Thinking about Ginger struggling to get into college against the odds made Luke stop for a minute to consider what he was about to do. Then he thought of Katie, struggling equally hard to stay afloat, and his resolve strengthened.
“I’ll give Ginger a call on the hotel’s house phone,” he said. “I’d like to have a minute with all of you. Mr. O’Reilly will join us as soon as he’s finished his lunch.”
Mrs. Jeffers instantly looked worried. “Is everything okay? You haven’t changed your mind about us staying on at the boarding house, have you? I’m sure you and Katie would like to have your privacy, but we all love it there.”
Robby shot a look of alarm at his father. “They have to stay, Daddy.”
This wasn’t going nearly as smoothly as he’d intended. Withstanding Robby’s accusing looks was far worse than dealing with Katie’s disapproval. “Of course, everyone is staying,” he reassured them. “It’s just that there’s something I thought we should talk about.”
“Will Katie be here?” Mrs. Jeffers asked.
“No.”
“But shouldn’t she be in on this?” Mrs. Jeffers protested. “It is her boarding house, after all.”
Luke thought how reassured Katie would be to hear one of her boarders talking this way. “I’m just trying to save her some worry,” he promised. “I’ll fill her in later.”
“If you say so, dear,” Mrs. Jeffers said, though she still sounded doubtful.
It was nearly two o’clock by the time Luke had everyone where he wanted them, in a secluded alcove in the hotel lobby where they could have some privacy.
“I was just going over the boarding house books this morning,” he began. Immediately the expressions on the faces of all three boarders fell. Obviously they guessed where this was heading. “I’m sure it’s just slipped your minds, but it seems that everyone is behind in paying the rent.”
“But Katie knew...” Ginger began.
“Katie always...” Mrs. Jeffers chimed in.
“Now see here, young man. I don’t know that this is any business of yours,” John O’Reilly stated flatly. “We’ve all made our arrangements with Katie.”
This was not going at all the way Luke had hoped. He’d been certain that once they saw how their lackadaisical attitudes toward financial matters hurt Katie, they’d all want to help her out.
“Maybe I’m not making myself clear,” he said.
“Oh, I think you are,” Mr. O’Reilly countered. “Pay up or get out, isn’t that it?”
“No, of course not,” Luke protested.
“Sounds that way to me,” the retired fireman said.
“Me, too, dear,” Mrs. Jeffers concurred.
Only Ginger was silent, possibly because huge tears were spilling down her pale cheeks. Luke suddenly felt like a heel. It seemed his good intentions were backfiring. He rushed on to try to set things straight before he really botched things up.
“I’m not trying to bully you,” he said. “I’m just worried about Katie.”
As if a switch had been flipped, they were suddenly attentive.
“What’s the matter with Katie?” Ginger asked. “She’s not sick, is she?”
“Well, no, but...”
“Is she upset?” Mrs. Jeffers asked.
“Not with you all,” Luke replied candidly.
“Well, for heaven’s sakes, spit it out, boy,” Mr. O’Reilly ordered. “You know we care about Katie. She’s family.”
“She could lose the boarding house,” he said bluntly.
His announcement was greeted with shock. The gasp he heard, however, could not be attributed to any of the three people in front of him. In fact, he had a very strong suspicion that it came from the very woman under discussion.
Apparently his guess was far more accurate than his understanding of boarding house politics, because all three people jumped to their feet and rushed to encompass Katie in hugs, while murmuring appropriate expressions of sympathy and worry. He seemed to have been forgotten—or simply dismissed as the bearer of bad tidings.
When he finally got a glimpse of Katie’s face through the cluster of clucking sympathizers, his gaze clashed with green eyes that blazed with outrage. Glancing away from that look of condemnation, he suddenly realized that his son was mysteriously absent from the scene. He guessed that the little traitor had found some way to get word of the meeting to Katie.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when the meeting started,” Katie said, urging everyone back to their places. “I was a little late in hearing about it.”
“Actually, Luke said—” Mrs. Jeffers began.
Luke jumped in. “I thought I could handle it.”
“If you’d handled it much better, everyone would have moved out by nightfall, according to my source,” Katie replied sweetly.
Luke vowed to gag his son in the future. Maybe he ought to blindfold him and make him wear earplugs while he was at it.
“So, what’s the topic?” Katie inquired. “The impending foreclosure on my bank loan?”
She said it with an edge of sarcasm that sent a dull red flush creeping up Luke’s neck. He could feel his skin burning.
“So it’s true,” Mr. O’Reilly said, his expression grim.
“It might have been a few weeks ago,” Katie conceded. She beamed at them, but saved her most saccharine smile for Luke. “But I had a windfall that saved the day and I’m fairly certain that it was just the beginning. Everything’s under control.”
“For the moment,” Luke said ominously.
Katie glared at him. “The situation is under control,” she repeated. “You all are not to worry. You know how these uptight financial types are.” She directed a pointed look at Luke. “They panic at the slightest little blip in the cash-flow pattern.”
“Somebody has to,” Luke muttered.
“Perhaps you and I should discuss this in private,” Katie suggested.
“Perhaps we should,” Luke agreed, his blood already racing at the prospect of another heated exchange with his wife. If this was the only sort of passion she intended to permit the two of them, then he intended to take full advantage of it. The evening that stretched out before them seemed open to all sorts of
