Page 42 of Illicit Heir

"It's true," I declare.

She squints, keeping her gaze on me the longest.

I add, "We should be happy. We don't have the stress of how to fix this place now after what those thugs did."

Mum waits a minute, then glances at the money and states, "It must be Caleb. He must have done it to make amends with us."

"It's not from him!" I snap.

She tilts her head, asserting, "No one else has this kind of money. If it's not Caleb, who would it be?"

My pulse continues to skyrocket. I hate lying to my mum or anyone else, for that matter. But there's no way she can ever find out the truth.

Alison interjects, "Caleb would've taken credit if it was him."

"That's true," I declare.

"Then who left it?" Mum repeats.

Silence and tension grow, filling the air between us.

She pushes harder, "Lauren, if it wasn't Caleb, who was it?"

I toss my hands in the air, trying to look convincing. "Your guess is as good as mine."

She adds, "I don't know anyone else who has this kind of money around these parts. Do you?"

I shrug. "I don't know, Mum, but the envelope was left outside the door. That's all we know."

"It has to be Caleb," she insists.

Anger fills me. Even though I'm not proud of where the money came from, I'm not going to allow Caleb to have credit for it. I point out, "He would use it to hold over our heads. So it can't be him, but somebody in town must have money and wanted to help."

Jessica interjects again, "Lauren's right. Caleb would definitely make sure everybody in town knew it was him. But it doesn't matter, does it? Whoever left it didn't want anyone to know it was them, so maybe we should just be grateful that we have the funds."

"I agree," Emily says.

Alison adds, "Ditto. Why are we making a big deal about this when we should be concentrating on the fact our problem's solved? It would've taken us months to be able to save enough. Now we can get everything to fix the pub and put it back to normal."

"And we need new rules in here," I declare, crossing my arms, determined that I will not allow these thugs to continue acting this way in Mum's pub.

She frets, "We don't make the rules. Don't create problems for us."

"That's ridiculous. This is your pub. They keep destroying it. We got lucky this time with whoever left this money, but we can't keep fixing and replacing things. We have to set new rules," I insist.

She briefly closes her eyes and shakes her head. She lowers her defeated voice, asserting, "It doesn't work like that, Lauren, and ya know it."

I hate it whenever I hear that tone from her, and now is no exception. She's worked her entire life in the pub and shouldn't have to deal with any of this.

She adds, "That's why ya need to marry Caleb. You'll have way more choices than I ever had."

"I'm not marrying him, and stop saying that!" I blurt out.

Emily steps near me and puts her arm around my waist. "Yea, ya need to stop saying that, Auntie. Caleb is not the man for Lauren. He's not a good person. Ya know this."

"He will protect her," she insists.

"No, he won't. He'll hurt me," I state.

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