heir to the Lowery Ranch. I can afford it.” He scrawled his name on the check and ripped it out of his checkbook. “Here’s five thousand now. You’ve got time to put it in the bank before it closes. I’ll give you the other five thousand when it’s over.”
She stared at the check as if she couldn’t believe it. Then she slowly reached out and picked it up from the table.
“What’s your last name and address?”
She answered him as if in a daze, and he jotted down the information. She didn’t live in the best part of town, he realized.
“I’ll pick you up at six-thirty. Be ready.”
Then he walked out of the diner.
Susan continued to stare at the check for long minutes after the stranger’s departure. Five thousand dollars. She couldn’t believe it.
Her half sister’s room and board at college was due in two weeks. Megan would be a freshman and had gotten a scholarship for her tuition. All she needed was living expenses to go as long as Susan could come up with the money. And suddenly, here it was.
She knew she should tear the check up. In fact, she’d been considering offering to help the man, but there was her eight-year-old brother, Paul, to consider. Before she could decide, the cowboy had thrown his money in her face.
If he truly was the Lowery heir, he had plenty to spare. And she was going to do him a service, pretending to be his fiancée. But all the justification in the world didn’t ease her conscience.
Deliberately, she folded the check. Her conscience would have to live with it. She wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to pay for Megan’s living expenses at college, maybe even finish paying off her mother’s debts, buy Paul a few clothes for when he started school. She couldn’t afford to let this opportunity go.
She’d been parent and sister to both of her younger half siblings for four years now. Her mother had died when Susan was twenty-one. She’d just finished her junior year in school, existing on a scholarship and a part-time job as a waitress.
Suddenly, she had to provide for Megan and Paul, as well as herself. And deal with her mother’s debts. All her plans, her dreams, had disappeared as she faced her responsibilities.
She’d had a surprise eighteen months ago when she acquired two more half sisters and learned of her father, and that he’d just died. Her new sisters assured her her father had only found out about her existence just before his death. Her mother, when she’d asked questions as a child, had told her her father had moved on. He hadn’t been interested in her.
Neither had the other men her mother had been with. Each time the men disappeared, her mother was left with a child and no support. Susan had grown up ashamed of her mother and her behavior. When Paul’s and Megan’s fathers had disappeared also, Susan had felt responsible for helping to raise her half siblings.
Kate and Maggie, her new half sisters, were wonderful, and the feeling of not being alone anymore made a huge difference to Susan. Even financially, she’d gained. The diner, where she now worked, had been her father’s. She was actually part-owner, with Kate and Maggie, though she’d protested their including her.
And when, last week, she’d quit her public relations job with a local firm because her boss wouldn’t leave her alone, Kate had immediately hired her for the Lucky Charm Diner and Catering Company. But they were just beginning to show a profit, and the salary was less than she’d been making.
She couldn’t turn down the money the cowboy had offered her.
As weird as his offer was, at least she would be earning the money and not taking charity from her new family.
She slid out of the booth. “Brenda, I’m going to leave a few minutes early today.”
The waitress only nodded.
She’d been careful to adhere to a strict work schedule in the week she’d been there. She didn’t want anyone to think she’d taken advantage of Kate. But this was an exception. It was four-thirty. She could get to the drive-through window of the bank before it closed, just as the cowboy had said.
What if he wasn’t who he said he was? What if the check bounced higher than a skyscraper? She sighed as she picked up her purse from beside her desk. She’d find out soon enough, and if it wasn’t any good, she’d be no worse off than she was now.
Which was flat broke.
After depositing the check, she hurried home. Paul spent his days with her neighbor. Rosa Cavalho had an eight-year-old, too, Manuel, and he and Paul were best friends. What Susan paid Rosa helped their tight budget, and it ensured that Paul was safe.
In two more weeks, school would start. Then her baby-sitting fees would go down. But Paul’s appetite seemed to increase each year. Her grocery bill was growing along with him.
“Rosa?” she called as she rapped on the apartment door across from hers.
It swung open, and two little boys looked at her in surprise. “You’re early!” Paul exclaimed. Then he gave her a big smile and hugged her waist. “Hi!”
“Hi, yourself. How’s everything?”
“Who is it?” Rosa called. She did sewing at home to add to her husband’s construction income.
“It’s me,” Susan called as she headed to Rosa’s bedroom, where she worked. “Could you keep Paul this evening for a couple of hours?”
“Oh, Susan, I’m sorry, but we have to go to my mother-in-law’s tonight. It’s a command performance,” Rosa said with sarcasm. Her husband’s family didn’t like Rosa because she was from a poor family and hadn’t increased her husband’s financial worth.
“That’s okay. I’ll just have to take Paul with me.”
“You have a date?” Rosa asked, hope in her voice. She worried that Susan didn’t get out much.
“No, it’s sort of a job, but Paul won’t get in the way. He can sit in the lounge. What’s the occasion at your mother-in-law’s?”
Rosa made a face. “Pedro’s sister is in town with her wealthy husband.”
“Looks like we’ll both have an exciting evening,” Susan said with a laugh. “I’ll take Paul home now.”
In spite of Paul’s protests, Susan insisted he come with her. Those protests were nothing compared to the ones he made when he discovered he had to bathe and put on his one pair of nice slacks and a clean shirt.
“I can stay by myself, Susan. I’m eight now. I don’t need to go with you.”
She smiled down at his earnest expression. “Sweetie, I know you’re eight. But I can’t leave you alone at night. Besides, it will be interesting. You
