Redemption Road (Jackson Falls #5) by Laurie Breton

answered.”
    “She’s at the doctor’s office. Emma has an ear infection. They
both went with her.”
    “That’s sweet, that whole family thing.”
    “That’s a kid who’s going to end up spoiled rotten. What did you
want with Casey?”
    He waved the pamphlets in the air. “I picked these up for her
while I was at the Cooperative Extension office.”
    She took them from him, skimmed a few lines of text. “Sheep,” she
said dryly. “They’re about  raising sheep. I’m sure my brother-in-law will be
thrilled.”
    “Just tryin’ to be neighborly.”
    “And you do it so well.”
    “Will you please give these to her?”
    Her smile was cool and professional. Smoothly, she said, “I’ll be
happy to pass them on to her.”
    “Thank you.”
    Blue eyes gazed boldly into blue eyes, until finally she cleared
her throat and said, “Was there anything else?”
    “That was it. And I have to skedaddle. There’s an eager group of
females waiting on me.”
    “The afternoon milking?”
    “Score one for the little lady.”
    “Little lady? It’s a good thing I lived in the South long enough
to know that term isn’t meant in a derogatory manner.”
    “I would never refer to you in a derogatory manner.”
    “You’d better—what was the word you used?  Skedaddle. Before all your
adoring females turn on you. Have you ever seen a herd of Holsteins carrying
pitchforks?  It’s not a pretty sight.”
    He snorted. “Now that would be something to see.”
    “Goodbye, Harley.”
    He tipped his hat and let himself out the door. As he walked to
his truck, he realized there was a spring to his step that hadn’t been there in
a long time. Not since he discovered Amy’s long lunches were being spent in
Peter Swinson’s king-size bed. Damned if Colleen Berkowitz, with her defiant
attitude and her sassy mouth, didn’t make him feel better than he’d felt in
ages.
    Which, now that he thought about it, was a very bad thing.

Colleen
     
    Payday.
    The sweetest word in the English language. On Friday night at
precisely five o’clock, Rob handed her a check imprinted with the Two Dreamers
logo, and she just held it in her hands, studying it with reverence. Her name,
printed in crooked block letters, at the top. Her brother-in-law’s loopy and
illegible signature on the bottom. A dollar amount that was exceedingly
generous in light of her meager contribution to answering phones, sorting mail,
and filing. Never in her life had a sum of money held such significance for her.
In years past, payday had meant nothing more than sitting down with her
checkbook to pay the bills, then trying to subsist on what was left over. During
her marriage to Irv, she hadn’t held a job, so payday had been a meaningless
term. But this payday, her first since starting her job at Two Dreamers
Records, was her gateway to the future. With her goal firmly in place, each payday
would bring her a little closer to reaching it. She couldn’t have been more
pleased if her brother-in-law had handed her a ticket to the moon.
    First thing Saturday morning, she deposited it into her checking
account and withdrew the cash she’d need for gas and groceries and pocket money
to get her through the next seven days. After writing a check to Rob for rent
and another to Casey as payment on the loan her sister had given her, she
transferred the balance into a savings account. This was her escape fund, the
little stockpile she intended to watch grow, inch by inch, so that when Ali
returned, she could blow this town and start over fresh, someplace where she
owed nothing to anybody and where nobody would be able to judge her based on
her past. Hell, if she wanted to, she could invent a completely new past. A
completely new Colleen. People reinvented themselves every day. And who would
know the difference?
    She still had a couple hundred dollars left from Casey’s loan. She
used that to put snow tires on the Vega. If she was going to spend the winter
here in the frozen