Sisters by Choice (Blackberry Island #4)(9)

Amber, a heavyset, dark-haired woman with brown eyes, put down her plate. “What are you saying?”

Amber was only thirty-eight, but she looked at least forty-five. She’d been pretty when she’d been young, but whatever good looks she’d had seemed to have faded, along with any ambition.

“Just there’s tax and the license fee, so a twenty-thousand-dollar car is going to end up being about twenty-three thousand. That’s a loan for what, fourteen thousand? You might want to put some savings toward the balance to bring down the loan amount.”

Tears filled Amber’s eyes. “Savings? I don’t have any savings. Barely a thousand dollars. I work at that hideous job where they pay me nothing. With all the expenses around here, there’s nothing left over.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s not fair. That man hit me and totaled my car, but he gets off easy. I’m the one who’s going to have to pay for his carelessness. I wish they’d thrown him in jail. He deserves that. The police barely gave him a ticket. I doubt they would have if I hadn’t insisted.”

“Mom,” Heather said gently, ignoring the knot in her stomach. “The car?”

Her mother’s lower lip trembled. “I guess there isn’t going to be a car for me. I’ll have to take the bus. It’s only a mile from the bus stop to the house. Once my back heals, I should be able to manage that.”

“You really only have a thousand dollars in savings?”

Amber stared at her. “Would I lie about that?”

Heather was pretty confident she would, but she couldn’t be sure and with Amber’s accounts all online, there was no way to check. As for affording a payment...

Don’t, she told herself. Just don’t even try.

“Do you have any money?” her mother asked, her voice small. “Some you could loan me?”

And there it was. The thing Heather had been avoiding. The question she’d known was coming from the second she’d heard about the accident. Because the financial buck stopped with her. She was only twenty, but she’d been supporting the household since she was sixteen.

She thought about how she’d scrimped and saved hoping to, one day, have enough to finally escape. She wanted to take more than two classes each quarter at the local community college, she wanted to have one good job, not three or four part-time ones. And most of all—please, God—one day she absolutely did not want to have to be responsible for her mother.

“Loan?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of her tone.

Amber jerked as if she’d been slapped. “Why would you say it like that? I’m your mother. I’ve taken care of you all your life. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant, I could have gone to college and made something of myself. I’m here for you all the time, Heather. You’re lucky to have me.”

Which may or may not be true, but at the end of the day, her mother never paid her back. No matter how many times she’d “borrowed” money.

“How much do you have?” her mother asked.

Heather wanted to lie. She desperately wanted to make up a smaller number so she could keep some of it for her future, but she couldn’t. She didn’t have the lying gene. She’d tried, but she always sounded funny and instantly confessed.

“Six thousand dollars.”

Amber’s eyes lit up. “That’s perfect. I’ll only have to borrow eight thousand. That’s a very doable loan payment.” She waved toward the bedrooms. “Study away, then we’ll go buy me a car. I’m so excited. I hope they still have the blue one. It’s so pretty and has really low miles.”

She wiggled in her seat as if her back pain had suddenly disappeared.

Heather walked to her room, trying not to be angry about the fact that her mother was going to clean out Heather’s savings while leaving her own intact. She’d just opened her computer to review her notes, when her phone rang. She glanced at the screen, then smiled.

“Hey, Sophie,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“Great. I am standing in my new warehouse. It’s not perfect, but I will make it work.”

Sophie, Amber and Kristine were cousins who had grown up together. Amber was a few years older. Heather remembered Sophie and Kristine babysitting her when she’d been little.

“I still can’t believe you leased a warehouse you’ve never seen,” Heather told her.

“I had to grab it while I could. The alternative would have been something on the mainland and I didn’t want that.”

“When did you get here?”

“Late Saturday.”

“And you’re already at the warehouse?”

“Business first. CK Industries is about to be back up and running. First staff and inventory, then the world. I’m off to try to find the house I rented. I move in the end of this week. Between now and then, I’m staying at the inn. Have dinner with me Wednesday? It’s supposed to be some special menu.”

“Sure. I’m free. I doubt Mom’s doing anything.”

“Then let’s meet at the inn at six and take it from there.”

“We’ll see you then.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Heather hung up. Sophie was moving her successful business to the island. Running the business meant hiring people. Heather was going to ask if she could get a job shipping stock or something. If she withdrew from the spring quarter at community college, she could get her fees back. Hopefully, Sophie would have some part-time work so Heather didn’t have to give up her breakfast shift at the inn’s dining room. The tips were great, and she would need them to help replenish her savings account. Plus, hanging out with Sophie was always fun. Sophie saw the world as a welcoming place with a lot of opportunity. Heather wanted to be like her one day.