She went back to her bedroom and called Pierce.
“Hey, babe. Are you on your way?”
He sounded so hopeful that she almost changed her mind. “Actually, would it be okay if I stayed here tonight and we got together tomorrow?”
Her stomach sank with the silence that followed.
“Is something wrong, Bec?”
“No. Not at all. It’s one of my roommates. He’s having a hard time, and I think talking might help.” She looked around the bedroom and knew that after spending three nights together, she was going to have a heck of a time sleeping without him.
“Want me to come there?”
“No. I’m sorry, Pierce. This place is relatively new to me, and I just need a night. Do you mind?”
“Whatever you need, babe. Tomorrow, then.”
The disappointment in his voice was palpable. “I’m sorry. I’m going to miss you like crazy.” Maybe she could talk with Henry and then go see Pierce. Ugh. What message would that send to Henry? Why did she care? Because she did care. That’s who she was. Henry was obviously going through a lot, and she was clearly an intruder into his world. Being someone who loved her privacy, she understood that completely. Rebecca wasn’t one to ignore someone else’s suffering. She and Pierce could go twenty-four hours without seeing each other, couldn’t they? She’d gone twenty-seven years without him in her life. Why now did one night alone seem torturous?
They made arrangements to meet tomorrow after work, and by the time they ended the call, Rebecca already missed him.
She grabbed the notebook that she used for her budget and headed into the den.
PIERCE PACED HIS living room, wondering who the guy was who could keep Rebecca from seeing him. He eyed the files from the meetings he’d had earlier today. He needed to review his notes and prepare for tomorrow. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. He picked up the files and tried to wrap his mind around the issues in two of his West Coast properties. He spread the reports and spreadsheets on the coffee table and sat, elbows on knees, staring at them, but his mind drifted back to seeing Rebecca on the security camera while she was working. It was obvious that the customers loved her. She took a little more time with them than the other waitresses did, and she was attentive to their requests. He remembered what she’d said about her job at the bar. He didn’t like us talking to the customers, and, well, I think people come into bars to unload…And when he’d asked her about what other jobs she’d held, she’d said, Caretaker.
He picked up a report, and a smile eased the tension in his jaw. Damn, was he ever blind to have gone straight down Jealousy Road. If there was a person going through a hard time, he had no doubt that Rebecca would never walk away. When he turned back to his files, it was with a clear head and a warm heart.
Chapter Eleven
THE FIRST THING Rebecca did the next morning was reach for her phone. She was rewarded with a text from Pierce. Hated waking up without you. Can’t wait to see you tonight. P. She texted back, I hated it more. Xox. She hadn’t slept well, and until that minute, she’d written it off to being in a strange house, but the house didn’t feel strange at all this morning—she did, and she knew it was because she missed Pierce. And now her stomach was doing flips in anticipation of seeing him later that evening.
She dressed for the gym, then went into the kitchen and made coffee. Henry hadn’t said more than a handful of words to her the night before as he sat at his desk in the den working on something that had him mumbling under his breath while she worked on her budget. She hadn’t minded the quiet, and even though she’d missed Pierce when she went to bed, she was glad she’d stayed. When Henry had said good night to her, she could feel him warming to her. She’d stayed up later than Henry, working her budget over and over based on her new salary, and even with paying Mr. Fralin each week and paying off her mother’s remaining debts, she should be able to afford classes by the spring. The next item on her list was saving enough money to take her mother’s ashes back to Punta Allen, and she hoped she could save enough to do that by the holidays, assuming, of course, that she found an amazing travel deal.
Another day full of hope lay ahead.
She was going over her budget one last time, when Henry sauntered lazily into the kitchen wearing a robe pulled tight across his belly, a pair of striped pajamas beneath. His gray hair was matted in some places, sticking up in others. He had bags beneath his eyes, and Rebecca wondered if he hadn’t slept well. Then again, it wasn’t yet six. She was heading out to the gym in a few minutes, but she was glad to see him.
“Good morning.” Rebecca had always been a morning person. She woke up ready for whatever the day held, which probably was reinforced as her mother’s condition worsened, because she needed to be fully awake no matter what time her mother needed her.
“Morning.” He poured himself a cup of the coffee that Rebecca had made.
“I hope you don’t mind that I made coffee. I’ll buy some today to replace it.”
He sat down across from her. “It’s coffee, Rebecca. We can afford coffee.”
Darn it. She hadn’t meant it that way. “I’m sorry. I just meant—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I do worry about it, Henry. I’m not sure if Daphne told you or not, but…” She paused, feeling funny about revealing what she hadn’t even revealed to Pierce, but chances were pretty good that Daphne had already told Henry, and if anything, it might help ease his embarrassment. “I was living in my car for a few days before you rented me a room. I know what it feels like to have stability ripped out from under you and thrown so far away that you think you’ll never find your footing again.”
He scoffed, rubbed his tired eyes, and looked away.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that when you’ve had as much taken away from you as I have, you learn to recognize and separate the things that are a reflection of who you are and those that are caused by something out of your control. Believe me, for a control freak like me, that’s a hard realization.” She paused, giving him time to tell her to shut up if he’d like, and when he didn’t, she continued. “You were laid off.” She shrugged. “Economic times are tough right now, but you’re still the same man you were when you went to work every day.”
He locked a steely gaze on her, and Rebecca held her breath.
“That’s easy for a young gal like yourself to say. There aren’t many companies looking to hire an old man.” He leaned his elbows on the table. “What are you working on?”
She closed the notebook. “Just looking through my budget, forecasting the next few months.”
“Forecasting.” He raised his brows.
“I like to know where I stand.”
“Rebecca, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up living in your car? That seems…extreme.” He sat back and crossed his arms.
She met his stare. “Taking care of my mom ended up being a full-time job. She’d had a stroke near the end, and I had a hard time keeping a job.”
He lowered his chin and looked down his nose at her. “Did she have disability income?”
“Yes. She did. But she was only eighteen when she had me, and she was a single mother, so she never had the chance to make a career for herself. She was only earning thirty-four thousand a year when she went on disability. She took home only sixty percent of that, and since she didn’t pay for her own disability insurance premiums, she had to pay taxes on the income.” It had been a harsh realization when the IRS notified her mother of back taxes that were due. Her mother hadn’t known that if she didn’t pay her own disability insurance premiums that she was responsible for paying taxes on the income she received. “Not to mention the never-ending medical bills.”
He shook his head. “They screw you every which way but sideways.”
“Yeah, well, we found that out the hard way. She didn’t realize that was the law until after she didn’t pay the taxes the first year. But in all honesty, she needed every penny of the income she earned, so even if she had known, she probably wouldn’t have paid the premiums. Disability insurance is one of those things that you don’t think about until you need it, and for her, it was too late at that point. It took the IRS about a year, but they came for their money, so I used my paychecks to help her pay off the taxes she owed and to pay for her medical expenses. Anyway, to make a long story short, without a job and with what we owed and everyday expenses, we couldn’t afford the apartment we lived in.”
His eyes filled with empathy, and Rebecca turned away with the painful memory of the days after her mother’s death, when every day felt terminal. Between waking up every day and having to accept that she’d never see her mother again and waiting for Mr. Fralin to turn her out on the streets, she’d been a nervous wreck.
“My landlord was really good to us. He let us stay for the last two months of her life, and then he let me stay for a few weeks to get myself in order.” Through the fog of taking care of my mother’s things and learning to function again would be more accurate. “But it wasn’t fair of me to stay in an apartment when he needed the income. I eventually found a job at a bar, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d have enough money to find something cheaper, a room in a house like this, or something similar.”