He studied her, as if she were a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. “You’re an intuitive woman, Riley.”
She had no idea how much of it was intuition and how much was the fact that she’d been a student of this particular man for years. For all that they’d never really been friends, she knew him. Better than he probably realized.
She stepped away before things got weird. “He was so proud of your service. And he’d have been proud of you for taking the hard road and getting out of it in the name of family.”
Liam huffed. “Oh sure. His eldest son, the combat engineer, still unemployed six months after telling Uncle Sam to take a hike.”
“I gather that’s not the problem you were working out on Jo’s guts.”
“Thinking about that one would’ve more likely resulted in Jo’s guts being obliterated. My specialty is demolition and urban breaching. Not a lot of use for that around here.”
The trilling of her phone put an end to whatever opportunity she had to reply to that—not that she knew what to say.
“I know it’s not your strong suit, but try to have some patience. You’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, thanks for fixing my car.” She held her hand out for the keys as “Crazy Train” continued to jangle from her pocket.
As he laid them in her palm, his fingers brushed her wrist and a bolt of heat shot up her arm. Riley managed not to tense, but a shiver worked its way from her tail bone up her spine.
Liam frowned faintly before dropping his hand “I’m gonna go look around the storeroom and sort out the best plan of attack.”
She pocketed the keys and left her hand there to hide her trembling fingers. “A few pounds of C4 might be quicker than actually cleaning out. And, hey, you’d know how to repair the resulting damage.”
“Ha ha,” he said flatly, but the corner of his mouth quirked.
She tugged out the phone. “I’ve gotta take this.” He wandered over to the storeroom as she answered. “Mom?”
“Hi, honey.”
She headed into the office for a little more privacy. “Where are you? I thought you’d be back by now.”
“I’m still in Fresno.”’
“What?” It’d been almost a week.
“Well, I got back in touch with Hal.”
“So you’re back together?” Riley guessed.
“No, no. But I got my things. Put them all in the mail to ship home.”
“Okay, so when can I expect you?”
Her pause had Riley’s gut tightening. “Well, that’s the thing. Between the shipping costs and the motel and food…I don’t have anything left of what you sent me.”
“Are you kidding me?” But Riley knew she wasn’t.
Sharilyn got immediately defensive. “I couldn’t just abandon my things. That’s everything I have.”
Except for the stuff still in storage in Wishful. Riley was footing the bill for that, too. But there was no sense in bringing that up now.
“I just need a few hundred more for that bus ticket.”
After she paid Liam back, Riley’s personal account would have all of $32 in it. Her savings had flat-lined months before, and the business account was doing a constant tango between profitable and nail-biting. She wasn’t about to jeopardize her ability to make payroll. Her employees didn’t deserve to be shorted. She could buy the ticket herself on her almost maxed out credit card—and, in fact, that was what she should’ve done in the first place—but she wouldn’t put it past her mother to cash in the ticket and do something else to squander the money.
She was tired. So incredibly tired of this whole scenario.
“I’m done, Mom.”
“What?” Riley could practically hear her reaching to clutch the pearls perpetually at her throat.