Sara turned away so Jack wouldn’t see her tears. How deeply she missed Cal! The only person who saw her as she truly was and loved her anyway. She looked back at the young man beside her. “What do you need?”
“I want to take over my father’s business. And by ‘father,’ I mean Henry Lowell. You see, he was...a kind and very generous man.”
That his words were the same as the minister had said about her mother made Sara smile. Then grimace. “Died broke, did he?”
“Pretty much,” Jack said. “He paid too much for materials and charged too little. If a customer gave him a sad story, he would lower the price of whatever he was selling.”
“What about you?” she asked. “You have the same kind heart?”
“I have Wyatt blood in me. I don’t over-or undercharge.”
She waited for him to go on.
“Five years ago, Tayla Kirkwood returned to Lachlan and—” He broke off when Sara gasped. “Are you all right?”
“You want to go into business with her?” Sara’s voice was angry.
“I want to go into business with you,” he replied in the same angry tone. “If you’d just put those stupid high-school feuds behind you and listen to the deal Henry and I put together—”
Sara was laughing.
“You sound just like him! Cal was always calm unless I got angry, then he’d start yelling.”
“Really?” Jack’s eyes were wide. “I never heard Granddad yell at anyone.”
“That’s because Donna is too bland and boring to raise any emotion in a person. She—”
“She is my grandmother.” Jack’s voice was low, almost threatening.
“Shouldn’t be,” Sara growled, sounding just as fierce.
“Then you should have stayed and fought for him!” Jack yelled.
Sara started to defend herself, but instead she nodded. “Yes, I should have. But by the time I came to my senses, Donna had made her move and your father was on the way. Cal believed in doing the right thing. I didn’t attend their wedding.”
Jack reached across the truck seat and squeezed her hand. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. The last few months have been hard. Dad knew he was dying, so he and I worked to figure out how I could take care of everyone after he was gone.”
“A plan that involved me.”
“Yes,” Jack said. “I need money, but it’s an investment. I need backing to continue Dad’s remodeling and construction business. Lachlan is coming back to life and I want in on it. And when it succeeds, you’ll benefit, too.”
“You could do that after college.”
Jack frowned. “If I left this town for four years, Roy would divorce Krystal, then sweet-talk my mother into remarrying him. He would spend the little that Henry left her and Ivy. Roy would never pay child support for Evan, and Ivy would have to live with Roy, and—”
She put her hand on his arm. “I get it. No college. Do you have anything about this business on paper? And do you know enough to remodel houses? You’re awfully young.”
He picked up the empty wrappers and wadded them into the bag. “You have time to go see some houses?”
“Just you and me?”
“Just us. But it will take hours because I have a lot of ideas about what I want to do.”
“My whole life is about ideas. I’d love to see what you have planned.”
Grinning, he started the truck and pulled out...
* * *