Page 23 of Wait a HO HO HO Second!

“There were bills from his illness, a funeral to pay for, and no money to cover any of it. I’d been working part-time as a night janitor at a hotel, and along with his small pension, that was enough to keep a roof over our heads. But once he was gone, I had three weeks to find a place before the rent was due again. Then my car broke down,” Joy explained, keeping her head turned toward the window. If that’s what helped her tell him the story, he’d allow it. Any little bit of information he could get from her would help him learn to work with her better.

“When it rains, it pours,” he muttered, and Joy nodded, stretching her long legs as she leaned back against the bench.

“That’s when I crossed paths with Lorelei. It was literally raining, and I was stuck on the side of the road with no one to call. Walking was my only option, but…” Joy motioned to the crutches. “Lorelei pulled over, picked me up, and let me cry in her passenger seat as she drove me back here. We went inside, and she quietly took care of my car situation while Freya let me clean up in the guest room and then warmed me up with a good meal. Everyone knew who I was, even if they pretended I didn’t exist.”

“And by everyone, you mean the people in this estate.” When she didn’t respond, Kian pressed on. “What happened after that?”

“I asked your mom for a ride to work because I couldn’t afford to miss a shift. I also didn’t want to say I worked the night shift because I no longer had an apartment. That’s when it hit me that I didn’t have a car, either, because I couldn’t afford to get it fixed. I dissociated at that point and woke up in an unfamiliar bedroom hours later. Your mom was sitting by my bed, reading a book, as though it were something she did every night.”

“She was always steady in a crisis,” he said, nodding. “I loved that about her.”

“Thank God for that, because I was close to checking out. There was so much to do, and I had no way to do any of it. Together, your mom and I made a list from most to least important and then planned how to accomplish each one. When she learned I had no place to stay, she insisted I stay here. That was the end of it. There was no arguing with her. She’d said there were ten bedrooms in this house and that it was ridiculous not to use them.”

“Can confirm,” Kian said with a smile. “When she built this place, I think she planned to find love and have more kids, but that wasn’t her path.”

“That’s what she said over the years, too. Did I want to live with my tormentor’s mother? Not especially, but she was the only one offering me a lifeline, so I couldn’t cut off my nose to spite my face.”

Her tormentor’s mother. That hit Kian in the gut because Joy was right. He had tormented her even though his issues had nothing to do with her. He deserved every bit of the pain he was suffering right now, and he welcomed it as a way to feel what she had lived with for years.

“I’m glad you didn’t miss out on all these opportunities because of me. That would have been doubly tragic.”

“That’s what I decided after taking the time to think it over. My only caveat was that Lorelei had to give me a heads-up if you were coming home so I could leave. The rest is history.”

“Something tells me there’s a lot more to that story,” Kian said, taking the frame from her hands and setting it back on the desk. “But we can save it for another day. Thank you for answering my question. I’m glad Mom could help you. Her frustration was palpable when she learned that I got all the scholarships, even though I didn’t need them. Truthfully, I didn’t accept them.”

“What?” she asked, turning to him. “I didn’t know you could turn them down.”

“More like returned them to the pot of money so it could keep growing,” he explained. “I already had a full ride to Wharton, and obviously, my mother could afford to send me wherever I wanted. I even asked if you could have the scholarships instead, but since they were all sports-related, that wasn’t possible.”

Joy’s shrug was jerky. “We graduated from a small school. I never expected much because I never participated in extracurricular activities. I knew what my future looked like. I was never in denial about it.”

“You thought you knew,” Kian corrected. “I bet it looks much different now than what you pictured back then.”

“Total 180,” she agreed. “But I also feel that while your mom created the opportunities, I seized them all to improve myself.”

“Without a doubt, Joy.” All he could do was agree, because the little money his mother had spent to educate Joy had paid off a thousandfold. “My mother wasn’t perfect, but if there was one thing she was good at, it was meeting people where they were and showing them that life was what they made it.”

“I already knew that, but when life hands you nothing but hardship, it’s hard to make anything of it without resources. Your mother gave me the resources, but my determination made the rest happen.” Joy’s vehement statement rang true. She had made it all happen, there was no denying that, even when Kian could see that despite his advanced degrees, she was still far better at business than he would ever be.

“Agreed,” he said with a smile, happy for once that they were talking without snark filling the conversation. “Just so you know, Mom never broke her promise not to tell anyone she paid for your school, which I’m assuming she did?”

“Sort of,” Joy agreed, and he raised a brow, hoping she’d explain. “She paid my tuition, but I worked it off as her unpaid assistant. She gave me room and board here and a car, covering all expenses, but I didn’t get a salary deposited in my bank account each week.”

“Kind of like an intern?” he asked.

“In a way, I suppose. Except she didn’t ask for repayment of the tuition because, in her opinion, I’d earned it by working for her. When I graduated with honors with my associate's degree, she immediately started paying me. Lorelei also covered my bachelor’s tuition, and by the time I graduated with that degree, I knew the GM job inside and out. Much to my surprise, she’d been renovating the old storage room above customer service into an apartment for me.”

“You didn’t know she was doing that? Wasn’t it a bit noisy?”

Joy smiled, tipping her head as though he’d won that round. “Yes, but she told me she was installing shelving and such so we could use it for storage. It was her graduation present to me, which was bittersweet.”

“Because you had to leave Wintercrest?” Kian deduced by the look on her face.

“Yep,” she agreed, her gaze floating toward the window to stare out over the gardens. “It was time, and the estate was a thirty-minute drive, which made staying available difficult. With the apartment, that was no longer an issue. As my legs weakened, Lorelei worried about me driving so much. If I broke down, I’d have to wait for help, but truthfully, that wouldn’t have been a big deal with Lorelei on speed dial. I think she just wanted to make my life easier, and I appreciated it. She was also ready to nurture her next ‘Joy,’” she said, using air quotes.

“Marci?”

“Yep. Marci worked in the mall’s food court when she first moved here. She never had the chance to go to school. Your mom changed that. She had just graduated the week before Lorelei died.”