The Hookup (Moonlight and Motor Oil #1)(95)

“I’m paying for the attorney,” he answered her question.

“She won’t let you do that, Johnny,” she told him.

“We’ll talk to her about it, I’ll state my case and we’ll see,” he said, taking the last bite of his toast.

“No. Really. She just won’t let you do that,” she said.

“She refuses, then it’ll be a no-interest loan. We can work out a payment schedule after she’s set that’s comfortable for her. But in the meantime, she doesn’t have to worry about it.”

“She might have a problem with that too,” Izzy replied.

He picked up his last piece of bacon and said, “That’s where you come in.”

“I’ve not been really successful with talking Addie into things she doesn’t want to do. Case in point, I told her to break up with Perry about seven hundred and ten times before he asked her to marry him. And I pleaded with her nine hundred and ten times not to marry him. You can see how that went.”

“Let’s give it a shot,” he suggested.

“You have properties?”

He guessed with the sudden change of subject they were going to give it a shot so he nodded, chewed the last bite of his bacon and put his plate in the sink to run water over it.

“Plural?” she asked, sounding weirdly choked.

Not having her in her sexy work getup as his visual, his mind snapped back to the present and slowly he turned to her to see her standing there with her plate of half-eaten food held up in front of her.

“Yes,” he said deliberately, wondering why she was looking at him the way she was looking at him—like he’d sprung a second head and she didn’t know whether to stand there and scream in terror or run away as fast as she could.

“How many?” she asked.

“Two,” he answered. “Well, three, counting the mill. Actually, four but it’s more like three and a half since both me and Tobe own the shack. That said, we did the split. He got the shack. I got the mill. So it’s really his. But he’s never around, so whenever I need it I go to the shack.”

“The shack?”

“A fishing shack we own out at Shanty Hollow Lake.”

“Is it a real shack?”

“In a way.”

“How can it be a shack in a way?”

“It’s been taken care of just by guys for the last forty-five years.”

“What way is it not a shack?” she asked.

“It’s thirteen hundred square feet,” he answered.

She looked down at her plate but didn’t pick up her fork.

“Izzy, something up with you?”

Her head came up and she looked him right in the eye.

“How rich are you?”

For some reason, this question seemed like it had a wrong answer, and that wrong answer was not the answer any woman he’d ever known would think was wrong.

“That answer is relative,” he said as reply.

“Well, I already know you don’t own as many places as Circle K,” she returned.

“I got money,” he told her.

She suddenly looked around. Took it all in.

And her eyes fell on his dining room table.

“Baby, you wanna tell me why this seems to be an issue for you?”

Her gaze came back to his.

“My father’s father died in a hunting accident when my father was seventeen. He inherited fifteen hardware stores. He didn’t run them. He didn’t even work at one. He was a musician. He was going to be bigger than Johnny Cash. But he did take the checks whoever ran them sent him.”

Johnny felt his insides growing deathly still.

“Your dad is wealthy?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Your dad is wealthy.” He said it as a statement that time.

“We had a huge house when we were young. That was the only time, until we grew up and moved out, Addie and I had our own rooms. Sometimes we only had a one bedroom place and Mom slept on the couch.”

He couldn’t process that last part.

Not right then.

He had to stay on target.

“Your dad’s got money.” He was growling now.

“Y-yes,” she stammered, suddenly standing rock solid and staring at him, not like he’d grown two heads, but was a rattler about to strike.

And he was.

He did this taking two strides to her, tearing the plate out of her hand and hurling it underarm into his sink where it exploded, pieces of crockery, strips of bacon and bits of egg flying.

Ranger, who had been sitting beside Izzy while she ate, got to his feet, backed up two steps and barked.

“Johnny,” she whispered.

He spun back to her.

“You had plastic sandals,” he ground out.

“Sorry?” she asked quietly.

“In those photos in your stable. You with your mom. You were wearing cheap plastic sandals.”

She shook her head. “I . . . I don’t remember.”

“You were,” he confirmed.

“Okay,” she said conciliatorily.

“He was fucking rich and you had cheap plastic sandals?” he demanded to know.

“We . . . we were better off without him.”