Page 67 of Reckless Harmony

“Not yet. I’m working on it with our accountant, but Mack is…”

“What?” Stark asked.

“Dragging his feet on it,” Rayna said. “It’s a lot of work, and he volunteers his time outside of his regular job, so I get it, but being able to give people tax receipts for their donations would get us a lot more in donations.”

“Why not ask someone else to do it?” Stark said. “Reach out to some local accounting offices and see if they’d be willing to donate their time to help you register the charity.”

“I can’t do that to Mack. He’s been with me since I first started Little Whiskers, and I would be lost without him. I don’t have any spare time to deal with the money side of the rescue, and without Mack’s help, Little Whiskers wouldn’t be what it is today. He keeps the rescue running smoothly on the financial side of things.”

A slight scowl crossed his face. “Do you trust Mack? Because giving a person that kind of power and not monitoring it is dangerous, Ms. Abrams.”

She didn’t want to be defensive, but she could hear it in her voice. “I’m aware of the dangers, but I trust Mack implicitly, and even if I did monitor it, I’m not sure that would be very helpful. I’m a plumber, not an accountant.”

“Did you always want to be a plumber?”

He changed the topic so quickly that it took Rayna a few seconds to catch up. “No. I wanted to be a veterinarian.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She poked at the cheeseburger wrapper before shoving it into the paper bag. “I looked into it as I was getting closer to graduating high school, but the schooling was too expensive. So I went to trade school instead and became a plumber.”

“You couldn’t get grants or a scholarship?” he asked.

“I applied for a few scholarships, but I didn’t get them,” she said.

“Your parents couldn’t help?”

She gave him a look. “Don’t pretend you don’t know about my parents, Stark. You’ve lived here long enough, and the gossip mill runs very smoothly in Harmony Falls.”

“I’m sorry you lost your parents so young,” he said.

She could hear genuine sympathy in his voice, and feeling a little off-kilter by it, she blurted out the truth. “I’m not.”

He didn’t reply, and she said, “I know that makes me sound like a monster, but my parents weren’t good people.” They were selfish and mean, and I know the disease they suffered from was partially to blame, but it wasn’t totally to blame. Even when they were sober, they weren’t good people.”

“My childhood wasn’t as difficult, but I understand selfish and mean parents,” he said.

“Yours too, huh?” she said.

“My mother is incredible, and I have a good relationship with her,” Stark said. “But my father…”

His face turned cold. “My father has high expectations that can never be met. It didn’t stop me from trying, though. Once I graduated from high school, I got my MBA and started working at my father’s company when I was twenty.”

“Are your parents still together?”

“No, they divorced when I was seventeen,” Stark said.

“What does your father do?” Rayna asked.

“He has a gaming company,” Stark said.

“A gaming company like yours? He develops video games?”

“Yes,” Stark said.

“Oh. But you left and started your own?”

“I did,” Stark said. He stared out the windshield at the snow that had started to fall. “Working for my father was… impossible. I had ideas for new games, but he refused even to let me pitch them to him. He said I didn’t have the experience or the knowledge.”

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