Page 25 of Runaway
“But then you have no savings.”
“Yep.”
She paused. The silence stretched so long I thought she'd left. When I looked back, she still stood there, eyebrow quirked.
“But . . .”
“Savings are meant to be used in the worst of times, right? I'm in the worst of times, Stella. Calculate please?” I asked.
With another grumble of assent, her tablet pen poked away. I turned half my attention to the box I'd just pulled down. Though dusty, a few tidbits still lived in there, half-eaten by mice. Nothing usable. With a grunt, I tossed it into the commissary to throw away with the next trash run, and moved onto the next one.
“$95 if you book out every day,” she said.
“Try for 14 days.”
Another dramatic sigh. “$143 per day.”
“Perfect!” I wiped my dusty hands on my jeans. “That gives us one week to find enough people to pay $143 per night to stay in that tiny cabin for two weeks.”
“You make it sound so easy,” she muttered.
I glanced back at her. Her lashes were low as she stared at the tablet, lips quirked to one side of her face as the tablet pen tapped against the side. When her gaze lifted to mine, I gave her a lopsided smile.
“It doesn't have to be that hard.”
“I think you're underestimating how much marketing you need to do tofindsomeone,” she said. “Do you have a social media presence?”
“We don't have to market.”
She glared at me. “You're going to conjure them out of thin air?”
“Yes.”
At my simple response, her mouth shut.
“You’re going to cut and dye your hair so you blend in better?” I asked, to cover the fact that I'd been staring at her a little too long.
She snorted. “My life is not aLoveline Channelmovie. So no.”
Her attempt to keep it lighthearted wasn't a failure, but I saw some tension in her response. Maybe she wasn't full-on witness protection program yet, but what if it turned to that? I couldn't discount that it was possible.
Honestly, the cougar scared me more.
“Can we return to the numbers?” she asked. “And the details? I need to knowhowyou conjure clients out of thin air. Most companies require money in marketing to generate leads.”
“I'm not most companies.”
She snorted. “Whatever. I'd like to pad these a bit. I don't want to use up all your savings. Let's assume we can charge $160 a night. It buys us a little leeway.”
“I'm going into town tomorrow.” Another rain of dust showered on me as I gripped the third box to pull it down. “I'll start talking to people. I texted Lizbeth this morning and she's already starting on a website and social media page.”
“Just like that? You don't have the money to pay her.”
“I'm not.” I shrugged. “They love me. It's what family does. We're going to try listing the cabin as a HomeBnB first, see if we can get traction there since I already have a profile she manages for me for now.”
Stella quirked an eyebrow. “Lizbeth sounds pretty amazing.”
“She is.”
