Page 99 of Tempting Fate
“She’s okay.”
Owen let out a whistle. “Who knew the girl was hero material?”
“I did,” Gabe said. He was pissed at how everyone sounded so surprised. The Raylene he knew was giving half her inheritance to a woman’s shelter. Should it really come as any big shock that she’d protect a thirteen-year-old? He called to the other end of the bar. “Hey, Mariah, forget that beer.”
He got up and left, bumping into Clay McCreedy on the way out.
“Hey, where’s the fire?” Clay called as Gabe made a beeline for his SUV.
He needed peace and quiet and time to reconnoiter. Alone time. Yep, that’s exactly what he needed.
* * * *
The next morning, Raylene had breakfast with Logan and Annie and went to town to see Dana.
“I got your text, and was frankly surprised you were ready to do this.” Dana took one look at Raylene’s face and grimaced. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“I’m okay.” Raylene had put this off long enough.
“Let me print it, then.” Dana brought up Moto Entertainment’s offer on her computer and walked to the back of the office, waiting for the printer to cough up the contract. “Everyone is talking about what you did for Harper.”
Apparently, people thought she was such a bottom feeder that protecting a thirteen-year-old had instantly elevated her to Martin Luther King Jr. status.
“Let me ask you something. What’s the likelihood of getting another offer…like, soon?”
Dana grabbed the paperwork and came back to her desk. “Well, there haven’t been any showings since Christmas, as far as I know. Are you having second thoughts?”
“Yes…no…I have to do this.” Raylene took a pen from a mug on Dana’s desk that read: “Everything I touch turns to sold.” At least it wasn’t gold. “Where do I sign?”
“Let’s go over it first.” Dana started to explain the terms of the offer, stuff she’d already told Raylene having to do with environmental studies, etc., etc., etc. “We can certainly ask for different terms but—”
“The thing is, I promised two hundred thousand dollars to a women’s shelter where I volunteer,” Raylene interrupted. “It’s a non-profit that runs on grants, and this year a lot of those grants didn’t come through. In other words, they’re pretty desperate for money.”
“Uh…okay.” Dana seemed at a loss. Either she was shocked that Raylene wasn’t one hundred percent Satan, or she’d been thrown by the non sequitur. “This is none of my business, but don’t you, uh, like, have a lot of money?”
“Butch got a lot of it in the divorce, and to tell you the truth I’m not the best with money.” Raylene let out a long breath. That she was confiding in her real estate agent, a woman she hardly knew, showed how desperate she’d become. “Anyway, I’m not as rich as everyone thinks. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be selling to a motocross company. That land has been in my family for generations. To see it desecrated like that…I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s not your problem.”
“Maybe you don’t have to sell it to them to still get the money,” Dana said.
“But you just said there are no other buyers.”
“What about taking out a second mortgage on the land? It’s valuable real estate.”
“I’m afraid it would put me further into debt, and I wouldn’t be able to manage the payments.”
“Then you want to accept the offer.” Dana pushed the stack of papers closer to Raylene.
She toyed with the pen for a few seconds, started to scribble her name on the dotted line, but froze. “I can’t.” She dropped the pen onto the desk. “I just can’t. Tell them no.”
The one thing she’d learned in that horrid little fishing shack, as her life flashed before her eyes, was that regardless of whether she lived here or not, Nugget would always be her home, and these would always be her people. She couldn’t put a motocross track in their backyard.
Raylene got up and walked out. A short time later, she found herself sitting in Gabe’s driveway, deliberating knocking on his door. He must’ve heard her engine, because he came to her instead. Just opened her truck door, picked her up, and carried her like a bride into his duplex apartment, straight to his bed.
“Clearly, you’ve got stuff on your mind. What do you say we talk about it later?” He unzipped her jacket.
“Works for me.” She helped him take off her clothes and then his, and for a long time they lay there naked together in each other’s arms.
Then he moved over her, tasting her lips and caressing her breasts. She held on to him, wanting to take their time so she could imprint this moment on her heart forever. Gabe, like her, didn’t seem in any rush. He went slowly, touching, tasting, feeling.
