Million Dollar Dilemma. Judy Baer

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СКАЧАТЬ a little annoyed, but didn’t speak. Instead, he handed me the cordless phone and sat down in the chair across from mine. Pepto, cat-food breath and all, crawled up next to me, purring.

      I dialed, hoping Mattie would pick up, but her phone rang until the answering machine clicked on and Mattie’s message began. “Is this thing working? I can’t hear anything…yes? Oh! Okay. Hello, this is Mattie Carr. I’m not here right now—do I have to say that? Of course they know I’m not here! Well, leave a message and your number and I’ll call you back…. Unless you’re calling long distance. Then you call me back, okay? There. How was that? Do I hang up now…?”

      Grandma had refused to rerecord the message, and it sounded so like Mattie that Jane told me not even to attempt to get her to change it.

      Jane didn’t answer either. I was transferred into her voice mail at both home and work. I debated calling Ken. He still didn’t accept the idea that I wasn’t madly in love with him, and I didn’t want to have him think that I wanted his advice about what to do with the money. Unless I’d underestimated him, I’d guess that Ken’s idea of charity would probably be new four-wheelers for all his buddies.

      That left me to talk to Winslow, Pepto or the man across from me staring at me as if I’d landed from outer space.

      Although I didn’t mean it to happen, tears started coursing down my face like little rivers. Some women cry pretty, but I’m not one of them. My nose gets red, my eyes bloodshot and my skin puffy.

      Adam reached for a box of tissues and put it on the couch pillow next to me. Then he sat back, crossed his arms and waited for me to be done bawling.

      I’d thought I was going to build up a real head of steam and cry for hours, but with Pepto purring beside me, kneading my thigh with his paws, and Adam patiently biding his time, I fizzled out midcry, although it took me a couple minutes to mop up and wish I’d had a pillowcase to put over my head to hide what were probably big red blotches, pale white skin and an unflattering starburst of freckles punctuating the mess.

      “Want to talk about it?” Adam looked compassionate, nonjudgmental and mildly interested.

      He was here, and Mattie and Jane weren’t. “The most awful thing happened to me today!”

      “Did you lose your job? Get mugged? Have your car stolen?”

      His eyes widened each time I shook my head.

      “You didn’t get…you know…attacked by a man….”

      “No!” And I collapsed again into a mess of tears. “I won the lottery!” As I was crying, I heard him get up, run water and put a teakettle on the stove. A few cupboard doors opened and closed. Shortly he returned carrying two mugs of steaming tea, spoons and a bowl of sugar on a tray.

      He pressed a mug into my hands, and I took it gratefully. I watched him as he stoically waited for me to pull myself together. What an incredible-looking man, thought my wayward mind. Even in such dire straits, Adam could bully his way into my thoughts.

      “I’m so sorry. I had no intention of falling apart. I’ll just go back to my place….”

      “I don’t think I heard you right,” he said, his full attention on me for the first time since we’d met. “I thought you said you’d won the lottery.”

      “I did. That’s what’s so awful!”

      “Let me get this straight.” Adam leaned forward, his dark eyes skewering me with intensity. “You won money and you’re upset. I can’t say I understand that. How much money did you win?”

      I’d intentionally been blanking out the figure, so I said, “You know the big lottery? The one they drew for on Saturday night?”

      “Yeah. There was an obscene amount of money in it—around a hundred and eighty-five million….” His voice trailed off and his eyes grew wide. Adam has lovely eyes. “You won that?”

      I nodded miserably. “Not all of it. My office pool won it. Apparently nine of us participated and have to share it. It comes out to, oh, I don’t know, something like twenty million. What am I going to do?” I felt the tears coming again.

      He sat back, and I could tell he was stunned. He hesitated before answering, “Celebrate?”

      “I can’t celebrate.”

      “Why not?” His handsome face looked so puzzled I almost laughed.

      “You don’t know me very well,” I began, “but I’m the daughter and granddaughter of preachers. For them, there’s a whole lot wrong with winning the lottery—ill-gotten gains, potential addictions, deprivations of family and who knows what else? Gambling is frowned upon in our family.”

      “Then why did you buy the ticket?”

      “I didn’t know I was buying it. I thought I was putting five dollars into the office kitty for a gift for someone!”

      His face began to clear, and amusement crept into his voice. “And though you didn’t seek it or want it or even know you were a part of it, you won over twenty million dollars?”

      My shoulders slumped. “Yes. Isn’t it awful?”

      He stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.

      “I tried to give it back, but my office mates won’t hear of it. Even Cricket, who I can usually count on to listen to me, insists the money is mine. I can’t get my sister or grandmother on the phone. They’d understand my problem. I have to get rid of it somehow!”

      His eyes narrowed. “So you’d be willing to put twenty million dollars back in the hands of the people who approve of the lottery?”

      I opened my mouth to speak and snapped it shut again. I hadn’t thought about it like that. I would be handing the money back to people who’d use it to sweeten another pot. Then which was worse? Keeping it or giving it back? Suddenly I didn’t know. I started to cry again.

      Pepto, who didn’t like my tears, stood on my legs and tried to bat away the moisture with his paw.

      “Do you want to go back to your apartment?” Adam asked gently.

      Miserably I shook my head. I was terribly bad company right now and didn’t want to be alone with myself. “Can I stay here for a bit? Just until I can find my sister or grandmother.”

      “I guess so,” Adam said, obviously unsure what to do with me.

      I heard the neighbor across the hall, our built-in decorum monitor, flutter by the door. A smile pulled at my lips, but I was too weary to do more than twitch the muscles in my face.

      All this crying is exhausting. “If I could just lie down for a minute…” I sagged into the inviting softness of the couch. The leather felt cool and buttery against my fiery cheeks.

      Pepto curled into my body as I put my head on a pillow. His thick body was solid and warm against me, and his purr rumbled softly in my ear. The last thing I felt was his tongue licking the inside of the arm I’d thrown around him.

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