Page 8 of Just Trouble

“Oh, but that must be so hard for her. I’ll stop by and talk to her tonight, see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“No, you can’t. I promised not to tell anyone and she’ll know then that I did.”

I get a look for that. “Then you shouldn’t have told me.”

I shrug. It’s for the greater good. And I trust Daph to keep the secret, even if she’s looking daggers at me now. “Two. Because of the cost of her treatment, which is something not covered, she had to sell her cottage.”

“But that’s her home.”

“And she sold it to Patrick.”

Daph’s eyes flash with fury and I’m glad I’m sitting down for that sight. She’s electrified and smoking hot. “He should have loaned her the money instead!”

“That’s not how he rolls and you know it.”

She frowns. “Why would she even go to him?”

“Lack of options, I’ll guess. The bank wasn’t in a hurry to give her a loan and she was friends with Dianne.”

Dianne was Patrick’s first wife, the one he cheated on with my mom, and mother of his three golden sons and one daughter. I wasn’t easy on her back in the day, but she was a nice woman. She must have picked up some truly awful karma in a past life to have ended up married to Patrick.

Daph looks at the list I’ve given her. “This is Una’s house?” she asks, pointing to the first address on the list, and I nod. “I never knew it had a street address. I still don’t understand the diner.”

“That restaurant in Toronto is going under, despite the amazing food. I went back and talked to the chef when Sylvia wasn’t there. She wants to open her own place but doesn’t havethe capital. I could have loaned it to her, or even given it to her, but Meredith MacRae isn’t having any of my charity.”

“Her words?”

“Pretty much. And though there was a time I could have created a line outside her door just for posting the place on my socials, those days are gone. I’m essentially no one now.”

Daph gives me a look that is way too perceptive. “Doesn’t seem to bother you.”

“It was never about the money.”

“It was about the women,” she guesses.

I wince. “It was about the music and the concerts and the band. We had such a good time, every time, and there’s a kind of magic in making your living at something that feels more like play than work.”

Daph looks away and I know she doesn’t feel that way about her own job.

What’s her one regret? I’m dying to know, but continue with my presentation, such as it is. “So, I thought, what about offering opportunity instead?”

Daph, no slouch, glances toward the empty diner across the street.

I lean forward in the hope that my enthusiasm might be contagious. It’s a long shot, with her eyeing me like a new species of beetle—one that might be such a threat to humanity that the world would be better off without me—but there’s no backing out now.

“I’d sell it to her at a bargain price, easy terms. A hundred bucks a month over ten years, but she has to pay the utilities. I’ll even pay the property taxes to sweeten the deal and toss in some cash for renovations.”

“You’ll lose a bunch.”

“It’s penance. It’s supposed to cost you.”

Her eyes narrow just a little and she looks like an exotic cat. “But the real price here is that you have to ask Patrick for something.”

She’s too smart by half.

“And he will say no. He did already, without even hearing me out. Just because it was me asking for something.” I open my hands to her. “And that’s where you come in, Daph. You’ll be presenting a purchase offer from an interested party who prefers to remain anonymous. It’s not a conflict of interest, because the divesting of the properties would improve the financial position of Cavendish Enterprises.”

“How could you know that?”

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