Page 85 of Warrior Security
“How much what?”
“The mortgage. The full balance they’ve called in. What’s the number?”
I told him. He didn’t flinch.
“I can cover that.”
I looked at him.
“Don’t give me that face. I walked away from my family’s lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still have their money.” He turned to face me. “Most of it is sitting in accounts I’ll never touch. Private loan, whatever terms she wants, no interest, no conditions. I’ll write the check today.”
“Isaac, you don’t even know her.”
“I know what she built.” He nodded toward the ring, where Fallon was moving again with Gimbal pressed against her leg. “I know what that dog just did to Fallon’s face—a sense of peace that woman rarely ever feels, even when things are good.”
“Still…” I didn’t want to get my hopes up and especially didn’t want to mention anything to Lark unless Isaac had really thought this through.
“I know the Monroes, and I know what they’ll attach to the money if Lark gives them the chance. They’ll lord this over her forever.” His voice was easy but his eyes weren’t. “If money fixesthis problem, then money should fix it. Not a phone call that makes her beg people who threw her away.”
I turned back to the ring. Lark said something that made Fallon’s mouth curve into what looked like the beginning of a real smile. Gimbal’s tail swept low and steady, the rhythm of a working dog who had found her place.
The offer was real. I could see it in my friend’s face, and it would solve the problem that had been eating through Lark’s life for months. But I was standing at a fence discussing her financial crisis with someone she’d never met, and I knew exactly how that was going to land.
“She’s going to be furious,” I said.
“At you for telling me?”
“At me for telling you. At having to accept charity.”
“Then don’t call it charity. Call it a loan, call it a business investment, call it whatever she needs it to be.” Isaac’s voice was steady. “But tell her the offer exists before she picks up that phone. Then she can decide for herself.”
In the ring, Fallon laughed. The sound was quiet and startled, pulled out of her by Gimbal nudging her hand with a persistence that reminded me of Tova at three in the morning, pressing her nose into my palm until I came back from wherever the nightmare had taken me. Lark was watching them, her clipboard against her chest, wearing the expression I’d seen on her face a hundred times, the one that meant everything she’d poured into this place was worth it.
Isaac was watching the same thing, and there was nothing on his face except a tenderness so complete it made the rest of him disappear.
Lark still had to agree. It was her debt, her decision, and there was a real chance she’d be angry that I’d opened my mouth. But there was a path now that didn’t run through her mother’s silence or her father’s absence, and the dread I’dcarried into this morning had a different shape than it had an hour ago.
She wouldn’t have to make that call.
Chapter 25
Lark
I was making dinner. Actual dinner, on the stove, with ingredients that required chopping. Not crackers over the sink. Not cold leftovers standing at the counter while I recalculated numbers that never got better. I was standing in my kitchen with garlic and onions in a pan and Tova on her bed by the table and country music on the speaker, and I was cooking a meal for two because Logan would be home later and I wanted him to walk through the door to something warm and delicious.
We had money.
Isaac Baxter’s offer of a loan hadn’t solved everything, but it removed the impossible. It removed the acceleration clause, the thirty-day deadline, the number I couldn’t reach. I would pay him back with interest, because this was a loan and not a gift, and I was not a charity case.
But the terms didn’t come with conditions. Isaac hadn’t asked me to justify my choices or prove I deserved the help. He’d watched Fallon put her hand on Gimbal’s back, seen thatwhat we did here at Pawsitive was important, and that had been enough.
I did not have to call my parents.
I did not have to stand in my mother’s silence and beg.
I could dance around my kitchen and be excited. Which I promptly did. Tova glanced in my direction then promptly curled herself back up into a ball.
I stopped my dance, reached for the cutting board, and started on the peppers.
