Page 16 of Damaged Billionaire Daddy (The Lanes Series #1)

Chapter sixteen

Richie

I was glad to discover that the aches and pains with which I had greeted the day had calmed down to their normal dull ache. The foot and hand massage that went with the mani-pedi had done wonders.

Whatever had made me think football was better than going into business? At least I invested part of my earnings each year and didn’t fritter it all away. I was comfortable, but today’s jaunt was going to put a hole in my budget for a while.

I had paid out several thousand renting the dress, and another thou or so on the tux rental. Serve me right for not packing my own.

Since I invested most of my income each quarter, I didn’t keep more than a few thousand in my liquid accounts. I could always use credit cards if I ran short, but if I slipped up on a payment, the darned things charged interest. I wanted to earn interest, not pay it out.

The rain was back, but the four-wheel drive hugged the road and the jeep handled like a dream. I glanced over at Kandis. I’d spread a blanket over her when I stopped for gas.

She looked so sweet, with her eyelashes brushing her cheeks, and her curls escaping from her messy bun and tumbling around her face. It almost made me want to pull over at one of the rest stops and try a repeat of our first time.

My trousers were getting tight just at the thought. But if I was going to do that, I should have pulled off at the motel back at the gas station.

We had just passed Angelus Oaks, where I stopped to refuel, to fill the spare tank, and to pick up a mini tank of propane.

When the rain turned into snow, I pulled into a turnout and put chains on the wheels. I let Kandy sleep. The weather was getting nasty, and I needed to keep my attention on the road.

As the jeep labored its way up the switchbacks to the turn-off to my great-grandparents cabin, I was glad I had. Although the road was not icy, big, fat flakes were falling, quickly covering everything.

I had just pulled into the drive, and turned off the jeep’s engine when a phone rang. Automatically, I fumbled for my phone, but realized that the ringtone was “Trouble in River City.”

Kandis turned over and sleepily answered the call. “Hi, Mom.”

She paused and listened a minute then said, “I’m fine. Just visiting a friend, and I’m not home.”

Another pause…a long one this time. “I’m sorry, Mom. I can’t come pick you up, I’m in California. I went to Mimi and Pops’ house, remember? Did you call Uncle George?”

More listening. “I’m sorry you don’t like the motel. But is it warm? Do you have something to eat?”

A short amount of listening. “No, Mom. You can’t have my credit card information. You wouldn’t be able to use it anyway.” Really brief pause. “No. Absolutely not. Tell you what, Mom, I’ll call Uncle George. He’s fifteen minutes from you.”

Kandis tapped buttons on her phone. “Uncle George? Yeah, this is about Mom. I just got off the phone with her. She says she needs grocery money. . . uh-huh, uh-huh.” Short pause. “No, I’m not mad at you. Thank you for finding her a place to stay. How’s the weather there?”

Kandis listened again, a longer time now. “Thanks, Uncle George. Yeah, it would probably be a good idea to see about her. Can you check her into the hospital?” Brief pause, then, “Yeah, I know it’s a big step. Thank you. I’m too far away to drive over.”

Kandis laughed. “Yeah, California is just a tiny little step away from Boston. Nope, not warm here…we just arrived where we are staying tonight and it’s snowing. Thanks again.”

“Trouble?” I asked, when she had hung up.

Kandis sighed. “Mom got evicted from her apartment for smoking on the premises and for being behind on her rent. Aunt Jessie won’t have her in the house because she’s rude to everyone and a bad influence on my cousins.

So, Uncle George put her up in a motel. We’re probably going to have to get a lawyer and have her placed in one of those detox hospitals again. ”

“Detox?” I felt my eyebrows creep up.

“Mom has problems. We’ve all agreed — as a family — we’ll feed her, make sure she has a place to stay, but no one gives her cash or credit cards.”

“That’s harsh,” I said.

“Not really,” Kandis said. “If we give her money or a credit card, the funds are all gone in a day or two and she doesn’t even remember if she had a good time.”

“I’m sorry, Kandy,” I said, the pet name just slipping out of my mouth. “I’d offer to take you back to town so you could catch a plane or something, but the truth is we won’t be leaving here for a day or two. I’m surprised you even got cell reception up here tonight.”

“Where are we, anyway?”

“My great-grandparents’ cabin in the mountains between California and Nevada. Grandpa used it as a hunting lodge. Sometimes I’d come up here with him and my dad. Those were good times.”

“You’ve brought me to your special place,” Kandis said softly.

“Yeah,” I admitted, realizing it was true. “I guess I have. You stay bundled up in that blanket while I go in and get the generator going. Then I’ll come back and get you and unload our stuff.”

“All right,” she said, struggling to sit up.

I helped her get the seat into its upright position, grabbed the fleece-lined coat I’d bought at Walmart, and stepped out into the snow. I was instantly sorry I had. The drifts were up to the bottom of the door on the jeep, my shoes were now full of snow, and it was caking onto my pants’ legs.

I closed the door to keep the warmth in the car and hurried up and onto the porch. It was clear.

I used the key to open the door. Using my pocket lighter, I lit the candle in the hurricane lamp that sat in its holder by the door.

I was relieved to see that the house looked much the same as it had in the fall when I’d come up here with my brother. That was shortly after the wedding fiasco, and he thought it would do me good.

The cabin was a little dusty, but there was wood in the box beside the Franklin stove. I decided to start with getting a fire going in the stove, rather than mess with the generator.

As soon as I was satisfied that the fire wouldn’t go out, I went back to the car. Instead of staying bundled under the blanket, Kandis had gotten dressed in the warm clothing we had gotten at Walmart, including the fleece-lined coat.

Good. That would make things easier.

We each picked up bags from the backseat and brought them into the house. “You know how to work a wood stove?” I asked.

She nodded. “I’ve been camping with Mimi and Pops. Should I start putting some of this away? Maybe make something to eat?”

“You could put stuff away,” I said. “Don’t worry about food just yet. I’ll have to see if there’s water to the sink, or if I’ll have to go to the cistern in the basement.”

By the time I got the rest of the bundles into the house, my teeth were chattering. Kandis had a kettle of hot water on the stove, and the smell of hot chocolate was making the old cabin seem homey.

When she saw me glance at the kettle, she said, “There’s water. It was a little rusty for a minute. Should I let it drip a little to keep it from freezing?”

I shook my head. “No. We don’t want to waste the battery power to the pump. If it’s running now, it will be fine. I’ll go to the basement and get the generator going here in a little bit. That will get the heat pump circulating. I just need to thaw my feet out first.”

Kandis nodded. She brought a couple of energy bars and a cup of cocoa to me. While I drank it, grateful for the warmth and the sugar, she pulled a kitchen chair over to in front of the stove and draped my socks over the back of it. They immediately began to steam.

Kandis sat down in another chair near the stove and held her hands out to the warmth. “I’m not too sorry to be snowed in,” she said. “It gives me a good excuse not to catch a plane and go see about Mom.”

“What’s wrong with your mom?” I asked.

Kandis sighed. “It all started with Dad’s death. Mom had a car accident and was on pain pills for a long time. She was grieving, and the pills not only dulled the pain from her injuries, they numbed her mentally and eased how much she missed Dad.”

I could see it coming. I’d seen it with fellow athletes and had come very close myself. “She became addicted?”

Kandis nodded. “I not only lost my dad, but in a very real sense, his death killed my mom. I miss her, the person she was. And I care about the person she is. We’d sign up one of us as a legal guardian so we could help her, but at the last hearing, she was sober and clean, and the judge ruled that she was a competent adult. ”

“How long?” I asked.

She did a little double take. “How long what?”

“How long before she was back on the street?” I asked.

“Three weeks,” Kandis said. Abruptly, she changed the subject. “Where are we going to sleep?”

“In here,” I replied. “There’s a Murphy bed behind that big picture. We’ll have to share, unless you want to sleep on the floor.”

“Nope,” she said with a saucy grin. “I like being warm, and I bet you’ll make a good heater.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said. “Meanwhile, if you don’t mind being the cook, you could start one of those instant meal things while I go see about the generator and the furnace.”

“Since I don’t know beans about generators or furnaces, I’ll accept the division of labor,” she said.

Fortified by the cocoa and nutrition bars, I pulled on dry socks and my shoes and headed for the basement. The wall thermometer at the bottom of the stairs read 45 degrees Fahrenheit which explained why the water pipes worked.

I’d meant to have someone come up and blow out the pipes and shut down the pump, but I’d forgotten. For once, my neglect of a needed chore was going to work in our favor. Fortunately, the propane had a specific delivery schedule, and it had been topped up in October.

When I got back upstairs, Kandis had spaghetti and meatballs heating up on top of the wood stove, and she was dicing spam at the kitchen table. I wasn’t fond of spam, but it was portable and didn’t require refrigeration until it was opened.