Page 128 of Small Town Firsts
“It’s been a few years. I’m sure some have forgotten.”
“More like no one says anything about you.”
“Unlike Anne Montgomery in the bar when we first met?”
He frowned. “That plastic blond?”
I laughed and went onto my toes to brush a kiss over his mouth. “Yes, her.”
He settled his hands on my hips. “She’s nothing compared to you.”
“It’s sweet of you to say. Her family might not agree with you.” I sighed. “The Montgomerys were one of the families that were hurt in the fallout. My sister didn’t just leave me hanging with the business. She stole over a hundred thousand dollars from the accounts of all the businesses we took care of.”
“Dear God.”
“Yeah.” I looked down at his cross and traced my finger around the shape. “My mom begged me to find a way to fix it. So my sister wasn’t arrested or a warrant put out for her.”
“But how?”
“Loans. Lots and lots of loans to pay back the businesses, and in return they didn’t press charges.” I swallowed hard. The memories of those stress filled days made my stomach churn. “I paid every single person back. I took out loans from places I had no business taking from.”
His eyebrows snapped down. “What kind of places?”
“Not a loan shark or anything.” I was shocked to find a laugh inside me, but there it was. “But there are tons of places who will charge you two arms and a foot’s worth of interest.”
“Oh, babe.”
“Yeah. We tried to keep it as quiet as possible, but Kaylee disappeared and I suddenly didn’t have any clients. It didn’t takemuch of a leap to figure out I fucked up in a big way. Stories built and some of it was true, but a lot of it was just gossip.”
“And you didn’t defend yourself? Why?”
“She’s my sister. Not that I feel much in the way of love for her anymore. She was always looking for the easy way out. I worked way more than she ever did, which just made it worse in the end.” I tucked his cross back under his shirt, then looked up at him. “But my sister was a damn genius when it came to spreadsheets. If she hadn’t been so selfish and calculating, she could’ve made her money the legal way.”
“And that’s why you had so many jobs.”
I nodded. “I worked part time at the orchard, but went full time after everything imploded. Beckett believed me. Believedinme when no one else would. He co-signed a loan at the bank that got me the first bit of settlement money. I did the others on my own.”
Ronan tugged me into his arms. “And didn’t tell anyone.”
I laid my cheek on his chest. “Beckett figured it out, but it was too late. I’d already signed the papers to get the rest of the money. He wasn’t exactly in a position to help me out at the time, and I wasn’t going to take money from him. He’d done more than enough.”
“And your mom let you do this?”
“She asked me to.”
His whole body vibrated. I looped my arms around his waist and hung onto him. “Don’t get mad for me.”
“And who should then?”
“Me. But I just took it on and I shouldn’t have. It took me a long time to figure that out. Until about twenty minutes ago.”
“You don’t have to do anything alone anymore, Kira Webb.”
“Handily, I have paid off most of it. I do have one last loan, but it’s manageable.” I tipped my head up to look at him. “That’s why I started doing the bartending flair. I had a balloon paymentdue on one of the loans or I was going to be locked into ten years of shitty interest.”
He shook his head. “And you won an expo in Las Vegas.”
“I won an expo in Vegas,” I said with a laugh. “I was tempted to do a few more, but the taxes were just killer. It wasn’t worth all the practice or the bruises. That was Mason’s brain child anyway. He bought the ticket and sent me there.”
