“Hello?”
“Carolina.”
Her stomach dropped at the sound of Chris’s voice.
“Carolina, are you there?”
“Yeah. What do you want?” She could barely keep a snarl from her voice. Like mother…like son. They had both done their best to ruin her life.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Perfect. I need to talk to you.”
“Carolina, the alimony check is going to be late.”
“What?” Her stomach dropped a second time.
“Kylie wanted some renovations to the house and so your check is going to be late.”
Anger surged in her veins threatening to spill to the top in a volcanic explosion of words.
“You are the most selfish person I’ve ever met. You aren’t going to keep walking all over me.”
“What’s gotten into you? You used to be so accommodating.”
“I guess I grew a backbone. If my check is late I’m going to let my attorney deal with it. Maybe being in contempt of a court order would do you some good.”
“You would never…”
“Don’t say never to me.” She ended the call and collapsed on the couch.
She was tired. Tired in her body and tired in her soul. The kind of tired that sleep would never cure.
Chapter 40
“Ican’t believe my ex-mother-in-law did that.” She sat back in the chair on the deck and looked out over the lake. She’d given Thomas a partial rundown of the story after he continued to ask her what was wrong when he showed up for work. She conveniently left out the part that Janice had used the line-of-credit check. He naturally assumed Janice had written a check on Carolina’s personal account.
“I already called the furniture store that Janice bought the items from. They’ll take it back but at a fraction of what she paid.” She cut her eyes at him wondering if she should just come out and tell him she was going to be late paying him for the roof. Thomas was understanding. Surely he would work out a payment plan for her to finish paying for the roof. “Thomas, I was…”
His cell phone dinged.
He dug it out of his pocket and looked at the text. “Perfect.” He groaned.
“What is it?”
“It’s a reminder from the hospital that I have an appointment at noon.”
“Hospital? Is everything okay?” She leaned forward and gave him her full attention.
“Oh it’s nothing like that. I have to meet with billing to finish paying for Lilly’s hospital bill. They are willing to settle the rest of the bill for a portion of what I owe if I pay them cash.”
“Cash?”
“Yes. I’ve been paying the bill for so long that I went in to talk to them. I thought I would be paying on it until I died but since I got this job, I’m going to be able to finally pay it off.” He settled back in the chair and gazed out at the lake.
Her mouth went dry. She nodded. “Well that’s great.”
“And it’s thanks to you. You are the reason I’m able to do that. I know I’ve been hard to get along with but I appreciate that you hired me anyway.” He gave her a little smile.
