Page 30 of Forty and Fighting Dirty
She blinked at me. “Don’t tell me you didn’t even look up the house you might win!”
I huffed. “I’ve been busy, Mila.” Between work, settling in with the boys, and looking for our next place to live, I hadn’t hadmuch time to do anything other than survive. Even my regular phone calls with my sister Georgia had fallen off.
Mila waved a hand, like my excuses were nothing but wisps of smoke. “You’ve been too busy to dream?”
The question sent discomfort squirming through my stomach. I’d reached my quota of dreaming when I applied for the Baldwin Consulting job and actually made the move to my new town. History had taught me that dreaming too big only led to disappointment.
Shrugging, I turned when I heard Nate yell for me. “Mom!” he cried, crashing into my legs. “We need tickets to play the games. Can we get some? Please? I want to try the basketball hoop! Look—you can win an action figure!”
Alec wasn’t far behind, bouncing on the balls of his feet as a flush bloomed over his cheeks. A swell of love went through me, and I reached into my purse. “Let me get my wallet,” I said, and the boys looked at each other and grinned, excitement brimming in their faces.
But when I reached inside my purse, my fingers found the raffle ticket again, as if they’d been drawn there by some supernatural force. Frustrated with myself, I snapped my hand over to where my wallet lay at the bottom of the purse, excused myself from Mila, and marched toward the ticket stand next to the carnival games.
“Mom! Mom! Look!”
I followed Nate’s pointed finger to see a giant jar filled with candy beans. A handwritten sign with beautiful calligraphy called on anyone to guess the number of beans for the chance to win the whole thing.
Alec read the sign aloud—he was getting really good at reading independently—then whipped his head toward me. “I think there are a hundred!” he announced.
I smiled down at him as we shuffled along the line. “We’ll go over and submit our guesses after we’ve got our tickets.”
“There arewaymore than a hundred,” Nate proclaimed, shaking his head.
Alec hopped up and down. “A million!”
“Wow, a million! You think?” I asked, smiling. I had to take my own advice from earlier and focus on having fun tonight, not the infinitesimal chance that I might win a house.
The three of us looked over, and Nate started squinting as he lifted a finger and counted under his breath. Despite myself, I started trying to estimate the number of candies myself. The jar was about two feet tall and cylindrical, and the beans had to be about a half inch long… How did you calculate the area of a circle, again? I needed the diameter, which was hard to estimate from all the way over here. Or, no, wait. It was the volume of a cylinder, so the height came into play…
“What’ll it be, boys?” a deep voice asked, and my head snapped forward again. We’d reached the front of the line, and behind a plastic folding table bearing big rolls of tickets and a cashbox, I found my boss staring at the three of us with that familiar I’m-such-a-good-guy-aren’t-I smile of his. He wore a navy T-shirt with the Lovers Peak Charity Home Raffle logo on the breast, a white outline of the mountain behind the simple frame of a house. The T-shirt fit him like a glove, stretching over his broad chest and falling to his slim hips, which he’d bracketed with his hands as he stared at us.
My gaze shifted from the logo to Rhett’s face. He arched a brow, eyes glittering, and familiar annoyance started to simmer in the pit of my stomach.
I didn’t like Rhett Baldwin, and I despised how much influence he had in this town. It reminded me of Clare, where the Wilson family owned most of the businesses in town. My ex-husband had started working for them and ingratiating himself with them, and by the time we divorced, he had all the power while I had none.
But I wouldn’t fold. I wouldn’t back down. I was done making myself smaller.
“Rhett,” I said, nodding. “We’ll have ten tickets, please.”
“Only ten?” Nate asked, his eyes wide and pleading. “The candy jar guess costs a ticket, and the basketball hoop costs two. If we both do it”—he counted on his fingers—“we only have four tickets left!”
Tickets were a dollar each. I could afford to get more, but I’d planned on buying some food tonight too, and I wasn’t getting paid for another two weeks. I wasn’tbrokebroke, but I had to watch my finances. The move, shipping all our belongings, damage deposits, school fees, insurance—everything had added up, and my savings were depleted.
Feeling his gaze like an itch across my collarbones, I glanced up to see my boss studying me. His face was impassive, as it often was, but I could still tell he was judging me.
I resented it—resentedhim. Who was he to judge my parenting?
“Okay. Ten tickets each,” I said, “but that’s it, so you have to make them last all evening.”
That would be easy for Alec, I knew, because he hoarded his allowance and any money he got for holidays or birthdays, only spending it when he was very sure that he couldn’t live without whatever toy or activity he’d chosen. Nate would probably blow through his ten tickets within as many minutes, then barter with Alec to buy half of his.
The boys beamed at me as I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it over to Rhett. Our fingertips brushed as he took the money, and another electric shock skittered up my arm. I pulled my hand away like I’d been burned.
Rhett’s eyes narrowed, and then he shifted his gaze to my boys. “You two boys behaving tonight?”
“Yes,” they answered in unison, looking up at him with big eyes.
“You think your mama’s gonna win the house?”
