Page 39 of Damaged Billionaire Daddy
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 couldcatch 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, Iwent 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.”
