A Year of You by A. D. Roland Read Free Book Online Page A

her purse down. It ate at her, knowing it was in there, but not being able to see how much. The flap wouldn’t even close without bulging. She counted it quickly. When Emeline’s attention was on her phone and West was focused on the road, she lifted the flap.
    One hundred one-hundred-dollar bills.
    Ten thousand dollars.

    Ten thousand dollars.
Holy shit, ten thousand dollars!
    What the heck do I do with ten thousand dollars? I can’t carry this around with me!
    She could send five thousand to K, to get him off her back for a little while. The first chance she got, she would do that. Hopefully she could do it today. If she deposited half into the bank account K set up, then that would pacify him for a while.
    It took a few minutes of arguing with Emeline to get her to stop at a branch. While she was inside, she made the deposit into K’s account. She considered setting up a second account, but K had the type of connections that would find out and there’d be hell to pay. She didn’t have enough ID to set one up as Evelyn Carruthers yet. Ruth Ellen’s lawyers were working on getting the documentation, but until the DNA results came back, she was stuck as Mattie Smith.
    Six hours later, Mattie swore she would never ever in a million years go shopping with Emeline again. Ever . West had the right idea, staying in the Navigator with the radio blaring while Em and her friends ran wild in the mall. None of the clothes Mattie preferred were good enough for a night out with ‘the girls.’ Anything that was even moderately decent was scorned and tossed aside.
    “I can’t wear stuff like that,” she insisted when the younger women tried to hand her tube tops and mini skirts and other embarrassing articles of clothing. “I’m a size fourteen. Not a—what’s this, a four?”
    When the fat jokes started, Mattie rolled her eyes. “I’ll meet ya’ll at the truck in an hour.” She broke away from the group and headed for one of her favorite stores. She had five thousand dollars to spend, no strings attached. New clothes wouldn’t hurt.
     
    ***
     
    McKendrick insisted on a family dinner at a posh restaurant when they got back from the hellacious shopping excursion.
    “We have important things to talk about, Matilyn and Emeline.” Emeline groaned about having to cancel her plans, but Mattie was utterly relieved.
    The gut-gnawing sense of anxiety returned when the sleek Mercedes pulled up in front of the kind of place Mattie had only seen in movies. Once inside the dimly lit, expensively furnished dining room, Mattie felt so out of place. She stuck out like a sore thumb. Felt like everyone was staring at her in her simple black dress, as if they all knew she’d gotten it for three dollars off a clearance rack at an overstock outlet store in the mall. She didn’t know what brand it was since the store ripped the tags out, but she was sure every Chanel-and-Gucci-suited patron knew what brand it wasn’t.
    Soft conversation filtered through the low-ceilinged room. Every once in a while, somebody clinked a glass or laughed aloud. Not too loudly, though.
    A man impeccably dressed in a formal suit hurried toward McKendrick. Emeline bounced forward and gave the man a hug and a polite little kiss on the cheek.
    “The owner,” West whispered in Mattie’s ear. She jumped a little, startled out of her reverie. She nodded in acknowledgement. The owner led them to a table in the back, tastefully shielded from the general view by a low wall topped with flowering green plants.
    West frowned and subtly inspected the greens. “Plants are dying,” he remarked to her, even though she really didn’t care. “Damn expensive things, too.”
    “Brant, wonderful to see you,” the owner said genially. “Wonderful job on my sister’s lawn, by the way. She loves the roses.”
    West grinned. “She’ll have the best lawn on the street. Oh, and you might want to get some fertilizer for these babies here.” He fingered a leaf.