Page 73 of A Marriage Pact for the Cowboy

He nodded. An animated version when he was a kid… and he saw where she was going with this. Eight minutes.

“So old Ebenezer Scrooge pushed everyone aside in order to get rich?—”

Maxwell had had enough. “Hold it right there. I am not like him.”

“He pushed everyone aside in order to get rich, but he was alone and grouchy. Money can’t keep you warm. Money can’t laugh with you. Money can’t buy sunsets or sweetgrass wafting on a summer breeze or an ocean lapping at the shore. It can’t buy the things that really matter.”

“I have a job to do.” And he didn’t care about money. Not that much. It was approval he craved.

She scoffed lightly and shook her head. “Your grandfather will fire you if the project is set back by a few days? Not likely. I’m willing to bet you don’t have to prove anything to him. He knows you’re conscientious. And that, by the way, is not the same thing as being a workaholic.”

She was right that neither Grandfather nor Tate would fire him. And if they did, Maxwell could go back to running his own business his own way. But he also didn’t have to prove anything to God, so who was he trying to impress?

Himself? The people around him? What really drove him? He didn’t even know.

Yes, he did. Dad. No matter how hard he worked, James Sullivan found ways to make him feel inept. At least if he poured everything into work, he could look better to Dad than Bryce.

Bingo.

Appearing better than his brother in his father’s eyes drove him. Wasn’t that pathetic? Bryce was a grown man of thirty. He made his own choices. Maxwell wasn’t responsible for him, and one-up-man-ship wasn’t a good look on anyone.

“Just think about what you’re doing to Eryn as well as to yourself. I think she could be really great for you, but relationships don’t happen by accident. They take time and attention.”

Maxwell’s eyebrows tilted up as he studied Janessa. Where was this advice coming from? It sounded personal.

Janessa pulled to her feet. “Yeah, I’ve been there. I’ll leave you to it.”

He glanced at his watch. “You’ve got three more minutes. Why not give me the other barrel?’

She laughed mirthlessly. “There is no other barrel, boss man. It was all in that first one. Don’t be an Ebenezer Scrooge and wake up a bitter old man, surrounded by gold coins but with no one to love. That’s the whole sermon.” She turned away.

“Gold coins? I wish!” Maxwell tried for a jovial tone.

Janessa pointed a finger at him. “That there is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“It was a joke,” he mumbled.

The door into the cottage closed behind her.

Had it been a joke, or did he believe that more money made things better? He had enough for a comfortable lifestyle for the rest of his life already. Maybe not if he found himself cut off from the Sullivan fortune, but even so, he was unlikely to ever be destitute.

Keith Ralston had needed to sell the farm that had been in his family for generations because of overwhelming debt. His house had once been grand, or at least, fairly nice, but it had fallen into disrepair over decades of neglect. Not likely because Keith had preferred to spend his money on other things, but because there hadn’t been enough to go around.

Eryn hadn’t lived with her dad from inertia, but because of the cost of living. Her clothes weren’t up to date in fashion. Not that Maxwell cared, but most women he knew did. Men’s fashion was more forgiving, at least in the construction world where he dabbled.

He came from a world of have. She came from a world of have not. And now he’d made her feel that she was less than, as well.

Great. He needed to think and pray on that while he chipped out more tile.

Biting her lip, Eryn opened her backpack in the lodge’s great room. She’d left Paisley downstairs at the duplex and packed the journals herself, steeling herself against their siren call. Just one more entry couldn’t hurt, right?

Oh, but it could. She knew that now.

Paisley knelt in front of the fireplace and nudged the mesh screen aside before beckoning Eryn beside her.

Eryn lowered herself to a cushion on the hearth and took a deep breath. There was still time to gather the books and run. Keep those reminders — those hurts — close to her chest.

“There’s a lot to be said about getting rid of bad memories,” Paisley mused, watching the flames dance. “I’ve had a bit of practice.”

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