account had never looked so promising.
Maybe she could push off law school for a little while longer. If Alec came through and the Foundation actually purchased the building and had a steady stream of donations, she could delay her decision to follow in her parents’ footsteps.
Her cell phone buzzed on her desk. Ryder.
“Hey Ryder.” She hadn’t talked to her brother since he left for Alaska to kayak in Prince William Sound and hike Columbia Glacier nearly a month ago. The whole trip sounded really cold and miserable to her, but he’d been saving money for nearly six months to take the trip and it was all he could talk about for months. He lived and died for his next extreme adventure. She always worried she’d get some call about him being involved in some crazy accident, but she couldn’t be mad at him for living his dreams. He always did what he loved regardless of what their mom and dad thought.
“Hey sis. How’s everything?”
She smiled, swiveling her chair to look out the window while she talked. “Well, if you called last week, I would’ve told you everything sucked, but today is a different story.”
“Do you want to elaborate?”
“The Foundation has some new donors, and as of this minute, the account has over seventy thousand dollars.”
“What? How’d you pull that off?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “This guy walked into the Foundation last week and wanted to volunteer for a month. He raised the funds.”
Ryder didn’t say anything for a few prolonged moments. “Violet,” he paused again as if he had something to say, but he didn’t know how to do it so he didn’t hurt her feelings. “Money doesn’t just fall into your lap like that. What do you know about this guy? Have you looked at his background?”
“Of course. I checked his references and did a background check.” She didn’t actually run the background check. She kind of skipped that step because she was desperate for help and, at that moment, she would have accepted almost anyone who promised to lift a finger to help her, especially if they agreed to work for free. Hell, he could have been a snake oil salesman, and she may not have cared. Even pretend help with ulterior motives would give her the illusion that she wasn’t drowning in piles of work alone.
“Okay.” She could almost hear his mind working to find holes in her story. “What does this guy do besides drop into a charity for a month and spread fairy dust around?”
Before answering, she chewed on her fingernail, a nasty habit that she had abandoned long ago when she couldn’t take one more minute of her mother’s constant nagging. “He works at some music talent agency or something in California. LA, I think.”
“What’s his interest in the Foundation?” her brother asked, pressing her for more information.
“He claimed the Foundation helped him out as a kid and he wanted to give back. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me. The Foundation has been around for a long time and it’s done some good things.” Her voice wavered. When she thought about how little she knew about Alec, it made her cringe.
“Can I get a name?”
“Alec. Alec Reed.”
“Hm. The name sounds familiar.”
“Maybe you’ve met him before. He’s closer to your age than mine and Missoula isn’t very big.” Ryder was three years older than her and while they went to the same high school, they never had the same friends. Everyone loved him and she got stuck in his shadow for most of her life, but she didn’t resent him one bit. People loved Ryder because he was fun, a little wild, and completely charming. Her parents hated his crazy lifestyle and the fact that he never kept a girlfriend for longer than a month. They feared he’d spend the rest of his life floating from one adventure to the next never taking anything serious, but she knew Ryder would find his way eventually. Nobody could rush him.
“Hm. Maybe.”
“So tell me about your adventures,” she said,
Megan Hart, Tiffany Reisz