“So she was left holding the bag, so to speak.” They both turned when CJ said it had been more than that. “I’m sorry. This is very rude of me to ask about your life when you’re perfectly fine to answer on your own.”
“It’s fine. This is what I was just explaining to the idiot here. Why I have no desire to take on another person that is going to demand I do things his way. I hadn’t really realized that until after he was arrested—that it wasn’t just that he loved me, but he’d ordered me to love him. I don’t have any heart left to love anyone. Just my family.” Pfeiffer watched Don as she explained the rest of what had happened. “I was humiliated when he was taken away. Not by anyone that I knew, but he put it out there that I was a double agent working for several countries that were paying me well for what I knew. What he’d not counted on was the fact that we had nothing. Less than nothing. My mom was still alive then, and we were all living with her in the same home. There wasn’t any evidence to back up his story. However, our lives were looked through so hard that it was difficult to even get a home loan for either of us. Much less a car loan. We’d been red-flagged, they told us.”
“But you’re thriving now.” Pfeiffer said they were, but not by much. She told Don that if they had one large or even medium-sized issue, they’d be back to nothing again. “I can and will help you with that if you need it.”
“We’re not going to be on your list of charities. Have you listened to a single thing I’ve said to you?” Don told CJ he was talking to her sister at the moment, not her. “She’s fine. I have a job that is paying well.”
“You do, honey. And I love you for it. But with Rachel out of work right now and Sally being here with us, the income we did have nearly dried up.” Pfeiffer knew she was poking the bear with her sister, but she looked at Don. “You could help us? I’d pay you back for whatever you deem a good interest rate. I’ve no way to work on the things I do and put a little by for the off chance of an emergency. Even staying here, we’re still going to have to pay the taxes when they come due. Also, there are the other little things that happen when you’re as broke as we are all the time.”
“I can understand that very well. But something you need to remember, even if your sister is ten kinds of stubborn, is that you’re my family now too. All of you, as soon as I met CJ, became my responsibility. I know that sounds old-fashioned, but I sincerely mean it when I tell you I will do everything in my power to keep you safe and without the stress of being without funds.” She told him she wasn’t his mate. “But you’re her sister. And that alone means you’re just as important to me as she is. And your daughters and Grannie. Who, I might add, is being much more cooperative than CJ is.”
“Because she thinks you’re the cat’s meow. Whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.” CJ sat down and looked as if she was going to cry. In all the years they’d been living together, she’d not once see her sister looking so defeated. “I lost my job this morning. The company I was working with on the program design fired me. In turn, several of the other companies I’m working for did the same thing. It’s as if someone has put a black mark by my name, and I can’t even get a job designing logos right now. I can’t find out who it was because I can’t get into my computers here. The Internet service here isn’t secure enough for me to chance looking into anything.”
“I can help you with that.” CJ looked at Don, and there was such hope there on her sister’s face that she was sure that Don couldn’t have not noticed it. “Did you know that Kelly works for the Feds? She’s been working for them for a while now and has a very secure network in the basement here. I could ask her if you could plug into it. Not that I think she’d have a problem with you doing that without asking, but I’d like to do that for you.”
“Why?” Don asked CJ what she meant. “Why would you do this for me when you know I’m as stubborn as a mule and that I’ve turned you down every time you open your mouth about us? Which there isn’t one.”
“Because you need to figure this out, and I can help you with it. I’m a nice guy when you let me be. You’ve been bitching and fighting with me at every turn. I’m not going to hurt you in any way, shape or form, CJ. I swear to you that my only intentions right now are to make you happy and to keep everyone here safe.” She told him, and Pfeiffer knew, that she’d not meant to be a bitch, but that she’d not been happy for a very long time. In fact, she told Don she wasn’t sure how to be that way anymore. “I’m sorry for that. I truly am. But I can take some of the burden off you if you’d allow me to. I won’t touch you until you want me to. I promise you that.”
Instead of saying anything more, CJ got up from the table and left them there. Don started to go with her, but Gwyneth told him to wait for a little bit. Don looked at her and asked if he’d said
